Return of the Friday Five

I thought I'd do one of my Friday Five post. It seems like a good way to fill up some time during NaBloPoMo and it's a bit more entertaining post then my saying 'I've gotten nothing done,' which is the case.

Although, things change for me all the time, I thought posting five of my favorite songs would be fun. They're songs that I like for the lyrics and I would say they're my faves of all time but I think that would be a tough call. So here are five songs that I love the lyrics to.

I've related to each of these songs and still do. They've inspired me and helped me through things. If I didn't know any better I would think some of them were written just for me.

I'm posting links to the lyrics but unfortunately there are no sites that aren't filled with ads. I did think about posting the lyrics on my blog in posts that would have a really old date long before the blog existed, as sort of references files but I'm not really sure about it.

Anyway, here we go, in no particular order, and yes I'm giving credit to the writer's because it's about the lyrics. Not to say the performances were not excellent but how often do the writer's get credit?

Beautiful Disaster , lyrics written by Rebekah Jordan
What a Good Boy, lyrics written by Stephen Page
Man In The Mirror, lyrics written by Glenn Ballard and Siedah Garrett
The Last Song, lyrics written by Bernie Taupin
RENT (the entire soundtrack), lyrics written by Johnathon Larson
Okay, I (I Should Tell You) know the last (Light My Candle) one may be cheating (Christmas Bells) since there's so many songs (Seasons Of Love) in the entire musical but I think (Take Me Or Leave Me) every song in it has great (Goodbye Love) lyrics. I couldn't chose just one (One Song Glory) or even my top five. So I've (I'll Cover You) filled this explanation with random links (La Vie Boheme ) to RENT song lyrics (La Vie Boheme B) because it's my blog and (Another Day) I can do what (Without You) I want to. And no this is not every song. It was hard (Happy New Year) enough picking the few that I did but I figured no one's going to click every single (Santa Fe) link so I limited myself.

I have moved on for now so no Harry Potter but there's Kreeg, Batman, Snoopy, Family Guy and Behind the Naugahyde

Well I've got to move on with my life and my own work so for the first time in a few months I will be blogging with no mention of Harry Potter, other than to say that I won't be mentioning it.

Now that I've got that out of the way. I've been slacking off due to other things I said I wouldn't be mentioning so I've really got nothing to say about what I've been writing but I feel I should post because I hate going too long without posting. Since it's Friday I decided I would do a pointless yet possibly mildly amusing Friday Five.

Friday Five: The five weirdest searches that have brought someone to my blog.

I don't really get very cool searches like other people I know. I think this is my caused by my not mentioning enough body parts. It could also be that my blog is rather boring and only interesting to me. But the following are the craziest I've found since starting my site meter.
Before I get to the craziest but not really that crazy search topics, I will say that the searches I get most often in some form or another are people looking for 'ways to get ink off of paper', Snoopy writing/rejection comic strips and the Stewie to Bryan "how's that novel comin'" episode of Family Guy.
I don't have any of those Snoopy comics on here but I'll look into it. Also, I don't have the actual episode of Family Guy available for viewing but I do have the dialogue about the novel progress. And if anyone ever figures out how to get ink off paper, and it doesn't involve those crappy ink erasers that wear a hole in the paper, please let me know so that people's search can end here.
In short, if you're looking for the comic strips, to watch the episode or need to get ink off of paper, you're in the wrong place because I can't help you. But I'll work on it.

And now...

Friday Five (in no particular order):

crazy shoe stores in Michigan-I'm pretty sure this person was looking for stores that sold crazy shoes but I like to think that this person is trying to figure out what crazy shoe store inspired Behind the Naugahyde.

allergic reactions to ink on paper- I'm not entirely sure that this is all that weird. True, my blog doesn't actually talk about ink being on paper. It's just a name I gave my blog because I am a writer who occasionally puts ink on paper. Well, it's more often words on a monitor or something. Anyway, what I do find to be weird is that someone is having an allergic reaction to ink on paper. Not paper or ink but the combination of ink being on paper. Or maybe it's a metaphorical allergic reaction to words that were put on paper by ink.

"Lansing Community College" vampire graduate- To be honest I have no idea what this could possibly mean. Yes, I have attended LCC but I have never heard any rumors of a vampire graduating. To my knowledge vampires do not exist. Of course, there are people who claim to be vampires but are not in fact the immortal vampires that everyone thinks of. So maybe they were looking for someone like that. No clue but it is unusual.

sci-fi short story about evil squirrels- During a post about scary hotels I mentioned my dog, Kreeg, saving me from evil squirrels and then in the comments it started to develop into a story idea by D.B. Echo. If they were looking for a story about evil squirrels perhaps they can talk him into writing it. However, if they were checking to make sure that no one else had written such a story, I'm not sure about others, but I have not. And there are no plans in the works on my part but you may want to check with D.B.Echo .

someone who would get invited to Batman's wedding- I imagine that a lot of superheroes would be there. Obviously, all the Batfamily, Alfred, possibly a bunch of socialites if he got married as Bruce Wayne and not Batman. The list of potential guest is just too vast, especially knowing that Bruce Wayne would have enough money to invite a ton of people.
I am going to hope that this person's search was directed here because Google thinks that I am a person likely to be on the guest list. I'm not sure if that really says anything about me or my blog other than that I just mentioned the right random combination of words, but I'm going to pretend that my writing and insight are so awesome that Batman would want to be my friend and invite me to his wedding.


And now that I have some of the crazy out of my system I am going to go write, edit and submit some work so that hopefully my next post will be a report about all the work I got done.

More stuff about music and writing

In my last post I talked about songs that inspired characters or story ideas. So I thought it would be cool for Friday Five to give five examples. It's not as easy as I thought it would be. I'm even having such a hard time remembering these things that I've busted out the idea cards. My giant stack of index cards that each list a story idea that I've had.

Hotel California by the Eagles- I know this is really a story itself but there are so many unanswered questions. Like why this guy is out wondering around? Who are the people in the hotel and why are they there? So my story came to me when I started imagining the answers. It didn't really turn out all that similar except for the crazy hotel part.

Wicked Game by Chris Isaak- To be honest I wasn't really familiar with this song until Jenni and another co-worker were talking about it. And if you would have heard what the co-worker said about it you would have wanted to know exactly what was so "great" about it.
It didn't inspire a new story but it inspired parts for a story I was already working on. Why would someone not want to fall in love? Why would making someone fall in love with you be a wicked game? More questions that needed answers.

Deny by Default-Most people probably have no idea what this song is. It was a hit the year after I graduated and they played it like every hour on the hour so it really got drilled into my head. It's really only the first lines that inspired me. "Today I woke up and you were gone.The whole day wondering what I did wrong." For some reason that made my mind drift to what would happen if that someone had been so devastated that the person was gone in the morning that they committed suicide. Then later you find out the person had only went to get breakfast. Kind of like a Romeo & Juliet of one night stands.

Dragula by Rob Zombie- Really it's just about any Rob Zombie song that gave me this idea. They remind me of people that I knew in high school that thought it would be cool to be zombies, vampires, witches or undead and evil in anyway. The song(s) made me start to wonder what those people would have done if they were faced with real vampires and witches and what the undead would think of people pretending to be them.

Time After Time by Cyndi Lauper- When I was about 4 I was obsessed with Cyndi Lauper. And I remember her saying in this song "If you're lost, you can look and you will find me..." During this phase of my life I was with my parents at Sears and I got lost in the clothes racks. When I found my way out my parents were no where around. I didn't know what to do but all I could remember was what Cyndi Lauper had said in her song. So I ran through the store in extreme excitement realizing that I was lost and if I looked I would find Cyndi Lauper and I could go home with her. I was so mad when my parents found me I thought they had totally ruined my chances to meet Cyndi Lauper. I thought it would be interesting and kind of experimental to write it from the little kids point of view, how they don't realize that songs and movies aren't real.
Or it could make a children's story. Like the Wizard of Oz where you go off looking for something better but find out what you wanted all along was in your own back yard. Of course, mine would have a different kind of ending because I have no idea why Dorothy ever wanted to leave Oz.

There are five examples of how I come up with my story ideas. I haven't actually made a complete story out of any of these. They're just ideas in different stages.
I would have went and found the links to all these songs but my computer keeps randomly shutting stuff down. I think it needs a break. Plus, I'm a slacker.
Besides I started Friday Five as an easy, effortless way to update my blog more often. How simple? A quick list and I'm done. Yet, this post has taken me over a half an hour to write. No wonder I never get anything done.

Just watched: The Virgin Suicides
Currently reading: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

An interesting, yet slightly depressing Friday Five

Well Friday's almost over but here is still a Friday Five. This week I'll list five writing related projects I would like to do or have an idea for but have yet to start. This one is hard for me because you know how I hate giving away details about my work before it's completed.

1. I would love to write a children's book. I have an idea for it and I think if I kept the art pretty basic and practiced a lot, I could even do the illustrations. It would feature a dog very similar to Kreeg, some kids and it would be about not fitting in.

2. I always thought it would be fun to do a comic strip. I have an idea for it and the idea would involve very minimal art so I could possibly do that too. The few ideas I have for it would make it a political cartoon but in a subtle way that only clever people would get.

3. There is a mini-movie script that I wrote. I would love to get it made. I've had two other three minute movies made for a contest and those were a lot of fun. This one is longer. Since the writing is actually done it's not technically a writing project but I would never try to get it published in script form. I would need to produce it as a movie. It's something like Mean Girls meets comic nerds.

4. One project that I've been planning for a while but I am seriously afraid of messing up is turning some of my writing into a piece of art where it would hang on the wall.

5. While I hate public speaking in anyway, I always thought it would be interesting to read some of my work out load. Kind of like a poetry reading, except probably not poetry. Sounds weird for someone who hates public speaking but I love performing. Little known fact, in my school days I performed in various dance recitals, choir concerts and in school plays on a regular basis. My plan, once I graduated from high school, was to move to New York City and be on Broadway or move to Vegas and become a flare bartender. But my plans didn't really work out, obviously.

Anyway, enough about that. I'll only depress myself.

On a side note, I heard from one of my writing group no shows. Apparently, 'something came up' and she was only in town for one week so she won't be there next week or ever. I did get another reply from another person but I'm worried that now it will only be me and one other person.
Also, I got another rejection with only $.39 worth of postage. Is the post office slipping up or being nice?

Just finished reading: A Long Way Down by Nick Hornby
Currently reading: The Stand by Stephen King
Just watched: Stick It

Another Friday Five

I'm so glad it's the weekend. So here's another Friday Five.
This week is the last line from five of my completed works.

1) They deserved each other.

2) It had gotten her through the mess that had been her life and she could never abandon it now.

3) How cool is that?

4) She had hope that she might find something better.

5) I realized I would never know as I fell asleep.

Once again my two NaNo novels but three different short stories this time. Hopefully, I'll get a longer, more exciting post up this weekend.

Let the three day weekend begin!

WooHoo! Three day weekend! This is the first time I've actually had a job that involved three day weekends. Now I get it.

Anyway, here's another things I stole from other writer's blogs. It's the Friday Five. This week is the first line from five of my completed works.

1) 12:00, October is over.

2)The minute she picked up the phone she knew they were done.

3) I hate my life.

4)The cold made Casey's fingers completely numb.

5)I had been an angel once.

There they are. My two Nano novels and three short stories, none of which have ever been published. Although, I wouldn't really call them completed stories. These are all more or less still in the editing process so these are actually tentative first lines.