Writing under the Harvest Moon #5

previous thread is here…

I”m not feeling very inspired right now, just going practical as I think the #4 thread was getting too long.

So carry on chatting everyone :-)))

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I haven't been feeling to inspired myself lately, but I'll be on fire tomorrow ,because it's the weekend, Yay !!!!!!!!!

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yeah…. I think we need something to liven up the non NaNo chat! And I wanted to say that anyone not doing NaNoWrMo.. I'm sorry if it feels like you'll be forgotten. You are always welcome to come and chat in the NaNo Room, and actually  a lot of what is discussed there is useful for all writers, even if you are doing the month.

We have blizzard weather here…wild.

xo

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well…. we've been having typical Irish weather here this week… feels like I should be living in Ireland anyway. Rain, heavy rain, light rain, misty rain, torrential rain, rain rain :-P

I am feeling inspired to sit and do nothing - glad to be feeling better and that the virus my daughters and I caught this week didn't drag on for a long time. 70 kids in my oldest daughter's grade were down with it. Other schools in the community were hit by it too - hundreds of children and their families were burning up. Scary how fast it spread, especially when we are all being vigilant about washing hands etc because of H1N1… anyway, feeling better, and hoping to get back to writing today. I am going to a pumpkin party this afternoon - going to carve me a very scary jack-o-lantern for the front step and then more writing tonight :-)

I wanted to share this video - I came across this singer completely by accident on Twitter. I have to thank Tom actually for mentioning him because I am pretty sure I'd never have found him in the sea of videos on Youtube. The song gave me goosebumps, and that just doesn't happen much these days when I hear songs.  Was what I needed to see/ hear at the time - definitely!
xo
la

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feels like I should be living in Ireland anyway

hmm now there's a thought…:-)

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I like his voice and the dancing. I am trying understand exactly what he is saying though. He is very sincere. 
It is raining and cold here in halfmoon new york.
Okay I have to ask this. every time I try and put something in Italics. when I go to write more I can't get rid of the italics.
can somebody help me??

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the italics thing bugs me too. sometime when i hit enter for a new line it clears it, but not always.

with the song i think he is saying that when we don't choose to choose, when we simply follow along with what we are told and never find out for our selves, we are lost in someones  'victory' of control/faith in their illusion. because to have a war you need people believe/have faith in that war. and so to have peace perhaps what we need is people to believe in peace??? mmm interesting

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oh the other thing i do with italics is add them in after i finished (highly what i want to italic then hit the button )

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Me too, that's the only consistent way I can get italics to work when I want them and not when I don't want them, is to italicize after I've written the whole thing.

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that's what I got from the song too Azyh. Mark's a very nice person, I was able to talk with him directly last week (was it so long ago, I've no clue). I like the thought that we need to choose, and believe in peace… that it's up to us to be that change.

:-)

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okay I get it now. thanks for the clarifying the lyrics and the italics. So I will wait till the end to change it.
wow.

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hmmm yeah in fact. I think I need to plan a trip at least very soon!

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la posted this fabulous fabulous 'game' of hers on the Nano Preparations thread, and I thought I'd bring it here …. have a look at some of the 'results' of this came on that thread, they are just great…

The idea is to make your own album cover:

1 - Go to “wikipedia.” Hit “random”
The first random wikipedia article you get is the name of your band.

2 - Go to ”Random quotations”
The last four or five words of the very last quote of the page is the title of your first album.

3 - Go to flickr and click on “explore the last seven days”
Third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.

4 - Use Photoshop or similar to put it all together.

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This is my better half's Album Cover:

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& he absolutely followed instructions!! Too weird this thing, just too weird..

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Sandra, honest injun'? (sorry)—first picks, each one? That is not only weird, it is downright spooky. And very, very cool. I think I'm gonna have to try again now.

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hahahahahahaha oh my gosh, that's so spooky! what a photo too *smacks forehead*. great idea to move this over here… love it :-)

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this is funny

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Sandra, this is SO cool!

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this game totally freaks me out. i know i didn't totally go for the first picks but i really liked the ones that came together for me.

I don't have a program to merge what i came up with :(

WBHQ (first pick… didn't like it, picked again)

Politics of Kenya (second pick, kinda weird, picked again)

Wohlsborn (third time still didn't stick for me)

Polywrapping (loved this for some reason beyond me)

Most turkeys taste better the day after; my mother's tasted better the day before.
    Rita Rudner (didn't get this quote, looked for ways to pick new ones, then i got it and still didn't like it… LOL)

He has achieved success who has lived well, laughed often, and loved much.
    Bessie A. Stanley (liked this one but thought i would try for something else)

Mistakes are the portals of discovery.
    James Joyce (1882 - 1941) (loved this soooo much)

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2511/4021816467_6788af2dff.jpg (loved the picture from the start, didn't want to pick anything else)

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Hey Azyh,

I don't know if you know about Picasa—it's Google's free photo-editing software you can download to your computer. It's not photoshop, of course, but it's better than nothing.

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thank you Ruth, didn't realize that picasa did words too!!

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I am still lost

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very cool Azyh!

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this is very cool azyh! but you ARE cheating. NO cheating !! ;-)

I actually think
WBHQ for band name is great,

and album name great too:
Better the day before

(don't forget you're only supposed to use the last few (4-5) words of the quote)…..I cheated with hubby's and only used the last 3.

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why do you need an album cover?

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We don't need one, Jen, it's just a fun game (nothing to do with NaNo) that Leigh Anne thought up. A random way of figuring out the following:

If you were starting a band:
What would you call it?
What would be the title of your band's first album?
And what picture or design would the album have on it?

Leigh Anne's instructions for the game are here.

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oh sorry for the confusion Jenni - the reason that I brought it up on the NaNo thread is because through this game I came up with the title for the novel I am going to write in November…. “Birds and Invented Cages” (possibly, I may change my mind after playing the game again tonight)… It's just for fun though - the game and posting our created album covers, like Ruth said :-)

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You guys – this album cover stuff rocks! What fun! I love “Polywrapping!”

I'll try the Picasa thing later, but for now, my band's name is SPECIOUS.

Album Title: “In Order to be a Saint”

Album Cover:

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fabulous album/band Mary! I also like just using
“Order to be a Saint”

sandra with her stickler for rules hat on ;-)

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aww love that photo Mary - how cool. Love the album title!

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did one more album cover… it's too much fun ;-) Nono and Ruth - I loved the ones that you posted on the other thread. It's pretty wild what comes up… and if you can trust in the totally random part of it, it can be a little freaky! I wonder if this could lead to some writing down the road.. some of these random album titles would be great stories!

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That's a pretty extraordinary cover, Leigh Anne! As for freaky, I think David (Sandra's) will win hands down, no matter what, in terms of the way the three elements fit together.

One way I think it could lead to writing is, we could use this as a way of coming up with an idea for a story. I mean, instead of an album cover, it could be a book cover, and the elements could be, let's see, the wiki article title could be the story title, the quote could be the, um, maybe the start of the story? Or? Or the article title could be the author's pseudonym and the quote, the title?

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holy moly la. Fabulous cover.

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nice that everything is extraordinary. neat

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My God!

I got an extremely neat cover for my band. This is awesome la!

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Nono! It even looks/sounds like a swedish/finnish band!!

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I am so blown away by this! It is somewhere beyond amazing. I left a message at the NaNoWriMo page and hope I don’t mess anyone up. I did manage to get over here with the evidence!

The album covers here are fascinating! “Ask Any Indian” completely cracked me up. I can’t wait to show it to my husband, who is one. Indian. Native American. Native. I’m not sure what is PC this week. I said in the other note  - this isn’t just something fun that makes a lovely artistic piece in the end - it is an exercise in synchronicity. These things are NOT coming together as coincidence. I don’t believe in coincidence anyway and this is an example that is just a little mystic and magic. And FUN! I did the quotes first and then the pictures made me gasp when I saw them. I suspect a lot of you had the same experience.

What does it all have to do with writing? It could be a book cover just as easily as an album cover, with a small change, such as working the Wiki Article into a name for your author - I’d get a kick out of that. And then! You can actually use them as titles and ideas for writing, without a doubt. “Birds and Invented Cages” is a remarkable title.

I have to admit to doing four (4!) of these this evening. I tend to get wound up in things, to say the least. What fun! Thank you to everyone involved!

~ Dryad … looking for Hengelo Railway Station’s “Hear What Isn’t Being Said” in vinyl.

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I especially like the Hengelo Railway Station: Hear What Isn't Being Said one. I will definitely be looking for that album.

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WOW!
These are wonderful!

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these are all so amazing, Dryad. I couldn't open one, too big I think.

Ruth & Dryad - agree these can be great prompts / inspiration for writing.
The album cover could be the title of the book/story and 'inspiration' for subject/theme, the quote bit the first few words and the photo inspiration for more on the 'subject'. So mine for example (not Davids', but the one below) could be about a relationship, of course, and the cell phone I'd probably use as a kind of element, the couple are always on the phone to each other or not, or trying to be etc, like those dreams where you are trying to telephone someone but it's not working…..

maybe will post this as an 'assignment'….

anyway I'm going to have to do more of these. They are such fun. I do think David's is the funniest, but some of the others are so spookily good…

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maybe will post this as an 'assignment'….

That's what I was thinking when I posted above, Sandra—it would make a cool assignment.

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is this an I phone. if it is then I can relate. I don't have one. but someone I know does. I won't say who but they are in this room with me. Great how the words end up some how fitting the picture.

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oh my gosh, Nono and Dryad, fantastic covers - just love them. You are right Dryad, there is something quite magical about this game. I agree - could be writing prompts, little snapshots of stories waiting to be told by the creator of the artwork…. and it is fun, which is even better. I made more - if you want to see you can go here

I think David's is funny too - and you're definitely right Sandra, some are spookily good!

xo
la

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okay so I did all of the instructions. I got the picture  the band and the title but I can't get the writing on to the picture and then how do I get it here. I can get the picture but I am not sure how to get the writing on it.
boo hoo.
I tried picasa. I don't have photoshop I have I photo. I will try that.

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jenni, you can also send all bits to me (off gaia email) and I'll do it for you if you like :-)
xo

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I will try that. I am not even sure I can do that. I feel a little stupid. okay I will send you the band, the title and the picture.
I will try
bye.

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I sent you something. not sure how to send the picture. I tried from my desk top but I have a feeling that won't work. Should I have sent it from flckr or whatever that is

oh here is the picture. maybe that will help.
the band is

health forecasting

the title is

only to be admired in sheep

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Jenni, ignore my reply to your email, I was able to do it from what you posted here….
GREAT band/album. And freaky coincidence with the band title and the picture (AND the quote!).. freeeaaaaky…

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(don't forget to click on the image so you see it large!)
xo

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I am doing a little dance making a little love get down tonight get down tonight. Sorry I got carried away. I love it!!
my album.. my album 
now I see why you guys were having so much fun.
thank you Sandra!!!!!!!
so how did you get the writing on there?
I love that the bottle is hand cleaning stuff.

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Here's my album for today – first attempt with Picasa –  :)

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I like it!!

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Well! Here I am again! I haven’t made another album cover. This time it is the cover to a book! Just like the album covers, however, it was an amazing experience. In fact, this experience is so amazing that it is scary. I’m not kidding.

I have even written the first poem to go in the collection. I had come up with a writers name from the random Wiki article. Nik Pakpare. Not a bad alias. When the poem began birthing itself, however, I decided to just skip that first step and put my own name on the book cover.  I am actually in the process of making a collection of poetry and have been vaguely wondering about a title. I don’t know if this IS my title, but it could be! In fact this whole thing is so amazing that it looks like I cheated.  I didn’t. Here is the entire quote: “This is my answer to the gap between ideas and action: I will write it out.” (Hortense Calisher) I am sorry to say that I did not know Hortense Calisher.  In reading her short biography and discussions of her writing, I can see I have missed something. Happily, I can still read her - beginning in December.

The match with the picture doesn’t seem particularly scary on the surface. This one, however, made me do more than gasp. I choked on my Brown Cow (rootbeer & milk) and spit it all over my keyboard. You will see why if you look at the second picture, which is a painting of mine. This painting was done in May of 2005. It has been in my Gaia Photograph Album, probably since I joined Zaadz in October of 2006. It is certainly not one of my best paintings, but it is one of my favorites. I didn’t get any information on the picture and after I closed Flicker, I couldn’t find it again - so I don’t know who took it or when it was taken. I swear, I have never seen this picture before, nor the scene where it was taken. If someone would like to explain this all to me, I’d be more than willing to listen.

So! Here it is. My book cover for a collection of poetry titled: “I Will Write It Out,” and the first poem in the faux collection, a double Shakespearean (Or English) sonnet by the same name.

~ Dryad - who can’t remember why the door was green.


I Will Write It Out
~ A Double Shakespearean Sonnet ~

I.

The breath of the earth is filled with water
While the air of myself is thick with pain
Soaked and sopping with sorrow like slaughter
It fills past bursting, with no easing rain

Finespun fog and mist, in silver and pearl
Saturated to the dew point will spill
This plethoric dark will never unfurl
But will continue to fill and to fill

I must find a way to empty the ache
Before the depth of the darkness can burst
Blessings of light in which I can partake
Before I drown from a retrograde thirst

A luminous path without any doubt
Opens before me: “I will write it out”


II.
 
This gleaming world is full of so much light
It can awaken, uplift and enthrall
My heart has stretched for the radiant and bright
But I’m a long way from holding it all

I swallow the sunset’s glow with my eyes
Sips of scarlet, lemon, ecru and peach
I breathe in the lilac of twilight skies
Kiss all the firewhite stars I can reach

Colors turn transparent, glisten like glass
Wet prisms build a soaring rainbow dance
In this dream full heart, what must come to pass:
Light must move on, to give more light a chance

This rich Harvest Moon I can’t do without
My heart will make room: “I will write it out.”


©Edwina Peterson Cross

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We have discovered the “new” I Ching.   :)  A new window of synchronicity into the universe.   Flikr-ing?   If I had the brains to figure it out, I'd give it a try myself.

phil

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wow Dryad just awesome :) “i will write it out” is so perfect!

and la, what an amazing game - perfect for filling in time too, as i noticed i had to pick just the right font.

i am determined to sort out Christmas as much as possible and the closer we get to November the more excited i am. I have a cold (again) ears clear thank goodness. We just went from oppressive heat to wintery rain in 5 days. (will have to pack my daughters summer clothes back away and bring out the blankets again)

i made a bunch of glass beaded necklaces as Christmas gifts… decided i am not a jeweler after all, but had some therapeutic moments in the making of them.

no cold, no weather… nothing will deter the excitement of NaNoWriMo… what will fall out of my head? LOL i wonder…

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ok i think these made a poem… i didn't 'cheat' this time!!

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Wow, what an inspiring new game! I couldn't resist, had to go and spend the little time left for today and do my album cover. I did it strictly by the rules, good German that I am.

Ruth, I had no idea something cool and 'foolproof' like Picasa was available for free! I'm thrilled! I love simple tools and finding out by trying how they work - way too lazy and impatient to learn something as sophisticated as Photoshop. I tried, bought the book for Dummies, but it was just too much work. Picasa is great!

So, here's my cover.

Name of my band - Michèle Fitoussi (hah, I always wanted to be a solo singer! ;)
Title of the album - …and by children to adults

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this game is truly bizzarre.. that you had a girls name and a picture of a girl, gg, (as with David getting a guy and a guy's name…)…

everyone's albums are basically spectacular.

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ok had to do it before I went to bed….

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Through the eyes of others? Wow! Could be the title of my novel… have you copyrighted it yet??!

;)

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hahhah.. that's what I thought, what a good title for a novel….!! in fact I think the quote part of this game is a great way to find titles….

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Sandra, I know, it's amazing. Like Phil said somewhere up there, almost a new kind of oracle… David's cover is truly stunning! Cool beyond words.

Michèle Fitoussi obviously is a writer. Never heard of her, but sounds like what she does is right up my alley. Probably should check her out since the oracle pointed her out to me…

“Michèle Fitoussi  is the co-author, along with Malika Oufkir, of Stolen Lives: Twenty Years in a Desert Jail, an expose of the Moroccan penal system. She is of Tunisian descent, has authored two novels and was literary editor of French Elle magazine. She first met Malika Oufkir in March 1997 eight months after Malika had arrived in France from Morocco. Stolen Lives was selected for Oprah's Book Club in 2001.”

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love the girl and the bird!!!
It is strange how it kind of comes together in an odd way.
my cold won't go away. I never appreciated my nose like I do now.

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Gabriele, I never buy books for Dummies—they're way too complicated for me. :) The only way I have ever get a software (or really anything) to work 'properly' is through good old trial and error. Something to do, maybe, with how my brain works—or rather doesn't work in the same way that most people's do (or seem to).

Love your band. Can I come to opening night of your cover tour?

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It's too bad that I can't join in. I tried, but my system is mac OX (10.3) and I would need at least 10.4.5 to do this. However, I pulled the pieces, and it was fun. One of these days my computer problems too shall pass. Until then, I'll just listen to your albums ;)

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Hey Andrea, too bad about the computer. I'm sure if you asked, someone would gladly pull the pieces together for you (as Sandra did for Jenni above). I'll do it myself if you like…

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yes I'd also be happy to do it Andrea! send the bits to my off-gaia email :-)

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Hi Andrea, here's the album cover I came up with, with the pieces you sent me. (Actually, the way I did it, looks more like a book cover, oh well… :)

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Thanks so much, Ruth, for doing this. Maybe it will be my best seller, whether album or book, or both. Pretty cool.

Andrea

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You're welcome. The image you picked for your cover was so awesome I kind of hated to put any print on it…

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Ah well, couldn't resist doing another myself…

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oh very very cool, Ruth. And I love yours too Andrea!