Write Anyway

Woohoo! It’s Friday!

This week went by pretty darn fast for me, so no complaining about that from me today. I am, as always very happy for the weekend. Tomorrow the man and I are going to get an elliptical as well as a bicycle (the latter is being given to me for free by a friend who no longer uses it).

A pretty darn good weekend ahead, if you ask me! Of course, you always have the added plus of no work on the weekend, but I always end up doing at least a little bit, so…

Here is the Friday Fill-In #96. I hope you enjoy my answers, and be sure to leave me a link to yours!

1. My favorite food seasoning is probably sesame oil with soy sauce coming in second as a very strong competitor.
2. The sound of wooden wind chimes, people laughing… is music to my ears.
3. Lucky is as lucky does.
4. My future with my husband is something I take very seriously.
5. Many people say many things, but many people rarely do many things.
6. Erm… a few baby things were the last thing I bought at the store. (No, I’m not expecting.)
7. And as for the weekend, tonight I’m looking forward to relaxing with the husband (as always), tomorrow my plans include picking up various exercise equipment, maybe starting NaNoWriMo and Sunday, I want to do whatever I feel like doing!

That Sunday one may include a nap. I’m sleeeepy and it’s only 4pm.

Of course, I almost completely forgot about NaNoWriMo… I still have no idea if I am going to do it or not. I only have eight hours left to decide…

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Hello and happy Thursday Thirteen, all. As per usual, I will be giving you a list of thirteen prompts in all shapes and sizes. They could be a first line of dialogue, a plot idea, or something else. I hope you enjoy and pick and choose as you please.

If there are any other types of prompts that you would find useful, let me know anytime.

Have a great day.

1. “I wasn’t naturally beautifully or naturally intelligent like your other kids…”
2. Open the book nearest you to a random page and pick out the first complete sentence. Use that sentence as the start of a scene.
3. Write about two characters who are caught in an embarrassing situation.
4. “Don’t leave. Not yet.”
5. Think about something you would never do - pick your nose in public, go skydiving - and write a scene with a character who is doing that thing.
6. Create a setting that encourages fear.
7. Write a short with seven characters - each taking after one of the seven deadly sins.
8. What would you do if you were President of the US?
9. “Nobody wanted to say anything, but it was clear: I was going to die.”
10. Pay attention to what people around you are saying during the day. Pick random snippets of dialogue and use them to start off scenes.
11. You’re struck down by a mysterious illness that has some strange side effects…
12. Write a scene/short story with the theme of betrayal.
13. Pick something you use every day or nearly every day and write about what you would do if you lost that thing (and couldn’t get another one right away).

Check out my other Thursday Thirteens on The Book Stacks and Fiction Scribe

Hello once again everyone!

Welcome to another mid-week random word bank. I rather like random word banks. There is a challenge in them that not only gets your mind working, but you can also end up with a scene that you didn’t know you had it in you to write.

I hope you find these word banks useful. If there is a type of prompt you would prefer to see, please let me know.

Remember, with all the words, you can use any form, any tense of the word. Eg. Laugh can be laugh, laughter, laughs, laughed.

For the first word bank, I don’t want you to write a short story or anything actually. What I want you to do is word association. For every word there, I want you to write the word and then write the first word that comes to your mind after.

For the second word bank, I do want you to write a short story (or something longer if you like) that incorporates this week’s theme. This round goes as usual; just include all of the words in the bank.

For the third word bank, it is something different yet again. I would like you to try your hand at writing a poem incorporating the words provided. (Don’t worry if you can’t quite use all the words; eight or nine is great!)

Enjoy!

First Word Bank
Baby
Relationship
Work
Coffee
Lotion
Switzerland
Word
Gossip
Opera
Moment

Second Word Bank
Neighbor
Test
Intense
Crop
Yellow
Great
Song
Go
Start
Night

Third Word Bank
Ebb
Flow
Natural
Soft
Caress
Safe
Crush
Lick
Cover
Choice

After wondering what subject I would ‘contemplate’ today and then just leaving it up to the back of my brain to figure out eventually, I found myself coming back repeatedly to the subject of health.

Health is important to all of us. Be it physical health, mental health or even spiritual health, we all need to keep our health up and in balance.

I don’t have the best health, to say the least, but I’m working on it because I would like to become a mother. It’s important to me to be healthier than I am now when I conceive so my child can have a healthy environment to grow in.

I also often have mental health on my mind, as it is important to me to be happy, not too stressed, and I like to make sure that my husband is also happy and not too stressed.

Today I would like you to think and write about health - in one or all of the ways I mentioned above. In those ways…

Do you not consider yourself healthy? Why? Do you want to help yourself get healthier? If so, have you started getting healthier? What are you doing/will you do? Why do you think you got to this point of being unhealthy?

Remember, to help clear your mind before you start writing, take a few deep breaths. Focus on the sound of the air entering and leaving your lungs. Let the noises and worries of the day fade for a few moments while you focus only on breathing.

After you are calm, think about your experiences and start writing.

Wishing you heaps of creativity and a generous muse.

You know, parents pick out names that can end either ‘a’ or ‘ah’ and that’s fine, but it’s really annoying when the person then goes on to be famous and you have people spelling the person’s name both ways.

Grump.

Anyway, welcome to another Musical Monday. As much as I like Musical Mondays, I’m thinking of declaring some sort of international holiday so we all have a weekend that actually lasts a full week. Sounds nice, doesn’t it?

Anyway…

Today I am featuring one of my more recent favourites: Norah Jones

Norah Jones’ music is a bit different to most other people’s. With a soft voice often paired with soft, flowing melodies, her music is the kind I like to listen to when I write relaxing scenes filled with private times and young lovers. Her songs help my writing to flow smoothly and for me to captures the essence of the seasonal beauty nature likes to show.

Here are just a few of her songs for you to enjoy. These are the ones I heard first from her and the ones I play the most. Enjoy…

You can, as usual, find many more of her music videos on sites like YouTube.

I hope you’ve enjoyed her music as much as I do, and I hope you find it inspirational. If you have any suggestions for singers or bands you’d like to see featured, let me know in the comments. I won’t promise to put all selections up, but I do promise to take a look.

Take care.

Well, it’s a warm Sunday night here in Oz and it’s time for Sunday Scribblings. I loaded up this site and then went to the Sunday Scribbling site, fully expecting a one word prompt. Alas, no, we have an infinitely more interesting prompt…

“This week: bragging. What’s awesome about you? You can pick one awesome thing, or list as many as you can. Don’t be shy!”

Wow. How does one even start? I decided to go to someone who would know all the good (and bad) things about me: my husband.

He didn’t have to think long before he said, “Courage.”

I didn’t see that one coming, but I will agree with him on that.

Given the number of things I often shy away from, I certainly don’t think I am the most courageous person out there. However, courage is definitely one of my positive aspects. Take a recent example:

Having come from living in the country in the middle of two smaller towns, big cities - like Melbourne - intimidated me. What intimidated me even more was the prospect of taking public transportation (in this case, trains) all the way there on my own.

For the longest time, I refused to travel on the trains by myself. Then I started getting used to taking the trains to the station near where my husband works. Even with doing that, I refused to go to the city alone.

Last week, without any prompting from anyone other than myself, I went into the city alone. I had to get something taken care of for my visa so, despite the fact I could have waited for a time when my husband could come with me, I took the trains into the city.

I’m quite proud of myself for that.

So, yes, my courage would definitely be an awesome thing about me. I challenge myself and try to rise to the challenges of others, no matter how afraid I may be.

It’s Friday! Once again I have been eagerly awaiting the arrival of the start of the weekend. Especially after this week when it has seemed like this, that and every little thing has been popping up just to make life a little more difficult.

You know those kind of weeks…

But the weekend is finally here and I am embracing it with open arms! I’m not sure how much of a weekend I’ll actually end up having (I have a lot of work to do) but not having to work to a daily deadline always helps.

What else helps is one of my favourite Friday activities! The Friday fill-ins. Here is edition 95…

1. Right now, I’m feeling like having a big piece of chocolate cake and vanilla ice cream while watching a good movie.
2. The world where #1 is happening is where I want to be.
3. How does one win the lottery so one can afford a house and baby…?
4. My husband usually keeps me on track.
5. Please don’t try to invalidate my experiences.
6. My husband fills me with joy.
7. And as for the weekend, tonight I’m looking forward to taking some time to relax even though that’s doubtful at this point, tomorrow my plans include working some more and Sunday, I want to do something… I have no idea…!

Mmm. Chocolate cake. Sounds good to me!

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend full of relaxation, creativity, bonding and, should you so choose, a big piece of chocolate cake. I’ll be back here on Sunday with Sunday Scribblings.

Hello and happy Thursday Thirteen, all. As per usual, I will be giving you a list of thirteen prompts in all shapes and sizes. They could be a first line of dialogue, a plot idea, or something else. I hope you enjoy and pick and choose as you please.

If there are any other types of prompts that you would find useful, let me know anytime.

Have a great day.

1. “You’re a good man. The best I’ve ever known.”
2. Write a letter to your president/prime minister.
3. Try writing a humorous poem about your day.
4. Interview one of your characters.
5. Write a scene with at least three different characters. Write it three times, once from each character’s perspective.
6. “There is so much I want to learn.”
7. Start writing from the first person perspective of a fantastic creature (vampire, elf, unicorn).
8. One of your characters comes across a mysterious object…
9. You’ve suddenly found out that you are going to lose your house.
10. If you were offered a regular column in a newspaper or magazine, what would you call it and what would it be about?
11. Trade blogs with a friend for a day.
12. “Get down now!”
13. You’re in the airport, ready to board the plane…

Check out my other Thursday Thirteens on The Book Stacks and Fiction Scribe

Hello once again everyone!

Welcome to another mid-week random word bank. I rather like random word banks. There is a challenge in them that not only gets your mind working, but you can also end up with a scene that you didn’t know you had it in you to write.

I hope you find these word banks useful. If there is a type of prompt you would prefer to see, please let me know.

Remember, with all the words, you can use any form, any tense of the word. Eg. Laugh can be laugh, laughter, laughs, laughed.

For the first word bank, I don’t want you to write a short story or anything actually. What I want you to do is word association. For every word there, I want you to write the word and then write the first word that comes to your mind after.

For the second word bank, I do want you to write a short story (or something longer if you like) that incorporates this week’s theme. This round goes as usual; just include all of the words in the bank.

For the third word bank, it is something different yet again. I would like you to try your hand at writing a poem incorporating the words provided. (You don’t have to use them all if you can’t; poetry is a bit different.)

Enjoy!

First Word Bank
Expectation
Pressure
Brown
Leisure
Soap Opera
Alarm Clock
Dentist
Eggs
Gentle
Cup

Second Word Bank
brand
king
mall
bracelet
gasp
grey
yawn
over
greet
email

Third Word Bank
white
old
meaningful
need
change
life
perfect
help
smooth
balance

Another week and another thing that’s on my mind…

Yesterday, to get some passport/visa stuff sorted out, I did something I consider to be brave. I went into Melbourne on the trains by myself.

Other people do the same thing every day, so what makes my trip so brave? Well, before yesterday, I refused to go into the city by myself. It was a long time before I was brave enough to go on the trains by myself alone no matter where I was going. I consider it to be a personal accomplishment that, without any prodding from anyone else, I faced my previous fears to get something important done.

But again, other people do it every day, so it’s not a brave thing to everyone. Bravery can be a subjective thing, so today I’d like you to think about it:

How do you define bravery? What is the difference between a person who is brave and a person who is not? What, to you, defines a brave act?

Do you consider yourself a brave person? Why or why not? Do other people consider you brave? Why or why not?

Remember, to help clear your mind before you start writing, take a few deep breaths. Focus on the sound of the air entering and leaving your lungs. Let the noises and worries of the day fade for a few moments while you focus only on breathing.

After you are calm, think about your experiences and start writing.

Wishing you heaps of creativity and a generous muse.

Hello everyone! Welcome back to Write Anyway and another Musical Monday.

I had originally planned on a different singer to feature today, but I have finally found out the name of the singer I have been looking for! He’s an Aussie singer whose song I heard just a clip of and I have been a fan ever since.

If you want more information on him, you can check out his Wikipedia page.

Here are some of his songs!

This is the first song of Pete’s that I heard. I heard it once and it caught me. I have been in love with it ever since.

I don’t usually like live versions of things, but the music (and joining up with John Mayer) makes it so worth it.

More of a rock tune for this one. I just love his voice.

And there is plenty more of Pete Murray’s videos you can find on YouTube! There are a lot of videos that I like but the embedding codes are disabled, so I encourage you to check it out for yourself.

I hope you enjoy his music as much as I do. There are some great scenes in the works inspired by this music.

Posts might be a little late this week, but I’ll try to keep up. My wrist pain hasn’t really been letting up much and it will be a while before I can take the next step in getting it taken care of.

Have an excellent rest of the day and rest of the week!

Today is an interesting Sunday as I’m going to be typing with one hand. I wonder how fast I can go… Of course, if I hadn’t said anything you wouldn’t know the difference… I just thought I’d share anyway. Hee!

“The prompt this week is: My Style. Do you know what your style is? Or you have you ever said, “That’s not my style!” Do you have a personal style? What do you think about style? It’s a weird word when you look at it. What do you make of style?”

I can honestly say that I have never said, “That’s not my style!” Something about the phrase makes me giggle a bit, but I think that’s just because I’m being a bit pedantic. I have said, “Well, that’s just not me” which is pretty much along the same lines.

So what is me? Well… I suppose ‘easy going with an appreciation of beauty”. That’s a bit of a mouthful, but it’s all I could think of. I’m not a person whose has an extreme or clearly defined style. I like a bit of everything - well, mostly everything. Overall, comfort is key. (Though I have worn uncomfortable things before.)

In and of itself, I don’t like the word style. In ‘lifestyle’ it’s not too bad, but ’style’ reminds me too much of ‘fashion’ and I could rant quite a bait on that. ‘Essence’ or even ‘groove’ (hehe) is good when talking about a person’s overall persona.

~

This one was a bit of a hard/weird one for me. Sorry for rambling and not making a whole lot of sense.

As you know, I’ve been on vacation, so I’m going to play a bit of catch-up with the fill-ins I’ve missed. I’ll be posting three of them today…

It’s Friday! And a catchup Friday at that, so three times the fill-in fun…

From October 2nd:

1. October showers bring May flowers… wait, that’s not right.
2. Marshmallow peeps scare me!
3. Leaves are falling all around, it’s the end of the world as we know it!
4. My favorite horror movie is the Halloween movies because I grew up with them.
5. Australia = good memories.
6. It was a dark and stormy night because nights are always dark and sometimes stormy.

From October 9th:

1. One of the best concerts/plays/movies I ever saw that I really didn’t think I’d like was The Dish.
2. The Lord Nelson Schnitzel is a recipe I recently made (or meal I recently ordered) that was delicious!
3. It’s time for computer games!
4. Gin and tonic is quite refreshing.
5. If I never hear the word totally again, it’ll be too soon.
6. To one side of the curving road was a chicken, and on the other was a Colonel Sanders.

From October 17th:

1. Follow the bouncing ball.
2. A first aid kit is something I always take with me on vacation.
3. To achieve your goals, you must know what your goals are.
4. My love for Australia is something I’d like you to know about me.
5. I have a husband.
6. The boat floats.
7. And as for the weekend, tonight I’m looking forward to relaxing, tomorrow my plans include going to the movies and Sunday, I want to relax some more!

I hope you all have a great weekend!

Hello and happy Thursday Thirteen, all. As per usual, I will be giving you a list of thirteen prompts in all shapes and sizes. Well, I usually do, anyway. This week I am going to take lines from lyrics and see if they inspire you. (I’ll send a present to the person who can name all the songs the lyrics come from.)

Want to play?

If there are any other types of prompts that you would find useful, let me know anytime.

Have a great day.

1. “Every moment gets better.”
2. “People say life is full of choices; no one ever mentions fear.”
3. “Things my heart used to know.”
4. “Another day, another destiny.”
5. “Things just get so crazy; livin’ life gets hard to do.”
6. “How can I stand here with you and not be moved by you?”
7. “Everything I know has let me down.”
8. “Her old neighbors swear they’re certain she slept her way to the top.”
9. “There’s no doubt in my mind where you belong.”
10. “Mary’s got the same sized hands as Marilyn Monroe.”
11. “Who said that every wish would be heard and answered…”
12. “Sometimes in the morning, my coffee gets ice cold.”
13. “When the walls come tumbling down, I will always be around.”

Check out my other Thursday Thirteens on The Book Stacks and Fiction Scribe

Hello once again everyone!

Welcome to another mid-week random word bank. I rather like random word banks. There is a challenge in them that not only gets your mind working, but you can also end up with a scene that you didn’t know you had it in you to write.

I hope you find these word banks useful. If there is a type of prompt you would prefer to see, please let me know.

Remember, with all the words, you can use any form, any tense of the word. Eg. Laugh can be laugh, laughter, laughs, laughed.

For the first word bank, I don’t want you to write a short story or anything actually. What I want you to do is word association. For every word there, I want you to write the word and then write the first word that comes to your mind after.

For the second word bank, I do want you to write a short story (or something longer if you like) that incorporates this week’s theme. This round goes as usual; just include all of the words in the bank.

For the third word bank, it is something different yet again. I would like you to try your hand at writing a poem incorporating the words provided.

Enjoy!

First Word Bank
Australia
Eggplant
Not me!
Secret
Government
Drought
Bagel
Religion
Surprise
Dream

Second Word Bank
Step
Far
Contemplate
Sign
Rock
Jar
Nurse
Urgent
Yellow
Light

Third Word Bank
Sing
Fly
Truth
Haunt
Grey
Whisper
Ocean
Hint
Question
Nature