Music and Silence

So my direction falters yet again as to what I want to say in this blog.  Sometimes time passes too slowly, and sometimes it passes too quickly, but it is always passing.  The stillness of time is only a poetic image to contemplate.

Not to say stillness is nonexistent.  It is.  There is silence and stillness.  In my most chronologically recent novel (the one I wrote this last semester of college), there is a silence so tangible it permeates throughout the entire book almost as a character itself.

I guess there is something to say of that in world-building.  Pacing.  The passing of time.  It's one I have to admit I struggle with.  How many words should I spend to pass the time of the narrative?  Should I spring you forward with a word or fill the space of a moment with half a dozen chapters?  Well, the first is a totally legitimate thing if nothing happens in that time that is important to the telling of the story, but if you're going to stretch time so thin as to make a breath last several chapters, you should probably be writing poetry, or a novel just about that breath.

I can see it being done fantastically, to be honest, but it would take a brilliance you shouldn't just assume you have.

Silence is a motif I find myself writing into a lot of my writing.  One way I could look at this is by noting that my wife has at times compared me to a sea, which sometimes roils and sometimes rocks with waves, and sometimes it is very still, down to the core.

Since writing is among many things a reflection of the writer, I think it honest that I often write the silences into my work.  And who knows, maybe it's leftovers from my musical training.  Sure, you don't play on the rests, but their presence in a piece is as essential as the placement of the notes.

Music is something I don't often address in my writing.  It can be a daunting task to approach the sundry world of music, especially in today's age when so many people have vastly different opinions as to what constitutes music, let alone good music.  But it's also a very strange thing that I don't often broach music, because it's such an integral part of my life.

In Hearthstead (yes, I will keep coming back to this world) the primary people group of the story have little to no music.  Other groups, ancient groups before the dragonwaste, have music ingrained deeply into their culture, but the stubborn survivors in the blasted lands don't sing or play music.

However, there's a character who might introduce these back into their lives.

My wife would love for me to get started on a sequel to Ashes of Silver as soon as possible, but as I said a while ago I've got Talas Ke to be concerned with.  Maybe once that's done (whenever that is) I'll get back to prosaic forms of Hearthstead.  For now, though, I'm going to continue to encourage people to get and read my book, and tell their friends.  Also, job searching.

And I managed to get myself standing in another wedding.  I like weddings.  Especially friends' weddings.  So I'm excited.

All right, I don't have anything else to say.  Good night!