Ave

I have just finished writing a scene of 895 words that, now written, I can’t imagine the book being whole without. It’s taken me over twenty hours to write these words; that’s an average of three-quarters of a word each minute. Of course, during those twenty hours I also slept, ate twice, listened to four CDs to find the right song for Alex to sing – so obvious, once I’d found it – and then YouTube-surfed for an hour finding Alex’s voice. All that makes it more like this pivotal scene was composed at the breakneck pace of three words a minute. At any rate of words, there are a number of boy sopranos singing Ave Maria, but for me the most piercing version is from the Welsh singer Aled Jones, recorded a long time ago – about the time, actually, that Alex would have been singing it. Here, listen for yourself:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=282FP5Kgr90