Sitting here waiting for The Tragically Hip to take the stage in my beloved Kingston for the last time. Myself and many Canadians have a date with them tonight. Even our Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau is at the concert, along with 6,000 people inside the arena and 25,000 standing right outside watching it on a big screen. Above is the live stream on Youtube, if you’re interested in catching any of it.
That’s it for me. As many have said over the last week. As of 8:30, August 20th, Canada is busy. Cheers!
Hey, it’s Friday! That means it’s time for your Stream of Consciousness Saturday prompt. It’s hard to believe summer is almost finished, isn’t it? Where the heck did it go? On that note (kind of), here is your prompt:
Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is: “date.” Use it any way you’d like. Have fun!
After you’ve written your Saturday post tomorrow, please link it here at this week’s prompt page and check to make sure it’s here in the comments so others can find it and see your awesome Stream of Consciousness post. Anyone can join in!
To make your post more visible, use our new SoCS badge! Just paste it in your Saturday post so people browsing the reader will immediately know your post is stream of consciousness and/or pin it as a widget to your site to show you’re a participant. Wear it with pride!!
Here are the rules:
1. Your post must be stream of consciousness writing, meaning no editing, (typos can be fixed) and minimal planning on what you’re going to write.
2. Your post can be as long or as short as you want it to be. One sentence – one thousand words. Fact, fiction, poetry – it doesn’t matter. Just let the words carry you along until you’re ready to stop.
3. There will be a prompt every week. I will post the prompt here on my blog on Friday, along with a reminder for you to join in. The prompt will be one random thing, but it will not be a subject. For instance, I will not say “Write about dogs”; the prompt will be more like, “Make your first sentence a question,” “Begin with the word ‘The’,” or simply a single word to get your started.
4. Ping back! It’s important, so that I and other people can come and read your post! For example, in your post you can write “This post is part of SoCS:” and then copy and paste the URL found in your address bar at the top of this post into yours. Your link will show up in my comments for everyone to see. The most recent pingbacks will be found at the top. NOTE: Pingbacks only work from WordPress sites. If you’re self-hosted or are participating from another host such as Blogger, please leave a link to your post in the comments below.
5. Read at least one other person’s blog who has linked back their post. Even better, read everyone’s! If you’re the first person to link back, you can check back later, or go to the previous week, by following my category, “Stream of Consciousness Saturday,” which you’ll find right below the “Like” button on my post.
6. Copy and paste the rules (if you’d like to) in your post. The more people who join in, the more new bloggers you’ll meet and the bigger your community will get!
7. As a suggestion, tag your post “SoCS” and/or “#SoCS” for more exposure and more views.
I’m not going to lie – I published (and will publish again) my book for cash. Considering the only job I’ve had in the last fifteen years is a paper route, what else am I to do? But publishing, and to make cash isn’t why I write. I do that for me and because I can’t not write down the things that are constantly coming into my head. So much of the stuff I see and hear in life, the stuff I feel too, inspires me.
And, of course, the stuff I see other people feel. I’ve wondered why I write romance. I don’t read a lot of it. I’ll often read books about relationships, but I don’t devour Avon’s publications like many do. I think I’ve come up with why I write it though. Psychology and love. Feelings. For me, writing about love is a passion borne of countless fantasies, inspired by some of the greatest love stories ever told. I’ll never write a bodice-ripper, nor anything shallow. I could, but I won’t. Because for me there has to be something deep about a story. Something… something disturbing. Something that will pull on my heartstrings, or make me laugh or cry or cringe. And yeah, sometimes the things I write make me cringe. But I only write them if they are “true.”
In the meantime, there’s the other stuff I do not-for-cash. Being a mother. I think the only reason we stay-at-home moms don’t get paid is because not even the 1% could afford us. Take my today for instance: I’ve dealt with a behaviorally challenged teenager who has beat up the dog, pounded my cell phone on the kitchen table, broken one of his movies, hit me, and then sat on my lap for cuddles when he found out he couldn’t go for a ride on the city bus. I drove the other kid to a movie and back, played “Uno” ’til I was seeing double, and changed a bed because the dog peed on it. And how much money did I make for all this? Same as I have for the last fifteen years.
It’s Friday! Which means it’s time for your Stream of Consciousness Saturday prompt. It’s a special day here at SoCS since we have a brand new badge. I’m sure we’ll all be happy to “wear” it on our weekly posts! Speaking of weekly posts, here’s your prompt for this week:
Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is: “cash.” Use it in your post as a noun or a verb… or a name! Enjoy!
After you’ve written your Saturday post tomorrow, please link it here at this week’s prompt page and check to make sure it’s here in the comments so others can find it and see your awesome Stream of Consciousness post. Anyone can join in!
To make your post more visible, use our new SoCS badge! Just paste it in your Saturday post so people browsing the reader will immediately know your post is stream of consciousness and/or pin it as a widget to your site to show you’re a participant. Wear it with pride!!
Here are the rules:
1. Your post must be stream of consciousness writing, meaning no editing, (typos can be fixed) and minimal planning on what you’re going to write.
2. Your post can be as long or as short as you want it to be. One sentence – one thousand words. Fact, fiction, poetry – it doesn’t matter. Just let the words carry you along until you’re ready to stop.
3. There will be a prompt every week. I will post the prompt here on my blog on Friday, along with a reminder for you to join in. The prompt will be one random thing, but it will not be a subject. For instance, I will not say “Write about dogs”; the prompt will be more like, “Make your first sentence a question,” “Begin with the word ‘The’,” or simply a single word to get your started.
4. Ping back! It’s important, so that I and other people can come and read your post! For example, in your post you can write “This post is part of SoCS:” and then copy and paste the URL found in your address bar at the top of this post into yours. Your link will show up in my comments for everyone to see. The most recent pingbacks will be found at the top. NOTE: Pingbacks only work from WordPress sites. If you’re self-hosted or are participating from another host, such as Blogger, please leave a link to your post in the comments below.
5. Read at least one other person’s blog who has linked back their post. Even better, read everyone’s! If you’re the first person to link back, you can check back later, or go to the previous week, by following my category, “Stream of Consciousness Saturday,” which you’ll find right below the “Like” button on my post.
6. Copy and paste the rules (if you’d like to) in your post. The more people who join in, the more new bloggers you’ll meet and the bigger your community will get!
7. As a suggestion, tag your post “SoCS” and/or “#SoCS” for more exposure and more views.
Then I posted my reminder to vote and one badge took off! Though most of the other badges gained votes, the winner became clear. By a landslide, with 38% of the votes, the winner is…
Oh wait. I should take a moment to honour our outgoing badge. Thank you for serving us so well for the past year. And here’s hoping our friend “Hope Floats” returns to WordPress soon! We miss you!
So now, without further ado…
except for a drum roll…
of course…
our new SoCS badge is brought to you by…
…
John Holton!!
Congratulations, John!
The two runners up were JoAnna with 22% of the votes and Willow with 16%.
Thanks so much to all our lovely contestants for your amazing efforts. And congratulations to all for entering!
We’re down to the wire for choosing our new Stream of Consciousness Saturday badge and it’s so close! It’s a race between three of the contestants with only one vote between each, but it’s still not too late for the other four to catch up.
Tell your friends! Send up a plane with a banner! And if you haven’t voted yet, vote here!:
It’s after midnight, which means this year’s contest is closed for the new Stream of Consciousness Saturday badge. We have seven wonderful pieces of art to choose from! Anyone can vote: make yours count!
I’ll name them all to make it easier for voting purposes. Here are the contestants in order, according to the time of their entries:
Please be sure to check them all out before you vote!
Poll is closed.
The poll will be open for one day. If it doesn’t close down automatically after 24 hours, I will close it when I get up on the morning of Friday, August 12th. The results will be announced before the Friday SoCS prompt is posted, and our winner’s badge will be featured for the very first time as part of the prompt!
Just a quick reminder that the contest for our new Stream of Consciousness Saturday badge closes tomorrow at midnight, my time (Toronto, Canada, GMT -5). We’ve got some great badges already, which you can find the links for in the comment section here: https://lindaghill.com/2016/08/04/its-the-3rd-annual-socs-badge-design-contest/ I’ll post direct links to all of them in Thursday’s post, when I’ll ask you to vote for your favourite.
The good new is, we still have three spots open for new entries! The next three contestants to link their posts featuring their artwork according to the rules in the above-mentioned post, will be entered into the contest with the other 7 contestants. You have just under 26 hours from the time this post goes live.
Hello, and welcome to your Stream of Consciousness Saturday prompt. Well, this will likely be the last week we’ll use our beloved 2015-2016 SoCS badge. I’ll be sorry to see it go, but I have great hopes we’ll have something new that’s just as beautiful to display on our posts this time next week! Anyway, here is your prompt:
Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is: “ex.” Find a word that includes “ex” and base your post on it. Have fun!
After you’ve written your Saturday post tomorrow, please link it here at this week’s prompt page and check to make sure it’s here in the comments so others can find it and see your awesome Stream of Consciousness post. Anyone can join in!
To make your post more visible, use the SoCS badge! Just paste it in your Saturday post so people browsing the reader will immediately know your post is stream of consciousness and/or pin it as a widget to your site to show you’re a participant. Wear it with pride!!
Here are the rules:
1. Your post must be stream of consciousness writing, meaning no editing, (typos can be fixed) and minimal planning on what you’re going to write.
2. Your post can be as long or as short as you want it to be. One sentence – one thousand words. Fact, fiction, poetry – it doesn’t matter. Just let the words carry you along until you’re ready to stop.
3. There will be a prompt every week. I will post the prompt here on my blog on Friday, along with a reminder for you to join in. The prompt will be one random thing, but it will not be a subject. For instance, I will not say “Write about dogs”; the prompt will be more like, “Make your first sentence a question,” “Begin with the word ‘The’,” or simply a single word to get your started.
4. Ping back! It’s important, so that I and other people can come and read your post! For example, in your post you can write “This post is part of SoCS:” and then copy and paste the URL found in your address bar at the top of this post into yours. Your link will show up in my comments for everyone to see. The most recent pingbacks will be found at the top. NOTE: Pingbacks only work from WordPress sites. If you’re self-hosted or are participating from another host such as Blogger, please leave a link to your post in the comments below.
5. Read at least one other person’s blog who has linked back their post. Even better, read everyone’s! If you’re the first person to link back, you can check back later, or go to the previous week, by following my category, “Stream of Consciousness Saturday,” which you’ll find right below the “Like” button on my post.
6. Copy and paste the rules (if you’d like to) in your post. The more people who join in, the more new bloggers you’ll meet and the bigger your community will get!
7. As a suggestion, tag your post “SoCS” and/or “#SoCS” for more exposure and more views.
It’s that time of year again – time for the Stream of Consciousness Saturday Badge Contest! A year ago this month we voted on this beautiful badge:
to represent us every week. I made the difficult decision to have an annual contest two years ago, when the great Doobster left us. Here is his badge:
Badge by: Doobster at Mindful Digressions
And now, it seems we’ve lost another badge-maker. Yes, our lovely friend at Hope Floats has made her website private. But fear not! She’s alive and well. I texted her a few days ago to make sure. Hopefully we’ll get together soon for coffee and I’ll find out if she’s planning to return to blogland.
So we move forward once again. Last year’s badge is going to be a tough one to beat, but I have confidence in all of you to come up with something spectacular! Here we go:
I’ll be taking entries for the next seven days (today included) for Stream of Consciousness Saturday badge designs. Here are the guidelines:
1. The design can be anything you want it to be but it must include either “Stream of Consciousness Saturday” or “SoCS” and your name and/or the name of your website.
2. Any pictures (art or photo) must be your own.
3. All entries will be posted here on my blog on Thursday August 11th, 2016, along with a poll that will close the next day, on Friday the 12th. I would ask that each of the entrants make a blog post on their own website with their artwork so that I can post links for voters to check them out, and that they link their post back HERE in the comment section no later than Wednesday August 10th, midnight EDT (GMT -5 hours). All links included here will be added to the voting list.
4. The winner’s badge will be available for anyone who participates in Stream of Consciousness Saturday to post permanently on their website as a widget and/or to embed in each weekly SoCS post.
5. One entry per person. The contest is open to anyone with a blog, WordPress or otherwise (see #3 for entry requirements).
6. Poll results will not be available while the poll is open. If there is a tie, I will choose the winner myself.
7. This year I am restricting the entries to the first ten linked below (just in case we’re bombarded), so get yours in early.
8. If I’ve missed anything, or if you have any questions, please ask in the comment section below.
9. Have fun!
Note: The posting of the winning badge with a SoCS post/on a participant’s website will not be a requirement. It’s purely for entertainment/recognition purposes.
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