WRiTE Club 2014 is Accepting Entries!

In case you didn't catch it, there was a recent returnee to the blogosphere:

After a hiatus to finish the draft of his latest novel, my good friend DL Hammons is back in the blogging world with a newly designed website.  No longer "Cruising Altitude 2.0", his blogging home is now dlhammons.com -- effectively, but unimaginatively, named after his own name. But luckily, if you're still attached to the high-flying previous name, any links to that site name should still take you to his new one.

DL was one of the first online fellow writers I connected with when I started toying with the idea of becoming a writer myself, almost seven (!) years ago, give or take.  While my writing accomplishments over those years have not gotten much past that initial 'dabbling' stage, Don and I have stayed connected and I've seen his blog grow into a much-loved stop on many a writer's blog roll.

In late 2011, DL rolled out his WRiTE Club -- a writing contest featuring head-to-head bouts between anonymous writers. It was a tremendous amount of fun, and that first contest stretched into March, 2012 with a culminating win by Tiana Smith over Julie Dao.

DL expanded the competition in 2012 and took in 72 entries.  That year, I entered it myself and my anonymous writing samples under the pen-name "RavenClaw" managed to survive a marathon that ran from July to December, and included a win in one of 36 preliminary bouts; then one of 18 playoff bouts; one of 10 round-2 bouts with edited submissions; one of 6 round-3 bouts with second entries; one of 3 round-4 bouts; and then one of 2 semifinal bouts with edited second entries before battling Mark Hough in the finals. I lost 6-4 to him but never really felt bad about it -- his work was simply fabulous (and Mark, if you happen to read this -- I'm STILL waiting for the chance to read more of your excellent writing! But, no pressure -- at least the world gets to partake of your incredible hand-made violins.).

Lat year, DL honed the format and presented a tightly-fought series of competitions between 32 excellent, pre-selected entries. This competition ran from July through October and resulted in a final battle win by Tex Thompson over Jane Lebak.

Well, guess what? 

DL is once again hosting WRiTE Club -- the 2014 edition!  If you're interested, it just takes an anonymous entry of a 500-word writing sample.  I would encourage you to visit DL's site and check out the entry info HERE.

But even if you don't enter, be sure to visit DL's blog beginning in June to watch the battles unfold and to take part in the voting!

Summertime Smile

Summertime Smile*

It's been very busy lately (so what else is new, lol).  But I'm afraid that I've not had much time to make music or write.  But I've still been playing when I can, helping a very good friend with some chapter critiques, and have actually generated some new story ideas that I hope -- someday -- might actually get written.

Also, I did get a little free time over the last week or so, and I managed to put together another Wikiloops jam.  I found a track from last September with a very cool keyboard progression by wikiloops jammer Neddings, with some vocal percussion added by member Calle.  I really liked the mix of the electronic keys with the organic vocal percussive effects, and thought it would make a great template to jam over.

I added a bass track, and then several guitars, and the overall feel to me was of one of fun, warmth, a sense of a happy day in the summer, so I called the finished piece "Summertime Smile."

I invite you to take a listen by clicking on the link HERE.

If you've listened to some of my previous work, you know that there are times I like blending a lot of guitars into a piece.  I did that again here, but I tried to avoid cluttering up any individual section with a lot of conflicting lines.  This jam has a beginning section with a fixed melody line, and the overall structure is that of a jazz jam -- play that "head" melody line, trade solos over the middle, and then play the head again at the end.  I also tried to vary textures.  For example, there's a chunky rhythm guitar that drops out at the part where the delay-heavy, spacey guitar lead comes in.  For at least the first time through the progression in that part, the only guitar is that one, and only the original keys and vocal percussion along with my bass are in the background.

The original template track also had that cool bridge section with the chord changes and I think that really helps to add interest and change.  So while this is still a "jam" in that it has a fun, 'in-the-moment' sense, with the general "play-it-and-don't-worry-about-making-it-perfect" feel of a jam, I also tried to add enough structure to give it a 'finished' sense, too.  There were several harmony guitars added, doubling and contrasting lines played by earlier guitars.  The "head" melody has three guitars playing together, and I hope it adds texture without too much clutter.

Thank you very much for listening.  I hope you enjoy it.  Feel free to let me know your thoughts, suggestions, and feedback -- I'm always interested in your opinion.


*Photo by Chris Fries

"The Sound of Forgetting" is Published!

"The Sound of Forgetting"*

My 50-word bit of micro-flash-fiction "The Sound of Forgetting" has been published at Fifty-Word Stories.

I invite you to check it out by clicking on the link:  "The Sound of Forgetting" By Chris J. Fries.

For anyone who may not know, a 50-word story is a bit of micro-flash fiction using exactly 50 words.  I find it a fun challenge to my normal long-winded writing style to pare a "story" down to only 50 words.  The website is run by Tim Sevenhuysen and I've been lucky enough to have had a few stories published there before. 

And as a side note -- Tim is currently seeking submissions of 50-word stories for a Spring Story Contest.  If you feel like writing some 50-word stories of your own, now is great time to give it a shot.

Thank you for reading my story -- I hope you enjoyed it!



*Image from Wikimedia Commons.

Streak of Moonlight

(image from wikimedia commons)

What do you know? It's been less than a month between my posts!  :)

Today I want to share with you my most recent solo, non-wikiloops, musical piece.  I call it "Streak of Moonlight".  I've uploaded it to my SoundCloud page and you can also listen to it right from this blog by clicking on the embedded link below.  I hope you like it -- you can read more about it below the link...



This piece is all me -- I put together the drum tracks from editing and combining some MIDI drum loops that I found, then I added some simple keyboards, bass, rhythm guitar, more keys, lead guitars, a smattering of ambient background guitars.

But there's something else about this piece that was a new experiment for me -- hear the voices?  I've realized that the human voice can add a tremendous amount of emotion and focus to a piece. But I don't sing -- trust me on this.  So what to do?  Well, I don't want to sample vocals from another musician, and I don't want to deal with copyright infringement, and I'm not going to spend money on what's basically a hobby, and I'm still  a little too insecure about my own pieces to try and get any singers I might know to record something for me, so my choices are pretty slim...

Enter the wonder of recordings of old, forgotten radio programs -- I'll stay away from any of the well-known classics.  So hopefully in the case of the things I use, the artists involved are long gone and if there were copyrights, they've likely either expired or been shuffled through so many hands that they've essentially been lost.  Plus, at this point, what I'm doing is not a commercial endeavor -- I'm not making any money off of this.  I'm giving it away for free.  So if there were still a valid and tracked copyright that I've unintentionally infringed on by using short samples of radio broadcasts from 70 or more years ago, there are certainly little if any damages, and I will gladly give full and proper attribution or comply with any 'cease and desist' orders should they ever come my way.

So -- there you go.

This piece is called "Streak of Moonlight" because the vocal samples come from a episode of a 1936 radio romance which was entitled -- you guessed it --"Streak of Moonlight."  The snippet of strings is also from that recording.

I took my time putting together this piece.  Each layer assembled was done slowly, and I like how this turned out.  There's still some of that 'jam' feel to it (especially in the double guitars during the third lead break), but it has some nice structure to it, too, I think.  It also has a bit of a "chill" feel with some ambient, delay-heavy guitars in the background and my simplistic keyboard drones mixed in.

I really hope you enjoy this, and I'd love to know what you think.  Feel free to comment and let me know...

Thanks for listening!

Keep It Short...

 

Wow -- it's been a month since my last blog post update!?!?  I'm really sorry about that.  Clearly I was right in pulling back as I mentioned in my last posts...

But I also do want to keep this blog alive, so in the interest of quickly interjecting some new content, I will post a couple of short offerings.  One writing and one musical.  I will also promise to try and get a little more content on here, on a little more regular basis. 

But in the meantime, here's this:


A Short Writing Snippet:

I've recently made another submission to 50-Word Stories, and I'm optimistic that the owner of the site Tim Sevenhuysen will like it and that it'll get published on the site.  But who knows?  So rather than wait, I'm also going to go ahead and share it here, too.  To refresh your memory, a 50-word story has -- you guessed it -- 50 words.  Not one word more; not one word less.  It's fun to try and get as much emotional impact and story 'arc' as you can into only 50 words.

I hope you like this one. I call this micro-flash story, "The Sound of Forgetting:"

=====
 
The Sound of Forgetting
 
I heard your old rocker creak and for a moment, I forgot.

It might have been a stray breeze, or maybe just the cat brushing against it -- a remnant from all the years he rubbed contentedly against your legs.

But in my heart it was you, home once again.

=====


A Short Musical Interlude:

At Wikiloops, I continue to periodically add new tracks to all the great stuff that's there.  One recent thing I did was add a couple of quick guitars to a short, moody keyboard piece ("Through the Eyes of the Defeated") by a user named "GhostFish".  I thought the feel was very cool with an epic build, and so I added a couple of quick guitar tracks.  I started with mellower clean guitar, and then switched to a more raucous, screamin' lead as the track intensity climbs.  This is one of those short, off-the-cuff things that I ended up liking how it turned out.  I wish I could embed it here, but unless I upload it to SoundCloud, I can't.  So please click below and see what you think of this short musical piece:

Before The Storm

Also, feel free to check out the "My Tracks" tab of My Wikiloops Profile page if you're interested in hearing any of the other stuff I've uploaded there.

Thank you very much for taking the time to read and listen!  I hope you thought it it was a short time spent well...

Music: "Snow Day"

(image from wikimedia commons)

My intent for this blog is to have a place to share my creative work -- my music and my writing, primarily.  But recently, I've unfortunately been unable to post a much as I would like to on this blog, and a lot of my most recent posts didn't really adhere to this core intent.

So I'd like to remedy that by posting a recent musical piece I created.  I call it "Snow Day" because it was created in January during the height of the polar vortex, when we were basically snowed in at home for a couple of days.  The roads were closed, work and schools were closed, and there was a good two feet of snow in our back yard.  Not to mention sub-zero temperatures and wind-chills near 30-below zero.

I took a lot of the time to make some music, and this piece is the main one I came up with during that time.  It is not a wikiloops piece -- the only musician involved is me.  I played bass, keys, and (of course) guitar, and even created my own drum loops from editing some free ones I'd found and adding in some of my own MIDI drum patterns.

It's not too involved of a piece compared to some tracks I've made, but I like the overall effect -- the vibe kind of has that 'trapped in the snow with nowhere to go' kind of slow vibe, I think.

Feel free to have a listen and see what you think:



I welcome any comments or thoughts you might like to share.

Thank you very much for listening!  I'll see you again with my next post which will be...  at some point in the future, but hopefully not to far in the future.  ;)

A Blogging Update -- Time for a Change...

Hi, there.

Well, it seems that in my on-again, off-again blogging, I have been very much in the off-again mode this past month.

First, let me apologize for any concern that my unplanned and sudden absence may have caused -- I can assure you that really, all is well.  I went through a battle with the flu and some other things, and in spite of my good intentions, my short blogging lull stretched from a few days into several weeks.  But on the overall scale of "things-that-could-go-wrong," I'm thankful that my absence was mainly caused by things that are actually pretty low on the list.

However, it's become clear to me that at this stage in my life, blogging has had to take a bit of a back seat.  It's not that I don't like it, and -- thankfully -- it's not because I don't have anything to blog about.  This is supposed to be an outlet for "the creative output of StratPlayer" and I'm glad that I'm still managing to squeeze in at least a little time to do the creative things that I want to blog about.  So that's a plus.  It's much better to create and not blog, than to blog about what I'm not creating, right?

But still, I think it's time to make some changes to this blog.  I obviously need to step aside from any scheduled blogging activity.  I enjoy them, but I can't seem to make them a consistent, long-term commitment that I can honor.  So I'm stepping aside from the Battle of the Bands, and also from the Insecure Writers Support Group.  I enjoyed both and have nothing but respect for the founders of both, but I think it's wrong to take part in something unless I can consistently do so.

I may still post a "Newsday 200" kind of story from time to time, but the scheduled "Tuesday" part of it will stop. 

Moving forward, this blog will become more of an unscheduled, solo journal -- no "gotta post on a given day" kinds of posts.  More like just a place to post and share any writing and music that I create.  That's really my core intention for this blog, anyway.

But I'm afraid this will not be much of a social blog.  No blog-hops, no blogging events, no blogathons, no "sign-up-in-the-linky-list" activities.

I know there are a LOT of wonderful bloggers out there that I've come to know and admire and enjoy over the years, and I do regret that I don't have the time to interact with them much for the foreseeable future.  I also know that my blog will likely suffer in terms of readership -- there will unfortunately be very little, "I'll read and comment on yours if you read and comment on mine" exchanges for a while. I don't want this to sound selfish -- as I said, I REALLY do enjoy all the other bloggers I've interacted with, and I will still try to visit their blogs as I can. 

But for at least the short-term future, my blog will pretty much shift to being just an journal of my own stuff and not as much of a home base for any interactive, social blogging activity.

Of course, I still welcome you to visit and read and listen and hopefully enjoy what I post here.  But that posting may be on an erratic schedule, and I will not be able to do much in the way of return-blogging and commenting reciprocity.  Please don't take it personally -- if you have a blog of your own and don't see much from me, it's absolutely NOT that I'm avoiding you or that I don't enjoy your blog. 

I'm just that when it comes to blogging, I'm afraid I'm kind of stuck in a "post-and-run" time-crunch these days.