#orthoceras

happy saturday idk what a reverse big bang is but i am happy for you

im watching a nonsense production of la boheme for some reason. normally love this opera but i'll be really i'm fighting dozing off ngl

I've also been dreaming of that met vid with fleming and hvorostovsky partially bc of the singers but mostly the production design... it was so pretty and evocative, desperately hoping the met will bring that one back bc I like it way more than their newer prod

other music I've been listening to is rachmaninoff 2 which I put on for writing background music and then kept getting distracted bc it was making me go so completely insane. avg rachmaninoff experience I guess

happy (checks watch) Sunday I Guess (but it's sleepover saturday so we're staying uppppp it still counts) congrats on the fanfic !! that's fun. i haven't been able to write anything in months lol so cheers to you

i don't have a particular favorite cd recording tbh! i always feel like some kind of fake fan when people ask me for favorite recordings because truth be told i don't listen to that many (and when i do i'm rarely paying That close attention to compare and iron out preferences). the one i listen to the most is probably this one just because it's the one available on my music app that i've had downloaded for years, and i generally like the interpretations in it. no idea how it compares to other recordings overall.

i DO agree with you wholeheartedly on the video. i know the met doesn't really go back in time production revival wise (except for carmen now in the wake of the cracknell drama LOLLLL) but gd i miss the old carsen prod too. the current production is perfectly fine but it's yet another met production that's just giving Dollhouse to me. everything is big and pretty but kind of safe and boring and plastic. also (i haven't seen the new one with samoilov and grigorian; i've heard good things, i'll probably watch it when it goes on pbs soon) while peter mattei sounds nice i can't take him seriously when he's visually Extremely 52 and netrebko is. netrebko. she shoulds like she has a mouthful of peanut butter and her face barely moves. not a fan. the video with dima and fleming on the other hand...gorgeous. stunning. not only are the performances way better (though it still suffers from Middle Aged Baritone Syndrome lol. at least fleming can fucking act) it's absolutely beautiful to look at. i love it when the met did productions that were visually non-obvious and interesting and contributed to telling the emotional/thematic story rather than just looking pretty, they should do more of that. the way the staging, the ensemble choreography, and the cavernously empty set work together to highlight onegin's self imposed social isolation and emptiness. it's SO good! and i adore the tonal whiplash gained by placing the intermission before act 2 scene 2, so the duel transitions directly into the polonaise with no breathing room. masterful. peter gelb i swear to gd bring it back or i'll riot

also i don't listen to much rachmaninoff i should really change that probably. that is very much my experience when i try to listen to classical music while doing other work though lol. so much for chill beats to relax slash study to right

enjoyyy say hi to rocky my friend rocky for me

there's an american opera showcase with rake's progress and ainadamar excerpts among other things, trifonov playing shostakovich, beethoven 7, some experimental outdoor luther adams kinda thing, etc etc. idk what I'll be able to attend yet but I'm still excited

anyway fingers crossed nelsons does a better nozze than vanessa 🥲

this week i've spent a lot of time thinking about helen trying and struggling very badly to parent sally as a single mom to a tween/teenage daughter when they're both dealing with like four overlapping personality disorders each. if they had like couples therapy for mothers and daughters it could maybe fix them a little bit but gd knows that would take years and years and it would be like pulling teeth the entire way. also pharmacological intervention. yay <3

Found also yesterday this piece of an slight murky translucent yellow grey hued chalcedony middle-end fossils piece of an reminiscent nautiloide, perhaps of the family of orthoceras.

Placed in this ovale half of an flint sponge.

step one: get lucky enough to have an idea of something to write

step two: get lucky enough to have the creative momentum enough to actually sit down and write it rather than just thinking about it and never getting beyond that

step 3: start writing. usually from the beginning of whatever scene i've come up with

step 4: watch as it inevitably grows longer and further beyond the scope of what you planned it to be from the outset. proceed to one of the next two options

step 5a: for something short-to-medium length (i.e. oneshot, but multiple scenes/sections, or just a couple of chapters), just keep writing. usually in order though not always. sometimes stuff gets written deliberately in order, occasionally written out of order, and sometimes written in one order but i decide to switch it up during final editing/posting

step 5b: for longform multichapter works, ideally i keep writing scenes/chapters as well as plot out a dedicated outline of chapters, timeline, characters, important overarching beats and goals to hit, etc. to keep myself from losing steam and/or forgetting stuff (or, more likely, to remind myself in the future that i naively and hopefully cling to that, even if months or years pass between me actively working on the thing, i'll return to it Some Day and keep going)

step ??: if i'm sicko enough about the thing and know that there's a friend who will egg me on sufficiently i might screenshot and share with them snippets during the writing process so this can be slotted in anywhere in the timeline

step 6: final proofread and post. sometimes post to friend(s)/groupchat first before publicly, depends on the piece and the potential audience and whether i get the sense that anyone in one place or another will actually read it