A Night At The Opera…And Other Things

Posted under Adventures In Real Life, Fun Stuff, New Things! on November 16th, 2015 by
Photo by Prudence Upton

Photo by Prudence Upton

So I went to Melbourne for the long weekend. I went to see The Marriage Of Figaro, while the Hubby went to see Jeff Martin & The Tea Party. It was an eventful weekend, during which I managed to pull a muscle in my neck, sprain my ankle and wrist slightly at the opera, get uncomfortably sunburned….and then see the news, when stopping for lunch in a nearby Hungry Jacks (that’s Burger King for you Americans) that Paris had been attacked by terrorists. That led to a prolonged discussion through most of Sunday with the Hubby, about terrorism, muslims, Christians, and the state of the world. We disagree on quite a few things, and we both have slight difficulty in expressing our thoughts, so it proceeded in stops and starts as we collected our thoughts, came up with new arguments and insights, and went to church.

Since most of my thoughts regarding the situation are reasonably bleak and not at all fun (there are no winners in this kind of war), I’m instead going to concentrate upon the delightful, fun part of the visit.

That being the opera. It was three and a half hours of fun, zany story told in a delightful blending of voices that were as impressive as they were beautiful. Susanna is to marry Figaro. Figaro made a bad contract with Marcellina, who wants to marry Figaro and has the right to marry him. Count Almaviva is in lust with Susanna (and every other girl in the flamin’ castle). Countess Almaviva is in love with her husband, who needs repeated punching in the face with something hard and heavy. Cherubino is in (puppy) love with Countess Almaviva. Count Almaviva, in spite of chasing every woman in the castle (sensing a theme here?) is jealous of Countess Almaviva’s attention to Cherubino. Oh, and then there’s the little maid Barbarina, who is in love with Cherubino and also seems to be playing footsie with the Count.

Sounds confusing, yeah? Well, it wasn’t. Not really. It translates to the stage VERY well. I wasn’t confused for a moment and I loved every bit of it.

Basically, Susanna (the brains of the outfit) spends the opera trying to:

-Fix the count and the countess
-Avoid the count’s attentions
-Get the count’s permission to marry Figaro
-Marry Figaro before Marcellina can get to him
-Fix Cherubino’s romance/life

She is sometimes helped and sometimes hindered by Figaro, who she declares to have not enough wit, but who proves by the end of the opera to know a trick or two. Their romance left me feeling highly satisfied at the conclusion.

Things I loved:

-The subtitles. SUBTITLES, PEOPLE. THE LIVE OPERA HAD SUBTITLES. I can’t express how much that meant to me. I expected not to understand more than one in ten words (if that). Instead, I was able to enjoy not only the excellent singing and delightful acting, but the puns, insults, snark, and at times gorgeous lyrics. I’m never going to stop being excited over the fact that I could see a live Italian opera and enjoy it with perfect understanding.

Cherubino

Photo by Prudence Upton

-The music. I expected to recognise a few of the themes and leitmotifs. I did not expect to recognise one in every three or so. Apparently I’ve heard a heck of a lot more music from The Marriage of Figaro than I ever realised. Not only did I recognise a lot of it, but it was all gorgeous! I’ve always liked Mozart, but this was especially delightful. The orchestra was talented but understated, never overpowering the singers, and they blended beautifully.

-The acting. It’s hard to say the exact things that were so good, because there were just so many. It was tiny little things like the ‘stuff you!’ kind of curtsey Taryn Fiebig (Susanna) gives Shane Lowrencev (Count Almaviva) as she’s very politely putting him in his place. The cringe-inducing way that Count Almaviva manages to run his hands over every flamin’ female he comes into contact with (hint: he makes sure he ‘comes into contact’ with ALL OF THEM). Small and perfect touches all the way through.

-The plot. Oh heck, the plot! So delightfully mad! So wonderfully insane! I will never be sick of massive, elderly female characters who are intent upon marrying the young, handsome male lead. The ones who trade polite (and sometimes not so polite) insults with the heroine, whom the hero really loves and has chosen to marry. And who, upon learning that the male lead is in fact their son, immediately switch courses half way through and are in raptures at their new-found son.

-The lighting. Oh my. I don’t think I can say enough about how good it was. My program says that the lighting was ‘realised’ by David Parsons, and that the lighting designer was David Finn. These blokes need a medal. The lighting proceeded from early morning through to late morning; from thence to afternoon and then late afternoon; and eventually, through evening and even night. It was done elegantly and entirely believably: I could have sworn they had the windows open to the outside world, and that we were rapidly going through one summer’s day.

-The use of a woman as Cherubino. I don’t know if that’s what always happens with this opera, but I’d have to think it’d be a difficult part for a man to sing–even a really good tenor. Be that as it may, I found it a wonderful choice. It emphasised the boyishness of Cherubino, the slim, raw, youthfulness of the character. And Sian Pendry was wonderful in the part: she managed the boy dressing up as a girl bit amazingly well: you would have sworn it was a young boy swaggering in those skirts.

-I’m still squeeing over the fact that Cherubino sings Lizzy Bennett’s song! (Yeah, yeah, technically it’s Lizzy singing Cherubino’s song, but whatever). I’m delighted. It adds so much more meaning to a part of the BBC’s Pride & Prejudice than it already possessed. It’s a song of longing, of surprising and new love being discovered, of uncertainty and novelty. It’s perfect for that part of the movie and whoever chose it is a genius.

Things I didn’t like so much:

-It wasn’t as loud as I expected. I suppose I’m just used to having the telly turned up ridiculously loud when I’m watching G&S operettas (so I can sing at the top of my lungs), but although the opera was a pleasing loudness, it didn’t quite live up to my expectations of flamboyantly crashing loudness. I was just a smidge disappointed at that.

-Nope, that’s it. It was an awesome opera, and I now need to find a dvd version to show the Sis.

So that’s it. My night at the opera. Hopefully the first of very, very many. I highly recommend it.

Adventures In Real Life: The Opera

Posted under Adventures In Real Life on November 11th, 2015 by

Well, it’s still NaNoWriMo, which means that this post will be short and sweet (Oi! I heard you! Yeah, you in the back row. The one who said ‘Aw Yiss!’).

As a kind of prelude to this post, I’d like to say that I’ve always had a kind of love/hate relationship with Opera–and by that I mean sometimes I love it and sometimes I hate it (after all, even an anthropomorphised institute can’t love someone).

Gilbert and Sullivan, I absolutely adore. Not just their sometimes cunning, sometimes laugh-out-loud humour, but their glorious, clever music. Stephen Sondheim, though not perhaps technically opera, I also love. And there are bits and pieces of the popular, well-known operas that I’ve heard and loved, though I’ve never actually seen or attended an opera; a real, overblown, gloriously loud opera.

I’m not so fond of the excessive amounts of vibrato that warble through real operas. I like a clear, clean soprano that has no need to disguise its shortcomings or ornament its beauty. Classic opera singers aren’t, therefore, among my favourite singers–which is also one of the reasons I’ve never sat down to a real opera. Another reason is that traditional operas seem to have an immense amount of maiming, slaughtering, incest, unfaithfulness and other unpleasantness. As Anna Russell says: “In an opera you can do anything you like, so long as you sing it!”

But now, love/hate relationship aside, I’m going to attend my first opera! Opera Australia are performing The Marriage of Figaro in Melbourne, where the Hubby and I are going for a long weekend as of tomorrow. I think the first thing that drew me in was the glorious costuming. I mean, look at ’em! They’re gorgeous! The crew that makes these makes them properly: no hidden zips and quick changes, and tries to buy only what would have been available at the time. This is the article I read about it–it’s fascinating! Apart from the costuming, I’ve heard a snippet or two of this opera on Classic FM and found it quite beautiful. The storyline, too, sounds absolutely hilarious!

So this is me! Going to my first opera! Tomorrow! I’ll have to find a suitably fantastic ensemble….

Shhhhh! Be Vewwy, Vewwy Quiet! It’s NaNoWriMo!

Posted under A Writer's Life, Fun Stuff on November 9th, 2015 by

It’s NaNoWriMo (as if you haven’t already figured that out). And this being not only week two, but the first day of my week off from work, I’m at a little over 4000 words for the day of a proposed 6000.

So, no real blog post for you guys this week, except to share the meme me Ma made me. Ain’t she grand?!

I honestly don’t think I can ever love this meme enough. Enjoy. Sucker.

BA Baracus

Adventures In Reviewing: To Review Or Not To Review….

Posted under A Writer's Life, Reviews on November 4th, 2015 by

If there’s anything a writer understands, it’s another writer’s search for reviews. We need them. We need them to propel sales, we need them to garner interest around the book blogosphere, and if we ever hope to enter the hallowed halls of Bookbub-advertised authors, they are indispensable.

That being so, when someone suggested that I join a non-reciprocal review group on Goodreads (non-reciprocal meaning that authors strictly don’t review authors who have reviewed them), I thought it was a great idea. I mean, it was foolproof! No-one could be accused of the kind of I-scratch-your-back-you-scratch-mine kind of review, and all the reviews would be fair and unbiased. And there would be, yanno, reviews.

So I joined a non-reciprocal review group, eager to see who I’d come into contact with, and ready to review the books of others. I knew there was a chance that people wouldn’t like my book and would rate it low (after all, that’s the chance we all take), but I was feeling good about the whole thing. I’d even been able to find a ‘clean’ round within the review group. No sex scenes to watch out for, and nothing I wouldn’t really like to read. I couldn’t go wrong!

Then I got my randomly-assigned read-to-review books, and had my first unpleasant moment. It hadn’t really occurred to me in the lead-up to signing up with the review group that I might end up with any really badly-written books. Unfortunately, I did. Oh boy, was it a doozy! No plot, dreadful writing, unbelievable and cardboard characters, and a level of political hackery that made the entire books seem like a fantasy manifesto of what politics should be like. That was reckoning without the grammatical errors, wrong and missing punctuation, and wrong homonyms. I read it through and took notes anyway, growing more and more anxious about having to review it. It wasn’t even up to a standard of three stars, and I hated to think that I was going to have to give another author less than three stars. Much to my joy, the next book was much better, and my third, although I was conflicted about it and found a little to criticise in it, was very well written.

My second unpleasant moment was when, having read three of the four assigned books in three days, the moderator of the group very sweetly and cleverly insinuated that both I and another member hadn’t really read the books. I was taken aback and more than a little sickened at the veiled accusation. Surely we were all readers as well as writers? In my mind, there is no lover of books who can’t read at least one book a day when in the mood. When I’m in the reading mood, I read anywhere from 1-3 books per day. I pointed out to the mod that two of the books had been very short, and tried to put the nastiness out of my mind. I already had the impression that this wasn’t the group for me, and that the unpleasantness of such a group made the possible profits not worthwhile. I was soon to be proved quite right.

In the end, I gave the dreadful book two stars (and thought it generous). Since it didn’t seem fair to give a fellow author’s book such a low rating without justifying it, I went into some detail with my review. After all, it had already been suggested that I hadn’t read the books, and I wanted to make sure that I couldn’t be accused of that again. Feeling sick and anxious about the whole thing, I uploaded the review to the required sites.

I woke up the next morning to find a message in my Goodread inbox. You can insert your choice of dum dum daaaaaah! music here. The author had seen my review, had taken exception to it, and was demanding that I start a dialogue with him about the thing he found most offensive about my review. It was also suggested, though not outright said, that I should be changing my review. To make a long, nasty story quite a bit shorter, I replied, indicating that I wouldn’t be changing my review, stating my reasons for giving the review I had given, and closing with a gentle reminder that it wasn’t professional to harass a reviewer for their review. The author sent back a shorter, nastier message, and contacted the moderator.

I then had the joy of receiving a message from the moderator that accused me of personally attacking the author in my review (amongst other things) and suggesting that I would be happier in another review group. By this time I was regretting that I’d ever taken the advice of joining a non-reciprocal review group. It was also at this point that I began to think that non-reciprocal reviews, earned in such a manner, weren’t exactly non-reciprocal. If every author going into this group was going into it with the attitude that they had to be kind and careful in their reviews, and expected the same in return regardless of the quality of the book, how was that different from reviewing the author who was reviewing you? They would feel constrained to review in a certain way, and with a certain amount of stars–thus making the review essentially reciprocal.
I had begun to feel exceedingly squicky about the whole thing: almost as if I’d bought and paid for reviews. And though a second message from the moderator indicated that they had spoken to the author about the inappropriateness of not contacting reviewers, I was still left with a nasty feeling in the pit of my stomach.

Fortunately, as with all things in life, every cloud has a silver lining and two lovely things have come out of the experience. I’ve met Loralee Evans, who was honest and truthful in her reviews, and who helped me out with invaluably sensible advice when I didn’t know what to do. (She’s also recently guest-posted for me: check it out!)
The other thing that made me exceedingly happy was meeting Dan Buri, whose book I was very conflicted about and rated 3 stars. He was a gentleman about it from start to finish, and never harassed or pressured me to change my review, though I know from experience that getting a lower-starred review isn’t at all pleasant. He was such a breath of fresh air after the nastiness with the other author.

Will I ever join another non-reciprocal review group? Heck no. It’s not my thing, and I hate the horrible feeling when I have to rate a book lower than I’d like to be rated myself. But the experience wasn’t all bad, and for those strong people who go into it with the determination of being truthful and accepting truth in return, it’s both useful and honourable.

In the end, as an author, it’s all up to you. To review, or not to review?

Women In Fiction: Guest Blog Post By Loralee Evans

Posted under Guest Posts, Strong Female Lead, Women In Fiction on November 2nd, 2015 by

I’m very excited to welcome Loralee Evans to my blog today! I met Loralee on Goodreads a few days ago, when she was kind enough both to read and review Spindle for me: and such a lovely review, too! She also helped me out with a spot of trouble I was having on GR with some very timely and sensible advice, and then compounded her kindness by agreeing to guest post on my blog. 
Loralee is a writer of historical LDS fiction and MG fantasy, which you can check out at her Amazon Author Page here, or on her website, here. I’ve also interspersed her blog post with book covers and links, so if you’re interested in a book, just click on the cover.

That’s it from me! Over to Loralee, who is talking about Strong, Independent Women in Fiction.

Women In Fiction: A Study

Loralee EvansI want to thank W. R. Gingell for letting me be a guest author on her blog.  We met recently on Goodreads, as I had recently read her book, Spindle, which I loved immensely!  One big reason why I enjoyed Spindle so much, is because I like books where female characters are portrayed as strong and independent people who can take care of themselves if need be.  They can be soft and caring, but at the same time, they can stand up for what they believe, and they don’t need men to define them as individuals.  They do what they do based on their own consciences.  They don’t need to act in reaction to a man.

I’ve had the fortune of reading many a well-written romance where the male and female complement each other and support each other, but still are independent people who have purpose and strength each on their own.  They’re great together, but they don’t need each other to have purpose as individuals.
Unfortunately, I’ve also had the misfortune of stumbling upon stories that are not that way at all.  I have little use for stories Bountifulwhere one character, almost always the female, seems to be completely dependent upon the male character to define her and give her purpose.  Not only is such a viewpoint unrealistic, it is downright dangerous to the impressionable minds of young people, girls in particular.  (Though the objectification of women is certainly damaging to boys’ thinking as well.)
Sadly, far too many authors and far too many movie makers are forgetting or perhaps deliberately ignoring the idea that female characters can be strong, brave, and moral in their own right, and act in reaction to their sense of right and wrong, rather than needing a romantic relationship with a man to motivate them or define them.

One dangerous, insidious idea that both movie makers and book writers have developed, is to introduce what appears to be a strong female character, but immediately upon her introduction, a male character falls for her.  He often harasses her sexually, which we the audience are expected to interpret as funny and flirty rather than what it actually is, (verbal abuse, and sexual harassment) simply because the male character is young, hot, and white; a free get out of jail card.  Thus, King's Heirhe can act how he wants, without the audience realizing anything is wrong.  The female, of course, sometimes after a half-hearted comment regarding his rudeness, falls for his sexual harassment, and from that point on, everything she does is in reaction to him.  Many people reading or watching such a combination of events are not even consciously aware of the dangerous ideas this is teaching to society.  But in reality, such thinking is very toxic and dangerous.  Especially to young impressionable people who can’t differentiate between reality and the forced, choreographed actions of movie makers and book writers who can, with their writing skills, minimize or completely take away the consequences of this type of dysfunctional behavior that would, in the real world, result in an abusive relationship.

As a mother of daughters and of sons, I want them to read books that portray the heroines and heroes as truly heroic.  As strong, independent characters who do their best to do what is right simply because it’s the right thing to do.  I don’t want to read about perfect characters, because no one is, and we can’t relate BIrthrightto perfect people.  But I want to see an honest effort.  I want my daughters to know they can, and should, have the strength to stand on their own two feet if need be.  I want them to look for the right men, the kind that know how to treat a girl like a person, rather than like property.  I want them to know that if a man treats them with any degree of disrespect, they have the right, in fact the obligation to walk away from him without a backward glance, without an explanation, and without another comment.  I want my sons to learn that being real men doesn’t mean controlling others, it means treating fellow human beings, male and female, with decency and respect.   I want them to learn that if a girl is not interested, she does not owe him an explanation.  I want them to know that real men take rejection with grace, and know how to accept personal responsibility.

Because of this, I try to find books, and to write books, that teach these things.  Because, let’s face it, we learn from what we read.  Even when we’re consciously aware that it’s fiction, what we take into our minds affects us for worse or for better.  I hope to be one of those who influence people for the better.

–Loralee
Felicity 1Felicity 2

Cover Reveal: FIRE IN THE BLOOD and THE FIRST CHILL OF AUTUMN

Posted under Cover Reveal!, Current WIP on October 28th, 2015 by

I was going to wait and be patient to reveal these two covers, but despite the fact that TWELVE DAYS OF FAERY is still two days away from release, I needed to upload the cover for FIRE IN THE BLOOD to make preorder available on Amazon; and I really wanted to add the cover of THE FIRST CHILL OF AUTUMN to my NaNoWriMo page ‘cos it’s so pretty.

So, since they’re out there already, I thought I’d better hurry up and do a semi-formal cover reveal. FIRE IN THE BLOOD is the 2nd novella in my SHARDS OF A BROKEN SWORD trilogy, and THE FIRST CHILL OF AUTUMN is the 3rd. Let me know what you think of them!

2nd Shards_FireInTheBlood3rd Shards_TheFirstChillOfAutumn

NaNOOOOOOOOO! Why did I do it?!?

Posted under A Writer's Life, NaNoWriMo, New Things! on October 25th, 2015 by

I must be crazy. I did it. I actually signed up. I was gonna DO it, of course; just from the comfort of my own computer and no tallies and accountability and stuff. I wasn’t going to bother with making it official. Then I got excited and sort of accidentally signed up.

I’m talking about NaNoWriMo, of course. I went and signed up to the official site (come and see me and be my writing buddy–WRGingell is my Buddy Name); title and everything. Soon there’ll even be a cover for THE FIRST CHILL OF AUTUMN, my NaNoWriMo novella.

NaNoWriMoFace

MY FACE WHEN I REALISED WHAT I’D LET MYSELF IN FOR…

I did all this before it occurred to me that I would be at the stage of editing FIRE IN THE BLOOD at the same time as writing my NaNoWriMo novella…
It helps that they’re in the same trilogy (2nd and 3rd, respectively), but I’m still trying to tell myself, like Jones from Dad’s Army, “DON’T PANIC! DON’T PANIC!”

I’ll most likely end up in a frothing, quivering heap by the end of the month, but what’s that between friends? It’s all good fun, and let’s face it, I only have to write 1667 words per day. I’ve been routinely doing more than that each day for the last month or two. There’s absolutely no need to panic.

But what would a writer be without a side-serving of worry, eh?

These Are A Few Of My Favourite Things #2: THE LOST CONSPIRACY by Frances Hardinge

Posted under Favourite Authors, These Are A Few Of My Favourite Things on October 22nd, 2015 by

Screenshot (45)

Who’s up for round 2 of These Are A Few Of My Favourite Things?

What? You’re gonna have to speak up. I can’t hear you over the sound of all that deafening silence.

I honestly don’t read a huge amount of middle grade fiction. Even as a kid I was more inclined to read teen and adult fiction–or classics–than I was to read middle grade. There were exceptions, but by and large I didn’t read a huge amount of it (Nicholas Fisk, Diana Wynne Jones, and Joan Aiken being three HUGE exceptions, because they’re amazing).

Frances Hardinge is a new, huge exception. THE LOST CONSPIRACY (also known as GULLSTRUCK ISLAND, depending upon which country you live in) was the first book of Frances Hardinge’s that I ever read (I think. Maybe it was TWILIGHT ROBBERY, which I also love).

lost conspiracyHathin belongs to a tribe called The Lace, whose perennially smiling faces and Sweeny-Todd-like legacy of human sacrifice behind those smiling faces have left them to be widely regarded in suspicion and horrified fear by the peoples around them. Hathin’s chief difficulty and chief responsibility are one and the same: her older sister, Arilou. They are described thusly:

“Her name was Hathin. While Arilou’s name was meant to sound like the call of an owl, the fluting of a bird of prophecy, Hathin’s name imitated the whisper of settling dust. Dust-like she was indeed, unremarkable, quiet, all but invisible.”

Arilou is The Lady Lost, considered special; a lady of prophecy, possessed of great gullstruckand awesome powers. Her powers are the reason that Hathin’s village has enough food for the winter and a place to live, not to mention a small income from selling relics and suchlike. Unfortunately, those powers are entirely faked. Hathin and the Lace have been keeping Arilou’s lacking mental capacities a secret, ‘translating’ her drooling and moaning to seem as though they’re prophecies. But now an inspector is arriving to test Arilou’s ‘powers’, and it may not be long before they’re all exposed.

Things happen very quickly after the opening is set up. The inspector is murdered. Then almost the entirety of Hathin’s village is also murdered, leaving her on the run and dragging the mentally lacking Arilou along behind her.

What I love about Frances Hardinge is the fact that she’s not afraid to have ugly characters. I don’t mean physically ugly, though she’s not afraid of that as well. I mean the whole setup of a young girl from a people with human sacrifice in their (not too distant) past. There are a lot of stories about the Nazis, and fighting the Nazis, but what would it be like to grow up in the next generation, knowing your people were responsible for such atrocities? There are a lot of countries in real life that have done similar things: my own country of Australia, and the hunting and murder of Aboriginals; the ‘settlement’ of America, where Native Indians were murdered and pushed out of their own land; the Nazis, as previously mentioned; and so on. THE LOST CONSPIRACY was the first time I’d seen anything like this in fiction.

Added to the interest of the subject matter (and the fact that Frances Hardinge is one of the few authors who can still surprise me with the direction a book takes), is the fact that the writing is so absolutely beautiful. For style as well as substance, Frances Hardinge’s books are some of the best out there.

There’s so much more I could say about this book, but the most important thing I have to say is: BUY IT. READ IT. This is one of my favourite books. It’s also eminently re-readable, which is one of the biggest tests of the worth of a book.

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