The authorial maze

I started writing my current novel - Rictangular Lenses - in early September 2016. There have been year-long gaps to the point where you might have thought I'd lost interest altogether. Brother Sir Hugh pointed out I started learning to sing the same year (early January) and there is no doubt I was absorbed by this new turning-point in my life. On the other hand I've been writing fiction since I was 11, the year 1946. Do the forties have any resonance for anyone who reads Tone Deaf?

I may not have written RL continuously but its existence nagged at me. In Lindsay I'd created the toughest of all the women who dominate my other four novels. She gives men hell and I've loved devising these torments; perhaps, deep down, I'm an unrevealed masochist. There was no way I'd let her drop into oblivion.

During the last six months I've resumed writing RL and I'm up to 75,181 words. For those who can't envisage what that means, an average medium-length novel probably tops out at about 100,000 words.

But here's a thing: creating  RL has stretched over a decade and there's no doubt - even discounting learning to sing -  during that period I've changed as a person and, thereby, as an author. I'm not sure I ever knew how RL would end but I've just completed a totally unexpected conversation between Lindsay and a concert pianist which must surely change the plot in a big way. How? I'm not sure. But then I'm kind of sure.

Am I being irritating? Cast your mind over the biographies of all the novel writers you've read: many have been downright peculiar, some close to criminal. It's not a job for healthy minds

WHICH?

Veronica now lives in a nursing home. Yesterday I visited her there for the first time. I do not intend to write directly about this matter again.

Not because the subject is too raw, too difficult or too personal. I’ve written for a living and I’ve tackled those adjectives before. Rather, because it would be pointless.

At the present core of our 65-year-old marriage is a dilemma, a word that’s often misused. Too casually. It is much more than a sticky how’s-your-father. Google puts it rather pungently:

A challenging situation requiring a choice between two or more equally undesirable, unfavourable, or mutually exclusive  alternatives… often… a  ‘no-win’.”

Occasionally, at three o’clock of a morning, I reckon I’ve cracked it. But it’s fool’s gold. One cannot do anything about the passage of time, whatever H. G. Wells postulated. To explain the dilemma would be easy enough, if wordy. But, as I say, pointless. And that’s what Brits call a full stop and North Americans a period.

A rather sadder message

Veronica, my wife of 65 years, now lives in a nursing home. I find myself incomplete and must get used to another kind of life.

Best kind of New Year Message

 Click image to enlarge

AI helps out and I'm amazed

This year’s Christmas brought modern-day magic but I was merely a bystander. Here we go.

When it comes to sound reproduction Chez Robinson I’m incredibly finicky. Not surprising, really, given that most installed TV loudspeakers are about the size of a packet of cigarettes. Not much hope for the music generated by, say, a double bass. So I have a pair of triple-speaker hi-fi units properly spaced for stereo reproduction.

But that’s just a start. I also have a set-up which electronically improves the signal that is the heart of the music, or whatever I'm playing. Step up the Marantz amplifier which cost me £500 ($676) fifteen years ago. And, no, this amp doesn’t just make things louder or quieter, it compensates for poor quality of live broadcasts and for recordings made in riveting shops. Also, in my case, it adjusts itself to the different circuitry of the smart TV, the DVD player, a Dell laptop (fed by a chip on to which all the music from my old LPs and CDs was transferred) and two pairs of hi-fi stereo headphones. Plus lots of other stuff which I can hardly spell.

There is a price to pay for all this adaptability; the Marantz is shockingly complicated to use. As was confirmed when one of our Christmas party used their smartphone to control the amp. Yes, it did that all right but getting it back to normalcy was an absolute bastard. Hours passed.

This was Boxing Day (December 26) and the night before had ended round about 4 am. Finally, daughter Occasional Speeder, who’d mumbled that she’d got “some ideas” re. the Marantz, awoke from a deep sleep and addressed the problem. It took some time but finally the sound system blared. But how?

What could be more fashionable than AI? Even so it was pretty slick work. The initial problem with the Marantz was spelled out by OS on her phone screen. Then OS merely photographed the phone screen and presented the image – as a request for help - to something like ChatBot. And AI then recommended the next step. Step taken, another photograph and another recommendation. And so on. Things weren’t all that easy at first but AI sensed OS’s difficulties and urged her to “Keep on trucking”. She admitted she was grateful for this

I reckoned OS deserved the best Southern Rhone red I had in my wine rack

"certain wearied phrases"

We are nearing the date when some of us launch into certain wearied phrases in the hope that those reading them will become happy and/or merry. I am against this practice and have been twitted – misguidedly – on the assumption I’m against humanity (or worse). I’ll discuss this later but there are two rather obvious reasons for re-examining these salutations.

Why pick out this date alone? Might it imply we don’t give a damn about our audience during the other 364 days of the year? Also, if parochially British middle-class, the adjective “merry” can mean “drunken”. Suggesting we approve of indulgence and could also be harbouring a hope that our readers may enjoy good sex on the 25th. Fine, but let’s keep it tightly moored in the harbour.

But chacun à son gout as the French say, although it’s wise to acknowledge that they may not be saying it these days. The French tend to discard colloquialisms on the grounds of old age. Unfrench tourists may get frosty looks when they try to dig them up.

What I truly detest is that these clichés arrive unthinkingly as blog comments. As proof that their launcher has hovered somewhere near the post AND DONE NOTHING ELSE. That they have imitated the way a dog shows he has passed this way. A dubious insurance policy against the possible charge that they can’t be said to have ignored the post.

If the post turns out to be duff either (a) point this out in a literate manner, or (b) say nothing. If the post has benefited you in some way you are briefly in debt to its author; think about it for a minute or two; then transcribe those thoughts. It could be the start of a dialogue and dialogue is what distinguishes us from lettuce-eating slugs.

Have I rained on your seasonal parade? It’s a privilege of extreme old age and you too may make 90 as I have done. Goodness knows, I may even flirt with merriment tonight.

Crusty? Certainly.

Sententious? Without doubt.

Still worrying about what Abraham agreed to do to Isaac?. It never goes away.

Well, will I?

My first singing lesson was on January 4 2016; they've continued weekly with very few breaks; let's say a round figure of 500. Initially they lasted an hour; I upped the fee and V - almost perversely - increased lessons to 90 minutes.

Gradually the songs got more difficult. Recently V launched a very, very difficult song: Der Muller und Der Bach, number 19 in the 20-song Schöne Müllerin cycle by Schubert. I ask myself: will I ever master it?

Listen to it HERE.

See if you can identify why it's so damn difficult. While being musically terrific.