Immersion artist at work

Erin has always been one to immerse herself in stuff. Dabbling is not her style. From a very young age she was either into something or not -- there was never any middle ground. This month she's been into three things. Least of all, but still significant, is piano. She's polishing a Chopin Nocturne, learning the Bach Capriccio in B-flat, keeping up a Beethoven Sonata (Op. 10 No. 1), and working on a couple of four-hands duet pieces, including a long and weighty Schubert Fantasie. She's supposed to be adding the Macedonian Mountain Dance by Hovhaness and a Haydn Sonata to her repertoire. Mostly, though, since she's without lessons for a while, she's messing around, reading through reams of things, both old and new, including the last movement of the Bach E Major Concerto (she played the middle movement as a soloist with orchestra a couple of years ago, but that was much less technically demanding).

Then there's violin. She's still practicing a couple of hours a day, plus she's got a quartet, and orchestra, an ensemble, group classes and all the rest. And still she's practicing well. She's no longer loving the actual practicing, but she's loving where it's getting her, so she's pushing herself to do it. The payoff is coming in spades. Her playing has taken a massive leap this fall. The monthly lessons in Calgary seem to be giving her enough of whatever it is she needs right now.

And then, if you think that isn't enough, she's also writing a novel this month. Once she got wind of NaNoWriMo (National Novel-Writing Month), she was off and running. She's got about 39,000 words now, she says, despite being sick earlier in the month and getting behind. She's writing 1500 to 2000 words a day.

Next time someone asks whether school is in the cards for this kid, I'll point them to this blog entry and ask them just exactly where she would find the time to go to school.