J J Abrams and Amy Tan on Creativity

Jurgen Wolff * had an excellent blog and several websites for creative people and his daily blog is always interesting.

Through Jurgen I have come to know of the TED Lecture series where leading experts in all fields of modern life are invited to give short presentations.

It is an awesome reference on the mind processes of some of the most inspiring people in the western world today.

This morning I listened to J J Abrams talking on the Mystery Box.

J.J. Abrams traced his love of the unseen mystery -- the heart of Alias, Lost, and the upcoming Cloverfield -- back to its own magical beginnings, which may or may not include an early obsession with magic, the love of a supportive grandfather, or his own
http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/205.

Go here to watch on YouTube: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=vpjVgF5JDq8

In another genre, Amy Tan spoke at this year's TED Conference.

'Novelist Amy Tan digs deep into the creative process, journeying through her childhood and family history and into the worlds of physics and chance, looking for hints of where her own creativity comes from. It's a wild ride with a surprise ending.'

Brilliant. Fascinating to learn about the completely different mindset of another writer.
Go here to listen to it - http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/250

* http://www.timetowrite.blogs.com/

Out of the Box

BMW has a short ad featuring the work of an amazing engineer and sculptor -Theo Jansen.

You can see it here -

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=a7Ny5BYc-Fs&eurl=http://www.timetowrite.blogs.com/

Lesson? If they give you ruled paper to write on - turn it sideways.

Love life. Live life. Enjoy life. Be fearless.

Calm before the storm

“Some day after we have mastered the winds, the waves, the tides and gravity, we will harness the energies of love. And then, for the second time in the history of the world, we will have discovered fire.” – Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

Time to clear the desk, and decide which of my ideas is the most exciting and energising before launching into the next storyline.

Options -

1. Old partials I have already worked on but did not fit anywhere at the time? The character work and basic storylines are there. Maybe a couple of chapters.

2. New ideas where there is only a sketch idea and a few hero and heroine photos.

I am going for about 60K so I can plan the time, but still remain flexible.

And be a bad, bad girl, and catch up with some of the 2B Read pile.

Hope everyone has a lovely weekend.

Writing Motivation

Jurgen Wolff has posted today on Motivation. *

Some people find visual symbols a powerful means of motivation - for example-

Do you have a 'fat picture' of yourself on the fridge door?

Or have you stuck a photo of your own head on the body of a supermodel/hunk and stuck that on the fridge?

'If you’re more motivated by fear of the negative, find an image or a phrase that encapsulates what you’ll feel/look/sound like this time next year if you don’t steadily pursue your writing goals. Put it where you’ll see it every day.

If you’re more motivated by the draw of the positive, find an image or phrase that encapsulates what you’ll feel/look/sound like this time next year if you do steadily pursue your writing goals. Put it where you’ll see it every day.'

Interesting thought.

Linked to the Visualisation techniques used by motivational coaches in business.

If you have a clear vision of who would be be, and what your life would be like if you had achieved your goals, the evidence suggests that you are more likely to be motivated to achieve them. No matter what those goals are.

For me it has to be positive. Fat pictures would only re-inforce negative thoughts. Not going there thank you.

What type of motivation suits you? Positive or negative?

*http://www.timetowrite.blogs.com/

What's playing on my YouTube right now? Darren Hayes. On the verge of something wonderful/ http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=QCEDG9kvRtE&feature=PlayList&p=AD563AB40FF75834&index=4

Reality Check Thursday

Kate Hardy* reminded me on her post today of something which is crucial as to why I am still knocking my head against the writing wall every day.

And yet so easy to loose track of.

Writers of Romance Fiction have the power to put some sparkle into people’s lives.

We write happy endings that make people smile and feel good.

Now that. Is worth fighting for.

I am still not happy with the black moment scene. So today I am going to fight and fix it so that, one day, someone else may read the story and smile.
Thank you Kate.





*http://katehardy.blogspot.com/

Sunshine ahead

Holiday photos from the Greek Islands.

Hot sunshine. Blue skies. Warm winds. Lapping waves. Star filled night skies.

Just the thing for a cold January morning.

Hope your day is warm and cosy.

No YouTube at the moment. Radio 3.

Back to Work

Here we are again. Full of Yule Tide spirit [ Tawny 20 yr old Port] and Chocolate trufflalicious.

And on with the show.

Before I return to my revisions, I have taken time out today to:

* go to the shops for more post-Christmas writer's trousers. [ Baggy bottom, wide leg, elastic waistband. Say no more.]

* catch up on a few sites I have neglected for a while. One of these was J A Konrath+ who has been musing on Resolutions for Writers - past and current. He has some excellent suggestions, and one of these stuck with me.

'I Will Feed My Addiction.
Life is busy.
There are always things you can and should be doing, and your writing career often comes second. So make it come first. Right now, you're reading A Newbie's Guide to Publishing. Not A Newbie's Guide to Leading a Content and Balanced Life.
You want to get published and stay published?
That means making writing a priority. That means making
sacrifices.
A sacrifice involves choosing one thing over another.
If you can't devote the time, energy, and money it takes to
pursue this career, go do something else.'

He is right. There will ALWAYS be something easier to do with your time than create a career, a business if you will, from your writing.

Of course, if this was some type of PROPER Sole-Trader business, eg. shop owner or tradesman, then yes, surely you would expect to work all of the hours to get it up and runnning so that your customers obtain precisely the product they need ahead of schedule.

So why do we not always look at our writing in this way?

I find that very interesting.

+ http://jakonrath.blogspot.com/

No YouTube today. Radio playing in the background.

Power Songs

There are some pieces of music which take me directly to the emotional core of the writing.

This is one Song and Video combination which takes me to that place - the kind of music which is personal and universal at the same time - and what technology was made for.

For me, this is a novel captured in 4 mins 6 seconds.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=N3LUc78vbDk

pic = A door to the Fantasy Land by Sakura Juna

THE FICTIVE DREAM

How to Induce the Fictive Dream

Notes from 'How to Write Damn Good Fiction: Advanced Techniques for Dramatic Storytelling,' by James N. Frey

James M. Frey, in How to Write a Damn Good Novel II, says, "As a fiction writer, you're expected to transport a reader. Readers are said to be transported when, while they are reading, they feel that they are actually living in the story world and the real world around them evaporates."

In this altered state of consciousness, the reader can become so absorbed that you must shake him to get his attention.

Absorption is probably the better word: the reader is absorbed/transported into the story world.

This experience is often called the "Fictive Dream," and that is as good a name for it as any. It's like a daydream, except that the reader isn't its author. It occurs at a subconscious level.

How do you induce the Fictive Dream?

1. Use vivid, sensual details to begin the dream state. Let your reader experience the world of the character first-hand, through the character's senses.

2. Gain the reader's sympathy for your character by making the reader feel sorry for the character. Loneliness, lovelessness, repression, embarrassment, humiliation, privation, danger--any situation that brings physical, mental, or spiritual suffering will make your reader sympathize with your character.

3. Engender reader identification with your character. Give your character a noble goal that the reader can support, and the reader will take his side, no matter how much of a slime he is or has been.

4. Create sympathy for your character by providing sensuous details in the character's environment--the sights, sounds, pains, smells, etc., that the character is feeling--that will trigger the reader's emotions.

5. Inner conflict--misgivings, guilt, doubts, remorse, indecision--will lead the reader to side with your character in the decisions he is forced to make--decisions of a moral nature that have grave consequences for the character (such as putting their honor or self-worth at stake).

Inner conflict can be thought of as a battle between two voices within the character: one of reason, the other of passion--or of two conflicting passions. One of a protagonist, the other of a protagonist. (The little devil and angel on the character's shoulder.)

These voices engage in rising conflict that comes to some kind of climax, where a decision is made that leads to action. This debate produces tension and suspense about what the character will decide to do.

This participation in the decision-making process is what transports the reader into the fictive dream state.

A lot of this advice has been stated in other classic work on creating emotive fiction, and especially genre fiction, but I find it interesting that these five elements are being proposed for ALL fiction.

Now all I have to do it make it happen. Sigh.

pic = Dream On by AndreInacu

What's playing on my YouTube right now? Damien Rice The Blower's Daughter. http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=8ThuXEDvCZk&feature=PlayList&p=4F1D642A6F9D7B46&index=49

CHOICES

The Road Not Taken


TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;



Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,



And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.



I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.






Robert Frost (1874–1963). Mountain Interval. 1920

pic - Choices by NBC Skellington

What's playing on my YouTube right now? Wake up music - Foo Fighters.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=Pd_p1A7WVNs&feature=PlayList&p=5505018970D42764&index=0

Every Second Counts

STAMINA

ENDURANCE

DISCIPLINE

These are the mantra words of the Marathon Runner, the Triathlete, the woman who walks to the North Pole dragging a sled.

And may I suggest, the Fiction Writer.

It may take someone two to three years of solid training to become fit enough to physically run 26 and a bit miles.

It takes a lifetime of training to write fiction. Or at least create fictional worlds and characters that others may actually want to buy and read - starting with your editor and publisher.

I have met many university students who believe with all their heart that the passion they have for words will make them successful commercial fiction writers - after all, it has to be easier than literary fiction, hasn't it?

Any maybe they have a point- Passion. Obsessive desire. Absolute confidence.

You can't buy those and you can't fake them.

Every Second Counts is the title of Lance Amstrong's autobiography on his early life and how he overcame multiple cancers to win the Tour de France so many times.

The man in this book is someone who cannot sit still. Cannot rest. Who is always looking for the next way to train, to improve his performance, his game. He wants to be the best he can be.

AND EVERY SECOND COUNTS.

" When you think you're off track, refocus on where you've come from and what it's taken to get to where you are today. Focus on the great achievements you've made, the milestones and reach within and feel those successes. All that matters is getting back on track and turning that dream into your reality."*

*Written in 2007 by Kimerly Adamson --- New Zealand

A different type of Romantic Comedy

I saw a trailer today for a very different romance MOVIE. 'LARS AND THE REAL GIRL'

Yes, I do love films as well as books. This is genetic and I am not ashamed. It also gives me a snapshot of some elements of the Zeitgeist as seen by movie companies. Ever tried combing the taglines of a couple of romantic comedies today? You can get some interesting story lines.

Anyway. Back to the film.

Written by Six Feet Under scribe Nancy Oliver, Lars and the Real Girl is a heartfelt comedy starring Academy-Award nominated Ryan Gosling as Lars Lindstrom.

Lars is a loveable introvert whose emotional baggage has kept him from fully embracing life.

After years of what is almost solitude, he invites Bianca, a friend he met on the internet to visit him. He introduces Bianca to his Brother Gus (Paul Schneider) and his wife Karen (Emily Mortimer) and they are stunned.

They don’t know what to say to Lars or Bianca — because she is a life-size doll, not a real person and he is treating her as though she is alive.

They consult the family doctor Dagmar (Patricia Clarkson) who explains this is a delusion he’s created — for what reason she doesn’t yet know but they should all go along with it. What follows is an emotional journey for Lars and the people around him.

How about that for a premise! I loved it. And the film is launched this week in the US - not sure when it is coming to the UK but I know I will make the effort to go and see it. Heart felt romance based on emotional depth with deeply wounded hero.

Take a look at the trailer - what do you think?

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=P27EIxPRmcY

What makes you weep?

Melissa James has a thought-inspiring series of articles on 'Emotional Punch' on the Women on Writing site -http://wow-womenonwriting.com/articles.php

One in particular appealed to me and had my poor brain spining -

How to use Physical Stimulants to:

1. Help define and describe your characters

2. Help create greater emotional depth in particular scenes and situations.

In this context, Physical Stimulants include anything which will link to a specific emotional reaction for your character:

* A tatty wallet or book - some object from the past. A baby blanket. A music box. The ring your mother/boyfriend gave you when you were 18. Anything.

* Specific Songs - blasts from the past - [ Careless Whisper by Wham, Celine Dion whose Heart will go on - etc.] perhaps a make up or break up track or something your mother used to sing

* Specific pieces of Music -does your hero swing his head to heavy rock or John Denver? did you have to learn that piano piece when you went to the hero's house and his mother was the tutor

* Specific food and drink. Cherry brandy at your granny's at Xmas. The Coffee you used to have on Sunday mornings. Home made food made by a specific person.

* AND SMELL. Scent. The connection between that scent and a person and experience.

That one is a killer for me.

And then you use that connection to elicit the emotion in the character.

The Challenge? Make each of those connections unique. It is personal. IT IS NOT A CLICHE! And it evokes a powerful emotion in your character in that scene. In that moment.

What's playing on my YouTube right now? Whitney Houston - from the Bodyguard. http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=oMvsg0Ny5OY&feature=PlayList&p=9E78A195607312A8&index=9

Haka

Glastonbury. One sacred site. And the goalposts are another.

The All Black Rugby team are well known for performing the Haka before a match.

From what I understand * this is not a war dance but a ceremonial without weapons intended to combine spirituality and physicality.

Most people know the Ka Mate form of the Haka

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=mOa7qtH4ZBs&mode=related&search=

but the translation of the Haka 'Timatanga' is worth looking at

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=19PQ67ygDs8&mode=related&search= [ and click on 'more' in the caption box.] This was a match against the British Lions.

My own brothers play Rugby and it is not a game for whimps who dislike the smell of hospitals. What could beat the powerful combination of physical power and mental strength?

I am not from New Zealand myself, but I find watching these men inspiring and energising. I would not like to be standing a few feet away on a grass field. What about you?

* http://www.allblacks.com/index.cfm?layout=haka

First Crush

My current romance includes a High School Crush and I am having fun researching other people's tales of how terrible/wonderful/unforgettable that experience was.

Jill Shalvis* has linked to this brilliant compilation of interviews with folk about their first school crush. Enjoy.

My First Crush - http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=fY4Epc2XSGc&feature=PlayList&p=10960FB742FA50ED&index=41

Plus? Words of Wisdom from Kurt Vonnegut on connectivity between writers:

"Many people need desperately to receive this message: 'I feel and think much as you do, care about many of the things you care about, although most people do not care about them. You are not alone.'"

*http://jillshalvis.com/blog/

Writing Advice

The inspirational Jurgen Wolff sent me to the Barley Hut blog+ for this list of Writing Tips which is modestly entitled ' The Only General Writing Advice you will ever need.'

This is his list:

1. Writing and Editing are two separate, and different processes.
2. Writing and Editing are two separate, and different processes. It is that important
3. Write first. Edit later.
4. Write first. Edit later. It is that important.
5. Outline only if it works for you.
6. Write every day.
7. Write what you want to read, not what you think someone else will.
8. Keep a ritual.
9. Stick to it.
10. When you are not writing, read.
11. Read a lot.
12. Read everything: comics, newspapers, novels, magazines, screenplays, poetry, billboards, tattoos, mustard wrappers, everything.
13. Read your own writing. Out loud.
14. Read other people’s writing. Out loud.
15. Don’t read to comprehend. This is about writing.
16. Read to write. Notice the context, flow, and tone.
17. Listen to people speak.
18. Don’t listen to comprehend. This is about writing.
19. Notice the context, flow, and tone.
20. Write with different tools: keyboard, pencil, ink pen, crayon, dirt, whatever.
21. Write on different mediums: grid paper, lined paper, blank paper, cardboard, LCD, canvass, dirt, whatever.
22. Write in different places, but keep and maintain a Writing Home.
23. Tell everyone you write: your family, your friends, the postman, the prostitutes, everyone.
24. But don’t tell anyone exactly what you are writing: not even the prostitutes.
25. Strike dead every ‘should’ you have about writing.
26. Put aside this list, and every other piece of advice, or book, or adage about writing ever offered.
27. And write every day.

I have to say that I have never been a fan of reading my own work out loud, since I read it in my head as I write. Maybe something I should think about.

And you have to love the power of repetition. And no 7.

+http://journal.barleyhut.com/the-only-general-writing-advice-you-will-ever-need/

No YouTube - Mozart on Radio 3. http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/

When you just have to get on with it

Some days, we all try just that little too hard.

Yes, that is Ms Westwood, and not me dressed for Friday night clubbing [ snort]

Ah, the joys of re-writing a first draft! At this point I always feel like this is the first time I have ever done it, and tend to dive into notes and reference books in some ill advised attempt to make the job easier/gain some insight into what supposed to be doing.

If it works at all, it is only through lateral thinking.

Eudaemonia has created an excellent list of all the BAD advice she gleaned from her library of 'How to Write books'. ++

These include the following gems designed to send any budding author back to the day job and daytime television;

*Whole books are out there in the ether, fully formed, waiting for me to sit and channel them into existence. They are perfect, and complete, and inevitable.

*If I'm not in some sort of trance while writing...if my characters haven't taken over my fingers themselves...then I'm not producing quality work.

*I need to be very smart, highly educated, and utterly fascinating to write.

*I also need to be temperamental and more than a little insane.

*Ideally, my wardrobe would consist of nothing other than peasant skirts, black chiffon dresses, and high heeled boots. And a beret.

*Don't bother writing if you haven't lived in Paris, in a garret.

*Books and babies don't mix.

*Fiction is all that matters. Nonfiction writing isn't “real writing.”

*I haven't done anything worth writing about, and yet, I must always “write what I know.”

*Only writing directly into a work in progress matters, forget planning or notetaking or even just occasionally THINKING about what I want to say. If I need to think that much, I am not a real writer.

*If my writing doesn't resemble the examples in the writing books, I am not a real writer.

*If I am too unhappy, I must not really love writing.

*If I am too happy, I must not be “deep” enough to be a writer.

*Be suspicious if it comes too easily. Be suspicious if it's too hard.

*Either you are a genius, or you are nothing. And you are probably not a genius.

Plus Lisa has added -

*Are you high? What makes you think you have a single thing to say that would interest anyone?

*Your writing sucks and any positive feedback you've gotten has been from people who don't have the heart to break it to you or who are clinically insane and don't know what they are talking about.

What other great fibs have you heard?

One of my favourites was that you had to have the most miserable childhood in order to find the angst to (a) be a comedian, or (b) become a fiction writer. It may be true for some folks, but always?

And somehow that does make me feel marginally less like a clueless idiot. I know this is only a temporary thing and at some point I will start to make progress.

Only good times ahead.

Now, on with the show.

++http://onehandtyping.blogspot.com/2007/09/sunday-scribbling-writing-exorcism.html

No YouTube today - Radio 3.

Contemporary Romance Part One

Billy Mernit is the author of 'Writing the Romantic Comedy' and also has a day job reading movie scripts. Screenwriters are taught to pick up the nuisances of the zeitgeist to create something the US audience will want to watch.

Like Romantic Comedies.

In his blog today*Billy picks up on the total reversal which has occured in the way screenwriters portray romance in 2007 compared to the classic screwball comedies of golden age Hollywood.

And it links to one main cultural change - The Power of Women.

In many recent romantic comedy movies, the men are often portrayed as the bewildered slacker 'manboys', and the women the take charge striver 'mothers' with careers and goals.

"The perilous new direction of the slacker-striver genre reduces the role of women to vehicles. Their only real function is to make the men grow up. "

More worrying, this may not always be so far from the truth.

Billy references a New York Times article this week which describes only too clearly the issues successful women have finding dates and keeping those dates. **

This article reinforces something which has been noodling inside my brain for a while.

Something which links back to two of the reasons why, in my humble opinon, so many graduate and professional women read category romantic fiction - of all kinds.

1. The unspoken hope and expectation that, as a clever girl, you will meet someone who will respect you and value you for that driven, hardworking success. And the money/lifestyle you earn because of it.

"Although these women often say it is men who have issues around their higher salaries, sometimes it is the women themselves who are uncomfortable with the role reversal.
...The discomfort over who pays for what seems to be not really about money, plain and simple. Instead, it is suggestive of the complex psychology of what many of these women expect from their dates (for him to be a traditional breadwinner) and what they think they should expect (Oh, I just want him to be a nice guy). "**

2. The need for someone to love you as a complete human being with all of the faults and issues that comes with you, and give you true romantic love - someone you can fall in love with and want to spend the rest of your life with. Someone who 'completes you.'

"Is it possible that today's more independent and successful woman has a different kind of wish-fulfillment fantasy? Maybe they want to see a rom-com that stresses its heroine's vulnerabilities, so she can, once again, be rescued and taken care of, in the manner of The Way Things Used To Be."

Compare the harsh truth of life for the single woman [ in western society at least] and the idealised worlds of unselfish complete love she reads about in the pages of a romance novel.

Surely this is the BEST reason and motivation why we should create MORE wish fulfillment fantasy stories.

Lightbulb moment? What do our readers want from the romance novels we are writing?
As clever successful authors, I don't need to tell you the answer. It is all here in these articles. [And no doubt in countless PhD theses of academics studying womens' fiction.]

**http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/23/fashion/23whopays.html?_r=3&oref=slogin&ref=fashion&pagewanted=all&oref=slogin

*http://www.livingromcom.typepad.com/

No YouTube today. CDs.

GOALS
1. know what you want to do/ where you want to go
2. know where you are now
3. know what you have to do, to get where you want to go
4. do it.

[ From David Taylor, the Naked Leader, and various entrepreneurs saying the same thing in different ways over the years in numerous business management books]
Same message.

*Know where you want to be/what you want - SPECIFICALLY define that thing in clear and unambigous, measurable terms, whether it is to create a bestseller, learn a new language, build a shed, go to Paris in the spring, or lose 20 pounds of blubber.

* Define the gap between where you are now and where you want to be/want.

*Decide if you are willing to pay the price to get there. Greater the pain, the higher the price. Only you can work that one out in your life.

* Decide to pay the price and make it happen. No bleating. Your decision.

* Do it. Starting right now.

This is what seperates the folk who say - oh yes, I could write a book if I only had the time, from those who have finished work sitting on editor's desks. Published or not.
Other folk are not willing to pay the price.
We are.
And we should be **** proud of the fact that we have paid the price and made it happen.
No going back. No surrender.

" Past is destiny; you can't change it. Future is free will; it depends on the choices you make today." Author Unknown.
Today is Tuesday 18th September, 9am. What difference are you/ am I, going to make by 9am tomorrow?

Now all we have to do is make it happen. I love Paris.


What's playing on my YouTube right now? Natasha Bedingfield - I bruise easily. http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=_h_bdIynqio&feature=PlayList&p=4F1D642A6F9D7B46&index=18

Creativity- Left Brain, Right brain

Ah, the joys of Left Brain, Right Brain activities. My theory goes as follows. Occupy the handies with something to do which does not require much brain power and allow the few crispy grey cells I have left to noodle on the story.

It works for me.

Gardening. I often drop the secateurs to scribble down an idea. A chapter. Or in one case a complete outline JK Rowling style [ for a Blaze which was rejected at the query stage ho, hum].

Cooking. Any excuse.

And Knittting. Plain knitting. Currently a garter stitch sideways mercerised cotton cardy. This one.

http://www.lanagrossa.com/service/mdm/04_2007/index.html

Or scarves for gifts. I will not mention the Xmas word, but work out the weeks left. Scary. We already have a gift catalogue through the post! Start now. Write your book. Make the pressies.

So here is how it works for me:

1. plain knitting project to hand

2. music playing on playlist lasting about 30 or 40 mins tops

3. writing materials/desktop

4. problem to think through about the scene/character/whole arc

5. paper or print out with space for brainstorming

Start knitting. And thinking. Dreaming out the scene/visualising. With the internal editor turned off. Nothing is too horrible or pathetic or daft. Full on day dreaming is required.

Never failed me yet. But, as Jenny Crusie says, there are many roads to OZ.

* Picture from http://jezebel.com/gossip/maghag/lolvogue-scarves-silverware--scooters-290003.php picked up by Smart Bitches who read Trashy Novels http://www.smartbitchestrashybooks.com/index.php/P8/

By the way - that scarf is real - from a real Vogue mag. The horror.

Nothing on my YouTube - listening to Mahler on the radio over the internet - http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/