Day 15 – Your favorite song at this time last year

I had a whole bunch of favourite songs at this time last year - Shattered by Trading Yesterday (see Day 7), Best I Ever Had by State of Shock, November Rain by J'Lostein (You Tube artist), and Fire and Redemption (Heroes theme) by Wendy and Lisa featuring Shenkar.

My usual Google search of images didn't turn up anything particularly inspiring unfortunately, so instead of using the songs I'm using the artists as a prompt today. J'Lostein is a fantastic singer with a beautiful voice and a unique style. On her website she makes a joke about looking as if she eats babies, and it's true that her appearance is almost a complete opposite to her style of music.

So today's theme is 'Appearances can be decieving'.

A new challenge

I really need to finish the 30 day song challenge...

But I found another interesting prompt challenge to try later - the 100 Themes Challenge. I don't plan on doing all of them, but if I'm stuck I might dip in and out.

The themes are:
1. Introduction
2. Love
3. Light
4. Dark
5. Seeking Solace
6. Break Away
7. Heaven
8. Innocence
9. Drive
10. Breathe Again
11. Memory
12. Insanity
13. Misfortune
14. Smile
15. Silence
16. Questioning
17. Blood
18. Rainbow
19. Gray
20. Fortitude
21. Vacation
22. Mother Nature
23. Cat
24. No Time
25. Trouble Lurking
26. Tears
27. Foreign
28. Sorrow
29. Happiness
30. Under the Rain
31. Flowers
32. Night
33. Expectations
34. Stars
35. Hold My Hand
36. Precious Treasure
37. Eyes
38. Abandoned
39. Dreams
40. Rated
41. Teamwork
42. Standing Still
43. Dying
44. Two Roads
45. Illusion
46. Family
47. Creation
48. Childhood
49. Stripes
50. Breaking the Rules
51. Sport
52. Deep in Thought
53. Keeping a Secret
54. Tower
55. Waiting
56. Danger Ahead
57. Sacrifice
58. Kick in the Head
59. No Way Out
60. Rejection
61. Fairy Tale
62. Magic
63. Do Not Disturb
64. Multitasking
65. Horror
66. Traps
67. Playing the Melody
68. Hero
69. Annoyance
70. 67%
71. Obsession
72. Mischief Managed
73. I Can't
74. Are You Challenging Me?
75. Mirror
76. Broken Pieces
77. Test
78. Drink
79. Starvation
80. Words
81. Pen and Paper
82. Can You Hear Me?
83. Heal
84. Out Cold
85. Spiral
86. Seeing Red
87. Food
88. Pain
89. Through the Fire
90. Triangle
91. Drowning
92. All That I Have
93. Give Up
94. Last Hope
95. Advertisement
96. In the Storm
97. Safety First
98. Puzzle
99. Solitude
100. Relaxation

Day 14 – A song that you wish you heard on the radio

One of my favourite albums from a few years ago was Celine Dion's The Colour of my Love. The album had a lot of really good songs on it, including Refuse to Dance, which has a really interesting violin part. But I think my favourite song was Next Plane Out.

I like the melody, I like the orchestration - including the wonderful violins in the last choruses, and I like the almost poetic nature of some of the lyrics. The opening lines conjur up a wonderful picture, and the song starts with the sound of rain, bringing it even more to life.

I listen to the sound of the rain fallin' down my window
Prayin' for a gentle wind
To bring my baby back again

So today's prompt is going to be describing someone sitting by a window, watching the rain and waiting for something.

Day 13 – A song that reminds you of someone

A Whole New World from Aladdin was the first duet I ever sang, and so of course it reminds me of the person I sang the duet with.

When I googled the song name one of the first pictures that popped up that wasn't Disney-related was this one. I presume this family is at an aquarium, but what if they were in a submarine, or an underwater city?

Today's prompt is to write something about an entirely different environment to live in, whether that's on the moon, under the sea (hey, there's another Disney song!), in a sub-zero place or in a floating city in the sky.

Jazz Night on Every Day Poets

My poem was published on Every Day Poets on June 17 and it seems that people like it as it's currently in the top ten favourite poems of the year list!
If you're one of the people who rated it, thank you! If not, then please go and read it and let me know what you think.

Sounds exciting, no?

Advanced creative writing develops your writing ability by widening your generic range and developing your knowledge of style. The course works on the forms introduced in the Level 2 course Creative writing (A215) – fiction, poetry and life writing – and supplements these with dramatic writing, showing you how to write for stage, radio and film. You’ll explore how these scriptwriting skills might enhance your prose style, improve your writing across the range of forms, and further develop your individual style and voice. The course offers guidance on professional layouts for the dramatic media, and is a natural progression from A215.

More here...

In the Newspaper

As a journalist I'm used to writing the stories for the newspapers, but I'm not so used to be in them as the story myself. This was in a while ago about Write for Japan, but I've only just found the pdf to post the article up here. Quite a nice write up I thought.