Blogging

SHARING “HOW TO LURE YOUR MUSE WITH MUSIC AND OTHER QUIRKS”

An interesting post from Xlibris publishers writer’s workshop is quoted below. This really resonated with me as I use references to music, especially the Scottish folk music I’ve been singing for years, in my autobiography “From Poverty to Poverty: A Scotsman Encounters Canada.” I’ve also liked to whistle my favourite tunes while writing, or doing any other kind of work for that matter.

In the recent interview Gayle and I prepared for The Authors Show, the following question and answer were included:
” Q. You claim that musicianship is integral to your life. How is that reflected in your book?
A. When my wife/editor first read my story, she was struck by how much music was woven into the narrative. She encouraged me to expand on those instances, leading me to quote from songs or to fill out descriptions of the song connections with my own story. For instance, when I am describing my hometown Campbeltown, I mentioned the folk-song made most popular in the ‘60s by Scottish folk-singer Andy Stewart: ‘Campbeltown Loch, I Wish Ye Were Whisky.’ We were unsuccessful in getting permission to quote the whole song in my narrative. So the next best thing was to show how it impacted my life and then paraphrase the verses.
I eventually wrote the following: ‘As we were growing up, three or four of us boys would go arm in arm down the street singing the first few words—‘Campbeltown Loch, I wish ye were whisky’—that’s all we knew at the time. I like to think that Andy (Stewart) heard those few words sometime in Campbeltown and created a song around them. ‘Oh, Campbeltown Loch, I wish ye were whisky, Campbeltown Loch, och aye! Campbeltown Loch I wish ye were whisky, I would drink ye dry!’
‘The verses cleverly have the singer imagining how nice it would be if the loch were full up to the brim with whisky and he could anchor a yacht in the whisky-filled bay to go in for a nip and a dip ‘by night and by day.’ Clan gatherings would feature wading into the loch with toasts of ‘slainte bva’ (meaning ‘good health’). The only problem would be the police showing up in a boat and shouting, ‘Time, Gentlemen, please!’
‘I find this a fitting tongue-in-cheek ode to a town that once boasted of 30 distilleries and still produces at least two very fine brands of single malt whisky – Springbank and Glen Scotia.’”

Xlibris Presents How to Lure Your Muse with Music and Other Quirks

We’d be interested in hearing what other writers use to stimulate their creativity and to set an appropriate mood for writing. Why or how does music, the position you assume to write (standing/lying/sitting/reclining), your manner of clothing, the time of day, alcohol use, or other quirk or muse impact your writing? We’d love to hear from you.

Gayle mentions that in her magazine and program editing days, she always used a background of classical music to set an atmosphere appropriate to what she was editing. She recalls specifically editing a four-session Bible study on the Book of Revelation. Her background music? Wagner’s Ring Cycle.

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Installment 6 of “Jake, Little Jimmy and Big Louie,” a Children’s Chapter Book

Here, finally, is Chapter 6 of the children’s Chapter Book we are blogging. Our great-grandson, Leland, who just turned 12, is acting as a consultant on the story to let us know if the story reads appropriately for kids ages 7 – 12, and our great-granddaughter, Hannah, age 7, has consented to draw some pictures to go with each chapter. We’re looking forward to hearing from them.This photo of a newborn baby bird will give Hannah an idea of how the baby bird first called “Thing” might have looked.   raven chick ugly

This blogging has taken longer than we had hoped but the blogger (Gayle) is still on crutches recovering from left hip replacement surgery on February 7th. I hope to be off the two crutches in another week and a half and then on to one crutch for a short time and working into walking with a cane. All is going well but doing anything takes a great deal of time and I also spend a lot of time doing my exercises. Deanna, my physiotherapist just paid another house visit today and left me with a new set of a bit more difficult exercises – very helpful but a bit exhausting, too.

We hope you will continue to enjoy the story. Please give us any feedback you think helpful as the book is still in the pre-publication phase.

“JAKE, LITTLE JIMMY AND BIG LOUIE”

by Ian Moore-Morrans

edited by Gayle Moore-Morrans

Copyright © 2012

CHAPTER SIX

“Thing” Becomes “Louie”

raven chick hungryIt was good that the owner of “Bill’s Budgie Barn” knew all about caring for baby birds, not just budgies—but even wild birds.

(The rest of the chapter’s contents has been deleted prior to publication.)

Picture suggestions:

A black chick with its mouth open (see photo sample above).  or

Jake holding and feeding the baby chick some water from an eye dropper, while little Jimmy is perched on Jake’s shoulder.

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Installment 5 of “Jake, Little Jimmy and Big Louie,” a Children’s Chapter Book

We apologize for the long delay in posting the next installment of Ian’s children’s chapter book, “Jake, Little Jimmy and Big Louie.” Our excuse is that we have been otherwise occupied for most of January and the first days of February because Gayle finally had a surgery date of February 7th for a total hip replacement on the left side. She has had both her right knee and right hip replaced in the past – the knee in 2000 and the hip in 2011. Now she is truly a bionic woman on both sides!

Ian is still trying to adjust to a number of changes in his medications and couldn’t be left completely alone while Gayle was in hospital, so we had to arrange for some home care and a LifeLine installation for him. That is going well and we’ve been able to count on the home care attendant to help both of us for a short time after Gayle was discharged on February 9th. Thank goodness for our Canadian health system. So far we have had little additional expenses other than the low LifeLine costs, our pharmacy expenses until the yearly supplement kicks in and our regular monthly BC health payments.

Ian and Jimmy, the cockatiel, circa 1999.

Ian and Jimmy, the cockatiel, circa 1999.

Today we are sharing a photo taken about 1999 of Ian schmoozing with his cockatiel Jimmy, who was the inspiration for this present story about a budgie named Jimmy. We hope you’ll enjoy it and the next chapter of “Jake, Little Jimmy and Big Louie.” If you remember the last chapter, Jimmy had been lost and just as the chapter ends Jake had received the good news that Jimmy had been found and would be returned by the police.

“JAKE, LITTLE JIMMY AND BIG LOUIE”

by Ian Moore-Morrans

edited by Gayle Moore-Morrans

Copyright © 2012

CHAPTER FIVE

Jimmy Returns and “Thing” Arrives

The following day, the police were at Jake’s house with Jimmy safely in his cage. Jake was in orbit over the news that Jimmy had been found, for he had hardly slept that whole week while Jimmy was missing. Lying awake in his bed at night, he had prayed that Jimmy would be kept safe, wherever he was, and that Jimmy would come home soon. He promised to love Jimmy and always try to take very good care of him. This promise had kept him certain that Jimmy would be found, so when Jake’s father told him the good news, he sort of expected it.  ‘Well’ he thought, ‘it got Jimmy back to me.’

(The rest of the chapter’s content has been deleted prior to publication.)

Picture suggestions:

Jake smiling and holding little Jimmy, just as Ian is holding Jimmy the cockatiel in the photo at the beginning of this posting

Jimmy sitting on Jake’s shoulder.

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Crisis Situations – Am I Happy With the Way I React? No and Yes!

Thanks to Francis Guenette on her blog, “disappearing in plain sight, writing about writing” for drawing our attention to Word Press’ “Daily Prompt: In a Crisis” for January 17th. In it Michelle W. poses the challenge: “Honestly evaluate the way you respond to crisis situations. Are you happy with the way you react?” The challenge was interesting enough to encourage Gayle to respond by answering both “no” and “yes,” giving the following examples:

Thirty years ago I was living in Frankfurt, Germany with my late husband Gus and our two children, a daughter (6) and a son (1). I was a stay-at-home mom at the time. Gus came home from work every noon for a hot meal – our dinnertime. We had just finished eating dinner in the kitchen and were still sitting around the table when Gus put our little espresso pot onto the stove to make us some coffee. Now this was the old-fashioned kind of pot into which you put water in the bottom piece, espresso powder into the holed metal basket, added a rubber sealing ring around the top edge of the bottom piece and screwed the empty top piece onto the bottom piece to form a little espresso pot. With the pot on a heating element, the boiling action should have forced the water up through the coffee powder basket and into the top area. Voila – espresso. Unfortunately Gus had neglected to put the sealing ring into place, causing the coffee pot to “explode”! Our one-year-old was trapped in his highchair. Our six-year-old sat frozen to her chair. Gus jumped into action to take the part of the pot still on the element off the burner and turn off the stove. What did I do? Well, obviously without thinking, I got the heck out of the room! I just ran out and left my kids sitting there, never giving them a thought! Was I ever disgusted with myself – and embarrassed. Luckily no one was hurt from the explosion. My kitchen, however, was another story. After hugs all around, Gus took the kids into the bathroom to clean up the three of them. I got busy doing my “penance.” First stripping down to my underwear, I grabbed a stepladder and bucket to wash off the ceiling; put curtains, towels, tablecloth and our clothes into the washing machine and dishes into the dishwasher; applied heaps of elbow grease to clean up the wet and grainy dark brown mess dripping from cupboards, stove, fridge, table, chairs, window, etc. and finally mopped the floor. I’m still embarrassed about my cowardly reaction. What a protective mother I was—not!

Last year when I was visiting my daughter, son-in-law and two grandsons (ages 1 and newborn) in Norway, I was proud and relieved to find out that my reaction to a crisis had changed from “flight” to “fight.” I was holding my 13-day-old grandson Ben at the breakfast table as we were discussing returning to the hospital with him as he was not looking or reacting well. All of a sudden he stopped breathing. I screamed, “He’s not breathing!” My son-in-law and I sprang into action and did CPR on him until the ambulance arrived and the emergency medical personnel took over. Soon a helicopter ambulance flew in carrying a pediatric cardiologist and finally the baby and doctor flew off for a hospital in Oslo with my daughter and son-in-law following in the auto ambulance. I stayed behind to care for the 13-month-old and two dogs. A few hours later my son-in-law called to tell me that Ben was dead and had been baptized at the hospital. I can’t even try to describe how heartsick we all were, still are, and perhaps always will be over the loss of Benjamin. I’ve always heard that the hardest loss is one of a child and now I know how true that is. An autopsy determined that Ben had a previously undetected heart problem which led to his death. Instead of the planned baptism, we began to prepare for a funeral. With God’s help, we all got through it somehow, and found comfort in being together. Considering that our CPR did little to prevent Ben’s death, I was still thankful I had taken a refresher CPR course the previous year and that I had realized instinctively that my best reaction in this particular situation was “fight.”

Gayle Moore-Morrans