The last couple of weeks in July, husband and I took a cruise vacation to Costa Maya and Cozumel, Mexico. It was a really nice and relaxing vacation. When we returned, we took a road trip to Silverton, CO, which is 6 hours from where we live. I’ll be sharing photos soon. Right now, let’s check out my playlist.
I’ve been editing a novel for Camp NaNoWriMo for July and am happy to say, I completed it! I was worried I wouldn’t be able to hit my word count because of the vacation and all but I did it. During the editing, I listened to the playlist I made for the novel but I also had Pandora.com on and listened to a lot of Enigma and Sarah Brightman. One song in particular came on and brought back memories of a dance I taught a few students at Catechism some fifteen or twenty years ago. This was the song:
The dance was only about 2 minutes long so the song was cropped just enough to fit. For some reason, I don’t now where that cropped version is. I wouldn’t be able to share it but I wanted to listen to it.
Often I’ll listen to epic compilations as background music and the one below (over an hour and a half long) was really nice. I was editing the sci-fi cyborg novel so the music really didn’t fit but for some reason just having the music low as “white noise” really got me going. I was able to edit over 60K words. My goal was 50K.
If you’re a writer, do you like having music in the background or do you write without any music/noise?
Hope everyone had a great start to the new year. We got snow and that felt great! We’ll see how the year goes, but I’m hoping for a lot less sadness. I don’t say much about that side of life because it’s just depressing, but I’d really love a year free of heartbreak and pain.
Let’s move on. In December, I listened to a lot of Christmas songs, but there were moments when I wanted to just feel epic and fuel my imagination with stories of far away worlds and speculative conflicts that are not anything we are familiar with in our world right now. My husband thinks I spend too much time in my “fiction world,” but I can’t help it. I love imagination. He didn’t say it in a mean way. He said it to reaffirm that he gets me.
Anyway, here were the songs on my playlist in December 2021.
October’s playlist was very minimal. I wasn’t really listening to a lot of music. There were things going on in my life that made it difficult to focus on what I’m passionate about. I’ve had moments where I’m just not sure why I’m doing what I’m doing. I think a lot of it has to do with our current situation with the pandemic and how it has impacted everyone’s lives.
I did have two epic inspirational songs I listened to on repeat for a short time that I think are worthy of mentioning. They are:
Before I share my list, just thought I’d mention that I’m doing Camp Nano this month. Goal is 30K words for a romance novella. It’s something different from the sci-fi and fantasy stuff.
As you know, I love music. I track monthly favorites in my bujo. I do it pretty sloppily but it’s nice being able to flip back and see what I’ve been listening to. I used to track it on this blog but stopped and I’m not sure why. I enjoyed doing that so I’ll continue it.
Here’s my top favorites/most listened to songs from June:
“Aeternum” by John Lunn for The Last Kingdom series on Netflix. The soundtrack for the series is simply amazing. It’s one of the best out there. I’d say it’s just as good as The Last of the Mohicans soundtrack. “Aeternum” is so haunting. The drums and bass from 3:10 on is one of my favorites. In the show, they play that beat without the singing and it gives me goosebumps.
“Enso” by The Alliance. This is a trance song and has a pretty fast beat but at 2:00, it slows down to nothing and then picks up with an epic tune from 2:23 to 2:50.
“Last Hope” by Antoine Heid. I’ve shared this song before but I’ve started listening to it again. Mainly because I’m editing my sci-fi novella, but also because there’s a part of the song that has this really good drum piece that I missed before. It’s from 1:45 to 2:45. It’s sort of like a rolling drum but I’m not sure. It’s just fabulous!
“Zocalo” by Armin van Buuren. This is an old tune but I could never get enough of it. The breakdown from 3:35 to 5:15 kind of takes all my worries away.
“I Should Have Known” by Jovani feat. Jazzu. Love Jazzu’s voice, but also love the rolling drums. I’m a sucker for rolling drums.
The year flew by. I tried and failed at many things this year, but this last day of the year, I’m going to share the positive things, and my favorites.
The photo above is a dish I made trying out roasted purple cauliflower. It’s hard to see but to the right of the salmon is purple cauliflower rice, which I made too. The fish is salmon sprinkled with fresh dill, paprika, garlic salt, black pepper, and topped with slices of limes. I’ve never cooked with cauliflower before but I think this will be my new favorite thing because I really like the flavor and how easy it is to cook cauliflower.
I’m very proud to say that I accomplished two of my five goals this year. One of them was to start school again…actually, to resume my master’s program from 2010. So far, I’ve completed three classes and have four to go. I’m going to try and load up on classes so that I finish by end of Spring 2018. The other goal was to read 12 books. I ended up reading 34 books. A lot of it was due to freelancing as a book reviewer. I was doing about three to four books a month starting in July. I still read for leisure and still enjoy it
Here are my favorite books of the year:
1. Caraval by Stephanie Garber. This was such a lovely and fun story with romance, magic, and suspense.
2. Boy’s Life by Robert McCammon. This was a beautiful story told through the eyes of a young boy growing up in the 60’s. The world building was fabulous. I felt like I was right there with the boy. The characters were well thought out and vivid. McCammon really knows how to tug at your heart.
3. My Cousin Rachel by Daphne Du Maurier. This was a well written classic about a man upset about the way his cousin died. He was determined to get to the bottom of the mystery but somehow he becomes completely mesmerized by Rachel. I saw the movie after reading the book and didn’t think it was as good. If anything, read the book.
Can’t live without music. For a sci-fi story I’ve been writing, I’ve got a few songs that go along with certain scenes. Initially, I was going to submit the story to an anthology but I missed the deadline. Okay, I have to remember I’m not going to focus on my failures (lol).
If you want to know a little about the story (the background story), you can check out my writing blog at, The Writing Sparrow. It’s a new blog and I don’t have much there yet, but come 2018, there will be.
These are the songs that go with a few scenes in my story, but they are also favorites:
1. Immortal by Missing in Action
2. Last Hope by Antoine Heid (it’s just coincidence that my title has these two words in it).
3. Love on the Brain by Rhianna.
4. Elastic Heart by Sia
5. Wings (acoustic) by Birdy
I’ve been somewhat of a movie junkie this year. I could barely count how many movies I’ve watched at the theater and at home. It feels great to be able to watch all these movies. When I had my two kids, I went into a strange zone where I couldn’t watch movies or even TV shows and not think everyone was pretending. For some reason that bothered me to no ends. Now, I’m relieved to say that even if they were acting, it’s no problem. It doesn’t bother me one bit. My favorite movies this year are:
1. Passengers
2. King Arthur – Legend of the Sword
3. Blade Runner
4. Star Wars – The Last Jedi
I didn’t do as much drawing and painted as I had wanted. There’s just isn’t enough time to do everything so I’ve had to just focus on what mattered to me. And, what mattered this year was getting my stories out. I submitted a fantasy to an anthology earlier in the year but they are backed up so they haven’t gotten to telling the submitters who made it or not. I also sent the same fantasy story to my professor who enjoyed it and gave me an “A.”
Thanks for stopping by and see you in the new year!
July was a busy month. Swim is done for my youngest. It was very intense and we’re glad to be done with it but we will probably join a less rigorous swim team during the school year. School starts for my youngest this coming Monday. She’ll be in 5th grade, the last grade in grade school where we live, then she’ll start 6th grade in middle school. When I think about it, I get teary-eyed, so I try not to let myself get too deep into thoughts about it.
My oldest will be starting 10th grade in a week. She loves POMs. If you don’t know what POMs is, it’s a competitive sport where they compete their skills with other high schools. The best go to national every year to compete for first place. But, they also do volunteering and fundraise, and attend and cheer at all the varsity football games, other varsity games, and some junior varsity games. Although she loves POMs, a part of her misses dance. A few weeks ago she was so sad that she cried her eyes out begging to take a lyrical class with the dance studio. So, husband and I signed her up and now she’s happy as can be. She loves to dance. There are so many facets of dance and some of them she doesn’t like or want to deal with, but dance, mostly just lyrical, she’s passionate about.
On the 3rd of this month, husband and I celebrated our 16th anniversary. We had lunch and then in the evening, went to see the movie, Valerian. In between, we took our youngest to school for registration and to meet her 5th grade teacher, and took our oldest to gynmastics (required for POMs).
Anyway, enough jabbering. Here are my top 3 epic songs I’ve been listening to so far.
I’ve been reading and writing and just haven’t been able to post a lot. I’ve also decided to return to college to finish my master’s degree. I only have 7 classes left so I figured I might as well go for it. I’ve also begun to edit other writer’s work because that’s what I’d like to focus on doing while in the process of completing my novel.
Anyhow, life’s been busy with the kid’s school and after school activities so there hasn’t been much time to post. I just did a photo session of my niece early this week so I’ll be doing post production on those photos in the next few days. I was able to slip some watercolor + mixed media in my painting journal. Drawing and coloring (painting, etc.) have always been a stress reliever for me + music. This piece was done yesterday using watercolor and charcoal.
This morning, I found this beautiful piano piece and I think it kind of matches the portrait’s expression.
“Unbreakable” by Josh Kramer (emotional epic piano)
The kids are on spring break so I get a break from driving everywhere. With this little down time, I’m able to do a ton of stuff: write, draw, write, spend time on FB writing groups, etc. It’s nice. I’m also reading a book that I’m almost done with and getting ready to review.
A few song favorites that I have on rotation:
“Wayfarer” by Clau M
“About Me and You” by Clau M
“Where Is My Place In This World” by Soundmopi
“A Boy and His Cat” by Kari Sigurosson
Practicing on some quick portrait sketches. Wish I had more than just 5 Copic markers. I’m really loving them but I just can’t fathom shelling out the money for them as a hobbyist. As you can see, I can only really color one girl with the Copics. I want to give the elf queen in the top left grayish white hair, the girl in the bottom left red hair, and the girl on the bottom right jet black hair.
If you celebrate Mother’s Day, I hope you had a great one. I always enjoy going over my mom’s house to see my parents and siblings and to catch up on life. A lot of times, the siblings and I like to talk and debate about politics and entertainment, and at times things can get a little heated, but we’re siblings so we always forgive each other, and accept each other for what we believe. What I find funny is that each of us still call our parents, “my mom,” or “my dad,” even when we are together as if we each had our own parents.
Mother’s Day at home with my husband and kids was really sweet. My youngest made a special gift for me at school and was so good about keeping it a secret that even when I tried to pry it out of her, she wouldn’t admit it. Husband got me a very special gift: a Sony Extra Bass Bluetooth Headset. I had wanted one for a very long time, just a simple one, but he went the extra mile and got a bluetooth!
This headpset is really amazing. The sound quality is clean and crisp and the bass is really nice. I’ve been listening to Danny Rayel with the headset and the music sounds even more beautiful. Here’s a few of my favorites from Danny:
Cold Memores
Blossoming Heart
Travel With Me
I tend to listen to epic and trailer music when I’m painting in Photoshop or when I’m writing. Goals is to have a writing blog but I’m still waiting for courage to put my writing up. It will happen soon, I hope. Anyway, for about two weeks now I’ve been working on a concept environment painting I’m calling, “Turtle Land”. I’m hoping to share more of my progress on my Fairytale and Fantasy Art blog, but here’s an image of where I’m at currently.
Earlier this year I stumbled upon this music from Ryan Taubert and found it difficult to stop listening to it. I’ve been trying to write a fantasy novel about a type of fairy going extinct and this song playing in the background helped moved the story along. This song also got me hooked on Assassin’s Creed clips on Youtube. I’m not a gamer so I had no clue what this video game was about but I did some looking around and found that the stories to the game(s) are intriguing. Here is the song set to clips from Assassin’s Creed made by a fan. It’s a bit gory so if you can’t stomach it, don’t watch it. I like it for the art and graphics and music.
From My Corner of the Universe 