X is for Xtraordinary!

Posted on April 28, 2015 by A. Elizabeth West

A new trend sweeping soundtrack concerts is to show the film with dialogue and sound effects but no score, and below it, a live orchestra plays the music along with it. My soundtrack nerd friends and I watched the last reel of E.T The Extraterrestrial this way at the John Williams concert a few years ago, but I’ve never seen a whole film this way.

Until now!

Titanic is one of my favorites, and the concert did not disappoint. It took place at the Royal Albert Hall, one of London’s most historic (and beautiful) venues.

Photographs and videos in this post by Elizabeth West unless otherwise specified

Here’s the outside.

And here’s the inside.

James Horner, composer of the Titanic score (yes, he wrote the song too), was supposed to conduct, but due to a shoulder injury, he was unable to do so. Ludwig Wicki (say it like Vicky) took over for him admirably.

Instead of just bailing on the thing, Horner and Titanic producer Jon Landau did a Q&A interview live before the concert, a bit early. The audience for that was sparse–I suppose most people didn’t check their email, or perhaps they couldn’t get off work in time. All ticket holders for the event could attend.

Here’s a picture of the panel. I forget the guy’s name who did the questions, and I didn’t get a souvenir program, dammit.

Then, the film!

Image: fanpop.com

Normally, I watch Titanic on the anniversary of the sinking, but I skipped it this year because of the concert. I know this film and its score by heart. I know where every crescendo belongs; when I listen to the score, I see the film in my head.

The orchestra followed it perfectly. They had a singer for the vocal instrumentation (the melody line parts in the score are vocal, in case you didn’t know), along with the Tiffin Boys’ Choir. At times, I found myself sucked into the film and forgot that I was sitting in a concert hall and that there was a whole orchestra in front of me.

At the end of the interview, Horner dropped a bombshell–there was a very special guest attending the screening. And he did make an appearance at the end. Who was it?

JAMES CAMERON!!!

Yes, the director of Titanic!

I dived for my phone and caught a little of his appearance. You see him with Wicki at first, with Landau in the back, and then that’s Horner he bro-hugs at the end. I apologize for the poor quality; I didn’t bring my actual camera.

That was a moment, I tell you.

I really enjoyed this show at the Albert Hall. I would love to go back again.

Here is an interview with James Horner about the concert. He talks about some of the things he discussed at the venue, and film scoring for Avatar, Avatar II, and in general.

And now it is past midnight and I am going to sleep. Good night!

W is for Waaaauuughh!

Posted on April 28, 2015 by A. Elizabeth West

I am very busy today. I have a reader pass to the British LIbrary, and I’m sitting here in front of a database/microfilm reader looking at newspapers from London in the 1960s.

There was no W post yesterday because I had to leave very early to get to the Royal Albert Hall for the performance of Titanic Live. I have pictures to share from that, in a later post. Oh boy, was that fantastic.

I didn’t get home until after midnight–the tube I needed stopped running at midnight, so I had to bail on everybody, because it takes me about an hour to get from where I’m staying to wherever I want to be.

Reading these articles and scrolling through papers takes a lot of time.

I recommend that if you do this in your own research, you target it a little better. I could spend days and days in here, reading all kinds of papers, getting a sense of what people were talking about at the time. Of course, England (still) is a class-conscious society, so the topics would differ from the conversation of, say, BritCharacter and his contemporaries and BritCharacter’s household help and her cronies.

Oh good heavens, I’ve no time to discuss the vagaries of the British stock market. I must find an underservant who won’t break the china.

Image: enchantedserenityperiodfilms.blogspot.co.uk

Back to work!

V is for Vacation

Posted on April 25, 2015 by A. Elizabeth West

I got a late start today–seriously, if you want to go anywhere in this city, you really can’t wait until afternoon to move. Still, I did get one important thing done.

Look familiar?

Image: Jack1956 / Wikimedia Commons

The British Library! This is the bit at St. Pancras. I now have a reader pass, so I can access the collections for Secret Book stuff. I also visited the Treasure Gallery, and I saw:

A Gutenberg Bible
A bunch of Anthony Trollope’s correspondence and books
The first manuscript of Beowulf
A music notebook that belonged to Beethoven (!!!)

Huge fan, I am. <3

Image: Jaeger, 1818 / Wikimedia Commons

The library has a collection of periodicals, and they indicated I might find useful materials in the Humanities and Newspapers collections as well. I didn’t have time to do anything today, so I’ll go back early next week and spend a whole day there. (That means the tube at morning and evening rush hour. Oh, joy.)

My reader pass is good for a whole year, so if I come back before next April, I’m good.

Between this and working remotely (yes, I’m really doing that), I’m not really on vacation, am I?

U is for Uhhhh….

Posted on April 24, 2015 by A. Elizabeth West

The letters toward the end of the alphabet are always the most difficult. I have nothing for U. So here are some pictures of pretty flowers.

We went back to Richmond Park, to Isabella Plantation (see autumn pics in this post). This time, the spring flowers had begun blooming. The garden is filled with monster rhododendron and azalea plants, as well as narcissus and other things growing here and there.

Photographs by Elizabeth West

But first, some baby stags having bro time under a tree.

Heather and azaleas are in bloom. Purple on purple–I wanted to swim in it.

Rhododendrons, towering like the hedges at Manderley.

FINALLY, I got to see some real English bluebells. Someday, I’d like to go to the woodlands somewhere and see them growing in a huge carpet.

And last, a huge profusion of color exploding from a mix of azaleas and rhododendrons.

This is the bit that made me say, “Uhhhh….”

I wish more than ever that I could stay here somehow.

T is for Travel

Posted on April 23, 2015 by A. Elizabeth West

A day behind; bear with me. I’m trying to run around and work remotely at the same time!

Sometimes you have to travel to do research. Reading about something or someone won’t cut it. You want to hear sounds, see things for yourself, feel textures, and smell smells.

For example, you can’t describe the poofy marshmallow mountains of clouds until you fly right by them.

Photo: Elizabeth West

You might notice I’m back in London. I’m actually here because of an event my online soundtrack nerd pals and I will attend (more on that in a later post), but since I spent most of my holiday in autumn holidaying, I didn’t get much research done. So I’m using this time to try and buckle down.

I’m trying to think of places my characters might go, things they might have eaten or drunk, etc., and visit what’s left of them, if possible. Today, I went to the Museum of London and looked at their exhibit of things from 1950 and beyond.

I did find some things that my character(s) might have touched and worn and used, in addition to learning a bit about the era. Thanks to a cheap notebook I bought in the gift shop (see, I told you I’m flying by the seat of my pants–how the hell did I get all the way over here without a notebook!?), I managed to jot down quite a few things I can check into further.

After a delicious sandwich at Pret a Manger (they’re everywhere), I walked up the street toward St. Paul Tube station and whoopy, there was St. Paul’s Cathedral. I have never been to it, so I walked around it in the gardens.

Character 1 might have walked here one day, when contemplating, and looked up to see this.

Update 5/26/15: I am SUCH a dweeb. I realized just now that I forgot to put this picture in the post.

Though I suspect mostly tourists go inside, people do use the lawn and gardens when it’s sunny, as it was today.

It was around four-thirty in the afternoon, and I noticed they had a service scheduled for St. George’s Day, with a choir. I’ve never been to an Anglican church–I grew up Catholic, so I thought, what the hell?

Look where I sat.

Photo: Sneaked on smartphone by Elizabeth West

Since my British character would probably have gone to church regularly as a small child, I wanted to see what the service was like. It’s very similar to a Catholic mass and even has communion. As St. Paul’s welcomes all baptized members of any denomination up to this ancient ritual, and as I haven’t taken communion in ages, I did. Exactly the same as a Catholic one.

I even had an idea for a scene I could do later in the book, during one of the angsty parts. Heh heh. Thanks, God. Hope you heard the request I put in with the little Vespers candle.

When I came out, this happened:

Delightful, no?

Then of course, the Picadilly line at peak time. Yes, it really is like a sardine can. It doesn’t bother me that much, unless the train gets stuck or I’m wearing too many layers of clothing.

If you’re going to travel to do research, I suggest you become more organized than I am before you go.

Make lists of all the things you want to know about the place you’re going.
Try to choose the top ten and discard the rest, or save it for later.
Cull everything that you can research another way–online, at the library, etc.
Out of what is left, plan your visits with the time you’ve allotted.

Now it’s time for bed. We have plans to lunch with a dear friend and visit Isabella Plantation tomorrow–I know I went there last time, but now it’s spring and the azaleas will be in bloom.

Good night!

S is for Sources

Posted on April 23, 2015 by A. Elizabeth West

Where do you get the information for your research? You find sources. You can read books, talk to people, find articles, etc. There are two main types, primary and secondary.

A primary source is closest to direct subject knowledge. For example, historical documents such as letters, official reports, or field notebooks could tell you what kind of activities your Victorian Egyptologist character would have been engaged in. If your character is a police detective, you could talk to one about interviewing techniques, like I did for Rose’s Hostage.

Or, let’s say you’re writing a story about Neanderthals. Our ancient relatives were experts in the art of flint knapping, so to authenticate your story, you want to learn more about how they made spear points, axes, etc. Since there aren’t any Neanderthals around anymore, if you wanted to actually try your hand at it, you would have to find someone who practices the craft. Quite a few people do it, and you can even take classes. I’ve done it, in archaeology class–it’s fun.

A modern flintknapper shapes a stone tool.

Image: outdooralabama.com

The reminisces of commenters on the London photos page I mentioned are primary sources. Not all primary sources are reliable; even memories can fade with time or become altered. Judges and cops know that eyewitness testimony is notoriously unreliable, but it’s the closest thing we have to actually being there.

You could also read a book about knapping. (I have one!) Or you could read websites and articles about the people who practice primitive tool making. These last would be secondary sources.

Just one or two anecdotes or an article reporting them aren’t enough, unless you’re already speculating. For Tunerville, I found an article about something NASA is researching, and I extrapolated off that. This flying by the seat of my pants wouldn’t have worked with Rose’s Hostage; for the police interview scenes, I consulted with a retired police officer.

Whatever you use, check it against several other sources. You will undoubtedly have readers who know something of your subject, and they will tell you if you’re wrong.

S Post

Posted on April 22, 2015 by A. Elizabeth West

I made it; and I’m bushed. Also, I had to work remotely for a few hours. S post tomorrow, along with T post.

R is for Replete (not yet)

Posted on April 21, 2015 by A. Elizabeth West

Today’s post was supposed to be R-read, but I’m too damn tired to do that one. Besides, this bench I’m on is very uncomfortable.

I am not yet replete, because that will not happen until I actually get some real sleep and get some work done, but I’m getting there.

I’m traveling today–the American Airlines regional flight out of my home city was canceled, due to a hailstorm in Dallas (connection city). They put us all on another flight through Chicago, but it got pushed back. I had to rebook yet again to get back on the second (and last!) British Airways flight out of ORD to LHR of the day. It’s a good thing I did, since I would have missed the first one entirely.

Now I have a seat in World Traveller Plus, which I originally paid for, and I’m at my gate. Waiting.

And waiting. But hey, free secret wifi.

Image: Stuart Miles / freedigitalphotos.net

Look for a post reviewing British Airways’ World Traveller Plus–I’m kind of excited about that. I hear tell it’s nicer than average. You might get two, since I’m flying it both ways, asleep going over and awake going back.

If you fly into Chicago f TIP rom another American city and have an international connection, you’ll have to go through security again when you get to Terminal 5! So don’t shuffle your liquids around just yet.

They didn’t catch my contact solution in my backpack, heh heh. But I did have to have my knee brace and hands swabbed. Because apparently knee braces could hide stuff, I guess. Whatever.

I’ll be back with you tomorrow for another exciting post, this time from London!

Q is for Quaver

Posted on April 21, 2015 by A. Elizabeth West

Behind again–this is April 21’s post. I’ll do my best to get a post written between flights today.

———-

Ever get nervous about a project?

I’m nervous about this one. I’m quavering. I feel as though I’ve bitten off more than I can chew, taken on too much, shot my arrow too high into the air, and it’s going to come back down and slice through my body like I’m made of butter.

This guy. He knows.

Image: tinta / drawception.com

It’s an odd feeling—I have no reason to be nervous about it. No agents are breathing down my neck, and I have no deadline. I do have a very strange feeling that I need to do it and do it now, for what reason I can’t fathom. And it’s all mixed up with some very strange anticipation that revolves around my other work.

Am I getting vibes? Is my brain trying to tell me that this is too big a project, and that I should be working on other things? Is that the fearful, inadequate me talking?

I’m nervous about flying again. Nervous about working remotely from so far away. Nervous that I spent too much time and money chasing down something that will never happen (there’s Ms. Inadequate again). This whole last week has been ridiculously crappy, with the knee injury, the broken elevator, and now some confusion about my flights.

So excuse my quavers, while I try yet again to have some kind of meaningful adventure.

P is for Plagiarism

Posted on April 18, 2015 by A. Elizabeth West

Plagiarism:

The unattributed use of a source of information that is not considered common knowledge. In general, the following acts are considered plagiarism: (1) failing to cite quotations or borrowed ideas, (2) failing to enclose borrowed language in quotation marks, (3) failing to put summaries or paraphrases in your own words, and (4) submitting someone else’s work as your own.

Source: http://bcs.bedfordstmartins.com/resdoc5e/glossary-of-research-terms.htm

Yeah, don’t do that.

Image: knowyourmeme.com

When we were kids writing papers in primary school, the teacher always told us not to copy out of the encyclopedia. That would fall under number 3. Numbers 1 and 2 seem common on the Internet now, but they still fall under the plagiarism umbrella.

A warning appears on every college syllabus. Most universities have pretty strict rules about plagiarism. You can get kicked out for doing it.

Having your work stolen concerns a lot of writers, and it’s even a newbie fear that circles around querying. But most industry professionals aren’t looking to steal your story; they’re more interested in finding great books to sell rather than copy.

“I just sold Elizabeth West’s book for a buttload of money! Let’s all go shopping!” Said no agent ever. (yet)

Image: stockimages / freedigitalphotos.net

On the Internet, however, it’s another story. Work gets blogged and re-blogged, and eventually someone copies an article. It might be a social media company scraping content, or someone with a tight deadline who didn’t bother to cite. Many times, the person simply doesn’t know how to avoid it.

Or they don’t care. Apparently, recipe plagiarism is a big thing in food blogging and the culinary world.

This article by Michelle Lindblom, How to Avoid Plagiarism when Writing for the Web, has some excellent tips. Take your time and cite your sources. Never say someone else’s work is yours; if it comes back on you, it can be career ending.