Is Music Your Forte?

Does music allow you to find harmony in an otherwise dissonant life? Does a vibrant libretto combined with a strong leitmotif make your day? Or, does something by Alicia Keys, Taylor Swift, or Lady Gaga light your Bic? Could it be an Oldie that grabs you: Bohemian Rhapsody, Imagine, Hey Jude, or maybe Bridge over Troubled Water.

There have been many good stories on BC inspired by songs. There have also been great song parodies. Our authors seem to know how to take a phrase and build it into a wondrous tale.

We would like to challenge you to take your favorite song and use it as a muse to write a story for BC.
Feel free to tap into any genre of music. Write any kind of story you like that fits the BC mode — you might even pick an aria and spin a yarn about a castrato. Perhaps you'll pluck a Gregorian chant and broaden the folklore around Pope Joan. Or, maybe you'll take on the wailing Maggie Mae to complain about the woman who changed you. The music must merely be the jumping off point.

You can write in any form you choose; verse, prose, parody, just with a mind and ear to create something that stirred your heart. A song...a spoof...a tale of sadness or triumph...a poem or a play...a symphony or a saga...

There won't be voting. These stories will be judged by a panel of misfits and malcontents who have demonstrated a knowledge of writing, reading, and are totally incapable of ‘rithmatic. The prize is yet to be determined, perhaps a chromatic scale to weigh your writing talent, or a brand new fugue that will allow you to forget who you are -- and start a new life.

So pick a carole, and then write about Carl becoming Carol. Tell us about an intersexed person whose parents fixed what wasn’t Baroque. March to your own drummer. Waltz us through a night on the town. Just duet!

Just a reminder once again - Your entry should be one of the following - Verse based on a song; an actual song you wrote; a song parody, any prose based on a song that has inspired you, including but not limited to short stories, a chapter or episode from a story or serial in your collection, and for those truly ambitious, the "Next Great American Novel," so long as what you write refers to the song which inspired you to give away half your life for meaningless and transitory recognition by a few of your peers!

Entries into our Musical Mayhem will be accepted between February 1 through February 28. (For those of you who reside in another realm of the Space/Time Continuum, Entries may be posted as late as February 37th, but no later!)

Thanks again,

Jill and a host of favorites.