The day after a Migraine........

 Yesterday was Migraine Day. You know those days. It's when you hide in some dark corner of your home like some vampire and hiss at light and loud noises. Yes, that was me.

Because my migraine hit out of nowhere yesterday everything was out of whack and dinner was 1700 nobility style in timing. But today, I was as fresh as a daisy and got a dinner done early and knock a ton of stuff of my to-do list. I did have trouble pick a topic for today's post as I was not in the right headspace (pun intended) to do much planning until late.

As always, feel free to leave a message below.

Need Breakup music? Here's VOILÀ!

 Okay, not all their music is about breaking up but they do excel in this area. I found VOILÀ on a chilly night as I was browsing on YouTube. I was looking for new music to add to my Villain playlist when I heard a sample of their work in a recommendation video. Curious, I checked the song out. Didn't make it to the Villain Playlist but made it into my Non-existent Breakup playlist which will soon exist.

VOILÀ is an LA-based pop/rock duo. Gus Ross (originally from London) and Luke Eisner (originally from Wisconsin) met at the Thornton School of Music in California as freshmen and have been making music together since then.

I have included a few of my favorites below. Enjoy!

Hope you liked that. As always, feel free to leave a message below.

A few songs that made it to the Villain Playlist....

 The title of this post pretty much explained everything you need to know. A few months ago, I made an off line playlist that is villain inspired. I have mentioned before that I am struggling to create a Villain who is 3 dimensional. I abhor flat, cookie cutter, one-size-fits-all characters. I want a Villain that you hate, but maybe love just a little because you get them. 

Like, you understand why they became the way they are even though you would never have chosen their path. They're full of rage, pain, and determination. They take no prisoners and believe that ruthlessness is mercy. Torture is slow, painful, and more often than not, psychological. There are rare moments of vulnerability when you see a glimpse of who they were before they turned. It's those moments that are what make you empathize with them. They weren't born bad. Disappointment, mistreatment, neglect, and abandonment had a role in it. If no-one held a knife to their neck first, would they have retaliated by stabbing first? They just play the role everyone forced upon them. They never chose it. But, since everyone only sees them as a villain, they might as well be the absolute best (worst?) Villain anyone has ever seen. 

That is what I am trying to pour into a character. It's hard. If all you know is the mindset of a hero, how do you fully click into the mindset of your villain? Enter my playlist! Below are a few songs that I chose. 

I hope that you enjoyed this sample of my playlist. As always, feel free to leave me a message below.

Book overload......

 I'm telling the truth when I say I have no idea how many books I have. I know it's in the thousands though. Some may think what I'm about to say is funny but I have no idea what to read. 

There! I said it. I currently have so many options that I can't make up my mind what to start on. I know the flavor (aka genre) I want. I just can't settle on a author whose work I want to read. I have too many choices. 

I know say this makes me sound weird because it's really not a big deal to most people. But if you are a book lover, the sheer agony of a book overload is not to be discounted. There is an ugly moment when you realize you will never be able to read them all in your lifetime. It hurts.

Then there's the fact that while a book overload lasts, my brain feels like fragmented mush (if that makes any sense). I am trying my best to make coherent sense but I am human and makes will occur. I still have other stuff I must struggle through.

As always, feel free to leave a message below. If you also suffer from occasional Book Overload, tell me about it.

Just chilling with an audiobook.....

 The past couple of days I been working on listening my way through Victorine E Lieske's audio books. I downloaded a whole bunch of them a few days ago.

LS1 wanted new audio books so I went and got them for her. In return, I got some myself. I've been listening my way through them as I work around the house. It's been a nice change of pace.

As always, feel free to leave a message below.

When you cover someone well....

 I was watching random videos on YouTube today when I found an incredible cover of Against the Current's "Legends Never Die". It's a cover by a Korean band on a game show. I don't know what happened since it aired two years ago and I don't really watch game shows. All I know is that you just got to see it. I'll include the original below as well.

The original version of the song is epic to begin with but they took it to a whole new level of incredible. It got me thinking of another cover that I found spectacular. Loveless' cover of " Running up that Hill" was also very good. I'm not including that song here as I believe I had it in a different post.

I don't always like covers. Sometimes I feel like they lack that special something that the original song had. But I will admit there are times when the cover can be just as good, if not better than, the original version.

As always, feel free to leave a message below.

Random thoughts on semicolons.....

 Disclaimer: I told you all that random things pop into my mind from time to time. So, no judgement folks.

The other night, right as I was about to fall asleep, I was mentally running over a piece I had wanted to write when I got confused. I spent 20 minutes trying to figure out if I needed a comma, period, or semicolon. (I went with a period, curious cats.) I realized that I rarely, if ever, use semicolons in my writing. 

And in my half awake state, I summed up my relationship with semicolons like this: Semicolon is that one friend you know you need to hang out with more but don't. Thing is, you're way more comfortable with Period and Comma. Whenever you and Semicolon meet, you spend twenty minutes trying to figure out what to say and if you should say it. You never have to guess with Period and Comma. I mean, Semicolon is a good friend and when you manage to say the right thing, you feel so cool. Only thing is, you really would rather live without the anxiety Semicolon seems to tote around. So, you contact Semicolon less and less. Then, one night as you try to sleep, you realize you haven't spoken in over a year.  You feel bad. So, you go to look up your ol' friend, Semicolon. And there Semicolon is. Still waiting patiently for you to just say something. Anything.

You feel the guilt there, don't you? Lb2 is ashamed of me right now. He is on speaking terms with Semicolon. But, I honestly can't think of how to smoothly slip a semicolon in my writing.

According to Wikipedia, The semicolon or semi-colon^] ; is a symbol commonly used as orthographic punctuation. In the English language, a semicolon is most commonly used to link (in a single sentence) two independent clauses that are closely related in thought, such as when restating the preceding idea with a different expression. When a semicolon joins two or more ideas in one sentence, those ideas are then given equal rank.Semicolons can also be used in place of commas to separate items in a list, particularly when the elements of the list themselves have embedded commas.

And, The semicolon is one of the least understood of the standard marks, and so it is not as frequently used by many English speakers.

I just wanted to get that of my chest. I know that I'm not the only one out there with a sketchy relationship with semicolons. Sometimes, a little self reflection is what a writer needs. Here is mine. Try not to hate me too much, Grammar Police.

As always, feel free to leave a message below.