This blog updates at least weekly on any of the days below with the topics as follows: On a Monday-Maniac Mondays = All Things that are All Things!Generally thoughts, ideas or tools we think can be useful to the personal or professional life. On a Thursday-Tumultuous Thursdays = All Things Metaphysical On a Friday-Funtastic Fridays = All Things Fun!(cartoons, stories about the Purple Elephant and the Little mouse...) Studious Saturdays = All Things about the craft of fiction writing. Also we will give you little snippets about how our fantasy fiction novel in progress is going. Sometimes this can be told as a cartoon. We will be doing nanowrimo this year as well.
Also our Advent calendar will be happening this year as usual! Look for an interesting and new format!
We're sorry for not posting any blogs on Maniac Mondays, Tumultuous Thursdays or even Funtastic Fridays this week but the Production House has just been a beehive of activity! Everyone's been swamped with their day jobs (which are needed to bring in much needed cash to buy honey and bread) and with Diwali activities...just check out UCP! So to make up for that we bring you a Slumbering Saturdays post today! Of course the house will be even more a buzz next week because some of us are going to be doing the Nanowrimo challenge for 2010! I think the cartoon says it all though! :)
So on Mon 1st Nov 2010...Nanowrimo 2010 here we come! :)
Today on Funtastic Fridays we decided to take a break from all the talk about writing, writers and novels, and dabble into some fun of a Metaphysics kind! Many or you readers must have heard of or read of auras before...but even though it's a Friday of fun let's get the definitions clear...after all there is no work without play and so if we flip it around play can be funner if it involves and challenges the mind at times too no? Hey it must be...after all why is sudoku and other puzzle games so famously fun then?
So let's have our own kinda metaphysical puzzle fun here today on Funtastic Fridays...
According to Wikipedia an aura can be defined as follows:
Aura:"In parapsychology and many forms of spiritual practice, an aura is a field of subtle, luminous radiation surrounding a person or object (like the halo or aureola in religious art). The depiction of such an aura often connotes a person of particular power or holiness. Sometimes, however, all people, or all living things, or all objects whatsoever are said to manifest such an aura. Often it is held to be perceptible, whether spontaneously or with practice: such perception is at times linked with the third eye of Indian spirituality.[1][2] Various writers associate various personality traits with the colors of different layers of the aura.[3][4][5]
Skeptics such as Robert Todd Carroll contend that auras may be seen for reasons such as migraines, synesthesia,[6] epilepsy, a disorder within the visual system, a disorder within the brain, or due to the influence of psychedelic drugs such as LSD.[7][8] Eye fatigue can also produce an aura, sometimes referred to as eye burn."
Now let's say two people of auras of very high intensity of light meet...and well if auras are light well then according to Physics they will have some wave properties and as you study Physics at higher levels such that you bypass Newton and get to Einstein well then you have to deal with wave-particle duality but let's just stick with good ole apple falling on our heads Newtonian Physics then! :) So let's say auras are light and so then they are waves...
So if two beings with high intensity auras were to meet well if their auras were to collide that would be one very bright light! :) Wouldn't it? And wouldn't that be exciting...a meeting of auras...a meeting of minds...such that two very bright auras got even brighter...wow northern lights watch out for that natural fireworks display! :)
So let's look at it as wave theory for some puzzle fun...you see if the two auras meet to do positive i.e. for a greater good it can be seen that they meet as waves interfering in a constructive manner as oppose to a destructive manner...and the Physics of it goes well like as described on this site...
"Let us now consider two waves A and B, such that A moves to the right, and B will move to the left. At any point, the displacement is the sum of the separate displacements due to each wave. This is called the principle of superposition. Observe what happens as the two waves move towards each other. Note that the maximum displacement of a particle in the medium is the sum of the amplitudes of the waves. If the displacement is in the same direction, as is the case here, we have a superposition called CONSTRUCTIVE INTERFERENCE."
"Consider a special case where two waves have the same amplitude and wavelength (you only see one because the one obscures the other) travelling at the same speed from left to right. The two waves are in phase, since their maxima and minima coincide exactly. The resulting wave is simply one with the same wavelength but double the amplitude:
So you get...that if two big large bright silver auras collide we'd get one big gigantic silver aura of good! :)
And according to those who claim to see, read and analyse auras like on this site...silver auras mean:
SILVER:This is the color of abundance, both spiritual and physical. Lots of bright silver can reflect to plenty of money, and/or awakening of the cosmic mind.
Often when you see a silver aura it is hard to distinguish if you are not also seeing a lot of white...so here is what white auras means as well...
WHITE:Reflects other energy. A pure state of light. Often represents a new, not yet designated energy in the aura. Spiritual, etheric and non-physical qualities, transcendent, higher dimensions. Purity and truth; angelic qualities.
White sparkles or flashes of white light: angels are nearby; can indicate that the person is pregnant or will be soon.
Yep we're back to talking about writing here again on Meady's Musings...the blog action is over and done...we've had our water and cleaning fun and all animals are safe, clean and dry within the house again. Some are tucked into bed...some are watching DVD after DVD in the den while others like the Purple Elephant and Little Mouse included have made it back to the library to get back pen to paper or paw to laptop! So as readers would know some members of the Meady's Musings Production House are writing a novel...in fact one such member is the leader of the Production House herself and as crazy monkey madness as it might be she's decided to give Nanowrimo a whirl again this year! She sort of signed up for Nanowrimo in 2006 but it was more for the fun of the experience then...she had donated on behalf of the production house, bought the T-shirt and the cool poster but didn't really write much...as really 50,000 words all in the month of November...November Nonsense! But she's decided to be as mad as a March hare...crazy monkey mad and try again this year!
You know why? Cause the monkeys convinced her no doubt! LOL! But nope it's not that...it's cause Nanowrimo might just be the kick start she needs to get those words coming! If she makes the 50,000 words or not that we'll all follow and see!
In the mean time check out Nanowrimo which is a competition held every year in November where writers try to churn out 50,000 words all in the month of November...the prize being...simply meeting your goal or achieving the milestone at the end...and who knows bragging rights for your blog?
Anyway it's not quite November yet so the official word count is yet to begin so in the mean time you can catch us sharing peanuts between the Purple Elephant and the monkeys...not sure if blogging on here will count in the word count or if it must be on a specific writing project but we'll see in November...until then look for our Tumultuous Thursdays posting and remember our Funtastic Fridays blog was completed since last week but held for publishing to this week...so make sure and catch it this Friday!
OMG! It's finally here...Blog Action Day 2010 and Global Handwashing Day! But if you look above you'll see the Purple Elephant and Little Mouse have been at it cleaning a while now...you see we at the production house luckily have water but not everyone is so lucky and it's what this Blog Action Day 2010 is about!
However we have a bit of another kinda housekeeping to do before we blog on about it! The Purple Elephant and Little Mouse are all a cleaning today courtesy a member of the production house that doesn't exactly live in the house but comes over ever so often to decorate things! It's the lovely Adriana Ochoa ladies and gentlemen! Thank you again so much Adri for your always fantastic and fantabulous artwork! OMG!And such a Mexican diva you are! Just look at mi elephante morado y mi ratoncito! Aawww...so hardworking are those two! :) Also there will be no Funtastic Fridays posting today although we are still having some fun with a message today but just in a different format on Blog Action Day 2010! But look for Funtastic Fridays next week as we already had a treat prepared but opted to publish this blog instead...so here it goes...
Water!
Everyone needs it to live...the human body is roughly 60% water and ideally we should drink 8 glasses a day...roughly 64 ounces...but the truth is most people can't get that much to drink in many parts of the world...and if they are lucky to even get one glass well they aren't always lucky enough that it is safe for drinking...i.e. free of waterborne diseases! Aaaw and that statement just made my purple elephant's ears droop! :(
The catch too is that disease can also spread not just in water but due to a lack of water and also soap! As many diseases are spread when germs get from one person to another who has not washed their hands properly and to do that you need soap and water! Unfortunately many people have neither!
Which is why we here at the production house are so proud of the Clean the World people for getting soap to the world and celebrated their niceness on Monday last. We hope they continue the good work...and there is always a need so keep those bars coming as they are six million bars and counting! And as a result we are joining with them today to mark Global Handwashing Day!
Well for starters sign the Blog Action Day 2010 petition that appears on the top left of our screen which lends a positive voice to the UN's work to bring clean, safe water to millions.
Then...well it gets harder but here are a few suggestions from the Purple Elephant and Little Mouse who are all serious now but still having fun cleaning...but they aren't wasting water at all...you see how they are using buckets and not hoses...so there!
But here is the list seriously now of a few charities involved in getting water to the world!
We slip back into the library for today until we head back out again tomorrow for Blog Action Day 2010. And as we sit here those characters are in our head again as this week on Tumultuous Thursdays we continue our Writing series (producing the blog we should have last Thursday when we ended up slipping down that rabbit hole for too long and never came back in time to write it) So here it is this week... So recall first of all our cartoon from that Funtastic Fridays posting...
Now recently J.K. Rowling aka Jo shared this on Oprah: "At age 25, Jo was riding on a delayed train from Manchester to London when one single idea flashed into her mind: Boy doesn't know he's a wizard, goes to wizard school. After that, Jo says her mind was flooded with ideas for Harry Potter. "I don't think I had ever felt so excited. I thought, 'I'd love to write that,'" she says. "I'd never thought about writing for children—I'd never thought about aiming anything at that age group. And yet it was the thing that I was meant to write." " And the lady who wrote the Twilight series, Stephenie Meyer says this about her inspiration to write on the bio of her official website: "woke up from a dream featuring seemingly real characters that she could not get out of her head. "Though I had a million things to do, I stayed in bed, thinking about the dream. Unwillingly, I eventually got up and did the immediate necessities, and then put everything that I possibly could on the back burner and sat down at the computer to write—something I hadn't done in so long that I wondered why I was bothering." "
So it's making us here at the Meady's Musings Production House wonder if could it be that this post is very fittingly written on a Tumultuous Thursdays slot? Because could it be that these characters in the heads of these others are really people and beings in parallel worlds trying to make a connection here with our world through the hands and minds of our authors? Could it be?...
So our authors here on earth in this world are merely like mediums they are just the vessel...the conduit through which the message comes...well that's not so farfetched a thought as many authors officially write as mediums...they tell you up front they are 'channelling'...and then of course there is the concept of the muse...so maybe it's a combination or a bit of this and a bit of that...
So maybe it's not one thing but perhaps at least three! Either one or the other or a combination of the three as below that makes writers write!:
1. Mediums: authors who really are just challenging some being's thoughts through their pens...or typing fingers!
2. Semi-Mediums: authors who get these thoughts or flashes or ideas or characters popping into their heads but still are very much in control of their own thoughts when they have them...and then combine their thoughts or are just inspired by the one off flashing idea or thought to put forward their thoughts as stories.
3. Muses: Celestial or spiritual beings or animals or things that just come before authors and enable them to write. Their very presence or passing through the author’s however momentarily enables the author to write. And we here at Meady’s Musings Production House have our share of those we will tell you so! Apart from the Purple Elephant and Little Mouse that lives with us...there is the little manicou that started it all...and he doesn’t live with us...as one can really never entrap a muse...it is a free flowing being that comes and goes as it pleases...so he sometimes comes to the production house but doesn’t not live with us like the Purple Elephant and Little Mouse as they aren’t exactly muses but our animal characters that more represent the spirit of the house...our mascots or logo so to speak...different from our manicou muse!
Now as to whether these beings come from parallel worlds well it could be quite true you know...well look at how many authors even write of parallel worlds in a way...Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland....C.S. Lewis’s Narnia Chronicles...and even in Harry Potter they go off into this parallel world no? So it must be true...it must be true we think!
So what are the characters in your head? Come on...you can tell us...can’t you?
The Purple Elephant and the Little Mouse have stepped away from their writing desks and come out of the library as today on Meady’s Musings we take a break from our writing themes as we join tails, whiskers, trunks and hands with a worthy cause! However before we go on about the cause let’s first apologize for missing last week’s Tumultuous Thursdays post but we had slipped down a rabbit hole and couldn’t return in time to write. So this coming Thursday for sure you will hear about those ‘characters in our heads’ as we continue our series on writing! But for now on with the cause…
Since the head of our Production House was off on vacation in Shanghai earlier this year she had emailed the production house to let the entire house know that when she was back we would be sure to do a post about this marvelous charity she had found out about but we’ve not put paw to keypad or trunk to pen since! She had stumbled across this charity while searching online travelling sites to find fun and interesting things and places in Shanghai…and here is what our lovely leader found…
SOAP!
Yes readers…SOAP…lots and lots of it! For years our leader and others at the production house had often ourselves wondered what to do with the little bits of soap that remain before the bar is all done…many of us tried to use it right down to the end…but so many of use don’t and what about all that extra soap and shampoo at hotels? It’s why these people could be found advertising on travel sites because hotels must be the biggest source….after all many guests don’t stay to use the bars to the end and well most guests won’t continue to use old bars…no siry they want new ones…so what can a hotel do with all the extra left over used soap and shampoo?
Well send it to these people if they don’t already!
Clean the World and their Participating Partners make us here at the Meady’s Musings Production House so happy!
And we here at the Production House are going to be stepping away from our writing desks this Friday as well to join other bloggers to celebrate Blog Action Day 2010! And guess what we are talking about...water…getting water to all the world over…aah and you know what they say about soap and water …so it’s quite fitting that those guys at Clean The World are also celebrating Global Handwashing Day on Fri 15 Oct 2010 as well! Aah…anyone for a bath?! The purple elephant is washing...he already has his scrubby thingy in his trunk!
But the reality is that many in the world don’t have clean and safe supplies of water nor enough soap! And if they did it could help reduce the risk of many a disease!
So get those pens out or fingers to keyboard and sign those petitions, send those emails, blog on! As we gear up to celebrate Blog Action Day and Global Handwashing Day to get water and soap to all the people of the world! The Purple Elephant already has his spongy thingy in his trunk as I told you and the little mouse is gathering all his old rags and buckets to collect water...as we hear the news that the UK Foreign Office and the White House also plan to join in on Fri...HURRAY...WATER FOR THE WORLD! :)
As promised in our Funtastic Fridays post today we plan to explore the impact that the location at which you're at has on your ability to write.
Members of the production house themselves have been considering the pros and cons of it and here are some of their thoughts...
First of all location can affect our writing ability in two ways and so we shall analyze it as such:
1. A location's ability to inspire us to write. (Sometimes the location also ends up in the story as a result.) 2. A location's ability to enable us to write or not write i.e. based on it's comfort, noise level etc. (this can be summarised as a writer's workspace)
Of course often a location can serve both purposes as well...but for now let's look at point one first... LOCATIONS THAT INSPIRE WRITERS
A. A. Milne himself had his enchanted place that the head of our production house herself visited earlier this year...see picture below....
And the place not only inspired him to write but it also appeared as the Enchanted Place in his literary works about that silly ole bear called Winnie the Pooh!
It must be true that awesome sights and sounds of nature can inspire writers...especially the ones who are writing about nature or animals in children books say...surely it was the significant time that Kenneth Grahame spent in the English countryside that enabled and inspired him to write about a toad, a river mouse, a mole and a badger! :) And it would have been that same countryside that inspired the stories that Richard Adams told to his children which became Watership Down! (and at the mention of that book several members of the production house screw up their faces after having to labour through its study in high school...can't say it's a fav here at the production house but certainly The Wind in the Willows and Winnie the Pooh are!)
LOCATION AS IN A WRITER'S WORKSPACE
Now everyone is not the same (just recall this blogpost that we keep having to draw reference to time and time again)...we are all unique and here for a unique purpose! So in the same way each writer is different and writers aren't all writing in the same genre. So one writer might be able to write comfortably on a train while one might need a comfy desk...one might be fine writing on a beach while one may prefer to be in a log cabin in the Canadian Rockies...some can write at home while others need to be away in a separate space...away from everyday distractions...
So here's a look at the writing spaces of some popular artists as it appears in a Guardian series called Writer's rooms.
But just remember in the end the most important space or location is the one in your head or that virtual space that you visualize where your novel pans out...where your characters meet in your head! Just remember that J.K. Rowling made do with writing her novel where ever she could afford to...because in the end what's important is...them...the characters...in your head like zombies! LOL! It's why they will form part of our Tumultuous Thursdays blogpost later this week...look for it...as we plan to combine two blogs into one in a way...we will still keep metaphysics in mind yet talk about writing...you can't miss it! :) But in the meantime those characters are getting into you head...ZOMBIE! "Oh no...I'm not the same as I was when I woke up this morning" (and that just reminds us so much of something Alice said while in Wonderland! LOL!)So we leave you to it until Thursday...ZOMBIE!
We're sorry for this late edition of Funtastic Fridays (back dated and really done on a Sunday) and that we've not posted anything else on Meady's Musings for the week. We've been thinking, researching, travelling about a bit (perhaps looking for ideal writing locations) and as a whole wondering about two main things:
1. the location from where writers write
2. the ability of writers to become the characters which they write about while they are going through the writing process!
Our Maniac Mondays and Tumultuous Thursdays blog posts this coming week will cover our thoughts and experiences on these two topics but until then we thought we'd lead up to it with these two hopefully at least slightly funny cartoons you see above! Which we did using the Hasta Milan website:)
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