Good snowy morning. Maybe I'm getting the storm verbs was talking about yesterday. Took maybe 18 inches off my driveway already and it is still coming down on and off. Winter in Ontario, you know I ... well, I sometimes love it. Oh well, the Caribbean beckons. Three days to go.
Putting on some Fire Roasted Holiday Blend because, hey, we've lots left over and it's not that far past the holidays yet. For teas, there's Earl Grey and Raspberry Royale, both from Bigelows. Hot water is ready and sodas are stocked.
First week of the month so, as usual, Authors Publish has a new list of story markets and contests seeking submissions. And it's the usual diverse mix, ranging through witchcraft, Sleeping Beauty, queer adventure spec fic, poems on food and late bloomers, and much more. Some of the deadlines are, as usual, a bit tight but if you drill through to the sites, there's often schedules for future calls.
Thanks for doing the setup, o white furry one. Yeah, 13 with a few days to go is pretty good for here. Recent comps have sometimes been struggling to break 10 at this point. More, please. 😊
Working on stuff but not sure I'll have anything ready for a while. Debating taking my laptop on vacation. It's a cruise and we do have 5 sea days when I could hunker down somewhere on the big boat and write. However, my reading has been flagging badly and cruises are usually a good time to get some focus on that so more likely I'll just take my tab and load it up with e-books.
Quote by gillianleeza I drove through a weird snow squall yesterday. It's not something that often happens here. I was dropping my husband off to pick up his truck at the shop; it was in for work after he hit a deer a few weeks ago. I was in the shop for only five minutes, and when I came out, it was dark and very windy, and my car was completely covered in snow. It was rush hour on a Friday, so that did not help. The drive home was torturous, but we finally returned safely. The snow squall only lasted about an hour.
Oh man, we get those all the time here in Southern Ontario. Just last Friday, we went from sunny to a light squall in minutes at one point in the afternoon.
Good morning. How are things in your world, folks? One week and I'll be in the sunshine on a big floating resort, a.k.a. a cruise ship. Sure not getting much of the big fusion reactor in the sky around here these days.
Put on some Ethiopian Yirgacheffe coffee for you bean worshippers. For the leaf crowd, we got Scottish Breakfast and Yorkshire Red. Hot water is, of course, available for other hot beverages as is our selection of sodas for cold beverages.
Good morning. Winter has returned to Southern Ontario, seemingly to stay for a bit. Fortunately, this ape is now only a week away from heading South for a spell so I will be able to ignore the cold and snow for a bit. Going cruising again, with stops on a bunch of Caribbean islands.
For now, though, here's some Columbian dark roast, a remnant of my cruise of a year ago when I toured Cartagena. And there's English Breakfast and Vanilla Earl Grey for the tea set. Hot water is ready and sodas are stocked.
What's up? Anything exciting coming up this weekend?
And I am, once again, caught up on the comp entries. Come on, folks, challenge me. I am in a Flash kind of mood these days. Just can't seem to focus on longer stuff.
I need to decide what to write next. None of my current projects seems to be engaging me much. Maybe I'll try some more Flash type stuff just to keep things moving.
Another comp entry is in. We are past 10 so can actually have a meaningful top ten. Keep 'em coming (though I think the Inspirations regulars are all in except Cora, who has been scarce over the holidays).
I shall put on some Tobermory Flowerpot Island coffee. Teapots are filled with Irish Breakfast and Russian Caravan. Hot water is ready, there's hot chocolate mix and mini marshmallows on standby, and there's our selection of sodas for those needing something cold.
Last day of 2024 (unless you're Down Under, in which case, Happy 2025!!). Comp is at 10 entries and I am actually keeping up with them, though I do need to read the latest from TheShyThespian.
Brewing up some Fire-Roasted Saint Drogo for our final pot of coffee for this year. Teas are Naughty & Spice and Darjeeling. There's hot water so you can select from our other fine teas or whip up a mug of hot chocolate (mini marshmallows available). Sodas are stocked if you need something cold (see reference to folks from Down Under above).
Happy New Year, Inspirators!! Here's to a 2025 full of great stories to tell!!
It has been years since American singer-songwriter Sara Bareilles first covered Elton John's hit "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" to great acclaim. IIRC, John himself is a fan. Here she revisits it for a concert at Kennedy Center that is being broadcast on PBS for New Year's Eve.
The program is apparently a career retrospective so I'm hoping she dusts off the orchestral version of her song "Brave" that she did in the same venue a few years back. That song is powerful to start with but with the National Symphony as her backup band? Wow.
Quote by Molly I took a few days away to sort some things and I'm very excited to see so many stories in the queue!
Ape excited, too!!!!
By the way, I love the comp image. Very evocative. Not sure who does the work for those nowadays but if it isn't you, pass on my thanks and appreciation.
I had a bit of a thing for her mother, French actress and singer Vanessa Paradis, back in the day. Some of her music videos got airplay in Canada. Lily-Rose does seem to take after Mom in that regard.
Quote by gillianleeza I hope the movie lives up to the hype.
I am hearing good things about Lily-Rose Depp in it (not surprising given her parentage) but not much more, though I am trying to minimize spoilers. Then again, as an almost lifelong Dracula fan who has seen the two previous versions multiple times, is there much to spoil?
Good morning! My work computer hates me. Office wants to activate but won't. Probably should have just booked off this week but I am on vacation in two weeks anyhow so figured it was kind of redundant.
Coffee du jour is Deathwish Dark Roast. Teas are Assam and Yorkshire Gold. Hot water is ready for other fine teas or hot chocolate. Sodas are stocked if you need something cold.
How's things with you on the penultimate day of 2024?
Quote by JamesPBear He figured out in university that if you cook, you don't have to clean up
My son learned to cook in university but not sure if that is why. He is now the cook in their household. I haven't had his cooking in a while but when he moved back home for a while during the pandemic, he whipped up some nice stuff.
How about a song called just "Silence"? Electronic music act Delerium put this one out 25 years ago. The track features Canadian singer-songwriter Sarah McLachlan on vocals (the band is also Canadian). There's a ton of remixes out there by various DJs but this is the original track.
Quote by verbal but for some reason I don’t like to submit on weekends
I know that our dear friend Rump used to advocate against posting on a weekend just due to traffic patterns but I never really did any research to see if it actually worked. Here is probably less of an issue in any case. He had another site in mind.
Skipping ahead 60 years, this song is a new song from a new band. Sort of new. Cemetary Skyline is a supergroup whose members are veterans of the death and black metal scenes across the Nordic countries. This group, though, is neither of those genres. The title of their (amazing) debut album probably sums it up best: Nordic Gothic.
Lead singer is Swede Mikael Stanne, lead singer of Swedish melodic death metal act Dark Tranquility. I think this is the first album I have heard where he never growls or screams, just sings in his remarkably smooth baritone clean voice. "When Silence Speaks" was one of the singles and this haunting ballad is one of my favourite songs of this year. Not sure why it didn't come to mind when I was writing my comp entry. I might have ended up with a rather different story if it had.
So since our current comp is themed around silence and borrows its title from a famous song on the subject, thought I would share some songs on the theme of silence. Others are welcome to contribute.
First up, the song that that gave the comp its title. "The Sound of Silence" was released by American folk legends Simon and Garfunkel as an acoustic folk ballad in 1964, with a version that added electric overdubs in 1965. Paul Simon wrote the piece, one of many brilliant compositions from his pen. It had a bit of a revival in the past decade following a cover by American metal band Disturbed, who put a darker edge on the song. David Draiman's magnificent baritone was perfect. And with that revival came a wave of new covers.
My favourite, after the Disturbed cover and original, is this one by English choral octet Voces8. It is kind of its own thing, leveraging the vocal style of the group, whose repertoire includes everything from Renaissance hymns to contemporary folk and pop.
Sadly, this group has a lot of turnover and several of the vocalists in this video, including the bass-baritone who leads it off, have moved on to other projects and lives.
Bit moist around here after getting a white Christmas. Shower, warmer temps, etc.
New comp entry up from some writer I am only vaguely familiar with. WriterGirl or something like that? 😉😋 And it's wonderful. Best Christmas story I've seen this year.
I'll put on a pot of Ethiopian Yirgacheffe for you to enjoy as you peruse the comp entries. If you're into tea, as I am, there's Darjeeling and Lemon Black. Hot water is on for your other hot beverage needs while there's sodas in the fridge if you're from warmer parts of the world.
Quote by gillianleeza I didn't want to worry about a dog being cooped up all day in our house.
So my family got our beagle (likely mentioned upthread already) when I was still in high school. Mom went back to work around that time, working half days at our family church as the church secretary. And my brothers and I were, of course, in school, high school and then university in my case. The dog hated being alone so generally totally freaked out on whoever was the first one home.
Quote by gillianleeza I want to see Nosferatu, but my husband does not share my love of all things horror.
Yeah, my spouse isn't into horror and fantasy like I am either. I think she only reads my fiction to be polite. 😕🤣I love both the 1922 and 1979 versions so I will endeavour to see it, but it might have to wait for streaming.
("Love" as in the 1922 is my favourite vampire movie of all time)
Quote by gillianleeza My brother, nieces, and I took my father out for Christmas lunch at his favorite Chinese restaurant.
Wow on that lineup. I don't think we have ever eaten out on Christmas Day save for when on vacation during the holidays. We did Thai takeout for Christmas Eve this year. The Thai place near our house uses halal meat so it's a place we and our Muslim son and d-i-l can agree on.
