Too many notes

Really thought I would be able to start recording parts for Uncharted Worlds today. First track is easy on the Mini-Hoo (even though I have to play it down a fourth because I can't tune the strings that high). After practicing it for a while at faster and faster tempos I decided to split the next track (guitar for this one -- the new ukulele would make it easier but I like the sound of the Yamaha steel string here). Of course there's a B part in this track which I'm still working on.

The bass and "bell" should be easy enough. The next track, though, turned out to be pitched above what I had available; it is above the fifteenth and last fret on my Soprano uke. The pitches are reachable on the violin A string, but pizz is too soft up there. Well, turns out col legno battuto does the trick (if your musical Italian is lacking, that means strike the string with the back of the bow).

And then there's another part I haven't even figured out what instrument to assign it to. So...between all that, and stringing up the new uke, and lingering head cold, and upstairs tenants practicing their Ceili (well, that's what it sounds like), nothing got recorded.

(Yeah, so it is sold as a tenor and shipped with nylon strings. Turns out to be a 17" scale length, which is correct for tenor, but the pack of Aquila Nylgut I got -- tenor, low G -- started snapping when I tried to bring them to pitch. I compromised by moving the highest string back one and putting the nylon back on, but that wasn't wonderful. So put the Aquilas back on and tuned to guitar top four, like my Vorson electric uke. The low G is a little unhappy all the way down at D but it is a wire-wound and can deal. And it was worth it...it is a lot louder now and has a wonderful tone.)

And I spent the weekend charting circles around the large thematic issues I identified in the novel. This is stuff the outline allowed me to skate around, as that was primarily concerned with story beats. So far in five thousand words of Socratic whatever I've managed only two lines in bold face.

I've been trying to determine what it is about a adventure archaeologist story that is attractive. I've identified possible elements but haven't quite defined them; if, say, large constructed but abandoned spaces (aka "tombs" in the parlance of Tomb Raider) are an element, can urban archaeology apply? It can have all the physical difficulties and dangers of traversal, the loneliness, markings of a previous culture to decipher, etc.

The main thing I figured out is that for various reasons (contract with the reader, the concept of the Big Early Concession), I have to be implicit that at least one entity that acts like Homer's Athena is active and can do things that are as yet unexplained. And this doesn't actually change the plot at all. I already had Penny's thoughts wandering in this direction while she's struggling to keep afloat in the Adriatic, and a specific late incident where people refer to a rousing speech she doesn't remember actually giving.

And, yes, what Athena actually is, how many of them there may be, what cultures they may be invested in (or not), is still up for grabs. In fact, I have a strong feeling that though I want to explore more of that mystery in a later book, actually nailing them down to specifics would end up being a disappointment. (In large part, because when a writer tries to do in the wizard by explaining that it was really all holograms and nanotechnology, they've really just replaced an unexplained with an inadequately explained. You might as well say, "it was all done with mirrors" for all that you've actually brought it back to the rational world.)