Stories & Songs #6

I'm back with another installment of Stories & Songs. As always, you can find all the songs mentioned in this playlist!

Where She Went

by Gayle Forman

"Polaroid"

Imagine Dragons

I am a head case
I am the colour of boom
That's never arriving
At you are the opera
Always on time and in tune
And I am the colour of boom

Signal to Noise

by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

"Miss Missing You"

Fall Out Boy

Baby, you were my picket fence
I miss missing you now and then
Chlorine kissed summer skin
I miss missing you now and then
Sometimes before it gets better
The darkness gets bigger
The person that you’d take a bullet for is behind the trigger
Oh
We’re fading fast
I miss missing you now and then

The Raven Boys

by Maggie Stiefvater

"Don't Carry it All"

The Decemberists

There a wreath of trillium and ivy

Laid upon the body of a boy

Lazy will the loam come from its hiding

Return this quiet searcher to soil

So raise a glass to turnings of the season

And watch it as it arcs towards the sun

And you must bear your neighbour's burden within reason

And your labours will be born when all is done

And nobody, nobody knows

Let the yoke fall from our shoulders

Don't carry it all, don't carry it all

We are all our hands and holders

Beneath this bold and brilliant sun

And this I swear to all, and this I swear to all

Past Perfect

by Leila Sales

"Last Year's Troubles"

Suzanne Vega

Last year's troubles are so old fashioned
The robber on the highway, the pirate on the seas
Maybe it's the clothing that's so entertaining
The earrings and swashbuckling blouses that please

Here we have heroes of times that have passed now
but nobody these days has that kind of chin
Over there the petticoats of ladies of virtue
You can hardly tell them from the petticoats of sin 

American Gods

by Neil Gaiman

"Take Me to Church"

Hozier

If I'm a pagan of the good times
My lover's the sunlight
To keep the Goddess on my side
She demands a sacrifice

Drain the whole sea
Get something shiny
Something meaty for the main course
That's a fine-looking high horse
What you got in the stable?
We've a lot of starving faithful

That looks tasty
That looks plenty
This is hungry work

Take me to church
I'll worship like a dog at the shrine of your lies
I'll tell you my sins so you can sharpen your knife
Offer me my deathless death
Good God, let me give you my life

The Versatile Blogger Award!

I was nominated by Mallory @ The Local Muse for the Versatile Blogger Award - thanks Mallory!

Rules:

1. Nominate 15 other bloggers relatively new to blogging.

2. Let the bloggers know that you've nominated them.

3. Share ten random facts about yourself.

4. Thank the blogger who nominated you and link back to their blog.

5. Add the Versatile Blogger Award picture to your post.

I'm going to be very naughty and not nominate anyone specific because I'm lazy I honestly don't think I know 15 relatively new bloggers, which means I need to discover some new bloggers! So if you want to do this then consider yourself nominated!

1. I've broken four bones, but I've never dislocated anything and I hope I never do.
2. I'd love to one day work as a staff writer for a magazine like SciFiNow.
3. I loathe indecisiveness. Especially when it comes from myself.
4. I deeply regret never taking any music lessons while I was at school. In fact I feel like I regret a few too many things for someone who's only 23.
5. I'm bad at watching TV.
6. Disney's Beauty and the Beast is my favourite film of all time.
7. I'd like to pass my driving test this year, even though the thought of getting behind the wheel of a car terrifies me.
8. I'm going to see Imagine Dragons in November and I'm very excited!
9. One year I'd love to go to a Halloween party dressed as Sally from The Nightmare Before Christmas, I just need to convince someone to dress up as Jack and go with me first!
10. Speaking of The Nightmare Before Christmas, I think it's thanks to watching films like that one, Hocus Pocus and Beetlejuice that made me interested in spooky stories from a very early age...

Thanks again for the nomination, Mallory!

What's Up Wednesday! | 18/02/15

What's Up Wednesday is a weekly feature created by Jaime Morrow and Erin L. Funk as a way for writers and readers to stay in touch!

What I'm Reading

I haven't been reading too much this past week. I'm still enjoying Even White Trash Zombies Get the Blues by Diana Rowland, and at work I got to read Judas by Damian Walford Davies.

What I'm Writing

I think I'm going to start a new project. Famous last words.

I am by no means giving up on Bloodroot and Bracken, I still fully intend to finish it, but I've had an idea for another novel that's been rattling around in my head since the middle of last year, and a thought suddenly occurred to me the other day: what am I waiting for?

I like this idea, but I also like how completely unfamiliar to me it is. Like Bloodroot and Bracken it's historical fiction with fantastical elements, but it's set during a period of history I know little about, involving real historical figures I know next to nothing about, in an area of Britain whose history I know virtually nothing about, including fantastical creatures I'm surprisingly unfamiliar with. At its heart it's a story set in Medieval Wales involving dragons and girl power.

It's going to be a huge undertaking - there's a lot of research that I need to do - but I'm excited about it, and after how low I was feeling last week creatively it's so good to feel this way about a project.

So am I writing? I'm still working on short fiction and every now and then I chip away at Bloodroot and Bracken, but for now the majority of my writing is going to be research, because I need to start collecting a lot of it!

What Works For Me

Improv. When I was at school my favourite subject was Drama; I did it at GCSE and A Level and loved it so much, and to be honest I really miss those lessons.

Anyway, there have often been times where I know I need to write a scene in which something big happens, but I have no idea how to go about it or what's going to be said. So I do a bit of improv. With myself.

I know that probably sounds really weird, but I've mentioned before how I find talking to myself useful in that it helps me write natural dialogue because I can hear how a sentence would sound, and whether it sounds like something a person would actually say. This works in a very similar way; when you need to write a dramatic scene it can be really easy to slip into cliche language, so improv helps me a lot in finding that happy medium between 'engaging' and 'real'.

What Else Is New

I'm still hoping people will start signing up for my Forgotten Histories Reading Challenge! *wink wink nudge nudge*

Other than that, not too much! Work's starting to get busier now, and it's my sister's birthday - she's 34 today! I never know what to get my sisters when their birthdays roll around, but this year I got my oldest sister and I tickets to go and see Imagine Dragons in Cardiff in November. I'm really excited!

What's new with you?