D: Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog

 I'm definitely cheating for today's "Song in My Heart" A to Z blogging challenge post. Dr. Horrible's Singalong blog is not a song…it's a complete musical, even if it's only 42 minutes long. 

(if my embedded video doesn't work, listen here)

My love of this one started with the musical episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Before Joss Whedon disappointed me (like so damn many famous men disappoint me with their abuse and misogyny), I enjoyed his work. And "Once More With Feeling" was AMAZING. I still think it is, even if it now comes with a yucky aftertaste. 

I don't exactly remember how I came to know about Dr. Horrible's Sing-along blog, but I did--I have the DVD!, This complicated little superhero/villain story where the bad guys aren't all bad and the good eyes aren't fully good really grabbed me. Doesn't hurt that Neil Patrick Harris plays Dr. Horrible and that he's a ridiculously talented actor and singer. "My Eyes" is an amazing juxtaposition of optimism and pessimism by two different characters looking at the same thing and coming to opposite conclusions. 

I'll post the lyrics to "My Eyes" (from lyricsmania) since it's the song I highlighed in my comments, but I recommend the whole thing. Note: the lines marked H and P are sung at the same time, overlapping each other.

Horrible:
Any dolt with half a brain
Can see that humankind has gone insane
To the point where I don?t know if I?ll upset the status quo
If I throw poison in the watermain

Listen close to everybody?s heart
And hear that breaking sound
Hopes and dreams are shattering apart
And crashing to the ground

I cannot believe my eyes
How the world?s filled with filth and lies
But it?s plain to see evil inside of me
Is on the rise

Penny:
Look around
We?re living with the lost and found
Just when you feel you?ve almost drowned
You find yourself on solid ground

And you believe there?s good in everybody?s heart
Keep it safe and sound
With hope you can do your part
To turn a life around

I cannot believe my eyes
Is the world finally growing wise?
Because it seems to me
Some kind of harmony
Is on the rise

H: Anyone with half a brain
P: Take it slow

H: Could spend their whole life howling in pain
P: He looks at me and seems to know

H: Because the dark is everywhere and
P: The things that I?m afraid to show

H: Penny doesn?t seem to care that soon the dark in me is all that will remain
P: And suddenly I feel this glow

H: Listen close to everybody?s heart
P: And I believe there?s good in everybody?s heart

H: And hear that breaking sound
P: Keep it safe and sound

H: Hopes and dreams are shattering apart
P: With hope you can do your part

H: And crashing to the ground
P: To turn a life around

H: I cannot believe my eyes, how the world?s filled with filth and lies
P: I cannot believe my eyes, how the world?s finally growing wise

H: But it?s plain to see evil inside of me is on the rise
P: And it?s plain to see rapture inside of me is on the rise 

Please check out the April Blogging from A to Z Challenge
#AtoZChallenge
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C: Creep by Postmodern Jukebox (Haley Reinhart)

Welcome AtoZ-ers and other blog friends! This month I'm participating in the AtoZ blogging challenge, and you'll see a post every day (except Sundays) about one of the Songs of my Heart. Today's edition: Creep, as recorded by Postmodern Jukebox (Haley Reinhart).  (If my embed doesn't work, listen at this link).

Like a lot of people, I first encountered this song in the early 1990s when Radiohead released it. I liked it then (here's a link in case you haven't heard it). It had a sadness to it that appealed to my early 20s self. And I liked the harder guitars underneath. I mean, who doesn't feel like a creep or a weirdo sometimes in the early 20s?

Then I kind of forgot about the song until the movie Book of Life came out in 2014 and Diego Luna covered it (yep, another link). It was really different with just a simple acoustic guitar and his thinner more wheedling rendition that goes more desperate when he get to the chorus.  

Then my husband introduced me to Postmodern Jukebox, now one of my favorite musical acts. I'm not such a "live music venue" girl (I like control over the volume), but I joyfully went to one of their concerts with Sweetman. Kind of like Retrofuturism in literature, they take old songs and make them new by making them older--singing them in styles of the 30s to 60s. 

their website

Anyway, Postmodern Jukebox gender flipped the song, and gave it a torch singer vibe, amping up the rough emotional edge of that chorus and my soul zinged. I have a thing for covers that really reinterpret a song and make it into something entirely different than its first iteration (you'll see others from me this month), and this version of Creep does that for me. Breaks my heart on "I wish I was special." Daaaannnggg.

Lyrics from AtoZlyrics: 

When you were here before
Couldn't look you in the eye
You're just like an angel
Your skin makes me cry
You float like a feather
In a beautiful world
I wish I was special
You're so fucking special

But I'm a creep
I'm a weirdo
What the hell am I doing here?
I don't belong here

I don't care if it hurts
I want to have control
I want a perfect body
I want a perfect soul
I want you to notice
When I'm not around
You're so fucking special
I wish I was special

But I'm a creep
I'm a weirdo
What the hell am I doing here?
I don't belong here

Oh, oh

She's running out again
She's running out
She run, run, run, run
Run

Whatever makes you happy
Whatever you want
You're so f*cking special
I wish I was special

But I'm a creep
I'm a weirdo
What the hell am I doing here?
I don't belong here
I don't belong here 

Please check out the April Blogging from A to Z Challenge
#AtoZChallenge
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Fantasy Friends: Xiala of Between Earth & Sky, an IWSG post AND AtoZ challenge!

 

      

This is quite the Wednesday! Not only is it the first Wednesday of the month (time for the Insecure Writer's Support Group blog hop), it's also April 2nd, which means it's time for letter B in the AtoZ blogging challenge. I couldn't figure out how to meld the two of these, so you get them both: 

Insecure Writer's Support Group:

Our Twitter handle is @TheIWSG and hashtag is #IWSG. The awesome co-hosts for the April 2 posting of the IWSG are Jennifer Lane, L Diane Wolfe, Jenni Enzor, and Natalie Aguirre!

This month's question:

 

April 2 question - What fantasy character would you like to fight, go on a quest with, or have a beer/glass of wine with?

__________________________________________

 

I'm going to pick a recent favorite for all three: Tiala of Rebecca Roanhorse's Between Earth & Sky trilogy: 

 

 

 

image source

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is a pretty new series. Black Sun was a finalist for all the big specfic awards in 2020 and Mirrored Heavens just came out last year. It's an epic fantasy story that pulls from Native American mythologies in the world-building. The main two characters are Serapio, the Crow God incarnate, and Xiala (pronounced SHE-ah-lah), a Teek woman. 

 

The Teek in this series are a matriarchal society renowned for their song, which can be used to magically influence and control others. The Teek put me in mind of Sirens, Mermaids, and Banshees, among other dangerous song-women of world mythologies, with a touch of Amazons, too. 

 

Throughout the book, we learn a lot about the people and what other kinds of people believe about them. I won't spoil it for you by giving too much detail here, but it's fascinating! In fact, the world-building alone is well worth the price of admission in this series.

 

If I recall correctly, Xiala is in jail when we meet her at the beginning of book one because she assaulted a husband who walked in on her and his wife when they were "getting busy." She's a hard-drinking foul-mouthed, "live life to the fullest" woman, exiled from her people for reasons you don't learn until later. She's magical, and on a journey of self-discovery through a life of piracy, debauchery, and alcoholism. 

 

Here's some images of her as imagined by Peri Celeste:  

 

image source

I probably couldn't keep up with her at the bar, but maybe I could get away with sipping my whiskey slowly while she pounds it back and listen with rapt fascination to her stories, both the true ones and the exaggerations. And if I had to go on a quest, she'd make a powerful ally. As for fighting her? No way. I value my life higher than that. 

 

Now, would she want to hang out with me? I dunno. Maybe if I promised to immortalize her in story and song, she'd put up with a physically week, lightweight drinker for a while. One can dream!

 

Blogging from A to Z April Challenge:  

B is for Bidi Bidi Bom Bom

 

So, if you tuned in yesterday for my Songs of my Heart post, you heard Aha Me a Riddle I Day, by Laura Love. I swear not all the songs I picked have a seemingly nonsense phrase for the title. It's just a coincidence of the alphabet that these two are in a row.    

For others visiting my blog, this is a fun challenge, where we all post 26 times in April, one time for each letter of the alphabet, often on a theme. I hope you'll check out some of the other participating blogs!

 

(if my embedded video doesn't work, listen here)

 

Selena Quintanilla Perez was the Queen of Tejano music in the early 1990s, right as I was moving into adulthood and becoming a Spanish teacher. As a person who didn't grow up speaking Spanish, but learned it in classrooms, music was often really hard for me to understand--definitely harder than spoken Spanish. But I could do pretty well with Selena. And it didn't hurt that she recorded some serious bops!

I still remember dancing to this one in my classroom with my students in Nome, Alaska and laughing until we cried. 

If Selena had not died tragically young (she was killed by the president of her fan club), she and I would be of an age, so she's special to me for that reason, too.  

Lyrics in Spanish from azlyrics and in English from lyricstranslate. (Bidi bidi bom bom doesn't exactly mean anything--it's just sort of sounds, representing the heartbeat, so it's the same in both versions)

Bidi bidi bom bom Bidi bidi bom bom Cada vez, cada vez que lo veo pasar Mi corazon se enloquece Y me empieza a palpitar Y se emociona, ya no razona No lo puedo controlar Y se emociona, ya no razona Y me empieza a cantar Me canta asi Bidi bidi bom bom Bidi bidi bom bom Bidi bidi bidi bidi bidi bom bom Bidi bidi bidi bidi bidi bom bom Cada vez, cada vez que lo oigo hablar Me tiemblan hasta las piernas Y el corazon igual Bidi bidi bom bom Y se emociona, ya no razona No lo puedo controlar Y se emociona, ya no razona Y me empieza a cantar Me canta asi Bidi bidi bom bom Bidi bidi bom bom Bidi bidi bidi bidi bidi bom bom Bidi bidi bidi bidi bidi bom bom Cuando escucho esta canción Mi corazon quiere cantar así Me canta así, me canta a ti Cada vez que lo veo pasar Mi corazon se enloquece Cada vez que lo veo pasar Y me empieza a palpitar Así, así Bidi bidi bom bom Bidi bidi bom bom Bidi bidi bidi bidi bidi bom bom Bidi bidi bidi bidi bidi bom bom Bidi bidi bom bom Bidi bidi bom bom Me canta asi, me canta a ti Cada vez que lo veo pasar Bidi bidi bom bom Bidi bidi bom bom Bidi bidi bidi bidi bidi bom bom Bidi bidi bidi bidi bidi bom bom

Bidi bidi bom bom Bidi bidi bom bom Every time, Every time I see him pass My heart goes crazy And it starts to beat And it get excited, It doesn't reason anymore I can't control it And it get excited,It doesn't reason anymore and it starts to sing to me It sings to me like this Bidi bidi bom bom Bidi bidi bom bom Bidi bidi bidi bidi bidi bom bom Bidi bidi bidi bidi bidi bom bom Every time, Every time I hear him speak My legs tremble And my heart too Bidi bidi bom bom And it get excited, It doesn't reason anymore I can't control it And it get excited,It doesn't reason anymore and it starts to sing to me It sings to me like this Bidi bidi bom bom Bidi bidi bom bom Bidi bidi bidi bidi bidi bom bom Bidi bidi bidi bidi bidi bom bom When I hear this song My heart wants to sing like this It sings to me like this, I sing to you Every time, Every time I see him pass My heart goes crazy Every time I see him pass And it starts to beat Like this, like this Bidi bidi bom bom Bidi bidi bom bom Bidi bidi bidi bidi bidi bom bom Bidi bidi bidi bidi bidi bom bom   Bidi bidi bom bom Bidi bidi bom bom It sings to me like this, I sing to you Every time I see him pass   Bidi bidi bom bom Bidi bidi bom bom Bidi bidi bidi bidi bidi bom bom Bidi bidi bidi bidi bidi bom bom

Please check out the April Blogging from A to Z Challenge
#AtoZChallenge
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A: Aha Me a Riddle I Day by Laura Love

 

Hi there AtoZ-ers! It's been a few years since I've played along with this blog hop and I'm really looking forward to it. My theme this year is Songs in my Heart. Each day, I'll feature a song that means something to me personally along with some thoughts about it. 

For others visiting my blog, this is a fun challenge, where we all post 26 times in April, one time for each letter of the alphabet, often on a theme. I hope you'll check out some of the other participating blogs!

(if my embedded video doesn't work, listen here)

 

I discovered Laura Love by accident. I was at graduate school in Middlebury, Vermont with my then-toddler daughter and we attended a summer festival. Just so happens, we were there when Laura Love was performing and my daughter LIT UP when she heard this song. Danced her little feet off!

So of course, we bought the CD (because that's how you bought music back then). I really love the mix of different folk traditions that Love blends into something uniquely her own. It's not a song that makes sense on a surface level, but still connects to something emotional. Sometimes, "I should have a chat with me," too.

Here are the lyrics as found on musixmatch:

Lyrics of Aha Me A Riddle I Day by Laura Love

verse

I had a little dog, you know its name

I had a little horse but he pulled up lame

I told a little lie and I filled with shame

But another loved me all the same

chorus

Aha me a riddle I day, aha me a riddle I day

Aha me a riddle I day, aha me a riddle I day

Aha me a riddle I day, aha me a riddle I day

Aha me a riddle I day, aha me a riddle I day

verse

Gotta get a job, gotta pay the notes

Gotta get a big long overcoat

I gotta put some water in the moat

I gotta get away, that′s all she wrote

chorus

Aha me a riddle I day, aha me a riddle I day

Aha me a riddle I day, aha me a riddle I day

Aha me a riddle I day, aha me a riddle I day

Aha me a riddle I day, aha me a riddle I day

verse

Didn't even know how sad I was

I didn′t know the answer wasn't 'cause

I hardly even know what a master does

Was not was so was not was

chorus

Aha me a riddle I day, aha me a riddle I day

Aha me a riddle I day, aha me a riddle I day

Aha me a riddle I day, aha me a riddle I day

Aha me a riddle I day, aha me a riddle I day

bridge

You have tried to give me this feeling

You have tried to show me the way

You have tried but I am not willing

So I should have a chat with me

chorus

Aha me a riddle I day, aha me a riddle I day

Aha me a riddle I day, aha me a riddle I day

Aha me a riddle I day, aha me a riddle I day

Aha me a riddle I day, aha me a riddle I day

verse

I wrote a little song didn′t make much sense

You couldn′t tell the past from the present tense

I made a little record cost immense

Good night ladies and the gents

chorus

Aha me a riddle I day, aha me a riddle I day

Aha me a riddle I day, aha me a riddle I day

Aha me a riddle I day, aha me a riddle I day

Aha me a riddle I day, aha me a riddle I day

Aha me a riddle I day, aha me a riddle I day

Aha me a riddle I day, aha me a riddle I day

Aha me a riddle I day, aha me a riddle I day

Aha me a riddle I day, aha me a riddle I day

outro

Aha me a riddle I day, aha me a riddle I day

Aha me a riddle I day, aha me a riddle I day

Aha me a riddle I day, aha me a riddle I day

Aha me a riddle I day, aha me a riddle I day

Writer(s): Laura Love

Please check out the April Blogging from A to Z Challenge
#AtoZChallenge
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AtoZ Blogging Theme Reveal

 

image source

Okay, I'm deciding kind of late to do this, and that's probably kind of dumb, given how much I have on my plate, but it's been a few years since I participated in A to Z, and I want to, darn it, so I'm going to. 

For those new to the game, in April we write a blog post for every day of the month excepting Sundays, which makes for 26 blog posts, one for each letter of the alphabet. You can do what you want with it, but I like to choose a theme. 

The first time I played in 2014, I chose "evocative words" as my theme, because I'm a word nerd that way.

In 2015, when my first novel came out, and I wrote 26 posts about Going Through the Change, the first in the Menopausal Superhero series. 

In 2016, when I was seeing the second in series out into the world, I wrote about favorite superheroes. 

2017 was about places in my heart--geographical location that matter to me personally.  

April is also National Poetry Month, so in 2018, I highlighted 26 favorite poets. 

2019 had me writing letters to favorite dead writers. 

And then, I stopped playing. The pandemic fell upon us like a giant tree and life has been changed since then. I did make up my own version and play along in October one year: 31 days of Halloween in 2018 on my blog, and a set of videos about my favorite spooky stories made for YouTube in 2022. 

So, I'm happy to be back to this again. It gives me a great excuse to explore a theme that makes me happy in more detail. 

This year (drumroll please), I'm going to do a song of the day. My eldest daughter has been sending me a SOTD text each day for a little while and I LOVE IT. So, each day I'll post a video of a song I like or that has personal meaning for me with a few thoughts about why. So, come by and play along in April, and see what Samantha's internal playlist is like. Maybe you'll find a new song or artist to love. 

Automation Anxiety? An open book blog hop post

 

 

Welcome to Open Book Blog Hop. You can find us every Monday talking about the writing life. I hope you'll check out all the posts: you'll find the links at the bottom of this post.

Do you suffer from Automation anxiety? (the fear that advancements in technology, particularly artificial intelligence (AI) and automation, will lead to widespread job losses, rendering people's skills obsolete and potentially leaving them unemployed, causing significant worry and stress about the future of work.)

_________________

 I've lived my entire life in a time of rapid changes in technology. 

For example, in my short 50ish years on planet earth, there's been shift after shift in how I listen to music. When I was a child, we listened to the radio in the car and the radio or Mom's 45 records in the house. When I was a little older we got an 8-track player and thought we were so fancy. I was one spoiled kid when I got a transistor radio I could dangle off my bicycle handle bars to have music while I cruised the neighborhood. 

By the time I was a teenager, we'd moved to cassette tapes and I had a boom box of my own as well as a walkman, portable music player with headphones. We got the fancy boom box with two tape decks so you could copy from one tape to another to make mix tapes and record music off the radio to listen to on demand. Eventually, I had a tapedeck in my car.

Later, we did the same thing but on CDs, learning to "rip" and "burn" music before it was easy to download it. A fancy car music system could handle both CDs and cassette tapes. 

Then I got an iPod when they were new. So, what's that now? Six or seven different technologies just to listen to music? And all of that before I was 25 years old. We hadn't even gotten to streaming services yet. 

It's natural to feel nervous about new technologies. They come with good and bad things intermixed, and someone will always try to use them to circumvent fair play and "get away" with something. It's also true that new technologies do result in changes to the job market. We're seeing that with AI already, but we're also quickly finding the limits of what the latest and greatest technologies can do. It's an industry in its infancy, and the ethics haven't been established…and about the time they are, something new will have come along. 

So, all that is a longwinded way to say, "No." 

 I don't expend a great deal of energy worrying about AI. I try to learn enough about it to steer clear of the worst uses and take advantage of any helpful uses. I don't really believe that AI -written books and stories are going to replace human creation. It's even less likely that they can be safely relied on in business settings, where accuracy of information and subtleties of tone are so important.

There have always been scammers, cheaters, and liars, and there always will be. It's not the technology's fault. I'll just keep on creating in the ways that work for me, and try to stay abreast of new technologies well enough to be able to communicate with younger folks.

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Revision: An open book blog hop post

 

 

Welcome to Open Book Blog Hop. You can find us every Monday talking about the writing life. I hope you'll check out all the posts: you'll find the links at the bottom of this post.

Discuss: "Write the book you want to rewrite—because most of writing is revising! Don’t agonize over every word in a first draft; that will only slow you down. Just write the story. Get it onto the page. Drafting is the stage where you capture the idea. Revising is where you figure out how to really tell the story well." -Beth Kander, author of I Made It Out of Clay
 _________________

Revision works differently for everyone. Heck, I feel like it works differently for me depending on the project. Never the same game twice.

This quote from Beth Kander sounds to me like it's advocating for what I've heard termed the "vomit draft" or "garbage draft" where you write a complete draft without letting yourself go back and revise while you're still drafting. I have quite a few writer friends and critique partners who swear by this technique. 

It doesn't work for me though. 

I'm more of an iterative writer, working in loops. As we've discussed here before, I'm a discovery writer, or a pantser, which means I'm not working from an outline of any sort, but just following my writing where it takes me and shaping it into an effective narrative throughout the drafts. 

image source

 

 I write linearly for the most part, most of the time, but if I hit upon an idea that will significantly change the rest of the book, I've got a decision to make: fix it now or later.

Fix it later: Sometimes, I just pop a comment or a note into the document to remind future me to go back and change something later. That's usually if it's small and won't have a huge effect on the story, but is important to address for continuity. Something like changing a detail about a character like their name, appearance, etc. Or adding a bit that will change a particular moment in the plot, but won't spillover into the whole thing.

Fix it now: On the other hand, if it's a bigger change where it feels like it's harder to predict how that will affect the larger narrative, I might not be able to move on until I've figured out how that changes what I've already written. It all builds after all, and if this significantly alters a character, it might affect other choices they've made in the narrative and take the whole story in a new directions. So, I need to go back to the beginning and pull that thread through before I move forward again.

Now, that said, I definitely agree that, especially for a book-length work, it's important that you're invested enough in the idea to be really dedicated, because you are going to be living in that imaginary world for months, maybe even years. 

 It took me ten years to write the entirety of the Menopausal Superheroes series from the first page to the final "The End" and I couldn't have stayed with it without true passion about the story and the characters. It's a real commitment! 

Usually, by the time I'm ready to send a book off to a publisher for consideration, it's been through three or four of those weird looping drafts I do my own, plus one or two rounds of revision based on feedback from critique partners and beta readers. 

If a publisher accepts it, then it will go through at least two more rounds of revision based on editorial and proofreading feedback. Then, there's the final "spit and polish" read through in hopes of catching any little errors that made it through all of that uncorrected. By my count, that's at least eight rounds of revisions--and that's when the process goes relatively smoothly. 

I have one published novel (the third in my series: Face the Change) that went through a revise and resubmit process because I tried to rush it and what I sent the first time wasn't really ready. So, that was the whole process over again. Whew! 

It's definitely a lot. But I actually enjoy revision. It can be very satisfying in the same way that reorganizing a closet or spring cleaning is--you see the difference it makes and you know that life will be better now because you made the effort.

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