Playing The Inner Light

Playing from the penny whistle tabs based on Jay Chattaway's sample score found on musicnotes.com. Forgive me if this sounds a bit too rusty. I only wanted to show how the tabs do work on the instrument. Anyway, it was too early in the morning for me to do this properly.

The Living Bride Returns - Ongoing Challenges

"Meifeng had not been in touch with her extended family since she had ran off with Leo. Ming was the only one she had had any contact with these past few years. Through his correspondence, she was able to learn that what was left of the Chens still lived at that house. They retained the garden and built their homestead on the property."

Is this what it's like to know when some ideas doesn't work out. I've had it in my mind to continue the story at the train station. I even had a scene in the cab or rickshaw, involving a folded up fifty yuan note. But it wasn't a good enough hook for the next installment. So I went back to laying out the character relationships.

I've learned this much. I don't want to add any more characters into the mix. The core of the story surrounds the interchange between just three people. How their lives were affected by their past actions. The passage I just written (above), will be a nice segue into a flashback sequence that will introduce the rest of the main characters.

The story is taking shape more or less in the notes I scribbled on paper, however technically, I still don't know who these characters are. Hopefully, it will come as I keep plotting. It was why I held off from writing for so long. Meanwhile, I made another drawing to serve as a cover. I can't draw like my artist colleagues, but I did learn from a tutorial on how to create silhouettes in Photoshop. At least, it resembles the sketch I made earlier. If I squint at it, it kind of looks like a Chinese brush painting.

Denizens of the Goldfish Tank

Can't forget the goldfish. The most ideal video subjects, because they won't stay put. It may be cold outside today; it sure doesn't look like that in here. Even the pleco is out nibbling at the algae. I am still learning to use Movie Maker. I am now using the recommended publish settings for better quality, while keeping the file size no bigger than the original clip. That means less pixels. It's due for a water change. I'll tackle that next week.

Bettas, Two Years Later

Passing another milestone, to me,  is something to be proud of. Because it was never that easy to keep fish, not even when they were free. Now, I don't count the days before they die, just the years since I bought one. Hopefully, it will be for a while yet, unless I get a new aquarium.