Dec 11: Saturday strikes again
It’s Saturday. I think it’s the third or fourth Saturday in a row that I haven’t played my guitar. At this point, I think I should simply declare Saturday to be my rest day and not even try to play!
Dec 12: Anniversary
Sixteen years ago, my husband and I decided to officially date. Best decision ever! Married for 12.5 years, two amazing children, six published books, one published game, a fantastic business, and more! Love you so much, husband of mine.
This year, we took a giant step into the next phase of our relationship; in the middle of a pandemic, while homeschooling one child and the other having free reign, we decided to try to write a book together. It ended up working really well. Not only did we finish the first one in 2.5 months, but we got it betaed and submitted to our publisher before June. It was accepted before the end of summer and will be coming out next Fall (2022). Talk about a whirlwind!
But that wasn’t all! We so enjoyed our world that we wrote a collection of short stories in the spring, and then we wrote book 2 this fall. It took us 2 months and a week this time.
This summer, we also decided to both start learning an instrument. I chose guitar and my husband chose ukulele. We also bought a cheap ukulele for the kids to try out and for me to play when the metal strings on my guitar hurt me too much to play.
All of this, and we’re still very happily married and excited to work together again. Not only do we have two sequels plotted (bare bones), but we have a spin-off that we’re going to start writing in the new year.
I feel so privileged to be able to be creative like this with my husband. He challenges me to try harder and be better every day.
I played my songs today. I tried using a pick for strumming. Not sure I like it. Feels weird.
Dec 13: Rhythms
I actually did a lot today in my practice time.
I played several songs from my learning app. I even got some gold stars on some songs!
I played my two songs, the wedding song several times. I tried it with the capo in different places, too, to see if I could find a range that didn’t strain my voice. I like both no capo and 3rd fret capo (what I had originally). I’ll try both for the next little while to see which one I end up preferring.
Then I pulled out my Christmas book with rhythms at the front and tried to play the rhythms.
Wow. That was hard. But I got them, eventually. I look forward to them becoming more natural to play.
Dec 14: Enthusiasm
I got a high score (against myself) for We Three Kings. I’m very proud of myself.
My daughter has started singing along with me for the wedding song when I play.
Singing = scream shouting, in her lexicon.
I love that she cares so much about my songs that she works at memorizing them.
Dec 15: Filk?
I played a bunch of songs from my learning app. I got high scores on one, and three stars on several. I feel like I succeeded better on We Three Kings compared to previous days.
After that, I played my songs several times, the second time at the behest of my daughter.
Which brings me to the title of this post. Are my songs filk, because they’re based on a book? Or are they just considered canon because I wrote them and they’re included in the book?
Dec 16: Change!
The learning app CHANGED We Three Kings! The notes are shorter than before, and they changed the placement for some of them. They’ve also changed where the sections are separated.
All since yesterday!
It’s actually a tiny bit easier now.
I played my songs once each. I really need to work on my rhythms. Maybe I’ll try to figure out how to write the rhythms down so that I don’t forget which one belongs with the verse and which with the chorus!
It’s a problem.