Month: July 2016

Posted in Blogging, day 9, fan fiction, fiction, July, my muses, my thoughts, word a day

July Blogging Challenge – Word a Day

Posted on by marlytheadoptee
Day 9 – Imagine

Honesty time.  I use my imagination a lot.  I make up stories in my head, which some would call them fantasies.  The most prevalent ones feature the Rebels of Scotland (the five Douglas brothers – Gordon, Joshua, Daniel, Richard and Robert and their family and friends and enemies…); the Pierre clones (EP, Pips and the “real” Pierre Bouvier); and my other muses – namely Elliott and Phil Preston, Daniel McTavish and co.  Travis Cloke of Collingwood, Alex O’Loughlin and M Shadows have all featured as well.  I do write fan fiction after all.  
Clokey 
 
Clokey is my Fallen Angel.  In my fiction he is literally the human incarnation of the fallen angel Azael.  He was a disciple of the Devil until he was redeemed and evolved into human conscious so that he could make up for all the wrong that he did in the heavens.  Inspired by the angel wing tattoo that Trav has on his back.

Pierre Bouvier
The first “celebrity” I seriously crushed on and the main character of most of my fan fictions.  He features especially in Jars of Clay, To Assasinate an Angel, Pierre Wars: Attack of the Clones, Bed Hair is Not a Fashion Statement, Songs of the Deep Blue, Tattoos of Memories. He has featured in many others, but a lot of them in the guise of….

EP
EP (Evil Pierre) is my writing muse.  He is how Pierre has manifested in many of my stories.  A darker version of the Pierre we all know and love.  He’s been a bounty hunter, a vampire, a master, a serial killer to name a few.  

Pips
Isn’t really my creation but I borrowed him for some of my stories.  He’s the lighter side of Pierre, the sweet, cheeky personality that doesn’t have a care in the world and balances out the darkness that is EP.  

The three Pierres are linked inexplicably and they are in my fictional worlds (my imagination at least) capable of supernatural feats – mind reading, teleportation, healing and the like.  Though this was more in role play with friends on the old SimplePlanOnline message boards back when I was younger.

Alex O’Loughlin
Daniel McTavish face claim
Alex has been himself; a vampire; and sometimes McGarrett.  He is also the face of Daniel McTavish my completely original character who came to me relatively recently in comparison to my other muses. He is of two guises.  One is the killer cum youth pastor; the other is the Commander in a dystopian society that has banned music…inspired from a tale featuring…

M Shadows and Zacky V
Matthew Sanders is the original Commander of the Creed.  (Well, he’s actually the lead singer of Avenged Sevenfold in real life, and Zacky is the rhythm guitarist).  But, it’s his story, Avenged Sevenfold fan fic Shadow’s Creed that inspired my original fiction The Uprising, which is McTavish’s story.  Matthew and ZV have also been vampires alongside EP’s vampire.  He’s also joined Alex, EP, Pierre and Clokey in fighting for my mind’s attention.  

The Rebels
My fertile imagination created before all of these, the Rebels of Scotland.  Gordon was inspired directly from my high school crush, at least his name and looks.  Everything else was my own creation.  Gordon and his four younger brothers (Joshua, Daniel, Richard, Robert).  His mother Celandine; his father Gregory.  And the rest.  The Fenton’s (Joseph, Josephine, Jacob, Jemima), the McDonalds (Stephen, Kayla, Jams), the McGregors (the Royal family of Scotland), the O’Donnells (Zachariah, Caleb, Jason), the Pasans (Matthew, Anthony), the O’Days (Michael, Terence)…and so on and so forth.  
They exist in a fictional Scotland that is ruled by His Majesty King Henry McGregor and his Crown Prince son, Jonathan.  I don’t really have any concrete tale, except that Gordon left Scotland to go to school in Australia, then returns to Scotland with the school and they don’t realise that he is a Rebel.  He doesn’t tell them and they don’t find out until either of two things happens….depending on where my mind goes.
Either Gordon is rude to prince Jonathan when the prince tells his school group that the Rebel Chieftain (who is Gordon’s younger brother) is dangerous and they need to stay away from him.  And then Gordon’s teachers want him to apologise to Prince Jonathan and after that want to meet his family.  And only after that they find out Gordon is a Rebel.
The other scenario is that the Rebel Chieftan (Joshua, Gordon’s brother) has been hosting one of Gordon’s friends and then that friend gets hurt, and Joshua was going to be arrested but Gordon manages to persuade them to give him a chance and let him host him instead.  Again it’s not until after he’s spent some time with Joshua being “hosted” that his friends and teachers find out that Gordon is actually a Rebel.  
I do want to write some proper fiction around them, but in the mean time I’ve borrowed, Gordon, Robert and their cousin Lachlan for my Uprising fiction.  
The Uprising
My imagination brought me to these four as the faces of The Uprising… And I found that amazing because that never used to happen to me. 
Alex is Daniel
Thomas Sangster is Robbie
Pierre is Pips Preston
Jim Sturgess is Elliott

Part of me sits back and thinks…imagine if none of these muses had ever shown up.  Mayhap my Rebels may have populated the pages of writing that have been consumed by EP and his ilk.

I am so glad that was not the case.  I feel blessed to be able to write everything I have.  I’ve learnt and grown a lot as a writer and that’s something.  




Posted in Blogging, July, my thoughts, slow, word a day

July Blogging Challenge – Word a Day

Posted on by marlytheadoptee
Day 8 – Slow

Today was a slow day.  Only had three babies in our room today.  And we amused ourselves with dancing, singing and reading books and cuddles and eating and sleeping (the babies) not my colleague and I.  Though we both were tired.  
We had the dinosaurs set up in the room all week which was a lot of fun.  They were in the sensory play experience tray that we set up.  
(Poor chickens and T-Rex, the brachiosaurus wasn’t impressed.)
And we also had some Australian animals as well.
(Thorny devil, dingo and red kangaroo.)
(Mr Platypus…)
It was a long day too, and I was there from 7.30 in the morning until 6.30 at night….so eleven hours straight. Long long day.   I love my work, but it can be absolutely exhausting.  I wouldn’t trade it, though.  And I don’t mind the slow days so much.  So much more one-on-one interactions can happen on those days.  I love it.

Posted in Blogging, day 7, July, life, shorter post, word a day

July Blogging Challenge – Word a Day

Posted on by marlytheadoptee
Day 7 – Talk

Today was filled with talk.  Babies learning to talk, learning new words and just babbling and believing that they were fully engaged in conversation.  Talk of work practises at previous centres that we all worked at and tonight, talk with family and friends about everything that was possible.  From Star Wars to work, to relationships, to religion, to innuendo laden statements.
And that last talk was accompanied by tacos.
Taco and Talk was what Mark called it.
A great day.  With lots of words spoken.  
Posted in a chaos of delight, Blogging, day 6, July, seed, word a day

July Blogging Challenge – Word a Day

Posted on by marlytheadoptee
Day 6 – Seed

I’m not a green thumb so I won’t talk about seed plants, or anything to do with actual physical seeds.  Instead I want to talk about a small thought I had during the day.  
Lately I’ve become, I hesitate to say, addicted to playing games on my iPad when I could be better served spending my time on more intellectual pursuits.  So, that’s why I picked up Geoffrey Dobson’s book A Chaos of Delight: Science, Religion and Myth and the Shaping of Western Thought.  

It’s a fantastic and thought provoking read so far.  I know I’ve probably read it before many years ago, but I thought I’d give my brain some exercise again.  It looks into how across the years humans have tried to make sense of the world through religion, myth and science and looks at the history of all these ways.  Fascinating book.  Dobson is objective in how he approaches the information in the book but does take a benevolent view toward religion etc and basically explains that we as humans need to understand that everyone has different views and that they are legitimate.  And that the most important thing is that we the fact that we have such diverse views of the world is actually essential to us as humans.  
I think that this book is one off the first where I actually paid attention to the footnotes as Dobson adds extra information in many of his.  
I love reading books like this.  It stretches my mind and that’s always a good thing.
Oh and I love learning about the history of religious belief and mythology and science, so there’s that too.  
And perhaps reading books like this will plant new seeds of thoughts in my mind.  



Posted in Blogging, July, my thoughts, word a day

July Blogging Challenge – Word A Day

Posted on by marlytheadoptee
Day 5 – Golden

Golden is the name of the filly that Thowra, in The Silver Brumby, directs his attention to when The Man returns to the mountains.  The Man trained her up in the mountains and I know that he did it up there deliberately to try and catch Thowra.  But that backfired and Golden ended up running with Thowra’s herd and having his foals.  

The Silver Brumby is one of my all time favourite films based on one of my favourite childhood books.  

And, yes.  That’s Russell Crowe before he became famous.  He played “The Man”.  

Posted in Blogging, day 4, July, my thoughts, word a day

July Blogging Challenge – Word a Day

Posted on by marlytheadoptee
Day 4 – Brave

Have you ever stopped to think what was the bravest moment in your life?  Or what does it mean to be brave?  In the media and society we often give awards for bravery to those who undertake death defying feats, or save others from burning buildings or go and fight wars for our countries.  And yes, there is no denying that they are the actions of brave people, or that they are acts of bravery.  But, have you ever paused to ponder how bravery looks like in your own every day life?
Let’s look at a definition of the word ‘brave’.  
The Oxford Dictionary defines ‘brave’ thusly:
Adjective 
1.  Ready to face and endure danger or pain; showing courage
Verb
1.  Endure or face (unpleasant conditions or behaviour) without showing fear.  
I believe as soon as we see the word ‘danger’ linked with the word brave we automatically think of the most horrific situations people can be put in that they need to be courageous in.  However, I want you to take a step back and consider for a moment that perhaps, for some, that waking up in the morning is a huge step of courage.  There are those who live with a chronic illness or live in unstable domestic situations who face each day bravely and if they get through the day with not much trouble, consider it a win.  They may brush it off as how life is, but I personally think it’s a form of bravery.  
My husband is one of those people.  I honestly don’t think I could go through life the way he does with his health condition.  It’s often difficult just seeing it second hand.  He does say that having me in his life makes a difference, but…he was working and doing things even before we met.  So, brave he is.  
Bravery can show up in small everyday moments as well.  In my own world it shows up in the moment that I strike up the courage to call someone on the phone.  Or speak up about something at work.  Or even just voice my own views about a particular subject.  
Yes, viewing braveness in this way seems to be counterintuitive.  I by no means am trying to lessen the impact of the big, brave acts of the people we see as heroes.  I just think we need to understand that life in and of itself is a journey where we step out without fear and try to make a difference in our own lives and in the lives of others.  
Posted in Blogging, day 3, July blogging, my thoughts, word a day

July Blogging Challenge – Word a Day

Posted on by marlytheadoptee
Day 3 – Vibrant

It’s a cloudy winter’s day in Perth and I’ve found that on days like these the colours of life seem to dissipate.  I often feel lethargic and flat.  However, I’ve realised too that this is a choice.  I can allow myself to feel the lethargy or I can actively counter that.  
This morning in church, Haydn was talking about encountering God.  That a God encounter is more amazing and wonderful than any other experience we can even imagine.  I like to think that this is what really counts.  That resting in the presence of God is enough.  Enough to chase away the grey in our world.  
I think of the vibrant flush of colour in a rainbow.  The rainbow that was a symbol of God’s covenant with Noah after the flood.  A promise that He would never destroy the world again because of the sin of His people.  He sent Jesus, the Light of the world, instead to save us.  
I think of sunlight piercing through the clouds and brightening the wet roads in the city.  Blinding, yet illuminating all at once.  The flashes of warmth from the rays of winter sun are well worth soaking up.  Taking advantage of the beautiful sunny days in winter  think is essential for lessening the affect of the gloomier days.  We make sure to spend as much time outside with the children at work on the ‘warmer’ days in light of this fact.  
I think of…well, so many things and I never have enough words to explain them.
I apologise for the rambling nature of this post.  I got distracted by social media and my game on my iPad.  Perhaps we should all just go and look for what is most vibrant in life today…or tonight?
Posted in Aus Pol, Australia Votes, Blogging, Election 2016, July, my thoughts, word a day

July Blogging Challenge – Word a Day

Posted on by marlytheadoptee
Day 2 – Shift (Election Day thoughts)

Today is Election Day.  Australia will go to the voting polls and make a decision on who should lead this country.  One thing that needs to be clarified is that we don’t elect our Prime Minister.  The parties do that, we only vote for the candidates in the electorate that we live in.  Now that I’ve said that…
This year it has become apparent that it won’t be good enough just to vote like we’ve always done.  But that will take a huge shift in common mindsets to realise.  I’ve read several articles pertaining to how we should vote as followers of Christ (as I am a committed Christian) and several points have been brought up very clearly.  
First, that we need to be prayerful in the decisions we make.
Second, we should vote in light of what others need
Third, there are no “Christian” parties.  Though there are parties with the word “Christian” in them.  However, when you look at the policies they are wanting to put forward…some of them are not how Jesus would respond to the needs of this world.  And that’s what being Christian is truly about.  Being like Jesus.  
Four, don’t let the media or others pressure you into voting for certain parties.  
And fifth, it doesn’t matter if you don’t agree with every policy that a particular party has laid on the table.  You need to consider the pros and cons of every party and see which outweighs in each case.
But, it’s the second point that I want to stick to for the moment.  It’s a huge paradigm shift to even start thinking that we should vote, not for ourselves, but for others.  But, I will strive to vote in this way. Because, the future generations is who we are really voting for.  And those who are less advantaged and don’t have a voice.  And those who cannot vote, yet.  
Which brings me to another thought.  Hubby and I were watching Q and A the other night and someone either tweeted or commented that perhaps the voting age should be lowered.  So, 16-17 year olds could vote voluntarily and then voting would become compulsory from 18 years of age.  I think the idea is definitely worth thinking on.  There are many 16 and 17 year olds who are knowledgable enough and aware enough to actually be able to make informed decisions about political issues. They deserve a voice, they are the future after all.  And when it comes to what their generation need are they not their own best advocates?  Yes, they may still be children, legally…but it doesn’t mean they are not aware of social justice issues, or economic issues.  All these things affect them in no small measure and they deserve to have a say in what their future will look like.  
I know personally that at 16, 17, I was able to have reasoned discussions about serious topics.  Having good education does help.  But, to touch on that would be worth another blog post.  
So, in light of all that I have written…consider your vote seriously and make it count.
Posted in Blogging, journal wild, July, my thoughts

July Blogging Challenge – Word a Day

Posted on by marlytheadoptee

Blossom
It’s winter in Australia and I usually don’t associate the word blossom with this wonderful and cold season.  However, I believe I can still think on the word, even in this period of time.  
To blossom means to grow, to thrive and that is something we can all strive to do every day of our lives.  I see the children at work growing into their own; learning to walk, to talk, to interact with each other.  Even I’m personally growing and learning in this season.  
I’m at a point in my life where I know where I stand on a lot of issues, social justice issues and so forth.  
Tomorrow is Election Day and I know that I am still of two minds.  One is that I will vote Liberal as that is just the way I’ve always voted.  On the flip side of that I know I’m definitely not voting Labor. Two, I want to vote as an informed Christ follower, so I won’t be voting for a party just because they have “Christian” in their title.  I really need to research parties properly this time.  And I have until tomorrow to figure it all out.  
In the end I want what’s best for the country as either way I vote I don’t think it will impact me personally too much.  At least not anymore than politics already affects me.
July 1 and I’m already growing more.