Improvisations on Reality

SCENE IS BEHIND A CUT FOR VERY MINOR SPOILER WARNING.

Not one that you didn’t see coming, but of course, you know me. That’s NOT where the conflict ends. Oh-ho-ho, not at all.

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I do love AbsoluteWrite blog chains, yes I do.

This time, I’m the one that ventured the topic, but the lovely Aheila is doing the hosting duties yet again. Due to job being busy and requiring my full attention as of late, I cannot venture my attention to as much of the chain as I like.

The topic is not so much as a question, but a teaser request. Post a scene that describes or defines the main character.

The Blog Chain – also, participants are linked behind the cut.

Now…Arriella, the main character. A pyrokine who, once thrust into a position of a much higher responsibility than the one she was in previously, she rises to the occasion and grows into her part as a diplomat, warrior and politician in a new way. She tries to do best by people and is very loyal to her duties, often ignoring her emotions right up until they step up and whack her with a heavy-duty Clue Bat.

She does feel a lot more than she will let on. She feels intensely, but holds back because she needs to control the situation. She is a commander first, a diplomat second, and a woman a distant third. She didn’t say anything about her relationship even potentially failing until it happened that her significant other’s interests clashed drastically with her own.

This is out of Book 4, takes place right as they’re about to do battle.

Unfortunately, I cannot give you the back story, except that 1. the battle is in the making from the get-go and 2. …the clue bat was coming a while with this one.

Enjoy!

K.G.

PS: Yes, I do have vampires. They drain energy, not blood. And I have Mages. And Hunters. And various other things that kick ass.

PPS: Back story is lengthy, and you can always read Book 1 and Book 2 to get part of it. Book 3 will be in editing phases as soon as Book 4 is done, which I hope to be soon.

PPPS: Yes, it’s a shameless plug.

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Read more…

Working on Book 4.

Have to get up sorta early tomorrow.

And I have an earworm, which I’m delighted to share…and no, it’s not the evil earworm…

I dare ya to not start groovin’ in your seat. I dare ya.

I <3 big-band classics.

K.G.

Insurance: still prohibitive.

Zipcar: cannot qualify just yet, less than a year licensed.

Hertz: VERY likely option for now.

The Hunt continues, but I will not be wheel-less!!

K.G.

He’s in recovery, told not to play the horn for 6 weeks.
Considering the maxillar fracture, makes sense to me. Youch. Recover well, James, and when/if you’ll play in NY after this, have some cheesecake. Easy on the jaw and VERY good to your taste buds.

K.G.

The Vehicle has been spotted somewhere at a dealership in Dyker Heights, Brooklyn; a 2006 Nissan Altima with a clean Carfax report. Cars.com – amazing resource, but that Carfax is worth it. So far, every so-called “good deal” has been seasoned with “repossessed”, “accident reported” and the suchlike. But – I did find something that may be worth looking twice at, and perhaps test-driving. A gently used, well-inspected Altima. Works for me.

Which brings me to…

…car insurance.

Forgive my profanity, but what the blue loving fuckity-McFuck? I cannot find a justification that car insurance – even if I put my mother, who is sixty and had her license for a good 14 years onto the policy – would cost me $300/mo. I know it’s NYC. I know how expensive it is to live here, trust me on this. I also know that there’s no bloody way to justify this price when it’s half of that in most other urbanite areas, excepting maybe LA.

I know, I’m waxing poetic for the days of yesteryear price-wise, but seeing numbers like that, egad.

Back to the drawing board we go. I have yet to get a quote from a couple of other places, but between Allstate and Progressive, those are the lowest possible rates.

I’m very sure there’s a way around this…and find it I shall.

K.G.

An article about my books, self-publication and the such on The Examiner, courtesy of Barbara Galloway.
Thank you, Barb!

K.G.

AT LAST. Finished! Emailed it to Peter Boehi of SmoothVibes.com by reference of the illustrious Jonathan Widran. Cross your fingers.
Also, if you are a jazzer, if you are a blogger on jazz, link this post out, please. I would like this to be seen. If you are a musician and would like to contribute a direct quote, let me know. If you’re a musician that I haven’t quoted or mentioned – I will correct that in the shortest possible order.

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The New Roaring Twenties

By Katherine Gilraine

As the key lights are turned up around the stage setup, I can’t help but look around the audience of the concert, if only to see if they’re as excited as I am. Little snippets of conversation waft up as Euge Groove gets ready for his set in Montego Bay, Jamaica – conversations about grown children in college, retirement funds, employees and comparisons to days of yesteryear.

Right about then I realize that, being in my midtwenties, I’m the youngest person to attend the inaugural Jammin’ in Jamaica event.

Hello. I am Katherine Gilraine, I’m 25 years of age, and I love smooth jazz.

So, there I was in Montego Bay, about to see Euge Groove and Bobby Lyle get their jam on, the first thing I started thinking about is this age discrepancy. Where are all the people my age? I wondered. This music is fantastic. It’s original, creative, incredibly varying. Why don’t more young people like smooth jazz?

The older fans and the musicians alike know that part of the reason is the lack of exposure. In this climate of dwindling public smooth-jazz radio stations, the level of public exposure to smooth jazz is nowhere near the same as it was ten years ago, so of course, the younger people do not hear it anywhere near as much as they should. The rhetoric behind the closing of the smooth jazz radio stations is that there’s no listener base for smooth jazz anymore.

Really now?

Let’s see. Berks Jazz Fest of Reading, PA draws audiences from far and wide, as far out as California, Arizona, and North Carolina. The Smooth Jazz Cruise, put on by Jazz Cruises LLC and owned by Michael Lazaroff, sold out so quickly for 2010 and 2011 that the franchise added on a second sailing for 2011, which is now the basis for 2012. While Haven Entertainment no longer puts on the All-Star Cruises after the 2009 sailing, the Capital Jazz SuperCruise started up and has a great success with sales. And, in just a handful of months, the Facebook group Smooth Jazz Spot all but exploded to what is now over eight thousand members, from what originally started as a group to share experiences on music cruises.

However, the marketing of these destination music getaways, and even of more local jazz club shows, is hardly ever geared towards the younger crowd. The lack of public exposure in radio echoes out into college campuses, where students of music, theater arts and literature usually are keen to ask, “What’s a good thing to listen to?”

The popular genre is always evolving and as people eschew the popular artists and go towards independent music, they just don’t look at smooth jazz. Lack of exposure? Maybe. Preconceived notions? Likely.

As keyboardist Alan Hewitt mentioned in the All Star Cruise 2009 artists’ panel, smooth jazz is a misnomer for the style, mostly on the account that every musician has his or her own flavor to add. The listener base has the quintessential paragon of smooth jazz: Dave Koz. But then there’s Boney James, who serves up his saxophones with a side  dish of R&B, to great effect. Rick Braun on the trumpet and flugelhorn with a style and a versatility to play anything from bluesy overtones to classic renditions. Nick Colionne, who takes to the stylings of the late, great Wes Montgomery. There is Jeff Golub, who is more New Orleans old-school blues than he is jazz. Newcomer Jessy J shows off her versatility with bossa nova and Latin flavors. It most certainly isn’t, as one person sneeringly told me, “elevator music.”

That isn’t to say that young blood never hears it – this music is heard nevertheless. As the parents take their kids to the shows, these same kids will come back on their own once they have the means and opportunity to do so.  The college grads that hear a show that catches their interest will come back to another, and stay in for the occasional improvisational jam session..

The youngins are there – and they are also on stage.

In a far more recent concert experience at Berks Jazz Fest, the cornucopia of the tried-and-true talent was seasoned by Eric Darius, then 26, Oli Silk at his 31, Jessy J at 29 and Jackiem Joyner, at 30. The new blood proved that they had more than enough gumption to match the existing innovators of the smooth jazz scene with their own (yes, I’ll say it) youthful enthusiasm.

Now, consider this: I’m the token youngin in the audience, so to speak, and after hearing more than one artists’ panel and getting into more than one talk on this alleged genre demise, I called up a friend of mine, an engineer who loves the alto saxophone and practices it often. “Dead? I don’t know who says that,” she told me over brunch. “I have teenagers on my sax forum and they’re getting into the classics like Miles, Coltrane… It’ll never be dead.”

Indeed. Dave Koz mentioned that rather than complain about the changes going on in the scene, we ought to enjoy it for what it is now – and I’m in agreement. The times, they are a-changing; the artists are seeing new blood on stage as well as in the audience and as more and more of the world goes digital, so does music. In conversation with Gerald Veasley while I was at Berks Jazz Fest, this realization hit me fairly out of the blue: radio may well be going the same way that TV has gone.

This is actually a good situation. The more one person is online, which is increasing, the proper embedding of a certain song somewhere can catch the ears of more and more people – especially the younger crowd. Dave Koz’s Bada Bing in all its tenor-sax and kicky-beat infectious glory, if embedded in a website targeted to a certain group – blog, campus page, reference to a Youtube link – may catch a whole new set of ears. But let us not stop there! A workshop such as Sam Ash’s drum clinics done by a musician with a strong base within smooth jazz can both pass on the knowledge to people with a love of music and to perhaps attract an influx of new audience members to shows.

So, what can the new blood do? Keep at it. Join the groups, go to the shows, download the music from iTunes, check out CDBaby.com for up-and-coming new artists. And of course, get friends involved. Euge Groove and Bobby Lyle both mentioned at the first Jammin’ that the best way to get people into the music is word of mouth: keep telling about it, keep dragging people along.

And, of course, if they like it and are dancing in their seat by the end of the night, color it a success – and invite them to chase the music.

I am Katherine Gilraine, I am 25 years of age, I love smooth jazz, and I will see you at Jammin’ in Jamaica 2010. Arrivederci.

Mother Nature is getting with the April showers phase a little late – it’s the latter end of May and it’s moderately warm, but humid and rainy all the same. So my hunt for inspiration outdoors is at a slight halt for the time being. But, not to worry, there is always plenty to keep me busy.

As an aside, I’m hoping it gets to 90+ degrees. I might be the only one hoping for that, but ideal beach weather is little humidity and intense heat for me. Here’s to hoping.

In other news…

I’m right back on my daily word count track and Book 4 is now at well over 90,000 words. The regular is 500 words a day, but if I can push for more, I always will. The points I’m at now are more the cathartic realizations that come for some of the characters mid-battle; some are more personal than others, and the exploration thereof is what carries the book to conclusion. It’s interesting to see exactly what I have created character-wise; after a certain point, they begin to grow and evolve on their own – they begin to write the story, so to speak. In other words, their actions seem so predictable once in a while, all that I need to say as a narrator is “This is the given situation.”

Now, some of you may know this, but other do not: I originally had it in mind to wrap the entire story at four books, right up until I hit Book 3. After I wrapped Book 3, I went back and read – not edited, just read – the entire work-in-process, all three volumes. It struck me just how involved and intricate the story actually was, and moreover, I saw that there’s an entire back story that could be told.

In plotting this entire thing out with a friend of mine, I recently found myself at much the same point. At the time, I kept thinking, “I’ll just do the Origins from here” – but, just so happens that as I was basting together extraneous scenes at the very conclusion of Book 4, I realized that there was a lot more that I was leaving unanswered – which very well could carry to be Book 5. Which, as my friend aptly pointed out, still left a lot of room for me to develop what Origins will be, because in just those extra scenes, I added this, this and this.

And of course, she was right. The more I write, the more potential that I (and the characters) unwittingly create to continue the story.

At this point, I have the series mapped out tentatively to ten books. Maybe even twelve if I can manage it.

Again, the crux of it…marketing. I will admit – bad me! – that I’m not putting as much effort into it as I should be. A lot of non-book things (i.e. the Great Vehicle Hunt) are keeping me occupied. I’m also awaiting another book review from Self-Published Reviews blog and a few beta readers as well.

I’m also doing research insofar as getting reviewed in Publishers Weekly – it’s a long shot, considering I am a self-pub, but so far, Book 1 has been perceived well and the first beta reader for Book 2 cursed at me because I again left it with a cliffhanger. And believe me, the cussing at me because the story leaves a reader wanting more is a good thing. :)

Until next time…

K.G.

The Great Vehicle Hunt has begun.

I know, considering I’m in NY, you must think that I lost it in terms of acquiring a vehicle in the city where it’s completely not necessary. I assure you – it’s not for the city, but rather the escape thereof. My best and favorite thing is to get out of the city once in a while and some places, there’s just no way to get to via public transit.

*cough loudly* BERKS *cough*

No, really, getting to Reading, PA when you’re a nondriving New Yorker is a royal pain. Worth it for the lovely music and people, but I think it’s time to get with the program and get a set of wheels. And then hightail it to those festivals I keep missing…

There’s some other particulars to think about, and there’s a target budget to meet. The ETA of new vehicle will be end of the summer (so I hope, anyway), and I am horribly not picky with the car itself. This is what it absolutely must have as a requisite:

- Auto transmission (I can drive stick, but I am terrible at it, to say the least)

- Full safety (ABS, anti-theft, alarm, airbags all over)

- Tight brakes

And things that are unique to me:

- GPS (can acquire)

- iPod adapter (because my music is non-negotiable)

- Fog lights. I have amazing night vision, but in fog, I’m damn near useless.

Make, model – I’m open to possibilities, as long as it’s a coupe or sedan. While SUVs give me height and visibility, I find that maneuvering them is a bit of a royal pain. I got a kickin’ deal on a Hyundai Accent (new), but it falls outside my budget. I might get a good deal with a Chevy Cobalt, a clone of the lovely little car that I had up in PA this spring.

And, of course, I might be able to expense it. I do want to travel more and get some more designing/graphics/photography done. And, of course, inspiration, which always comes when I’m away from the everyday.

Until next time…

K.G.

You know, I have to hand it to the AbsoluteWrite.com forums; just when I think I’ve gone so far off-track that it might seem like I have no hope whatsoever, the people there give me all the motivation in the world. Thanks to a thread there, I now have my challenge: at least 500 words a day until Book 4 stands finished. No editing allowed. Sorry, Gayle, it will look like a nightmare for a while, but it will be done.

Currently, I’ve written 451 words. Total word count stands at 89,000 and change, and I’m getting slowly into the strategizing phase of the scene that I’ve been avoiding. It’s a slow pace but it’s working. At this point, though, it’s fair for me to say that the deadline for Book 4 is not going to be set. I originally marked it for my birthday, but that, quite obviously, was a dud. As it is, I’m simply going to take it day by day until I get the rough draft completed.

Naturally, that’s not going to be the only thing I’ll be working on. 500 words a day on Book 4 and other projects: graphic design, on which I’m a ways overdue, and the piece for Jonathan – and man, is that one late. But I’m not slacking on it; more or less just gathering my sources for now. I want this to be a well-done piece.

And of course, my day job. I will prove my raise was well-earned indeed.

Now, if only the damned clouds would lift…

What you may not have known about me is that I have a slight case of seasonals. I don’t get depressed, per se, when it’s cloudy or rainy, but damn, do I get sleepy or what? Normally, I read on the subway ride home. Or check out any new music I may’ve come across. I sure as hell do not slump over and get to napping. I can’t nap on the subway…except, well, the part where I clearly did.

Eh. It’ll clear up, I’m sure. Now, back to my writing mojo I get. I just broke my daily 500-word designation and there’s still stuff lingering to write outside of the book. Be on lookout for my age in jazz posting, whether here or elsewhere.

K.g.