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The Upstairs Archives

~ A random repository of how-to-write and geekery, with an occasional snippet of accidental wisdom.

The Upstairs Archives

Category Archives: The Music Writing Challenge

The Music Writing Challenge 3

25 Monday Jan 2016

Posted by erinkenobi2893 in Living Life with Passion, Story Dynamics, The Music Writing Challenge, Uncategorized

≈ 27 Comments

Tags

casting crowns, courageous, the music writing challenge, writing

I’m so sorry. I meant to do this earlier, but then, life happened. My job and school are conspiring against me. Gah! *remembers with sorrow and nostalgia old Nanowrimos when I actually won and had lots of fun with friends in the meanwhile*

If you’ve forgotten (my fault) or if you’re new (welcome!), here are the rules of the Music Writing Challenge:

  1. If you’re not familiar with the piece of music, you may actively–no distractions–listen to it once through.
  2. Open a Word document and press play. Begin to write when the music starts, and when the music stops, if you must write on, please insert a line or page break for indication that the bit below it was written after the music was over.
  3. Have fun!

This week’s focusing piece is “Courageous” by Casting Crowns. (If you have not seen the movie Courageous for which the piece was written, GO SEE IT NOW. It’s got several awards from various indie film festivals and it’s sad and happy and awesome and just all-around amazing.)

I can’t wait to see what you all come up with! 😀 Thanks for reading, God bless, good luck and good writing!

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Angel With A Shotgun: A Doctor Who Song Fic

05 Tuesday Jan 2016

Posted by erinkenobi2893 in Living Life with Passion, Story Dynamics, Tales of a Wandering Bard, The Music Writing Challenge, Uncategorized

≈ 18 Comments

Tags

completed stories, doctor who, fanfiction, short stories, song-related fiction, songs i hate, sorry-not-sorry

My train of thought whenever I dislike a song tends to be “Wow, bad theology… stuff I don’t agree with… I hate this song… who is this applicable to? Hum. HEY, LET’S MAKE EVERYONE ELSE HATE THIS SONG TOO!”

So today I’m delivering you some feels with a song that is happy and upbeat but which has surprisingly dark lyrics. So… does this even need a trigger warning? Well, trigger warning for–um, self-hate and stuff I guess.

I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.

(No, I’m not. I’m just ferociously glad to have corrupted this song for you all. MWAHAHAHAHAHAHA.)

Angel with a Shotgun

I’m an angel with a shotgun, shotgun, shotgun,

An angel with a shotgun, shotgun, shotgun

“Charley, Lucy, C’rizz, Tamsin, Molly. Friends, companions all, I salute you.”

Get out your guns, battle’s begun.

Are you a saint or a sinner?

If love’s a fight then I shall die

With my heart on a trigger.

He could not turn back now. The sky was going dark as all the stars went out. Daleks and Time Lords alike—fighting each other—committed to the destruction of the galaxy. Their war raged through a separate time and through all of time and space, bitter, relentless, furious, leaving weeping scars in its wake and shattering reality into splinters. And when they were not fighting each other, they were planning worse.

He had been trying to help. But to help was no good any more. He had to fight in the war, to fight it to the bitter end—to the inevitable loss that waited there. Lose his own people or lose all of history? He hated to concede to a lesser evil, but innocents were his first concern.

They say before you start a war,

You better know what you’re fighting for.

Well, baby, you are all that I adore

If love is what you need, a soldier I will be

He did not look back as he stepped into his TARDIS—the ship damaged but still operational. He flew away from the carnage, into the heat of the storm.

He was the storm. And now was the time for the storm.

He did not look back, but he felt. Their hands over his, guiding. A tear squeezed from under one eyelid. He was shocked that he could cry any more, but he knew despite his hope that it would not save him now.

He was damned along with the rest of the universe. Sink or swim. Die… or kill.

The choice that would unmake the Doctor.

I’m an angel with a shotgun,

Fighting ‘til the war’s won,

I don’t care if heaven won’t take me back.

Sometimes, in awe of the distant might of the Time Lords, they would call him an angel. Perhaps they even saw him as one—descended from on high, a savior, a deliverer.

They could not be more wrong.

He was not particularly angelic, and death accompanied him everywhere. He could not save everyone. Every week, every month, a few more deaths around him would remind him, and Death would whisper in his ear that she was biding her time, waiting at the end of time, for him. She called him “beloved.” He did not know what that meant.

He used to joke, once, about being a Time Lord—having all the time in the world. But it was all a lie. He was just snatching them away from death for a few moments more in their short lives, the weight of all of Time rolling on ahead of them, their single hearts ticking down the days they had left and Death laughing in the corner with her hourglass.

Death had all the time in the world.

He was just a wanderer, doing what little he could, so little in the grand scheme of things—his hands stained with the memories he could not wash away.

I’ll throw away my faith, babe, just to keep you safe

Don’t you know you’re everything I have

And I wanna live, not just survive tonight

Still, there was no one else left to stand and fight now. And someone had to stand.

Sometimes to live meant to die. He’d accepted that long ago.

He was no longer innocent. He didn’t know what to believe in. But one thing he did knew—neither the Time Lords nor the Daleks could be allowed to succeed, or to fight on much longer.

He might die. He might lose faith. The concept—the legend—of the Doctor might be proven false.

But he would take the stand.

There was simply no one else left.

No. There were others. They’d gone home, they’d died, they’d forgotten him. Memento mori. Small, butterfly lives, here an instant and then gone in the wind. But he himself was not the stone of the mountain. Even oak trees fall when the rot gets into their hearts. And he was decaying. He was losing himself—no, not himself. Himself, he still had to live with.

He was losing the Doctor.

But he would fight for them. He would drag one last victory from the jaws of defeat, and then go willing to Death. For their sake.

Sometimes to win, you’ve got to sin

Don’t mean I’m not a believer

And Major Tom will sing along

Yeah, they still say I’m a dreamer

The combatants were still under the illusion of the Doctor—that comfortable, pleasant lie he’d told the universe for so long. They were still under his spell—deceived by the pretty lights and aery silks he’d drawn around himself. Underlying the Doctor, within, hidden by lights, within the shadows, there was the Storm. The Endless Storm, the Beginning—soon to be the Ending. The Relentless Storm. The Inexorable Storm. Irresistible, unstoppable.

The Daleks, perhaps, had seen it before anyone else. But that was their reward for their crimes—they saw the Storm, and they learned fear.

They called him the Oncoming Storm.

The only way to win this war was for all sides to lose. He could destroy them all. He knew he could. And he would, without hesitation, without mercy.

He left them one last warning—one last concession to the Doctor. No More. And Arcadia fell.

He came before the dawn and took the Moment from the vaults. None saw him to stop him—they only saw where he had passed.

Doctor No More.

He had to be. He would be their executioner.

They say before you start a war

You better know what you’re fighting for

Well, baby, you are all that I adore

If love is what you need, a soldier I will be

He allowed himself one last moment of hesitation, true to that pretty lie. To ask one last time if it was really worth it. The answer was always the same. No it’s not. I don’t have a choice. He would not allow himself to feel regret. Not until the deed was done.

He was doing it for the trillions of lives that would be saved—for the Gallifreyan might-have-been children, who now would never exist in this timeline—who now could not be ruined by the corruption in the hearts of their elders. All two point forty-seven billion of them.

If he was an angel, he was the Angel of Death—the angel that smites the wicked in merciless justice.

But he knew that he really was no angel.

He was only a man.

An angel might have saved them.

No… only God could save a soul. Angels didn’t have second thoughts.

I’m an angel with a shotgun,

Fighting ‘til the war’s won

I don’t care if heaven won’t take me back

I’ll throw away my faith, babe, just to keep you safe

Don’t you know you’re everything I have

And I wanna live, not just survive tonight

Oh, oh whoa whoa oh whoa

He knew already that he had doomed himself. Doctor no more. It was all too true, wasn’t it.

He was the Doctor no more. All that was left was the Storm.

And the universe would not have to contain the Storm for very much longer.

I’m an angel with a shotgun

Fighting ‘til the war’s won

I don’t care if heaven won’t take me back

Good men don’t need rules. Today is not the day to find out why I have so many.

Am I a good man?

Heaven was for the righteous. Heaven would never accept him.

Maybe he could accept that.

He would fall, happy, if once the war ended. To save all those lives seemed too much to hope.

I’m an angel with a shotgun

Fighting ‘til the war’s won

I don’t care if heaven won’t take me back

I’ll throw away my faith, babe, just to keep you safe

Don’t you know you’re everything I have?

I’m an angel with a shotgun

And I want to live, not just survive

Live, not just survive

And I’m gonna hide, hide, hide my wings tonight

He hacked off the long, loose curls that had framed his face before. It felt as if he was hacking off those imaginary wings humans had so often framed him with.

All that was left was the soldier. The Warrior.

He didn’t care if Gallifrey was lost, if Gallifrey would not accept him again. It didn’t matter any more.

They say before you start a war

You better know what you’re fighting for

Well, baby, you are all that I adore

If love is what you need, a soldier I will be

“Charley, Lucy, C’rizz, Tamsin, Molly. Friends, companions all, I salute you. And Cas… I apologize…”

Don’t forgive me for what I am about to do. I don’t deserve forgiveness. But I am sorry.

“Physician, heal thyself.”

The Doctor was dead.

The Music Writing Challenge, Verse Two

29 Tuesday Sep 2015

Posted by erinkenobi2893 in Living Life with Passion, Story Dynamics, Tales of a Wandering Bard, The Music Writing Challenge

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

fun stuff, music, story dynamics, the music writing challenge, writing, writing music

See what I did there?

Anyway, thanks to everyone who entered the first Music Writing Challenge, and welcome to the second!

The rules are as follows:

  1. If you’re not familiar with the piece of music, you may actively–no distractions–listen to it once through.
  2. Open a Word document and press play. Begin to write when the music starts, and when the music stops, if you must write on, please insert a line or page break for indication that the bit below it was written after the music was over.
  3. Have fun!

This week’s music is “Winterspell” by Thomas Bergersen.

Enjoy!

“Hero”: My Entry to the Music Writing Challenge

21 Monday Sep 2015

Posted by erinkenobi2893 in Living Life with Passion, Story Dynamics, Tales of a Wandering Bard, The Music Writing Challenge

≈ 10 Comments

Tags

bound to the flame, characters, fun stuff, novels, short stories, story dynamics, the flame within, the music writing challenge

I think I’ll post a new Music Writing Challenge next week on Tuesday… Everyone who wants to write one of these Challenge pieces, please post them by then. Or you can post them later, if you want. Also, if you have any music you’d like to suggest for the Challenge, please tell me! 🙂

At a nice, even one hundred and fifteen words, this one was a bit short. But I was just writing what I felt like and then realized, hey this sounds like Isaac, so I made it his thoughts.

Enjoy!


Inhale.

Then leap forward with a vengeance. Find your way through the battle. Take your stand.

Some just try to keep their sanity.

Others embrace the madness.

And a few set their feet on the ground and defy the dark.

Isaac had been fighting for hours. It wasn’t just his freedom at stake. It was the fate of the world.

He had to find another way.

Abandoning his powers, he leaped forward, seeking the heart of the battle. He closed his eyes, focusing.

There!

The cracks in the moment spread out from that center, like a spider’s web.

Isaac ran for the center, eyes still shut but aware of the war around him.

He struck.


For those of you who may not be familiar with my pan-whatsit-theon of characters, Isaac is the hero of The Flame Within, sort of a sequel to Bound to the Flame and set far in its future. By this time, magic is widely accepted across the world, but the practice of magic has become corrupted. Isaac is a student at a school of magic and has been for as long as he can remember, but with banned books and his apparent nonexistence in the school’s records, he has to face the possibility that nothing is quite as it seems.

Thanks for reading, and God Bless!

The Music Writing Challenge

16 Wednesday Sep 2015

Posted by erinkenobi2893 in Living Life with Passion, Story Dynamics, Tales of a Wandering Bard, The Music Writing Challenge

≈ 21 Comments

Tags

fun stuff, story dynamics, the music writing challenge, writing

I was reading through some old challenge pieces, and I had an idea for a new type of word war!

Also, people create impressive things on YouTube. (Like the infamous “Why Is The Rum Gone,” heretofore to be called The-Remix-That-Shall-Not-Be-Named.)

I bring you: the Music Writing Challenge!

Basically, the idea is to write a short story in the space of one song. If you’re unfamiliar with the song, you can listen to it once–listening actively–I mean no multitasking! No Facebooking, no looking at stuff on Amazon, just listening to the music–not necessarily even watching the music video. Just listening. And then, when you’re done, you open a blank Word document, start up the music, and write to it. When the music is done, stop writing. If you absolutely MUST continue your story, make sure to put a line or a note or a page break or SOMETHING there to denote that this part was not written as a part of the challenge.

Be sure to post your completed story (or story fragment) on your blog and link me back to it! I’d love to read them all 😀

Our first challenge will be written around the Skillet song “Hero.”

I plan on posting my own addition to the Challenge shortly.

Good luck!

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