Rachel: Finally on again

First of all, let me just apologize for how long it's been since a made a post; I've been crazy busy the last few days and have therefore been slacking on my SAAWAKM duties. Expect me to slack for the next three days some more because we're going to climb Mt. Whitney, which I have been talking about forever had am finally setting out to do. We're driving out there today, climbing tomorrow, and coming home the next day. Wish us luck. I will DEFINITELY need it.

Anyway, what have I been so busy doing, you ask? Goat-ing--what else? Weirdly that takes up a lot of my time, and even though I have hours of everyday free I am so tired that all inspiration to post anything has left me. I have also been doing a lot of musical schtuff. I had my second orchestra rehearsal for this year's Fourth of July gig on Thursday, which would have been a lot more fun if I was not brain-dead-tired at the time and was not playing 3rd/bass trombone. Most of the time 3rd trombone is just as interesting as any of the other parts minus a few measures or two, but I have this one song where I mostly just sit there and play for maybe thirty measures total. I HATE pieces like that, because basically the composer was like "We don't need a third trombone part...but what the hell? I'll just scribble something down here...yeah, that's right..." and I am forced to play whatever crap he comes up with. This isn't always the case, of course, but when it is it gets on my nerves. Still, though.I suppose I should be happy I get to play in that orchestra at all (it's full of very experienced adult musicians) and I definitely am. Despite what I just said, even when I mostly just sit and listen while waiting to play some more it's fun. I very much enjoy listening to classical music. So that's that. I'm playing one violin piece in that orchestra as well which I have not yet had a chance to test my aptitude with, so wish me luck with that (again) next Thursday. My violin teacher is very sad that I am not playing ALL violin pieces, but her husband, who is also the orchestra's conductor, said that they desperately need me on the trombone and that is that. Even though my poor teacher is bummed out, I have to say that it's kind of an honor to have been chosen to play the trombone in this group. I'm not filling in for anybody this time--I'm actually the person he wanted. Which is cool, I think. Anyway, enough prattling on about that. What else is going on...

Well, I have started my intense planning for Death List just like I said I would. I've decided to go character by character in order of chapter appearance and just come up with everything that I would like that particular person to go through from start to finish. Luckily I know where most if not all of my characters end up, so that makes that part sort of easy. I mentioned in an earlier post that my goal is to have everyone meet at least once (this may or may not actually be able to happen) but in this early planning stage I'm not going to worry so much about that. Once I've written out everything about everybody, I can go back and edit what I wrote to kind of bring all of those little plots together into the massive plot of the book itself. I expect that then it will be pretty clear who can meet up with who and when, especially since some of them ultimately end up in the same place. Unless they die, in which case they do not.

Well...that's about all I have to say for the time being. Oh! Except for that I think the blog looks INCREDIBLE! I love it! I know that this is super late, but I still think it needs to be said. I definitely enjoy the old-timey romantic feel of it, so thank you, Kas. Oh, and while I'm talking specifically to Kas, I just wanted to commend you on your taste in fashion. I was just reading that post of yours where you included a bunch of pictures of clothing you were considering purchasing and I was like...wow. I should take pictures of the things that I usually wear and put them on here so you can witness exactly how much more fashionable you are than me and get a good laugh out of it. I won't, just to spare you all, but jeez, Kas, your style is beautiful.

So...that's it. Like I said, don't expect me on for the next few days, but come Tuesday evening or Wednesday be prepared to read a LOT of complaining about how sore I am haha. Just kidding. I won't fall back on complaining unless I seriously have nothing else to post about, which I sincerely hope won;t be the case.

-Iridian