…we love you, gumtree dot com!

So I’ve already announced the fabulous Mark Saul Band news about the gig that we’re doing for the Edinburgh Hogmanay, yay and hip hip huzzah! We’re quite looking forward to it, and now that we’re down to the final 4 weeks before the boys arrive, I’m getting all excited.

But I believe that I neglected to mention the other musical associations in my life just now.

See, before the gig with Mark was confirmed, I was starting to get the feeling that it wasn’t going to happen, and I was missing playing music terribly. I’ve had noone to play with except a brief – but very enjoyable – sojourn with Hayley Clare’s band during the festival. And a month is not enough, I need something more regular.

So on I hopped to Gumtree.com. See, Gumtree is rapidly becoming my mecca for all my miscellaneous needs. It’s my miscellaneous mecca – I like that, reckon I might use it somewhere. I go there to gawk at for-sale ads for kittens. I go there to snoop around for a potential flat for my scheduled move in January. I sometimes even go there to dream about one day moving to London and all the jobs that might be there waiting for me (as if I could ever leave Edinburgh though – I love this place too much). And just a few weeks ago, I went there to see if anyone in Edinburgh might have been in need of a violinst of my stellar abilities [sic].

There were a few potentials, but only one of them had a MySpace site – an aptly named young singer/songwriter called Rusty Gunson (the rather grave looking fellow on the left). I dutifully visited Rusty’s MySpace, not expecting much.

Boy, was I in for a pleasant surprise.

I’ve listened to so many baaaad MySpace bands and singers, for it’s usually the hang-out of poorly mixed music, and more often than not, poorly arranged and performed as well. (This definition of course does not apply to Mark Saul’s MySpace site, or any of those associated with my disgustingly talented older brother)

Of course, I could just be a musical snob.

However, despite my MySpace snobbery I’ll be the first to admit that to every rule, there is an exception. And Rusty Gunson is most definitely the exception. You need to listen to this guy. Click here for some ear-candy. I’m not going to gush here in public about the quality of his music – it really does speak for itself.

He’s got me on fiddle, and another wonderful musician – Clare – playing cello. And we get to wallow in rich double string harmonies with the vocals.

I swear, I’d forgotten how much I’ve missed playing with other stringed instruments until now.

So thankyou, Gumtree, for helping my musical life back into the land of the living!

November is supposed to be a bit of a “calm before storm” month. Things are supposed to be relatively placid, before the big run up to christmas and the New Year. I guess that’s why so many people decide to plan their events, set project goals, and have babies in November. And you know what this does? It makes November almost crazier than December.

D’you have any idea how hard it is to plan a birthday celebration in November? Not only are you competing with all the OTHER November babies (damned Scorpios – there’s not enough room on this planet for all of us) for the four prime birthday celebratory weekend slots, but you’re also trying to juggle your schedule around all the parties, gigs, and generally ludicrously fun stuff that’s available for do-age in November.

And then add into the equation the National Novel Writing Month, and you’ve got yourself one helluva busy time.

What’s that?

What do you mean, “what’s National Novel Writing Month?” It’s only, like, THE biggest event in the writers calendar. Who cares who gets the Pulitzer Prize? Who cares who the Booker, Hugo or Nebula Prizes go to? Nobel Prize for literature? Feh!

The National Novel Writing Month (or NaNoWriMo to the cool kids – yep, that’s me) is a month where you challenge yourself to write a Novel. In a month. Hence, y’know, “Novel Writing Month”. The goal is to get to 50,000 words by the end of November, using any dirty wordcount tricks you know of. Superfluous adjectives? Do it! Crappy verbose dialogue? You bet!

There’s a website and a forum that you can sign up to, and an mailing list to subscribe to, and pep-talks from famous authors to coax you up along the way. Last weekend there was an email in my inbox from one of my very favorite authors, Neil Gaiman (who wrote and executively produced that stunning movie, Stardust – that movie deserves its own blog entry. Patience, children.)

And Neil said some wonderful things to us, and I am again inspired to write write WRITE!

I may have mentioned in a previous entry that I’ve been playing a bit of World of Warcraft (just a bit!) and this has been my inspiration. Well, World of Warcraft, and Justin Long the actor. I cast him in my book. Why? Cause he’s cute, and cause I can! *wicked grin*

(An aside – if you’re wondering at any point as to why I’m dwelling at all on my obsession with playing video games, then I should make mention of the fact that this blog was brought to you by our friendly sponsors… Click the links to find out who )

The story’s a tawdry romance about two people who play waaaay too much WoW – romances involve copious superfluous adjectives, and boost the word count through the roof! Here’s what I mean:

“Her eyes shone huge with a blue so deep it was almost violet. And when she’d raised those eyes to his with that tiny smile on her lips, he felt time stop and stretch out into eternity in that one moment. That one glance had him fascinated with the ruby fullness of her lips, and the smoky eyeshadow which made her eyes smoulder with promises he could never hope to deserve.”

-Charlotte’s as yet unnamed tawdry romance novel

But writing a novel is hard. You gotta keep at it, day after day. This month though, I’ve been making sure I keep up with my “research” – in order to get more inspiration about WoW, I have to PLAY it of course!

Through WoW (and to a certain extent, through the inimitable Zelda) I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m just an addictive type. I’ve always been slightly obsessed with playing computer games. And if there’s no computer around – like that marathon train ride Ubiquitous Jessie and I took through China, we’ll inevitably find some card game to play (UNO was our game of choice then, but bring on the computerized UNO, I say – is that really sad of me?)

Aaanyway, they give us a word-count-schedule, which it’s ideal to stick to. The goal is 1,667 words, every day, for the month of November. Yes, it would have been ideal indeed if I’d just stuck to that word count. Cause then I’d not have been a whopping 22,000+ words behind schedule. We should have written 30,000 by last weekend. I’m on just over 8k. I’ve come to the conclusion that all research and no writing makes Charlotte a Not-Very-Prolific-Writer. So no more “research” unless I really need it.

Honest.

So why, you ask, am I blogging to you, lovely reader, rather than just writing?

Ciao.