Your Daily Dose of Christmas

Baroque composer Arcangelo Corelli wrote this wonderful concerto grosso and inscribed it: “Made for the Night of Christmas. It’s not known exactly when he wrote it; it survives because of its publication in a posthumous collection of all of Corelli’s concerti grossi. In a concerto grosso, the music alternates between being performed by a group of soloists within a larger ensemble and by the entire ensemble itself. At this point in music history the concerto had not yet developed into a showpiece for soloist with orchestra.

There are no familiar Christmas tunes here, but I always find that the intimate sound of various chamber ensembles lends itself to the more peaceful and contemplative aspects of Christmas.

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AHHHHHHH!!!


AHHHHHHHH!!! #amwriting #writersofinstagram #writerinoveralls #NaNoWriMo

Late last night, I dragged myself, weary and bloodied, across the NaNoWriMo finish line.

Well, not bloodied, but I was quite tired when I got there…especially since at one point Scrivener had my word count at 50,200 but when I plugged my text into NaNo’s validator, it came back with a result of 49,850. So I had to stay up a bit and do a little extra work to get myself over that line. I could have just done it today, but when I’m that close, I just want to kick it into gear and get it done.

So after three consecutive years of falling short during NaNoWriMo, I’ve resumed winning. Huzzah!!!

What now? Well, I only have about 46,000 words of a book that I’m targeting for around 200,000, so there’s a lot more writing ahead. (Yes, you read that right–46,000 words. Part of my NaNo total is roughly 4500 words of a scene that I eventually realized needed to be scrapped, but for the purposes of NaNoWriMo I never delete scrapped material, I just relocate it because it’s still work I did. I mean, a movie’s deleted scenes still got filmed, so that’s still work that got done.)

I am looking forward to backing off the pedal a bit in terms of writing. Cranking 1700 words a day tends to be my upward limit before my brain starts getting all jangly, and to get that much writing done I have to reduce my reading, which never makes me feel good. I find that when I enter a reading slump, a writing slump inevitably follows because the reading is what fuels the writing. I’ve been reading, but not as much as I would like and I’m happy to get some of that time back.

I’m also hoping to get back to things like updating blogs…but for now, as always….

Because in my head I'm still twelve. #AmWriting #overalls

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AHHHHHHH

AHHHHHHHH!!! #amwriting #writersofinstagram #writerinoveralls #NaNoWriMo

Late last night, I dragged myself, weary and bloodied, across the NaNoWriMo finish line.

Well, not bloodied, but I was quite tired when I got there…especially since at one point Scrivener had my word count at 50,200 but when I plugged my text into NaNo’s validator, it came back with a result of 49,850. So I had to stay up a bit and do a little extra work to get myself over that line. I could have just done it today, but when I’m that close, I just want to kick it into gear and get it done.

So after three consecutive years of falling short during NaNoWriMo, I’ve resumed winning. Huzzah!!!

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Thankfulness 2017

I remember it being very difficult to summon up true thankfulness a year ago as it seemed as if a darkness was settling over everything. And it has, to be honest–but it’s not an all-encompassing darkness. There have been encouraging signs, though. People are showing up with lanterns to fight the darkness. After all….


Here’s a list of things for which I am thankful this year:

Carla, the new dee-oh-gee
Cane, the not-as-new dee-oh-gee
Lester and Julio, the really-not-new cats
Rum
Bourbon
Scotch
Gin
Sparkling wine
Paula’s Donuts
Ithaca, NY
Autumn Leaves Books
The Rochester Lilac Festival
Knowing where a bunch of gluten-free restaurants are between here and the Finger Lakes
The Finger Lakes
Letchworth State Park
Taughannock Falls
The Ontario County Antique Mall
Fountain pens
Fountain pen ink
Making waffles
Popcorn with butter
Kettlecorn
Corn dogs
Chiavetta’s chicken barbecue
The Erie County Fair
Hot dogs at Taffy’s
Hot dogs at Ted’s
Hot dogs at home, on the grill
Star Wars
Casablanca
Hayao Miyazaki and the rest of Studio Ghibli
The Scarlet Pimpernel
88 Cups of Tea (podcast)
Functional Nerds (podcast)
Sword and Laser (podcast)
Our backyard firepit
All my various methods of making coffee (pourover, French press, Moka pot)
Mississippi Roast
The Instant Pot (which I still don’t even use as much as I should)
Art and craft shows where I can buy gifts right from the person that made them
Picking out jewelry for The Wife
The Great Lakes region
Pittsburgh, PA (honorary Great Lakes city in my heart)
New York City
The two friends of mine who are finding a lot of new purpose in their lives of late
Chestnut Ridge Park
Sprague Brook Park
Emery Park
Canalside and the Outer Harbor
Knox Farm State Park
The Mill Road Overlook in East Aurora
Roads: US 20A, NY 240, NY 39, Girdle Road, Two Rod Road
Fried chicken
Chicken and waffles
Hot sauce
John Oliver and Last Week Tonight
The Resistance
Hector Berlioz
Sergei Rachmaninov
Alexander Borodin
JS Bach
Ludwig von Beethoven
John Williams
Jerry Goldsmith
Max Steiner
Erich Wolfgang Korngold
Howard Shore
James Horner
All the new authors on my shelf whose works I an thrilled to read
The emergence of so many authors of color and the opportunity to read them and learn from their experiences and perspectives
Goodreads
Twitter (the parts without Nazis)
Harry Potter
My Fair Lady
The Chilling Killing Wind
The Song of Forgotten Stars
Princesses Tariana and Margeth Osono
Lieutenant Penda Rasharri
The characters you haven’t met yet
The characters I haven’t met yet
The days when the writing is easy
The days when the writing is hard
Pies on the table
Pies in my face
Well-worn bib overalls
Stiff raw-denim bib overalls
Vintage bib overalls
The Daughter
The Wife
The world
Our universe

That’s not so bad, is it?

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

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The official site of Kelly Sedinger: Reader, writer, photographer, and dreamer

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