Actually, lets not go there. I refuse to admit that numbers go that high when they’re in the same sentence as my age. 🙂
Jmmcdowell was kind enough to nominate me for the 7×7 award, with comes with such a long list of instructions that they give you 7 trophies so that they can write them all on it. My, that mantle is getting full. I need to build a bigger fireplace. Ohhh, bonfires and s’mores indoors! Yay!
So, onward! To the lists, I mean instructions.
- Share some things about myself
- link to 7 of your own posts: Most Surprisingly Successful, Most Underrated, Most Popular, Most Beautiful, Most Helpful, Most Controversial and Most Pride-Worthy
- Nominate 7 blogs
Hmm, okay, I can handle this, though I might engage in some judicious cheating. Again. I’m incorrigible, I swear. I blame my characters for that, by the way.
So, about me:
- I love Skull Candy over-ear headphones, particularly their Hesh series. My old ones died recently, but after like 3 years of daily (ab)use, I don’t think they owed me anything. I got new ones just a couple days ago, black and blue. Only purple would have been better. I miss the inline volume control my old ones had, but I can learn to live without it. Best ear muffs/self-dense in the mall ever.
- I feel like I’m cheating on Tavis when I make notes on my newest idea (non-Mirrors one), because I absolutely adore the main character in this new one. The fact that I can even think of it like that slightly disturbs me (well, only a little), but then I view authors as crazy people. It’s what we do.
- The reason I think of authors as crazy (in a general, non-threatening, non-commitable kind of way) is because we keep imaginary people (multiple, not just one) in our head, and often imaginary places, and then we take them out and make them dance for other people’s entertainment. I challenge you not to think of it as crazy when put like that. I can’t.
- I love discovering new (to me) authors and letting them seduce me into their worlds. Yes, I really do think of it that way. I love this almost as much as I enjoy new books by favourite authors.
- No one can possibly be more surprised than me at this blog being successful. I write about my writing. And apparently my awards. I mean, I never expected this many people to pay attention to that. You guys came to see me, no kidding, 1006 times in January. WTH? I know it’s not discrete visits, but I mean, wow. You guys knock my socks off. I suppose I have to try to do even better in February, don’t I? Damned short months…
Okay, enough talking about me as I seem to do that a lot already. Time to talk about my blog, and the cheating I’m about to do. Did I say that out loud?
Most Surprisingly Successful: Take A Number At The Counter Please. Usually it’s my awards posts that seem to garner the most comments or likes, but this one is all about writing (mine of course) and yet is my second most commented post to date, and that was quite touching.
Most Underrated: Writing is Like Ogres. Okay, I admit it, the extended Shrek reference was not as funny when written down as it sounded in my head. But I do like the post in a general sense, the importance of layers and how you get them into a story.
Most Popular: Where’s My Fancy Dress And Speech. This one’s easy. Do you know that still gets searched for? I have no idea why, either.
Most Beautiful: The Biggest and the Smallest, one of my few posts touching on the truly philosophical, rather than my philosophies on writing.
Most Helpful: I Think I Found My Brevity seems to have started off a lot of ruminating, for me and a few others from comments, about self-publication and how authors can take control of their own works. On a side note, the other day I noticed I had search terms pop up for “My Brevity” and collapsed into laughter as I thought to myself “But I already found it” 🙂
Most Controversial: I’m skipping this one (aka cheating) because we all know I don’t do controversy. It’s hard to get controversial about yourself with yourself. Doesn’t work, trust me.
Most Pride-Worthy: Catastrophe or Opportunity? One of the hardest things as a writer, that I see more writers stumble on than anything else, is being honest about their own work. Also, it’s hard to realize that the thing that is totally broken can be made better, that out of disaster can arise something good. We won’t go into how much worse I felt later that evening as the realization set in. Only a couple people know, and no one else needs to.
I know, they are almost all fairly recent, but my brain is too full for long-term memory, really. The buffer keeps running over and losing the old data. But either way, I prefer to look forward as much as possible, and not dwell on old stuff more than I need to. Always moving forward, that’s the ticket.
And, last but not least, my 7 blogs:
- The Joys of Writing
- Lifeinthefarcelane
- dex raven
- Tim Kane Books
- Words From the Night
- Constantly Living As Myself
- Meredith Mansfield
Well, there you have it, my blogs and fellow bloggers, and peak into my twisted mind. Now, if you’ll pardon me, I think I have to go break up a fight in my subconscious. Long story, I’ll explain next time, promise. Devan won’t let me forget, I assure you.
Word Flows 
*waits for the fight pics*
Air kisses for the award .. thank you .. I dunno why you’re so kind to me and my blog cos I aint a skilled writer by any stretch of the imagination.. but I love that you do enjoy it 🙂
You know what skilled writing really is? Getting to your audience and making them feel, having them take the journey with you because they respond to your words. In all those regards, I consider you a skilled writer. The rest is technical skills, to be applied at levels appropriate to the venue. 🙂 And I haven’t forgotten who awarded who first.
As for the fight pics, if I could print up my imagination or draw worth a damn, you’d get them. It’s like a bad fantasy joke. A mage and a necromancer walk into a bar…
Congratulations! Although I see you are no stranger to blog awards, either, so congratulations on those as well I guess? After a brief perusal of your blog, consider me a follower. You and I have about the same number of simultaneous projects going at once, and I salute you.
Thanks! I’m lucky, I have some excellent followers who are kind enough to share with me 😀 I think it’s because an award induced me to share my hot chocolate recipe. Totally killer, and I refer to it as writer’s fuel.
The scary thing about my project page is that it only skims the surface of what goes on, but it’s the stuff I’m willing to mention, and there’s enough of it that I thought people (me included) might need a guide to keep up. Sad. Thanks, though. The real skill is keeping moving and getting stuff done. It’s a new skill, and I’m seeing if getting DM done was a fluke, or if I can pull it off again. News tomorrow at whatever time I’m awake enough to post…
Keeping it going is the thought that scares me. What if I run out of ideas? What if I write myself into an inescapable corner? Can I finish the two WIPs and successfully market them? Their sequels are already irked that I’m not spending more time with them.
But I know — every writer feels that way sometimes! You’re doing great!
Having written myself into a number of corners (and having the dead novels to prove it), I now know what it feels like, so I’m trying to learn how to slip out of those corners when I become aware of them. Right now, the marketing I’m putting aside, as I’m aware that all the marketing in the world won’t help me sell an unfinished or insufficiently polished book. My main concern is keeping myself focused on what I need to do to finish things, rather than going off after the shiny new idea. That always gets me in trouble. I’m getting entirely used to their grumbling as they have to share my brain, but I’ll admit, it’s getting crowded in there.
I’ll tell you what I’ve told others about running out of ideas. To generate more, take some idea that’s old and tired, then either turn it upside down or inside out and explore the new landscape. Works for me every time. Perhaps that’s why I have so bloody many of them on my iPad and in various notebooks from the many years I’ve been thinking up stories.
And thanks! I think writers are perhaps the worst at knowing when they are doing well, so it helps when other people tell us that. We might eventually get the message 😀
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It’s amazing what keeps getting searched on.
Back in September J C Hutchins mentioned on Twitter that he received some spam with the subject “Super Nude Donut Girl”. I was lying in bed waiting for my partner to wake up, and wrote a poem based on that title. I later posted it to my blog and I still get searches every week!
Yeah. I’m actually starting to see other search terms, but they do still amuse me. That said, I try to see the amusement in almost everything in life. It keeps me from getting too serious, keeps me happy in myself and my life. That’s a recent thing for me, and I’m trying to sustain it in every way I can.