Good vibrations....meme

A meme from moondreamer...Five ways to 'raise your vibrations' (aside from operating a pneumatic drill?)



Walking, always walking - in the countryside, in the hills, in the city, on my own with a camera, with friends, with family. This is a picture from today's walk.

Swimming - We usually go once a week - I love the water, and the way swimming feels like gliding. If it's warm enough I especially like swimming outside, in the sea, or a lake.

Travelling from place to place, preferably with no timetable to keep to, on my own or with others. I like driving or taking public transport. Once we cycled and camped for two weeks. I think Bruce Chatwin was right - we are a nomadic species.

Reading and writing - for the escape from the everyday.

Watching Mastermind and University Challenge - though why they make me feel good is a mystery. I can't answer many questions.

There are other things which I do from time to time, like knitting, making bits of patchwork, and I really should start playing the keyboard and weaving again. Hey, I haven't mentioned surfing the internet either.

I'm going to tag Rich Sampson

Six things about me meme

Thanks to moondreamer for putting me on this particular spot. ;-)
The small print: Link to the person that tagged you. Post the rules on your blog. Share six non-important things/habits/quirks about yourself. Tag six random people at the end of your post by linking to their blogs. Let each random person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on his/her website.
I havent networked enough to tag anyone yet.

1.I can be very antisocial, but enjoy people's company when I make the effort. Though I used to be shy, I now talk to almost anyone. I won't elaborate on the almost.

2.I have a tendency to be scatter-brained, and am inclined to lose things. I am trying to improve. Playing the absent-minded professor type just isn't 'cool'.

3.I can't decide whether 13 was a lucky number for my mother (now dead) or not. Mine and my brother's birthdays are on the 13th of the month (different months), and our sister just made it into the 14th by half an hour. My son was born on the 31st. My daughters fall outside this pattern. Yes, I know, dates are arbitrary, anyway.

4.We rarely had Christmas dinner until the evening, or sometimes the following day. My mother was a nurse and was always working on Christmas Day. I worked in hospitals during uni vacations, but was already glad I had decided against a career in that area.

5.My grandmother was born when her mother was only 17. Her parents were first cousins twice over - two brothers married two sisters - the son of one lot married the daughter of the other lot, a couple of years after my grandmother's birth. My mother used to say they'd been watching too many animals on the farm. Oh, the goings on in the Derbyshire countryside at the end of the nineteenth century! My grandmother was always very prim and proper, and sold out her share of the farm as soon as possible. We have tried to widen the gene pool since then, and the next generation are doing the same.

6.My great-grandfather chased his future son-in-law off the farm with a shotgun when my grandparents were courting. I don't know why, though I have theories.

A meme (what?)

This is long by the standards of this blog. Blame Sally

What's the last thing you wrote?
Apart from blog entries, a short piece (officially a story, but more of an episode) in response to flash prompts –on Writers’ Dock.

Was it any good?
It began ok, but I wasn’t impressed with the ending.

What's the first thing you ever wrote that you still have?
A poem I wrote when I was 10, which went in the school mag. (I peaked early.) But when I say, I have it, I remembered the first verse, and wrote a second one later.

Write poetry?
I’ve written a lot in the past three years or so, not so much very recently.

Angsty poetry?
Not usually. Yes, when I was younger, but now I tend to be more detached.

Favourite genre of writing?
Poetry, or short pieces – I really enjoyed filling in the details in real stories from my family history, fictionalising them.

Most fun character you ever wrote?


Most annoying character you ever wrote?

Best plot you ever wrote?
I started one which I loved, but couldn’t work out how to tie the ends together. Still lying fallow.

Coolest plot twist you ever wrote?
I wish – plots are my weakness.

How often do you get Writers block?
I call it bone-idleness, does that count?

Write fan fiction?
No.

Do you type or write by hand?
I tend to type because it gives me a bit of distance from whatever I’m writing.

Do you save everything you write?
Pretty well, but can I always find it?

Do you ever go back to an old idea long after you abandoned it?
Yes, if I’ve been looking through old notes.

What's your favourite thing that you've written?
Either the unfinished story I’ve mentioned, or some of the family stuff.

What's everyone else's favourite thing that you've written?
No idea.

Do you even show people your work?
Quite a lot goes on the WD website.

Did you ever write a novel?
No, though I did do 50,000 words for NaNoWriMo 2006, but it wasn’t a proper novel with a plot and so on.

Ever written romance or teen angsty drama?
No.

How many writing projects are you working on right now?
I have several unfinished projects.

Do you want to write for a living?
Dream on..

Have you ever won an award for your writing?
No

Ever written something in script or play format?
No

Do you ever write based on yourself?
I constantly include bits of myself.

What character that you've written most resembles yourself?
Er..

Where do you get ideas for your other characters?
People I meet, or read about, or hear about.

Do you ever write based on your dreams?
Not often – my dreams, when I remember them, don’t have a strong narrative.

Do you favour happy endings, sad endings, or cliff-hangers?
That depends on what grows from the story.

Have you ever written based on an artwork you've seen?
No.

Are you concerned with spelling and grammar as you write?
I don’t find it a big problem. I’ll pick things up on a read-through.

Ever write something entirely in chatspeak? (How r u?)
only the odd txt wiv dificulti.

Entirely in L337?
What?

Was that question completely appalling and un-writer like?
Is anything?

Does music help you write?
I rarely listen to music except when driving. I’ve written a few poems based on the tunes of songs, and the rhythms.

Quote something you've written. The first thing to pop into your mind.
Well, I don’t think anything ‘popped into my mind’, but I found this one from 2005. We stopped for a picnic lunch at Dartmeet in Devon, and there was a man playing Border pipes. Just practising, for himself. It’s much more other-worldly than most stuff I write.

Twenty-first Century Minstrel

The river runs through beds of ancient boulders
dark brown and clear, down to its deepest pool.
The sunlight streams green-leaved and sylvan cool,
reveals a bridge of stone from days as old as

Celtic myth, when fairy music cold as
ice-bound water, charmed some mortal fool.
Entrancing sounds defying every rule
seduced all care, then life from weary shoulders.

But now I hear an air from times long past
insistent, calm, commanding, come my way.
A minstrel by the water's edge today
with English border pipes begins to play
melodic notes, entwined to weave a vast
enchanted canopy. His spell is cast.