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Mutterings, musings and general brain flatulence. |
Here be mushrooms 
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PROMPT: What smell or sounds brings back great memories of your childhood?  Old, old hymns. Sanky and Wesley and Mission Praise (okay, Mission Praise isn't old in quite the same way, it's more 80s than 1880s, but it's still an integral part of my childhood). Belters like "When the Roll is Called Up Yonder", "It is Well With My Soul", "Whosoever Will" and, whilst I don't particularly like it, "Bringing in the Sheaves" was an essential part of school harvest festival as well as a chapel favourite. Oh, and for reference I'm only in my thirties, but the hymns we sang in the church our parents took us to as kids make me feel about 95. Very occasionally someone in the worship band will play something archaic and I'm torn between groaning and cheering - we're normally on a Bethel, Matt Redman, or at least Stuart Townsend (I love Stuart Townsend, but his style is very contemporary hymn-like rather than modern) level, so "When I Survey the Wondrous Cross", "How Great Thou Art", and "Jesus the Nazarene" seem quite out of place at times. Cuckoos. We had a pair nesting in the field below our house, and that was the official Sound of Summer; you saw the swallows and heard the cuckoos, and Summer Was Here. I still live in a very rural area, but we don't seem to have cuckoos with their oh-so-distinctive cry of cook-coo, and I don't think I've heard one in over fifteen years.Which now makes me very quite down. Thanks 02/04/21 prompt, I was in a good mood five minutes ago.... |
| PROMPT: Write about one (or more) of your creative idols. Who do you look up to? Whose work are you most inspired by? Why? I have so many 'favourite' authors that it's really quite difficult to choose who is actually my most preferred. But when it comes to creativity, the field narrow dramatically. Of them all, one who jumps out on every single level; Brandon Sanderson. The man is a genius. As much as I love a good debate, I cannot imagine a single argument that would change my mind on this.  He is prolific; not necessarily a difficult feat for some to achieve. But consistency and quality as well as prolificity? He writes mostly fantasy, with a bit of sci-fi thrown in for good measure; but he mixes up the sub-genres a lot and throws in a good dollop of the unexpected. It takes skill to write with equal success across YA and adult, especially as he seems just at home with stand alone novellas, first person comedy, and epic sagas seamlessly blending novels from multiple series into one mega-series (and not Terry Pratchett Discworld style either. Each of these series is set in a different world, with different magic-laws, histories, flora and fauna, and mythologies). He has a stunning grasp on humanity. If I never read another series, The Stormlight Archive covers some much diversity and depth, I could probably survive (well okay, no I couldn't. But I'd stay afloat longer on Stormlight than any other set of books I can think of). If you compare the titular characters from the Alcatraz series against the Legion novellas, you can probably work out it's the same author. Albeit jumping from fantasy-slap-stick YA to a slyly amusing blurring of the fantasy/sci-fi lines in adult fiction. But if you look at the characters and style of writing in The Mistborn series and compare them to, say, The Stormlight Archive sagas or The Reckoners YA series, then you'd be justified in assuming multiple authors. Incidentally (SPOILER), both Mistborn and Stormlight are members of the above mega-series, the Cosmere. As are all the seemingly stand alone novellas from Arcanum Unbounded, where each short story appears not only unrelated to the previous, but set in a different time and on a different world. I really could continue to wax lyrically about Sanderson - he is astounding - but I'd rather not continue sounding like the weak-kneed fangirl I probably am. So I'll cut it short, and bid you all a good day, and much luck and enjoyment for the the upcoming month! Write on!  |
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