[stylist] CNF/blindness prompt (Aine)
Aine Kelly-Costello
ainekc at gmail.com
Sun Feb 3 18:43:35 UTC 2013
Hi Donna,
I've given it a bit of an edit now (and did end up changing that
sentence about silence I wasn't sure about). The only thing I'm
still not too certain on is that saying about the elephant so
I've left that part in tact for now. The editting I have done so
far (which really was only brief as I have a lot of stuff to get
through today) is attached. Thanks again for your help,
Aine
----- Original Message -----
From: "Donna Hill" <penatwork at epix.net
To: "'Writer's Division Mailing List'" <stylist at nfbnet.org
Date sent: Sat, 2 Feb 2013 18:14:53 -0500
Subject: Re: [stylist] CNF/blindness prompt (Aine)
Aine,
Now that I know you're from New Zealand and you haven't heard of
it, I'm
wondering if the elephant thing is an Americanism.
It also occured to me that you might have been writing for an
audience of
musicians. We tend to think other people know what we know. That
was why I
suggested more of an emphasis on the flute. I'm a musician, so I
know that a
strings teacher is working with folks who play violin, cello,
viola, bass,
but others who aren't familiar, even if they know on some level,
may be
confused.
I hope you will post this again when you're done editing -- not
sure about
you, but I'm never done editing. I simply can't read anything
I've written
without wanting to change this or that.
Donna
-----Original Message-----From: stylist
[mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org]
On Behalf Of Aine Kelly-Costello
Sent: Saturday, February 02, 2013 4:04 PM
To: Writer's Division Mailing List
Subject: Re: [stylist] CNF/blindness prompt (Aine)
Hi Donna,
Thank you very much for going through this in such detail, and
for your
other e-mail also. Incidentally, the double spaces between
sentences are
solely there because I didn't change my BrailleNote's default
braille to
text "translation option which puts them in automatically. But I
can easily
fix that with changing that setting (thanks for pointing that
out).
Yes you probably were writing your novel then; I don't remember
you posting
anything to the list when I joined.
I'm currently in Spain studying Translation. I have one more
week here
before I return to New Zealand which is where I live.
Sure, that's a good point about the flute. Maybe I need to put a
brief
sentence in about packing my bag then (seeing as what actually
comes to a
rehearsal besides my cane is my BrailleNote, hard-copy Music, my
flute or
piccolo (or both), a water bottle and probably a small snack).
Thankfully I
don't need to carry a music stand as well!
I do understand that those parts you mentioned like "Nor, I
doubted, was
rushing.", are not actual sentences. In the case of that one, I
agree (now
you point it out) that the clause alone doesn't work so well. I
suppose
what I wanted to do was juxtapose the too extremes. The
"doubted" was only
there as I vaguely thought maybe there'd be a fractionally higher
chance of
finding someone more quickly if I ran. But the sentence would
probably sit
better without it anyway. In the case of the next non-sentence
you
mentioned "Now, only silence." I wanted to just leave the key
words behind
as to demonstrate the effect of "silence" if you know what I mean
.. I
don't know what the "rules" per se of CNF writing are at all, but
I know I
have definitely seen sentences along the lines of that one in
fictive novels
aimed at children and young adults. I'll go through the piece
again though
and try to remove all the unnecessary non-sentences as I'd
definitely agree
there are too many.
Regarding needing "neither" to use "nor", in my opinion the piece
is
sufficiently "informal" (for want of a better word) that breaking
that rule
would be okay, but obviously I'm no grammar teacher or anything
so if you
don't think that's the case, please let me know and I'll change
it
To be honest I had absolutely know idea about the saying with the
elephant.
I might just change the animal in that case! And yes, I will
clarify that
those were my thoughts, directed at the teacher. I'm not sure
about that
passage either, but I think I'll tidy it up and leave it in for
now.
Regarding the 4-year-old blindy thing, yeah-you're right I didn't
make that
very clear. The case was in fact that this string teacher taught
primarily
young children so I will mention that somewhere in the previous
sentence.
I'll edit the piece tomorrow (going to bed now). Do you want to
see the
next draft once it's finished?
Thanks again for your comments, they are most helpful :)
Aine
----- Original Message -----
From: "Donna Hill" <penatwork at epix.net
To: "'Writer's Division Mailing List'" <stylist at nfbnet.org
Date sent: Sat, 2 Feb 2013 15:22:48 -0500
Subject: Re: [stylist] CNF/blindness prompt (Aine)
Hi Aine,
Thanks for sharing this; it is a very interesting look into the
life of a
young blind classical musician. I like the detail you put into
your problem
of finding the way out. I believe you came to the list while I
was away
working on my novel, and I haven't gleened much about you since
I've
returned. Most noteably, I don't know if you are still a student
and why you
are abroad -- that does sound nice though. I hope you will take
my comments
in the spirit in which they are given. There are a few things I
want to
point out.
I had no idea you were a floutist till you sit down next to your
fellow
floutist. Didn't you have the flute with you on your journey to
rehearsal?
You could pick up your cane and your flute. Otherwise, the flute
comes out
of nowhere, and I think the reader needs to think about you and
the flute
from the beginning. It would help later in the story when you're
venting
about the elephant description.
In this passage ...
Block quote
If you are me, and happen to possess the locating skills of a
chick who
hasn't quite learned that crashing into transparent solid objects
hurts,...
Block quote end
"If you are me" is incorrect grammatically. With "if" in these
hypothetical
situations which can't possibly exist, you use "were." If you are
interested
in a conversational tone, I'd fudge it with "If you're me."
Block quote
Anyway, delaying was not going to be the solution. Nor, I
doubted, was
rushing.
I grabbed my cane and casually wandered in the direction of the
exit. I
passed through the lounge, which, at any non-rehearsal time would
have
contained an almost suffocating mass of musicians magically
transformed into
sports fans, gamers and people like me wishing they could relax.
But right
now, only silence. Either someone was sitting in a corner
eyeballing their
smartphone and ignoring me, or the room was empty. I decided on
the latter
after a 30 second circuit, and passed into ...
Block quote end
First, I love the concept at the beginning that shows your
maturity in
realizing that neither delaying nor rushing were viable options.
It does
show up, however, a tendency that I noticed several times. You
have a
sentence that isn't a sentence. "Nor, I doubted, was rushing."
This is a
clause in which the predicate is assumed to correspond to that of
the
previous sentence, "was not going to be the solution." You could
add the
thought to the previous sentence --"and I doubted that rushing
would be."
or you could make a complete sentence. Also, the use of "nor"
without
initially using "neither" is something that they maintained was
incorrect
grammar when I was in school (many moons ago). If you want a
separate
sentence here, try something like "I also doubted that rushing
would help ."
There is something else in this that I find troubling. Your
first sentence
is a strong affirmation of your conviction that delaying was not
going to be
the solution. The use of "doubted" in the second sentence (or,
as part of an
additional phrase in the first one) feels like backpedaling on
this
affirmation a bit, taking away some of the strength of it. I
guess the
question is whether you are deliberately trying to differentiate
between the
level of certainty you felt about the two non-solutions. If you
had less
conviction about the value of rushing, then I would suggest a
strong second
sentence to that effect. If not, but you wanted to introduce the
concept of
doubting for other reasons, how about including it in the first
sentence?
Here is another nonsentence -- "But right now, only silence." You
could fix
this by inserting "there was." Also, I think you could sustain
the action by
putting the phrase "after a thirty second circuit" to the
beginning of its
sentence.,
Moving along, I am confused by the following:
Block quote
Just one slight problem with that, miss. I wonder whether you'd
take the
time to invent a new strategy if you were teaching someone
without sight.
Because your average four-year-old blindy, probably has zilch
conceptual
understanding of the layout of this monster's facial structure.
It's not
like your going to find one loose in the zoo and idly wander up
to it to
give it a hands on facial exam, is it.
Block quote end
I'm not sure why this passage is included. If it's just to vent
or show wit,
I think it could be made clearer. First, you go from talking to
the reader
to talking to the teacher (allbeit inside your own head) with no
transition.
You could say, "I wanted to say ..."
Also, the reference to any blind person's understanding of an
elephant
conjures up for many people the old saying about several blind
people
touching various sections of an elephant and coming up with
vastly different
understandings of what it was. That saying is born of the
world's prejudice
toward blind people, not leaving any room for any of us to have
already
figured out that we hadn't been examining the whole thing and
doing
something about it. Since the elephant thing was brought up by
the teacher,
using it may take more care than had they compared the finger
position to a
rino. Also, the passage threw me because it seems at first like
you were
talking about yourself as the blind person whom this teacher
might be trying
to explain finger position. Then, you introduce being four years
old. That
caused me to wonder if you meant fourteen.
If you aren't trying to make your reader work, you might add a
casual
reference in the preceding paragraph to your being a flute
player; you could
say something to the effect that being a flute player, you dozed
in and out
of the strings teacher's explanations ... But you managed to
hear ...
Anyway, those are my thoughts.
Donna
-----Original Message-----
From: stylist [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of
Aine
Kelly-Costello
Sent: Saturday, February 02, 2013 11:23 AM
To: stylist at nfbnet.org
Subject: [stylist] CNF/blindness prompt (Aine)
Hi everyone,
Sorry for my absence of late from the list. I only now bothered
to take the
5 minutes required to change my subscription address so that I
can send
e-mails to it (my other one decided that while I am overseas, I
can receive
e-mails but not send). I've thoroughly enjoyed reading all of
the CNF
blindness prompts and can of course relate to many of the
experiences. It's
nice being able to share them with each other. I've attempted a
prompt of
my own (below and attached). Feedback is most welcome :)
Also, if I ever wanted to try and get it published, does anyone
have any
suggestions of places I could submit it to, or any things that
would
definitely need improving on before it goes anywhere?
Thank you :)
Aine
A DAY IN THE LIFE
The end of one more jam-packed day of music-making was
approaching. It
had started off rather well, as I munched on the daily two pieces
of toast
with peanut butter and honey (my favourite), and partook in the
daily
morning chitchat. This naturally progressed to that
tooth-brushing,
hair-brushing and generally tidying up stage normally encountered
before the
day's first commitment. All was coming along just as it should
until I
realized I was the only person left in our accommodation
building. I should
also mention here that I'm totally blind.
Now, the isolation wouldn't be a problem if I had spent a large
amount of
time at this complex. However, I was in fact attending a short
summer
course based at one of the largest private schools in the city.
This, quite
frankly, is somewhere you do not want to get lost, not least
because
practically all of the buildings minus the one you want to enter
will be
locked for the holiday period. And there are A LOT of these
buildings.
Anyway, delaying was not going to be the solution. Nor, I
doubted, was
rushing. I grabbed my cane and casually wandered in the
direction of the
exit. I passed through the lounge, which, at any non-rehearsal
time would
have contained an almost suffocating mass of musicians magically
transformed
into sports fans, gamers and people like me wishing they could
relax. But
right now, only silence. Either someone was sitting in a corner
eyeballing
their smartphone and ignoring me, or the room was empty. I
decided on the
latter after a 30 second circuit, and passed into the entrance
way. More
silence. That sort of eerie, echoey air of solitude which has
you know in
know uncertain terms you are the only sole alive in the vicinity.
There arose a further difficulty here, though. I had always
left the
building with the throng up until now, and typically hadn't paid
the
slightest scrap of attention as to where exactly I was going. So
once in
this glaringly bright glass dome of an entranceway, it was
necessary to
uncover the mystery as to which of these identical-looking pieces
of glass
was in fact a closed door. If you are me, and happen to possess
the
locating skills of a chick who hasn't quite learned that crashing
into
transparent solid objects hurts, this is an extremely
time-consuming job.
If there was a security camera right there and someone was
watching it, I'm
sure they would let you know my sanity was highly questionable.
On my fifth
circuit of the entrance way, I thankfully managed to locate a
functioning
door, and stepped out into the humidity. Just as I was making up
my mind as
to which direction I would tackle first, I heard the most
beautiful sound in
the world. Plod, plod, plod ...
"Excuse me!" I cried. My saviour was still too far away to
hear my plea.
"Excuse me!" I cleared my throat and tried again.
This time, I got a response. Not only a response, but a willing
guide to
the rehearsal. Tardy students sure have their uses.
An orchestral rehearsal is not somewhere where turning up late
is taken
lightly, though. Especially not when you have to traverse the
maze of not
only music stands and instruments, but also chairs with humans on
them-humans with appendices sticking out in all directions
supporting their
fifteen thousand-dollar babies. When I finally took my seat
beside my
co-principal flautist, I almost relaxed. Maybe we hadn't
rehearsed this
piece before, and maybe I wasn't quite sure of all my cues (it
was a world
premiere-so recordings were non-existent), but at least there
were two of us
on my part. If the sound energy emanating from my flute and the
score
sitting on my lap had a disagreement, it probably wouldn't be too
obvious.
Said security evaporated as quickly as it had arrived, however,
when my
partner suddenly, mysteriously was felt ill, promptly vacated his
chair and
melted into the back recesses of the cathedral. The orchestra
never
stopped. We had just gone back to the beginning, and I had been
blending in
rather nicely with my fellow wind players. However, this
particular piece
had a very relaxed beat. So relaxed, in fact, that counting bars
of rest
turned from a mathematical chore into a guessing game. I had
barely played
two notes of a flute solo succeeding a 14 bar rest when I
realized the
orchestra was being stopped. "Flute, one bar too early." (Why
did it have
to be me? Everyone had already stared at me when I walked in
late). "Sorry,
sir," I mumbled, while my face dutifully aimed to break a redness
record.
"Oh, don't worry, I see we have no first flute." Huh? It took me
a second to
realize he must have thought I was a second player, sight-reading
the unwell
first boy's music, never mind that my eyes didn't work. I was
rather
relieved at his forgetfulness but still felt slightly ashamed.
I was pleased when lunch time eventually arrived. The world is
a much
less stressful place when you are sitting around a table with
friends - and
food, of course. The respite was not allowed to last long,
however. A ream
of chamber music for this evening's rehearsal was awaiting
memorization, and
if I didn't do it now, then it would be sort of like a class
trying to tell
the story of cinderella without mentioning the ugly sisters. I
can think of
easier tasks.
After a dutiful stab at the memorization, it was time for a
workshop on
Music pedagogy. This, apart from the stuffiness which tends to
send one to
sleep (and actually caused one poor girl to almost faint), passed
without
any great event.
Sometimes, normalcy is the best. I did however manage to note,
despite my
semi-asleep state, that the suggestion the string teacher offered
for
teaching bow-holding involved something about positioning the
hand in such a
way that the fingers represent parts of an elephant - his trunk
and ears, if
I recall correctly.
Just one slight problem with that, miss. I wonder whether you'd
take the
time to invent a new strategy if you were teaching someone
without sight.
Because your average four-year-old blindy, probably has zilch
conceptual
understanding of the layout of this monster's facial structure.
It's not
like your going to find one loose in the zoo and idly wander up
to it to
give it a hands on facial exam, is it.
Our mid-afternoon snack was more short-lived than expected,
interrupted by
an announcement that we were not, in fact, really supposed to
have had a
break at all and should currently be in the court-yard, listening
to some
philharmonia players tell us their life stories. Okay, it wasn't
that bad.
I actually found it quite interesting, as, just like all the
other students
there, I longed to experience the thrill of belonging to an
orchestra like
that one day. But the downside was that 15 minutes into the
hour, I had a
strong urge to go to the bathroom. There was no getting out of
there,
though. You would have had to be incredibly crafty to pull it
off if you
happened to be sitting at the back and sighted. So what were my
chances, in
the middle of the crossed-legged mass on the floor, and blind.
The hour of bladderly torture ended eventually, to be replaced
with the
aforementioned evening chamber rehearsal. I genuinely enjoyed
the first 20
minutes. We were going over a movement we'd started work on
yesterday, a
quirky, not altogether predictable tune that none the less had a
sort of
charm to it. Then we came to one of the movement's I'd learnt
two hours
ago. If you are one of the few who are blind and also have the
misfortune
of being required to memorize large quantities of music on a
regular basis,
you will know that rehearsing something newly memorized before
you have the
chance to sleep on it is extremely dangerous.
But if you are sighted, and a highly-esteemed professional
clarinetist, the
fact that the late handing out of the chamber music might cause
the blindy
problems may well have never occurred to you. Such was the case
now. Those
momentary pauses where I had to stop to recall my part were
consistently
enough to mess up our trio, and send us back to the beginning of
the
section. And our coach, nice as he was, was in no mood to
appreciate that
my lack of rhythmic correctness had nothing to do with a lack of
effort. It
in fact had everything to do with being overworked, and, quite
frankly,
rather fed up.
I really put my foot in it when we went on to what what had to
be the
simplest movement of all. My part went "da-da-daaaaah,
dee-dee-deeeee" 11
times. Then 3 bars of dah, dah, dah, dah, dah , dah ... Before
ending once
more with it's repetitive refrain.
Now, for the choice of a piece of music needing to be memorized
and
rehearsed there and then, that had to be a dream come true.
But to my dismay, I soon discovered I seemed to have newly
acquired a mental
condition in which my brain couldn't quite manage to distinguish
between the
numbers 8 and 9. Of course the harder it tried, the more it
switched off.
Obviously counting to eleven, was out of the question. I'm
normally a top
math student, and I could count well past eleven at the age of
two, so I
knew explaining my current ineptitude to my coach and fellow
players was a
lost cause. By this point, I was also faint from the lack of
food. All I
wanted to do was curl up in a nice me-shaped hole, and hibernate.
Over dinner, my mood improved fractionally (the knowledge that
you no
longer feel like keeling over tends to have a positive effect on
general
well-being), but I still couldn't wait to be alone in my room.
No such luck
yet, however. One practice remained, and that was Sight-Reading.
It's all
in the name, really. But whoever said blind people can't
sight-read and
play an instrument with two hands at the same time!
This was our third sight-reading practice on the course, and by
now, I had
my technique down pat. First, what you did was you insisted they
tell you
the names of the ten odd pieces beforehand. You went on to
youtube and
listened to them all on several consecutive days. By this time,
according
to my tried and tested theory, some of there notes would have
subconsciously
seeped into your brain sells.
This day, we unfortunately ended up beginning with something
you weren't
going to find on youtube, seeing as the composer in question was
also the
conductor and had only put the final touches on the score that
morning.
Well, that was when stage two of my theory went into practice:
* Ask adjacent player for the starting number of bars rest and
first note,
before beginning
* Pay attention to when they put their flute up (usually given
away by a
sticky key or shirt-sleeve rustle) and copy
* Use perfect pitch to finger along as they play, 0.1 seconds
behind them
* Be brave enough to play in repetitive parts, but always with
great
caution.
(A dodgy plan perhaps, but to this day, it has never failed).
Near the end of the practice, during Beethoven's Pastoral
Symphony, I was
happy to have the chance to put into practice both stages of my
secret
method. I found it a nice catchy tune, and I'd done the
youtubing homework.
We were going along very nicely. I was even able to play several
forte bits
at volume, and enjoy listening to the orchestra delight in the
myriad of
tone colours the music evoked. The melody was being passed from
the violin,
to the oboe, to the clarinet, to the cello, and I was pretty sure
our turn
came next. Up went my flute. But at the moment of truth, my
fellow first
flautist did nothing. Okay, I don't know if he did nothing,
exactly, but
what he definitely did not do was play. I turned to him with a
question-mark on my face, hoping he'd get the message. He did,
in fact, but
not in time. Never mind, there would be plenty more
opportunities to play
that soaring line in such a famous piece.
I was actually enjoying myself so much that when the time came
to pack up,
I was sorry. The adrenaline must have kicked in by then. I
laughed and
deplored over the oh-so-strenuous life of a high-school musician
with my
friends. It didn't matter any more that I turned up to the
morning
rehearsal late or had to take time from lunch to memorize or that
I almost
cried at the chamber rehearsal.
"You know that entry in the Pastoral," my co-principal flute
buddy was
laughing with his best friend. "She knew where it was and I
missed it!"
In the momentary gap between dreamland and my head hitting the
pillow,
there was just enough time to reflect that maybe being a blind
kid in a
sighted world of musos wasn't so bad after all.
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