Write Anyway

Hello and welcome to Musical Monday!

Today I have decided to do something just a little different. Instead of featuring just one singer or group, I’m going to feature a category: classical music.

Classical music may be considered ’stuffy’ but many, but to me, it can be inspirational, passionate, and very enjoyable. Today I’ll feature a few of my favourite pieces. Feel free to let me know some of your classical favourites in the comments.

Enjoy…

And there you have it! Your musical inspiration for the week.

There are a lot more songs out there, so do some hunting! I hope you find this music 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. Besides, I’m always open to falling in love with a new band or singer and adding more music to my massive collection.

Have an excellent week filled with inspiration, time to write and a very generous muse.

Hello everyone!

I’ve decided to hold a contest that will be a good thing for everyone. I don’t feel right just asking for help without offering something in return, so I figured a contest would be the perfect way to do things.

I write for a site called The Bloggers Guide, writing articles all about my beloved Melbourne and surrounds. Currently, they have a contest running for the six regional winners from around the world. (I’m standing for Australasia.)

I’m hoping to not only win the grand prize but to also have at least some of my entries become popular enough to be published in The Bloggers Guide to Melbourne book. I very much need your help.

What You Can Win

Like I said, I don’t feel quite right asking for your help and giving nothing in return. What I’m offering you is… drumroll… a copy of Chicken Soup for the Soul: Campus Chronicles. (The one in the picture.)

Why this book? This recently published book just so happens to have a nonfiction story about a horror roommate of mine tucked in its pages.

I’m giving away three copies. If more than ten people enter, I will increase the number of copies to give away to five.

If you’re not keen on this book, just let me know and we’ll work something else out.

Winners of this (my) contest will be announced May 3rd.

How to Win

I very much hope you’ll go in and vote to help me, as it doesn’t take a lot of time and you don’t have to sign up to do so. However, there is no way to keep track of who voted. Because of that…

All you have to do is put up one post. Easy peasy. Just let your readers know what’s going on and that I’m looking for a little help from my friends (I’m going to get that song stuck in my head now). Put up a post with a little blurb, the links to where they can vote, and how they can also go in for a chance to win. (They must come back here to leave a link to their post to be entered.)

Where to Vote:

Go here: http://www.thebloggersguide.com/wbc and give five stars to The New Australian.

Go here: http://www.thebloggersguide.com/melbourne/the-new-australian and rate me at five stars again.

Lastly, go here: http://www.thebloggersguide.com/blogs/jmsilver That’s a list of all my blog entries. You can click on the “+” signs next to each entry.

Voting goes until May 1st, so be sure to check in often and cheer on The New Australian.

As always, thank you for your kindness and support.

It’s Friday! I’m so happy it’s Friday. Yay!

This week, I took the first sentence in 6 of my favorite books…you fill them in…with the right words or even better, ones of your own.

And…here we go!

1. “In a hole in the ground there lived a wild, crazy lady. Then I moved out.”

2. “The world is coming to a catastrophic end that we have very little power to stop, but that ain’t no matter.”

3. “After dark the rain began to fall again, and I felt myself relaxing. It’d been so long since I’d danced in the rain. What made city rain so different from country rain? Since I moved to the city, I just didn’t dance anymore.”

4. “I stole popcorn from the hold of the Spanish galleon.”

5. “There was a hand in the darkness, and that hand was a strange hand. No arm attached. No, that would be too normal. Too predictable. I encouraged the hand to come out into the light, but, being the shy little thing it was, it took a good bit of encouragement. In the end, I turned off all the electric lights and lit some candles. The warmth and dim light seemed to relax it, and it came out.”

6. “Accidents ambush the unsuspecting, the unsuspecting ambush the ones not paying attention.”

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I’m looking forward to getting more work done (less to do later) and maybe getting some novel writing in, tomorrow my plans include possibly going shopping to get my husband some trousers and Sunday, I want to do something that makes me happy!

Wow! I had a lot of fun doing these fill-ins. You all probably think I’m a weirdo now, but it was fun! I hope you enjoyed them.

I also hope you have an absolutely wonderful weekend. If you can spare a moment for me, please head over to my personal blog. I’d really appreciate it.

Until Sunday…

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. “Oh, honey. That thing is all kinds of shabby.”
2. Something strange has happened and suddenly you’re the most intelligent person on the planet…
3. You’ve been given a grant to work from home! What’s your business?
4. “Somehow we’ll come through.”
5. Describe yourself from someone else’s perspective.
6. It isn’t easy being purple. You’d know - you woke up this morning and your skin turned that colour…
7. “Did you just think of that, or have you been working on it for a while?
8. Write about unrequited love…
9. Could you survive in a post-apocalyptic world?
10. What is one of the most clear moments of your life?
11. “Sometimes you make me wonder. About everything.”
12. Congratulations, you’ve been chosen to live in the first Mars colony…
13. “You just have to stop thinking sometimes and get it done already.”

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
Egalitarian
Conspiracy
Website
Amateur
Sing
Pain
Crime
Book
Rock
Space

Second Word Bank
Small
Plant
Dance
Purple
Lights
Glance
Best
Girl
Know
Rose

Third Word Bank
Melody
Whisper
Guitar
Smile
Run
Indulge
Spin
Happy
Sing
Celebrate

***Remember to leave a link to your responses!

*Picture from Aringsburg Kennel

For a long time now, my husband and I have wanted to get a dog. I was a bit more general on what it could be, but given I’m allergic to some cats and I just plain don’t do fish, a dog seemed the natural choice.

Did I mention that my husband has had dogs most of his life and has a particular love for German Shepherds?

The problem is where we live. There is no back yard. We’re in a small flat. We would love the dog utterly and completely, but could all that love really make up for an open back yard?

And so we’re stuck, longing for the day we can get our own place with space for a dog we can love.

Do you have a pet? If yes, what kind? If no, do you want a pet? Why or why not? Did you grow up with pets or have you never had one? Do you have an inspirational, funny, or outright strange pet stories? Do you/did you have a pet that you will forever remember fondly?

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, a generous muse and heaps of time to write. Feel free to check in here with your progress for the day/week/month/etc.

Another Monday, another musical group to pay tribute to!

I discovered The Fray not long after I moved to Australia. They quickly became a regular addition to my mp3 player as a pleasurable group to listen to as well as an inspiration for my creative writing.

According to wikipedia: “The Fray is a Grammy Award-nominated four-piece piano rock band. Formed in 2002 by schoolmates Isaac Slade and Joe King, the Greeley-based group released their debut album How to Save a Life in 2005. The band is best known for the song “How to Save a Life”, which charted in the top three of the Billboard Hot 100 and was also a top 5 single in Canada, Australia, Ireland, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. The Fray also found national success with the song “Over My Head (Cable Car)”, which became a top ten hit in the United States and Canada. How to Save a Life was certified double platinum by the RIAA and was also certified platinum in Australia and New Zealand.”

You can check out their official website here.

Enjoy the music.

And there you have it! Your musical inspiration for the week.

There are a lot more songs out there, so do some hunting! I hope you find this music 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.

Have an excellent week filled with inspiration, time to write and a very generous muse.

“The prompt this week is, “I come from…” or if you like you could try, “I came from…” This is all about your perspective. Where did you start? Where do you start? How did it all begin? Where do you stand right now? Where exactly do you come from?”

Oh boy. Of all the Sunday Scribblings I wouldn’t want to talk about…

I’m going to go ahead and write about this, even though it would be much easier to simply ignore it and skip the Scribblings for a week. As much as I avoid things I don’t like, I do occasionally ‘harden up’ and do things that I don’t want to do when I feel they will be of some benefit to me. “It’s good for you” and all that such nonsense.

I come from… a place that’s not all bad. Then again, no place is, is it? We do our best to keep up masks and facades, and sometimes our dreams to become reality. We experience real joy and happiness. Sometimes we even get to take off the masks, drop all the games, and we still experience happiness.

Other times, the masks become more elaborate, and those who seek a true life just become more depressed.

I come from… a place that was full of light and goodness – when I was still too young to realize that just because my family did it didn’t mean it was normal or right.

I come from… a place I probably wouldn’t recognize if I saw now. I wouldn’t recognize the people, except for physically. Everything has changed and, while I’ve proved that I have no problem with change itself, I do have a problem with people who change for something other than strictly *true* benefit.

I come from… a place filled with people who would be horrified to know I was speaking this way. And that makes me doubt myself. But then I remember the pain. The depression. The lies and the hurt.

I come from a place that made me feel like I was never safe and always had to be on guard.

But…

I am stronger than I was.

Another Friday Fill-In that I’m actually getting done on the Friday? The world is truly turning on its head, people. Crazy stuff is happening.

I’m so glad its Friday. I’m so very glad the weekend is coming. I’m am well and truly ready for it.

And…here we go! This week’s leads…

1. Why do we have to pay thousands of dollars just for the ‘honor’ of ‘higher education’ even if - due to whatever circumstances - we are unable to complete the degree anyway?

2. The bad things I did occasionally back then are now habits.

3. I have the strongest urge to just say ’screw it’ and go take a nap.

4. I had never heard the phrase “take a squiz” and it maybe me think of dirty things even though it’s actually completely innocent.

5. I’m going to cook it the way I always do.

6. How was I to know that things explode so easily…

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I’m looking forward to a meal in the city with my husband, tomorrow my plans include going on a bit of a road trip and Sunday, I want to get some creative writing done because my novel has been missing me something fierce!

And there you have it; another exciting edition of Friday Fill-Ins from yours truly.

I hope you all have an absolutely marvelous weekend, even if things happen to be really hard for you right now. May you feel the love of friends and/or family, may you have a wonderful time and may your muse be especially generous.

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. “She’s got a gun!”
2. Who influenced you most in your life?
3. Create a very strange to-do list and then write about the character who owns that list.
4. If you could do one thing in your life over, what would it be?
5. Are you religious? Spiritual? Do you know the difference between the two?
6. What makes you feel alive? What’s your passion?
7. If life were a musical, would you be a lead singer or in the chorus?
8. Write a letter to your past self, explaining, apologizing… whatever you feel the need to do.
9. You’ve been granted the strangest super power you’ve ever heard of…
10. Who are the five people you’d meet in heaven?
11. If there was anything you know now that you wish you’d known then…
12. Your house has been invaded by imps who personify your biggest pet peeves…
13. Have someone tell you a word - any word - and search that word using Google Images (or your preferred image perusal site). Use those images as inspiration.

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
Hat
Drinking
Politics
Earth
Brother
Psycho
Egg
Letter
Virus
Sinus

Second Word Bank
Click
Box
Muffin
Red
Baby
Belch
Schedule
Funny
Scratch
Wonder

Third Word Bank
Cup
Hold
Hug
Yell
Fire
Stream
Across
Turn
Time
Of

***Remember to leave a link to your responses!

It may seem like a lot, pairing the subjects of life and death together like I have. They’re such huge subjects. I could have dedicated one week to life and one week to death.

However, while that does work, I think the contemplation of both subjects takes on new levels and meanings when you pair them together. They’re polar opposites to some people and yet, to others, they’re nothing of the sort.

And so I’ve paired them together for this week’s contemplation in the hope that you’ll garner more inspiration and deep thinking that way. It’s all well and fine to contemplate the light, but when you’re also thinking about the darkness, new qualities arise.

What does life mean to you? Is there a difference between life and living? Have you lived a full life? Could you define your life in a single word? A song? A poem?

What does death mean to you? Do you believe in life after death? Reincarnation? Something different? Is death the end or something different? How would you prefer to die?

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, a generous muse and heaps of time to write. Feel free to check in here with your progress for the day/week/month/etc.

Is it Monday already? Oy. I want another day of the weekend!

Hello everyone! Welcome to your weekly dose of musical inspiration for whatever creative projects you’re working on.

This week I’m featuring another old favourite from my files: Rascall Flatts. I have been listening to this group for years. (Way to make myself feel old…) Straddling the genres of both country and pop in their cowboy boots, Gary LeVox (lead vocals), Jay DeMarcus (bass guitar, keyboards, vocals), and Joe Don Rooney (lead guitar, vocals) have been hitting up the music seen with their albums since 2000.

These good ol’ country boys from Ohio have been a smash hit from the beginning and are still going strong.

I have the pleasure of saying that I have seen these guys perform live more than once. I have found and continue to find their music very inspiring, as they have a large repertoire of both feel-good music as well as music that moves you.

Enjoy the videos…

And there you have it! Your musical inspiration for the week.

There are a lot more songs out there, so do some hunting! I hope you find this music 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.

Have an excellent week filled with inspiration, time to write and a very generous muse.

I’m doing this a little later than expected. I had it all set up to go and then we ended up going out because husband got home just as I finished setting up. Such as life, hey?

I’m looking forward to this weekend sooo much. I’m glad it’s Friday night (in my time zone) so I don’t have to worry about work (if I don’t want to, there is still work stuff to do on the weekend) and can just relax. I’m still recovering from the Mystery Virus (mystery because no one can tell me exactly what it is or why I’ve had it for a month) but things are looking up with the last round of antibiotics they’ve given me.

But enough about that! On to more fun things.

This week’s fill-ins:

1. When I look to the left, I see too much crap. A box I put the index cards I write my story ideas on, a stack of letters I have to get to, my schedule book, a water bottle… And I just realized I was looking right. Doh! Left = more junk and a view of the lounge.

2. The imaginary room is the room that has the best view in my home. HAHA. I live in a flat with no back yard. Sheesh.

3. Let it work ‘itself out’ is what you want, but I’d rather way ‘let it work for you’.

4. Body disposal done dirt cheap!

5. Shaking our heads at stupid people is a responsibility that all qualified citizens must share.

6. If you have any money feel free to help me pay off my student loans, which is what is preventing me from contributing financially to more important things like a house and a baby.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I’m looking forward to finishing up with the last of work and cruising the net, tomorrow my plans include a lot of sleep and more relaxing and Sunday, I want to relax, because that’s all I ever want to do on the weekend!

I feel like I answer the last fill-in the same every week. But I can’t help it if I just want to relax every weekend, now can I?

I hope you all have wonderful weekends filled with everything you want. I’ll see you back here for Sunday Scribblings. (Or maybe Musical Monday. I might just play hookey with the 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. “Can you hear the thunder?”
2. For every day of the (work)week, you lose one of your senses. Sense of smell on Monday, sense of taste on Tuesday, etc…
3. Have you ever read a book or watched a movie and thought, “I could have done that better”?
4. “I never said that!”
5. You find a very tiny jar with something inside…
6. Write a dramatic non-fiction scene.
7. “Here kitty kitty.”
8. If you could ask only one question of an alien race, what would it be?
9. Write about the theme ‘indulgence’.
10. “I’ll cut it off.”
11. Write a silly song about your day.
12.
13. “Something tells me this is going to be a rotten day.”