#second drafting is maddening because i DID already write and finish this before. but it was bad. and now it's good

[blue-hi]

why does writing take time i want it to be Done. i want to read it and i want to beam it into my friends’ heads

[useyourrwords]

2019 Ahead // It’s Twentybiteen, You Ready?

I’m back! Again!

Your fave chaotic disaster queer took time off once again to get her shit together! Did I???? Kinda???

I’m glad I took the time off, I needed that time and space to sort out and find balance in my life and did I???? Kinda???

So now I’m back! There are going to be a few changes! But I’ll go through that a little later in this post.

2018 was fucking hard man. It was maybe the worst year of my life so far which is not an easy feat, let me tell you!

I’m glad it’s over, I’m thankful for the lessons it gave me but more than anything I’m grateful for the foundation in providing for the next chapter of my life.

2019 so far has been just getting through the delayed effects of the last part of 2018 honestly. But I’m hopeful it’ll only get better from here.

         TBR

So what are the books I plan to read this year?? Honestly too many but here are the books I definitely want to get to in 2019.

I was going to talk about my anticipated releases BUT literally, everyone has done that so it’s not like I’d be sharing new information with anyone. No shade! Y’all those lists are amazing and I love them because I am always behind on what is coming out. Those posts just aren’t for me personally to write. But mostly it’s because this year I am focusing on books I actually own and neglected all of last year while I was busy having a love affair with my library.

│The Raven Cycle│Maggie Stiefvater│

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I read the first book in 2017 and then my mum bought me the whole series for my birthday in 2018 and do you think I’ve read them yet??? Of course not! So I want to this year for sure!

│Shadow and Bone Series│Leigh Bardugo│

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I loved the Six of Crows duology and now that the Grishaverse is getting a Netflix series I have to read the first series! Undoubtedly I will probably reread the Six of Crows duology after.

│The Conqueror’s Saga│Kiersten White│

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I loved the first book in this series and I’ve bought the other two books as soon as they came out but did I read them??? No.

│Montague Siblings│Mackenzi Lee│

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I really enjoyed the first book in this series even though I was in a major reading slump and it heavily dampened my experience but I still enjoyed it so I’m looking to rereading it and then following it with the last book!

│Villains│VE Schwab│

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I loved the first book and I can’t wait for the second one to come out. I ordered it in December but I entered my address wrong so I ended up going to my neighbour’s house to ask if they had it and they did!!!! Thank god for that!

I think I’ll wait to read them until I can get the paperbacks though since I like to annotate but not in my special editions.

│The Dark Artifices│Cassandra Clare│

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I loved the first book so much and I meant to read Lord of Shadows asap but then didn’t??? Now I’m just waiting for the last book to come out in the small paperback so I can read the series start to finish.

│Harry Potter Series│JK Rowling│

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│ I’m not putting LGBT rep because it’s not actually in the book and JK’s intentions don’t seem genuine to me.

The first time I read this series was 2011. And I didn’t finish it. So I’m gonna try again and watch the movies as I go to compare as well! And every time JK does some dumbass shit I am thankful I bought my copies secondhand.

│Sharp Objects│Gillian Flynn│

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I fucking loved the TV series, it was so intense! I’m looking forward to reading the book!

│Sadie│Courtney Summers│

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I’ve heard such good things and I need to read it but there’s a huge wait at the library and they do not have enough copies across the state library network so I might just end up buying it??

│Sawkill Girls│Claire Legrand│

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I’m planning on reading this one this month if I can get a hold of it from the library!

│The Hate U Give│Angie Thomas│

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I neeeeeed to read this one pronto!!!!

│Rejected Princesses│Jason Porath│

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│Bygone badass Broads│Mackenzi Lee│

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So I decided on my new Structured TBR each month (More info in my Month Ahead post!) I’m going to read a certain amount of entries in these each month over the year.

│Simon Vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda│Creekwood Series│Becky Albertelli│

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I need to read the book for my fave romcom guys, I just have to.

│Children of Blood & Bone│Legacy of Orïsha #1│Tomi Adeyemi│

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I literally bought this the day it came out and so, of course, I haven’t read it yet.

│City of Ghosts│Cassidy Blake #1│Victoria Schwab│

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I have to read it, it’s a Schwab book. But I am pumped for it!!!

│Percy Jackson and the Olympians│Rick Riordan│

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A childhood classic I never fucking read as a child. Also, I now own almost all or Riordan’s books because they were super cheap secondhand and so I have to read them.

Past Grey Reads

 Book Review // Girl Made of Stars – I Am Broken

 Book Review // Everything Leads To You – A Quite Love Story

 Book Review // The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo – What Do You Mean She’s Not a Real Person???

        TBW

Basically here’s a bunch of movies and seasons released this year that I want to watch!

│The Hate U Give│

│Jan 31│

George Tillman Jr.│

Amandla Stenberg, Regina Hall, Russell Hornsby│

Australia sucks so this only just came out here but I am ready.

│On The Basis of Sex│

│Feb 7│

Mimi Leder│

Felicity Jones, Armie Hammer, Justin Theroux│

Looks like a good feminist film!

│Captain Marvel│

│Mar 7│

Anna Boden, Ryan Fleck│

Brie Larson, Gemma Chan, Samuel L. Jackson│

What is this??? The first solo Marvel film for a female Avenger??? I have been waiting!

│Avengers: Endgame│

│Apr 24│

Anthony Russo, Joe Russo│

Brie Larson, Bradley Cooper, Karen Gillan│

I am not ready. Not even a little bit. I’m just glad it’s confirmed that our lil spidey survives somehow.

│Detective Pikachu│

│May 9│

 Rob Letterman│

Suki Waterhouse, Ryan Reynolds, Kathryn Newton│

When I first saw the trailer I legit thought it was a very cleverly put together fan trailer and died when I realised it was real.

│Aladdin│

│May 23│

Guy Ritchie│

Will Smith, Billy Magnussen, Naomi Scott│

I am so excited, it’s gonna be so magical!

│Rocketman│

│May 30│

Dexter Fletcher│

Richard Madden, Bryce Dallas Howard, Taron Egerton│

I never knew I needed it but then I heard of it and then I watched the trailer and now I’m already a fan.

│Men in Black: International│

│Jun 13│

F. Gary Gray│

Rebecca Ferguson, Chris Hemsworth, Tessa Thompson│

This movie is for the bisexuals.

│Spider-Man: Far From Home│

│Jul 4│

Jon Watts│

Zendaya, Jake Gyllenhaal, Cobie Smulders│

Okay blogging secret, when it comes to the directors, creators and stars of this segment I always just copy and paste from IMDB because I’m lazy and can we just appreciate the fact that Tom Holland—the literal star of the movie, the person who plays the main character—isn’t even listed at the top as part of the top stars.

Also, I’m very excited to watch this. Tom and Zendaya are my children and they must be protected at all costs.

│It: Chapter 2│

│Sep 5│

Andy Muschietti│

James McAvoy, Jessica Chastain, Bill Skarsgård│

I’m ready for adult loser club thanks.

│Star Wars: Episode IX│

│Dec 19│

J.J. Abrams│

Keri Russell, Adam Driver, Richard E. Grant│

I’m always happy with a new Star Wars film.

│To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before 2│

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Susan Johnson│

 Lana Condor, Noah Centineo│

YES YES YES YES YES.

│Brooklyn Nine-Nine│Season 6│

│Jan 10│

Daniel J. Goor, Michael Schur│

 Andre Braugher, Andy Samberg, Stephanie Beatriz│

I’m so glad NBC saved this!!!!

│One Day At A Time│Season 3│

│Feb 8│

Gloria Calderon Kellett, Mike Royce│

Justina Machado, Todd Grinnell, Isabella Gomez│

This is probably mine and mum’s fave sitcom that makes us piss ourselves laughing but also makes us sob.

│Game of Thrones│Season 8│

│Apr 14│

David Benioff, D.B. Weiss│

Emilia Clarke, Peter Dinklage, Kit Harington│

I won’t make it to the end of 2019, not because of depression

 but because I’m going to die while watching this, I know it.

│Stranger Things│Season 3│

│Jul 4│

Matt Duffer, Ross Duffer│

Millie Bobby Brown, Finn Wolfhard, Winona Ryder│

I just want the gang together and happy.

│Mindhunter│Season 2│

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Joe Penhall│

Jonathan Groff, Holt McCallany, Anna Torv│

I gotta watch it and live text my thoughts to my aunt who is hugely into true crime (so much so that she is studying criminology). Because I’m hilarious and also I know she’ll appreciate it and also I no longer have a best friend to do this shit with.

│Big little Lies│Season 2│

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David E. Kelley│

 Reese Witherspoon, Nicole Kidman, Shailene Woodley│

Big Little Lies rocked my world and made me realise I actually like thrillers.

│RuPaul’s Drag Race UK│Season 1│

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I’m just excited to see what a season would look like that isn’t hosted and judged by RuPaul.

Past Grey Watches

 Grey Watches // I Wanna Bone Jude Law and Kate Winslet – The Holiday

 Grey Watches // It Has To Be A Shit Show – A Christmas Prince: The Royal Wedding

 Grey Watches // I Hate It So Much I Love It – A Christmas Prince

Yes I know I said I wouldn’t change the appearance of my blog while I was gone but we all know I’m a dirty liar.

Besides, it’s only some small tweaks here and there and I won’t be going back through my past posts to edit everything to match. A year of posts is too many. I promised myself and my mum I wouldn’t do it again.

This year I’m going to be posting less! Like half the amount I did last year.

Last year I eventually got to a schedule of four posts a week and this year I will be doing two.

I’m doing this for a couple of reasons.

I exercise and eat healthy now and it turns out those two things take up so much time.

I wanna start actually dedicating time to working on my new WIP and maybe have a draft by the end of the year????

I’m planning on doing more Grey Watches post this year, and my book review posts will now be called Grey Reads and I might try and do more discussion posts called Grey Speaks and maybe WIP writing updates in Grey Writes??? It’s all about that branding.

But who knows what I’ll do, honestly I don’t even know myself! I’m terrible with follow through but we’ll see!

My Ancient Archive posts will be moved to once every two months as well because those posts take ages and as much as I love them I just don’t have that kind of time. And they’ll also get a rename—Grey Learns

I was also going to start requesting physical ARCs from publishers but ahhhh turns out I don’t actually enjoy writing reviews??? And there’s always the risk that I’m not gonna like it and I’ll feel obligated to finish it and I don’t have time for that either so I’m not doing that, I’ll be requesting far, far less from Netgalley.

I’ll be posting book reviews roughly once or twice a month, instead of once a week. I’ll still be writing reviews for all the books I read but they’ll be a lot shorter and I’ll mostly just post them on my Goodreads.

If you notice I am reading a book you wanna see a review of over on here, let me know and I’ll be sure to post it!

Past Month In Review

 Month in Review // Christmas is Over Thank Fuck – December

 Month in Review // November – I Already Hate Christmas

 Month in Review // July, August, September & October – New Post Series!

Goals

 Get to a point where I walk 10000 steps a day.

On the reg, like every day for the most part. At the moment I just have my step goal as 8000 a day because small steps literally.

But I hit my first 10000 steps on the 16th of last month so that was very exciting for me especially since it was on the day I don’t go for a walk and proved why that is my day off because it’s my shopping day so I’m clearly walking plenty, to begin with!

 Find a way to be more financially stable somehow.

Whether that be by a full-time job or maybe work out a way to get paid for doing what I love??

I don’t know. I’m trying to be more open to different paths to get to a place I want to be.

Also, it seems like I may be forced into this sooner rather than later thanks to things out of my control so that’s exciting but also terrifying because ANXIETY.

 Finish a draft for my WIP.

Have I started writing it yet? Absolutely not but I’m gonna try!

And I’m very excited about the concept. Think queer banshees and witches and strong women and girls supporting each other. That’s the plan.

 Read 50 books.

I read 100 last year and 130 the year before that but with focusing on writing and my health I feel that trying to keep reading that many books is just going to stress me out so I’m not doing it!

Also, I’m already struggling to get through a book a week right now and I need to if I have any hope of just reading 50.

 Legally change my name FINALLY!

And guess what guys that one is very close to being complete!

I’ve submitted to the paperwork and now it’s just the waiting for it to get approved and then I can pick up my new birth certificate!

I’ve been waiting for this moment for years so I’m very excited!

 Continue going to therapy.

I’m in a much better mental space than I was last year but I still need therapy. Especially since last year was basically just me venting about how fucked up my family is and this year is about me so I want to use my therapy to focus on my shit, get official diagnoses and maybe testing out medication???

Also find a better way to deal with my paranoia because guys, it’s been especially rough lately.

 Take regular mental health days

This is much needed!!!!!

And by mental health days I mean spend one whole day doing nothing but maybe watching Netflix and reading and crying if I need to.

My mum and I don’t really stop and so we get hit with emotions at really inconvenient times so I’m hoping that if we schedule a day where we can allow ourselves to be emotional then it might help?

I want to aim for once a month but we’ll see.

 Play more video games.

Because they’re fun and I like them and I keep telling myself I don’t have time because it’s not important but fuck important, sometimes you just gotta do shit because it’s fun and pointless.

Past Month Ahead

 Month Ahead // Happy Birthday To Me + Hiatus Announcement – January

 Month Ahead // December – I Already Hate It

 Month Ahead // November – New Post Series

2019 is all about growth and glow ups guys, I can feel it.

What are you doing this year? What are you reading? What are your goals?

│Blog│Goodreads│Instagram│Twitter│Tumblr│

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[chordiacarrest]

One Big Band Process

Last Friday, at our Presentation of Learning, I detailed some of the process of creating this project. I couldn’t get in all the details, however, so I wanted to make this post as both, somewhat of a guide for anyone thinking of taking on this sort of task, as well as just a general routine of my process for anyone interested! Be warned, long post ahead!

Choosing this task:

I chose to do this as my project, partly because it was a community I wanted to engage with anyway, and partly because I personally have been struggling with the whole “virtual choir” thing over this strange semester.

The song, One Big Bed, was originally written for the podcast Not Another D&D Podcast, and played in the show’s finale, featuring a chorus of the show’s performers all joining in in the chorus. I was immediately struck with the desire to make a community cover happened, found someone else in the Discord chat to work with (Sarah, who helped me with a lot of the organisation of the piece, organising Google Sheets and boosting the message more), and set to work.

For those interested, Sarah’s role in this was incredibly useful, both helping with google sheets, contacting folks who hadn’t sent in their videos, and helping to boost the promotion of the project in general, as a moderator for the unofficial NADDPod discord server, and helping keep me accountable for my use of EDT/PDT when I forgot how time zones worked. However, I edited together the audio and video of the project, and all of the things I’ve going to detail in this post, so my work was still cut out for me, despite Sarah’s help!

Arrangement:

The song was originally recorded with voice, harmony, double bass and ukulele, as well as the additional voices in the final chorus. Within roughly 3 hours of searching for musicians, we already had a couple clarinetists, flautists, saxophonists, guitarists, and a whole lot more instruments. I briefly pondered the logistical nightmare of saying “play what you want :)” and sending them off to record, and decided I’d make a simple arrangement with broad parts, being, voice, 2 harmonies, ukulele, bass, percussion, flute, clarinet, soprano and tenor saxophone, and piano. Ultimately, we got a trumpeter and a violinist as well, who were happy to play the clarinet and flute parts respectively, and the other assorted instruments we got were able to roughly improvise their parts without being too overpowering!

Making this part of the project accessible for musicians of all levels was important to me, so I recorded teaching tracks for the harmony parts, as well as presenting the parts in both sheet music, tabs (where appropriate)/chord sheets for all sorts of learners. All the sheet music, tabs and teaching tracks can be seen here!

Furthermore, in this process, I created “Play Along Tracks” for musicians to record with. I created one with ukulele and voice, one with just ukulele, and one metronome tracks, so that musicians with a wide variety of needs could use them (for example, ukulele and voice to help with structure for musicians playing in certain sections, or ukulele only for singers who don’t want to hear someone else singing their part while recording, or metronome only for people with very short individual parts who feel confident just playing to a metronome track). These tracks were made available in the same Google Drive folder as above.

Editing Process: Planning

There were a few things I knew I wanted going into the process of actually collating the audio and visual together in a cohesive piece. Notably, I wanted the piece to constantly build with more people entering, and I wanted the video to resemble some of the online choirs I’d seen online - the Broadway ones or the Con choir! I also knew I wanted the final a cappella chorus to be as big as possible.  For that final chorus, we extended our search from “musicians” to “anybody who has a voice and wants to participate”. At no point was the specific musicality of the performers a major concern of ours, but especially in this fine chorus, the aim was the feeling of Mass over and particular detail.

One thing I’d recommend doing here, which I ultimately didn’t, is to keep a better track of who’s recording what, and lay out your format overall. If you know you’ll have three guitarists in the final project, plan out who plays where. I didn’t do this, and in fact didn’t even keep track of who was playing what instrument until I had all recordings. But in any situation where you have the means to plan all of this out beforehand, I’d absolutely recommend it. Not only does it save you grief about forgetting who plays when, but it allows you to plan out the layout of sections of your video beforehand, allowing for smoother transitions in general.

Editing Process: Audio

I chose to edit the audio in Logic separately to the video, which was an interesting choice on my part, but I stand by it. I don’t necessarily know all about Final Cut Pro’s audio editing software, but sticking with a more familiar program that seemed to give me more freedom for audio was definitely the right move on this scale (that said, if anyone has anything to say to Final Cut Pro’s merit, absolutely let me know!).

I also chose to edit the audio of the final chorus separately to the rest of the audio, both freeing myself from clogging up one logic track, and making it easier to fine tune the volume of the final chorus when I inserted the file into my main project!

The main concern I had from this process were points, such as the second verse for example, where vocalists had very different vocal tones. Without cutting too much volume from stronger voice types, I needed to sort out a balance that allowed everyone to be heard. I eventually solved this with a lot of fine tweaking and panning parts to different areas so you can train your ear on one voice in particular!

Some of the other issues I encountered in the realm of Audio Mixing for this project were the issue of background noise, and the issue of tempo.

Background noise was an issue I knew would come up. With such a heavy focus on making the project accessible to all manner of musicians, it simply wasn’t possible to have people use semi-professional recording equipment. There were some tracks, ultimately, where the background noise nearly surpassed the instruments themselves. I did eat I could with EQing and the Noise Gate tool, but ultimately had to make the decision that as long as background noise wasn’t overpowering, it could find its place in the mix. With so many individual tracks to take care of, it would have been maddening to specifically cut out all the background noise.

Finally, the tempo concern. This was less of an issue than I had initially imagined. The use of “play along tracks” meant that people stayed generally in time. Ultimately, there were only one or two tracks that this proved a legitimate issue with - one was a saxophone track, which was submitted far too fast, and I needed to work out how to use the Time Flex tool to slow down the audio (which, was tricky to get the hang of for ten minutes or so, but once I got the idea, it was easy enough), and the other was a vocal track, which just seemed to wax and wane in tempo, so I added Time Flex to keep it a little more geared with the others.

There was one day where I spent maybe five hours zoomed way in on my vocal tracks, lining each one up so that they start their phrases at exactly the same time. That was maybe the closest I’ve ever felt to madness, but in the end it was worth it, with the tracks sounding far neater by the end (a tip for this is pan each two tracks you’re comparing to opposite sides, so you can specifically hear it when one comes in earlier and which one it is!).

Editing Process: Video

The editing process itself, once all of this was done, was much more of a matter of logistics and keeping track of things than I had initially imagined. My main few takeaways from this are 1. write things down before you start, and not halfway through when you realise you don’t know what you’re doing, and 2. maybe my five year old, not super well taken care of, storage space-almost-full laptop wasn’t the best machine for the task. But we powered few, taking copious breaks with my laptop chilling upside down while it cooled down from trying to process the forty odd videos at once. Fair enough, I feel.

My process for this was to line everyone’s track up with my Play-Alone track, and then mute them, and place them as needed. By lining up both the audio and video with the same track, it meant that as far as my judgment could call both of them ‘in time’, they would be aligned when the final track was pasted in.

One thing I’ve learned since finishing is about viewing playback in Final Cut Pro by proxy media, which makes it perform better. I’d recommend doing this as opposed to what I did, which was create a new file every time I wanted to view something back. However, creating a ton of drafts was not a bad call, as it allowed me to see in full detail what things needed to change.

In the end, I added in some keyframes and animations to make it look a little more alive, and posted the final video on YouTube, which, as you can see here, has been a resounding success!

Final Thoughts:

This was a huge project, but it was ultimately really fun. Being able to work with so many awesome musicians and get to know them on a level I didn’t expect was really rewarding, and the response to the video has been awesome. The creators of the show have all shown their appreciation for this cover, and so many of the musicians have posted about how much they enjoyed being a part of it and how pleased they were with how it came together. I was really pleasantly surprised at how nice it was, through this process, learning all of the performers’ names and voices and what they looked like. There were some friends in there, but also some people I otherwise wouldn’t know, and whenever I see their names around, I get excited because I know them now! That’s definitely been a really unexpected by joyful thing to take away from this process.

I’ve definitely come out of it keen to do more digital ensembles and curious how much I could push it, but for now, its time to take a small break from all the editing until I need it again!