My exciting week of doing stuff!
*collapses into tired heap* Phew! Well, that was a busy week. Here's why I've been largely absent from lj for the last several days, and why I haven't responded to any comments since about Tuesday. I'm not deliberately ignoring you all, honest!
Wednesday was Writers' Club, and the usual committee meeting type shenanigans there, followed by the manuscript night where people read their work out and get con-crit. I haven't taken anything to read for ages, because I refuse to read fanfic out (apart from anything else, it would take too long to explain to people what fanfic is, and why I can't send it off anywhere to get published!).
Thursday we went out straight after work for a very nice meal at an Indian restaurant for a work colleague who left on Friday. I'm a bit of a wuss on the subject of Indian food, so I played it safe and had a korma, but it was very tasty, and pretty much the entire department went, which was nice. Although there may have been a lingering scent of garlic in the office the following day after the excessive amounts of garlic nann that were consumed by everyone! I had originally thought I wouldn't be home too late, and that I could squeeze in some lj time and maybe a bit of writing later in the evening. Unfortunately, I'd forgotten how long they take to serve you at that particular restaurant, and it was gone 9.00 by the time I got home. So I just posted an emergency mansfieldfans Thursday picture and went to bed.
Friday was the biggie. Friday was the day when I realised something that has been a life ambition for ages. For as long as I can remember, Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture has been my absolute favourite piece of classical music (my mum exposed me to a lot of classical music from a young age), but I'd always wanted to hear it performed live by a proper orchestra rather than just a recording on a CD. On Friday the Halle Orchestra were performing the 1812, and a few other pieces, at Nottingham Theatre Royal Concert Hall, and I've had tickets for it since last year because I was so determined to go.
Well, it was absolutely brilliant. I loved it. The performance was perfect, and I managed to make it to the Concert Hall in time for the pre-concert talk as well, which was interesting. The 1812 was the climax of the night, they were also performing a couple of pieces by Borodin, and another Tchaikovsky first. I enjoyed the two Borodins, but discovered that despite the fact that Tchaikovsky is probably my favourite classical composer, not even he can make me like piano solos. The other one of his they did featured a ridiculously long piano solo in the middle of it, and I was just bored. I wanted it to be over so the rest of the orchestra could get involved again. But apart from that it was a brilliant night.
Then, today, I was back in Nottingham for an all day workshop organised by Writers' Club on Writing Romantic Fiction, led by the Mills and Boon author Kate Walker. It was really interesting, and I enjoyed it a lot (and, remarkably, managed to *not* fall asleep in the middle of it after my ridiculous week of late nights and non-stop stuff!). I did learn quite a bit, although a lot of it was stuff I'd already come across in other how-to type books (particularly that book on how to write M/M fiction that I got for Christmas). But it was a great day, and everyone seemed to enjoy it, and we got loads of useful handouts, and a free M&B book!
And now I think I'm going to collapse for the rest of the evening and maybe catch up on a bit of tv for a few hours. Then I need to be getting on with the editing of the Writers' Club magazine, which needs to go to press this week, and I haven't even started it yet!