Showing posts with label Awards. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Awards. Show all posts

Friday, 28 December 2012

GOALS (a 2012 summary) and a Blog of the Year

With the end of the year so close, it's time for me to reflect on what I achieved/did not achieve in 2012. After 2011's goal blitz, I was feeling pumped this year, but I didn't quite live up to 2011's high standards. Don't get me wrong, though - I'm perfectly fine with it! I just didn't get a perfect score this year. ;) Anyway, let's break it down, referring to my 2012 Goals page and also my 52 weeks of tasks page:

Failures:

  • NaNoEdMo - I was travelling for a bit of this month, but still, I failed!
  • Writing one book review each month - I missed November
  • Attending one yoga/body balance class per week
  • Doing a beach walks on Saturdays/Sundays - failed this particularly as the year came to an end.

Successes:

  • Read 43+ books in 2012 - my goal was at least 43
  • Read The Catrina Chronicles stories up to date (though as of now I am behind again)
  • Wrote and recorded 52 songs for 2012's Chrysalis Experiment
  • Finished both 2011's NaNo novels, DANNA and VICTORIOUS
  • Hit 50k in BuNoWriMo 2012 with IVY NIGHT - though the draft is not finished
  • Won NaNoWriMo 2012, rewriting DAPHNE
  • Posted one Globetrotter post per month
  • Did a preliminary read-through/edit of FIRE (had no recollection of this till coming to write this post. ha)
  • Sorted the equivalent of 100 photos a week
  • Wrote the equivalent of 1k of new material each week, not counting BuNo and NaNo projects (worked on DANNA and SUNDOWN II for this)
  • Reviewed all 52 Chrysalis stories, except 2 that were DANNA excerpts

"Somewhere in between"s:
  • I did read 9 eBooks from my writer friends, but not always the books I had on the original list. I kept swapping really long books for short novella-length stories (with no e-reader, it's not easy reading eBooks!)
  • Complete edit of DAPHNE - I do count this as an achievement, but it was actually more of a total rewrite, and I didn't do what I originally wanted and put more of Daphne's mother's history into the plot
  • As of this post, I will have written the equivalent of at least one post a week this year. But I'm pretty sure I went more than 7 days between posts at least once this year.

Extra achievements:
  • Finished my rewrite of SUNDOWN, which was not on my goals list anywhere, but which I made use of in the 1k of new material per week goal on my "52 tasks" chart.


Aaaand that's a wrap, folks! But what about next year? Yeah, I've got plans, and I'll talk about 2013 goals in a few days... :)




In other news, the lovely Deniz Bevan received the Blog of the Year Award, and chose to pass it onto me and Laurel Garver. I feel very honoured to have received this award, so thank you Deniz! The official rules of this award are:


  1. Select the blog(s) you think deserve the Blog of the Year 2012 Award
  2. Write a blog post and tell us about the blog(s) you have chosen – there's no minimum or maximum number of blogs required – and present them with their award
  3. Please include a link back to this page Blog of the Year 2012 Award and include these rules in your post (please don't alter the rules or the badges!)
  4. Let the blog(s) you have chosen know that you have given them this award and share the rules with them
  5. You can now also join our Facebook group – click like on this page Blog of the Year 2012 Award Facebook group and then you can share your blog with an even wider audience
  6. As a winner of the award please add a link back to the blog that presented you with the award and then proudly display the award on your blog and sidebar... and start collecting stars...


The people I'm going to pass this onto are:
  • Hart Johnson at Confessions of a Watery Tart, whose posts are often entertaining but also tackle the tough issues many people are too scared to mention.
  • Jordan McCollum, who doesn't tend to get a huge amount of comments on her blog but who still gives a whole lot to the writer blogger community with her very helpful posts.
  • Michael Atkinson at Hypothetically Writing, whose little snippets of fiction shared throughout the year have brought delight to many. Michael's creative wit is, in my opinion, unparalleled, and he also makes a great bloggy friend!

Friday, 18 May 2012

The Great Comments Award





The Great Comments Award from Laura @ Daily Dodo and Hope Roberson.


Long, long ago, I received a blog award from someone. Then I received it from someone else. Now at last, I am accepting the award. Took my sweet time, didn't I?

What the award's about: People who leave great comments on our blogs! 
What I have to do: Award it to people who are great commenters on my blog! This task is made ever so much easier since I added that comments widget to my blog. Whee! Not that I needed that thing to remember who the people are who come back to my blog time and time again. But it does help to remind me, and it gives me links to people's profiles. 
Who I'm passing the award on to: Well, let's see... These people have left me the most comments according to my comment widget:

  1. Danette
  2. The Golden Eagle
  3. Brooke R. Busse
  4. Rachel Morgan
  5. Judie Quayle
  6. Michael @ hypotheticallywriting
  7. Lara Schiffbauer
  8. Lynda R. Young
  9. Jolene Perry
  10. Ruthie @ Live, Love, Laugh, Write!
  11. Deniz Bevan
  12. Laura @ Daily Dodo
  13. Clarissa Draper
  14. Kyra Lennon
  15. Emily R. King
  16. Ciara Knight
  17. Hope Roberson
  18. Julie Fedderson
  19. Rusty Webb
  20. Deborah Walker

And these are some extra people who have left me lots of comments over the years:

There are also others that have stopped by less often, but have left meaningful comments when they have. In particular I want to mention S.P. Mount, who visits only rarely but has been known to leave amazingly long and thoughtful comments. Anyway, today is about the Great Comments Award, which I am passing on to anyone mentioned this post who wants to accept it.

Thank you all for your great comments! I love this community. :)

Tuesday, 21 February 2012

Kreativ and Versatile Blogger awards




Versatile Blogger (new badge!) and Kreativ Blogger awards, from Lara Schiffbauer

A while back, I was awarded these two badge thingies above by Lara Schiffbauer (who is totally cool if you haven't found out yet! Go visit her blog!). I've won the Versatile Blogger award before, but this one is a new style of badge, so I had to show it off! Still, I'm going to focus on the Kreative Blogger award, since that's a newey!

What it's about: I'm thinking it means being creative, but with different spelling. Right?

What I have to do: Tell you 6 things about myself...
  1. In general, I'm pretty uncreative with spelling - I like to spell things the traditional (Australian English) way! I'm very stubborn in that regard
  2. I don't particularly consider myself a patriot, and I get rather irritated with hot-headed patriotic idiots who insist on believing they're better than anyone else on earth just because they were born on a certain chunk of land
  3. One of the songs I hate most in the entire universe is "Love Shack" by the B-52s. I'm sorry, but I just can't love it!!
  4. I hate it when I see CD's or DVD's (or similar collections of letters) written that way, with the apostrophe. It's not like you're saying "Yes, I'm going to CD's place, you know my friend CD?" and if you're doing it 'cause you think that there are letters missing (which, of course, there are), well why not write it as C'D's then?
  5. I really hate summer, and yet I seem to live in the summer capital of the bloody world, and I don't want to move anywhere (despite the fact that living here under the hole in the ozone layer has probably contributed greatly to the skin cancer problem I'm having at present - thankfully it's all benign, but it's still a pain...in the forehead!)
  6. For the first time in forever, right now I'm feeling like I do not want to travel for many years to come (I have been travelling on and off for the past 5 years and I'm a bit over being broke because of it, quite frankly).

Thursday, 26 January 2012

Awards, round #1

This is what happens when you are a slacker like me. You get an award, and months pass. You get another award, and maybe another month passes. Then there's a sudden rash of awards going around (probably not the nicest way to put it! My excuse is it's gross and hot today and the weather is affecting my brain!) and you get more awards. And then you have to do this single post because it's just getting a little bit silly collecting awards.

Except I'm not going to do them in a single post anymore, because there is one award I want to wait to post about - simply because it would be much easier for me if my top commenters widget was working!! (I've tried three different ones today, and none of them work...what's up with that?) So I'm going to talk about the some of the awards today, and the rest at a later date (hopefully not months and months from now!).

In recent times, I got these awards:

The Thumbs Up from Skunk award, from Brooke R. Busse

What it's about: It's named 'The thumbs up from Skunk award' since "we all feel like stinky, stinky skunks some days" and there are people who "make us feel (and smell) a lot better".

What I have to do: Name one thing that you love about yourself, then pass on the award to as many bloggers as you want to! One thing I love about myself is that I'm creative in so many different areas!

Who I'm passing it onto:
  1. Laura @ Daily Dodo
  2. Jenni Merritt
  3. Ruthie @ Live, Love, Laugh, Write
  4. Lara Schiffbauer
  5. Danette Baltzer


The Versatile Blogger & Irresistibly Sweet awards from Tanya Reimer

What they're about: Well, obviously they're about gorging yourself on pavlova and sitting on grass so green I know for sure it can't be Australian grass...right?

What I have to do: I have to share 7 things about myself...and while I've done this before, I figured it's been so long I may as well do it again:
  1. I detest the hottest of summer days, but love going to the beach when the sun's nearly down
  2. For some reason, people are surprised by the fact that I loooove metal
  3. I was born on July 25th in the U.K. at somewhere around 6:00pm, which kind of means I was born on July 26th in Australia (but my birthday is still July 25th - do NOT want to share a birthday with Australia's ex-PM John Howard. YECH!!)
  4. I always vote for the Green party, and I don't care who knows it! I believe that in this country nowadays, it's the only way I can sleep at night!
  5. I love music festivals but am now thinking I should give them up because they're almost always on disgustingly hot days, and I've got a skin cancer problem (benign, but still, a problem)
  6. The first food I ever ate as a baby was avocado!
  7. I don't like eating any animals that still look like animals. If we had to kill our own food, I'd be vegetarian in a flash. For now, I get to be a hypocrite and eat meat other people killed for me.



Aaaand I'm done (for now). But before I end this section, I want to thank everyone who has given me awards - I really really love that you thought of me! So thank you! :)

In other news, it's Australia Day today! I want to wish my fellow Aussie bloggers a very happy Australia Day!! Here in Perth, we're having hellishly hot weather ("very hot" and "sunny" is a disgusting combination, in my book), and I'm huddling in my air-conditioned living room until the moment when I have to venture out into the inferno for an Aussie Day bbq. I hope the rest of the country isn't frying quite so thoroughly! And that you have a safe and happy Australia Day in which nobody gets punched in the face.

    Thursday, 13 October 2011

    Awards & NaBloWriMo day...what's it?


    I'm totally slack when it comes to Awards and acknowledging them/passing them on. But I figure since I'm having trouble deciding what to post for today's NaBloWriMo entry, I'd take the opportunity to get all caught up!

    In recent times, I've received the following awards:


    First off, thank you to Jenni, Dan and Jen for these awards! I really appreciate that you guys thought of me! But since I have previously won the Versatile and Irresistibly Sweet awards, I thought I'd cheat and just respond fully to the third award in that list, the 7x7 Link Award, which is entirely new to me! From Jen's example, I get the idea that I'm supposed to nominate blog posts of mine that fit the following categories:

    • Most Beautiful: Oh, I don't know! I quite liked this one.

    • Most Helpful: I don't tend to do 'help' posts, I tend to ramble on about whatever crap enters my mind at any given time. But I think at least a few people got something out of my CreateSpace proof copies...answering some questions blog post.

    • Most Popular: Based on number of comments alone, as Jen did with hers, I'd say my First Campaigner Challenge entry wins this one. But if you look at which post has been visited the most, you'd find it was one I wrote during the A-Z blogging challenge in April, about Voltron.

    • Most Controversial: I don't really do controversy on this blog. Don't get me wrong, I've made my fair share of bold political statements in various places online before, but this is my writing blog and I tend not to get too in people's faces here. However, I guess the obvious one to choose is one I wrote recently for the Peace Blogfest.

    • Most Successful: What makes a blog post successful? I guess this question feels slightly like a repeat of the "Popular" one, and I could give the same answer here as I did there. But instead I'll go with my award-winning Power of Tension Blogfest entry.

    • Most Underrated: After a very, very quick browse, I'd say my entry in the Inanimation Blogfest...

    • Most Prideworthy: Probably this one, in which I reviewed my Goals met to that point in 2011. I have since met more, but it was cool to lay them out the way I did in this post.
    Then I need to pass the award on, to 7 blogger friends:

    I will tell you all that you've won, but maybe not before you stumble across the truth on your own (because I have to post this now, then run off from work!). P.S. If there are typos, I will have to fix them later! ARGH running late!

    Tuesday, 16 August 2011

    Seriously Cute Blogger Award

    So, um, recently my friend and Chrysalis colleague Brook R. Busse gave me an award. The Seriously Cute Blogger Award, which involves me posting up the following image of a small fluffy dog:



    Eh, cuteish I guess, but I'm more of a cat person. Anyway, I want to thank Brooke for the award! But I also want to fulfill the requirements of the award, which according to some guy, somewhere, are as follows (thanks for the description Michael. hehe):

    "List five books, films, or TV programs that I've read, watched, or followed in the last 12 months."

    Here are my five!

    • TV: MEDIUM - got season 6 on DVD and am one episode away from finishing. I know it's just more of the same, but I love this show.
    • MOVIE: HARRY POTTER #7 (pt 2) - still like the books better, but the movie was pretty satisfactory too. So ends an era!
    • BOOK: FLASH BURNOUT by L.K. Madigan - I feel bad that I only heard of this lady when she got sick, and only remembered her again when she had passed. This book was pure genius, I loved it. RIP L.K.
    • TV: LIFE - I bought seasons 1-2 (the full series) in one package and watched them earlier in the year. Loved them, and would have liked to see the series continue.
    • MOVIE: THE LIBRARIAN II: RETURN TO KING SOLOMAN'S MINES - this series is one of the most terrible I've seen. Ever. I have yet to watch #3, and I can't imagine it's going to get any better with that one.

    Now...do I really want to pass this on, or not?? I'm thinking yes, and I'm thinking that I'm going to pass it onto...


    Have fun, Jenni!

    In other news, I also have a meme that Brooke passed onto me...but that's just going to have to wait, as this entry is long enough as is! Also, I'm planning on starting my Globetrotter series soon. So watch out for the first entry!

    Sunday, 19 June 2011

    BuNoWriMo update

    So yeah. Been mildly slack lately with the BuNo writing, but I am DETERMINED that I will win! So have no fear on that. Still, there have been some nights when I've written nothing at all, and other nights where I've written 400 odd words.

    Still, I've got a total word count (I opted not to include those 're-write' chapters I was cheating by including for a while there. hehe) of 36,456, which since I'm at June 19th right now averages out to 1,918 or so words per day. Not my greatest effort, for sure, but not doing too badly. The thing is I'm writing on all SORTS of projects. I haven't just stuck to one.

    I finished the first one, titled LOST, MISSING, GONE, which weighed in at about 22k, and then was scrambling around for other stuff to write. The original plan, which was to work on THE NEW WORLD, sort of died early on, and yet I have done a little bit of work on that. This is going to sound funny coming from me, a renowned pantser, but I'm finding that one hard to write on when I don't have a plan... Anyway, I've also done work on this week's Chrysalis story, very temporarily titled JUST ANOTHER DAY AT THE OFFICE, which has blown out to 5,089 words so far. I've probably done about 3,000 extra on another Chrysalis story, titled "Sanctuary" (the start of which was my winning entry for the Power of Tension Blogfest). And I'm counting all Chrysalis stories written during June towards my word count. So I guess it's adding up. I just need to keep on top of it!

    Usually with WriMos I like to be really ahead of the curve, and usually I am - by a long way too. I mean, some years with NaNo I've hit 50k by day 6, other years by day 11 or 12. Stuff like that. So this is slow going for me. But I'm still enjoying working on all the stories!

    I want to say congrats to Donna Hole who got a short story accepted in the Open Heart Publishing anthology titled An Honest Lie. Congrats Donna!! And I want to say a big thanks to Susan Fields who apparently thinks I'm irresistibly sweet, and gave me an award to go with that! Yay me!! Hehe. Finally, hi to everyone who's a follower, and THANK YOU for following. :)

    Wednesday, 8 June 2011

    I won things, I won stuff, got awarded, s'all about meeee!

    Ahem. Yeah.

    So anyway, I like, won!!!

    "Won what?!" you ask.

    Well, let me tell you! Firstly, I won the Power of Tension Blogfest Contest. And this is pretty special to me, largely 'cause of the competition I was up against! Everyone did such a great job in the Blogfest and I am really honoured to have won! Thank you so much to Cally Jackson and Rachel Morgan for hosting this great event, and for everyone who voted for me! :)

    Secondly, I won a prize in Rosie @ East for Green Eyes's What's the Score? Blogfest! So thank you so much Rosie!!

    In other news, I also want to thank (in a big way!!) E.J. Wesley for the love he brought me and many others in this entry.



    And finally, I want to say THANKS to Carolyn Arnold for the Irresistibly Sweet Award she gave me - which, incidentally, always reminds me of a pepperoni pizza and not a pavlova. :P


    Don't you think?!?! Okay, so I guess it's just me... Still, that's why I keep thinking it should be called the Irresistibly Savoury Blog Award! ;) Either way, thank you Carolyn for thinking of me! :) *puts on her horribly sweet smile for all to see*

    Basically, THANKS everyone!!! I lurve you! :D

    Saturday, 28 May 2011

    Tagged, critique win, blog critique win, award, blogfests

    So, I got tagged a while back by the super-groovy Golden Eagle, and more recently by the lovely Danette. So here's what I have to do: answer some questions, then tag some people, then move onto the next part of this entry. Hehe. So anyway, here goes with the first part:

    QUESTIONS:

    Do you think you're hot?

    Ya know, I'm not a traditional "must be a movie star" beauty, but I am pretty happy with myself... However, there's a catch - if you take a photo of me, it's 99% guaranteed to turn out crap and I will hate its guts. And when you put it up on Facebook I'll secretly resent you with a lot of gusto. Hehe. I am NOT photogenic at all.

    Upload a picture or wallpaper that you're using at the moment.



    This is my current desktop, and a screenshot taken from iTunes' fancy
    graphic thingy that you can have going while listening to music. Hehe.

    When was the last time you ate chicken meat?

    Last night - went out for Thai dinner, it was niiiiice... And yeah,
    as I tell everyone, if we had to kill our own meat I'd be vego in a flash!

    The song(s) you listened to recently.

    Right now I'm listening to "A Harbour Fair" by The Good Ship,
    a band I don't really know at all. I'm in the midst of my A-Z listening task,
    which I've slacked off a lot on lately, but I'm up to "H" and that's the song
    I'm specifically up to. Other than that, I've listened to a few other H songs
    today, and the last song I listened to last night was "Panic Switch"
    by the ever-awesome Silversun Pickups.

    What were you thinking as you were doing this?

    Umm, doing what? The survey? Or listening to the song? LOL.
    I guess I'm thinking that it's Saturday morning and I'm getting a pedicure
    and neck/shoulder massage today, then having a cards night tonight, woo!

    Do you have nicknames? What are they?

    Do I ever?!?! My name is Trisha (well okay, it's Patricia) and I get all sorts of
    shortenings (or lengthenings) of both those. Mum calls me Twiddy,
    Twitty, Twit-face, that sort of thing. Her boyfriend has adopted Twitty
    as his favourite nickname for me. Most people call me Trish,
    but one very suicidal man I deal with at work calls me Pat sometimes.
    He really should know better... hehe. In high school I got called Fish Face
    by my best friend, until I told her she better stop it OR ELSE...
    I also had a "code name" in high school - Carrie.

    Tag 8 blogger friends...

    1. Brooke R. Busse
    2. Jenni Merritt
    3. Madeline Bartos
    4. Robyn Campbell
    5. Rusty Webb
    6. Sheery @ Sheery's Place
    7. Charity Bradford
    8. Susan Fields

    Who's listed as No. 1?

    Brooke, who I THINK I met through Chrysalis but who I may
    have known earlier... It all seems like so long ago! LOL.
    Brooke is an amazing young writer and great blog-friend!

    Say something about No. 5

    His blog is cool, it has lots of different stuff - including some great artwork!

    How did you get to know No. 3?

    Pretty sure it's the same as Brooke - through Chrysalis.
    I honestly can't remember which of these gals I got to know first,
    they sort of come in a pair. :D

    How about No. 4.

    Pretty sure I must've met Robyn through the A-Z? :)

    Leave a message for No. 6.

    "Hi Sheery, good to still know ya!! :)"

    Leave a lovey dovey message for No. 2.

    "Jenni, I'm glad I found your blog because
    I love to keep up with you and your projects!"

    Do No.7 and No. 8 have any similarities?

    Ummm they are both cool? hehe.


    Okay, now that that's done, moving onto the next part of the entry!

    I won stuff


    The award was that Blog in Fire one that I won recently, so I will just redirect you to that entry.

    Some upcoming Blogfests:

    I think/hope those are all I've signed up for (i.e. if I've signed up for more, I can't remember, and will probably miss them!! LOL).

    Incidentally, somebody on Summer Ross's blog suggested that there may be a current dearth of Blogfests because "we're" heading into summer. So I suggested that my fellow Aussies and I, plus the Kiwis, and anyone else in our region, should take on the task of doing "Summer" blogfests (since for us it's actually winter). However, don't look at me for ideas - I got nothin'. LOL.

    Friday, 20 May 2011

    Some awards

    I won some awards! Thanks to Dawn Kurtagich for the awards. I really appreciate it/them. :)





    I've received the Versatile Blogger award previously, but the Blog on Fire Award is new. I like it! Yesss, maybe I'm a little mesmerised by flame... hehe.

    I'm going to pass this award onto the following (please feel free to take either of them or both, depending on what you've won before :D Or if you can't be bothered, don't take any! lol):


    Tuesday, 3 May 2011

    Goals update (+awards)

    Ironic, really, that I've only had one day off blogging since the A-Z Challenge ended. I guess that's typical of me, though. Still, it's just so tempting to do a Goal update now that I can; now that I don't have to worry about what letter I'm writing about.

    Firstly, I want to mention that I find this weird...

    http://thefarseas.blogspot.com/p/g-o-l-s-11.html

    That's the URL to my Goals 2011 page. Notice that the "a" is missing from 'goals'? Weeeeird! Why choose the 'a' to miss? Why not the 'o' or the 's'? Anyway...

    • Goal #3 in the list has been reworded so that it requires me to complete my latest round of revisions for SUNDOWN. I am relying on my ElitistCritques buddies' critiques for this, but once I'm done with my own current rewrite/revision, I'll print it out & start my paper edit whether or not they've given me crits to go on for all of it. It's a big job, critiquing an entire novel. Rather a daunting prospect, for me at least. And they are all busy with their own stuff, including exams and our own Chrysalis Experiment.
    • Speaking of Chrysalis, Goal #7 in the list is coming along nicely - we are up to Week 18, and the prompt is up. Last week I started my story on Saturday (with a Sunday deadline), and it was for my own prompt. Generally I like to get started a lot sooner than that. So I might have a crack at story #18 this evening. Then again, considering the wild weekend of hardly any revision I just had, I'm really quite desperate to get stuck back into SUNDOWN.
    • Goal #8, writing at least once a week in this blog, is not a worry at all, as you may or may not have noticed.
    • Goal #9, win NaNoWriMo 2011 - well, I have two novel ideas now, so I'm thinking this year I might set myself a new kind of challenge. Writing two novels. I've seen others do it, and do even more in some cases. So why can't I? I figure I'll give myself till Nov 15th to work on Novel #1, then move onto Novel #2, regardless of whether the first is done. My goal will be finishing both. Last year, I hit 50k by day 6, so I'm sure I can complete novel #1 by Nov 15th.
    • Goal #11 - I haven't touched NAUSICAA since March 6 this year. I never did get around to revising for that submission, either. But I will get to it!
    • Goal #12 of reading 25 books this year...

      Trisha has read 15 books toward her goal of 25 books.
      hide

      FYI, currently I'm reading Across the Universe by Beth Revis!
    • And finally, Goal #13, the Classic Book Club at A'vron - I have read all 3 books for this so far, but we are having a break for May (not my idea!), and in June we'll be reading Alice's Adventures in Wonderland/Through the Looking Glass. I can't wait!

    In conclusion, as mentioned recently I won this award:



    So a big thank you to Deirdra at A Storybook World for this award!

    Aaand...

    Monday, 2 May 2011

    The ay to zee challenge (2011) wrap up post!

    First off...




    Thank you to Elizabeth Mueller for the very cute award above! I was indeed one of those who survived the challenge, even if I still feel the need to sleep and sleep and sleeeep some more! I spent the month of March participating in an insane number of Blogfests and other similar activities. Then came April, and the A-Z Blogging Challenge. Heh, and I thought March had been full-on! Not only did I have to write a blog entry nearly every day (I actually wound up writing one per day, including Sundays. Insane!), but I had to try and keep up with over 1,200 other bloggers doing the same thing!

    Needless to say, I clicked that "Mark all as read" button at least once or twice during the month. Still, I'm pretty satisfied with how I managed to keep up with a lot of bloggers, and also to meet a lot of new people! I saw a huge range of topics covered by different people. It's amazing how our minds work differently, isn't it? People took different approaches - some had scheduled posts for the entire month, yes, they had it all planned out. I'm wondering if all the people who did it that way are in the Plotter category of writer. ;) In my case, my Pantsing status came across in this challenge too. I flew by the seat of my pants, even if I did have the odd entry planned out (in a vague Oh yeah, I'll write about that book! Who knows what I'll write, but I'll write something! sort of way), but for the most part I started each morning drumming my fingers until a word popped into my head.

    The last few entries were more of a mad scramble to think of any random words that started with the letter in question. That worked out okay, too. Honestly, by the end it was all my poor flailing brian (work injoke) could manage. Hehe. Towards the end I started thinking about next year, and if this runs again and I participate, I will do something a lot easier. Again, I won't have it all planned, but at least I'll know what kind of thing I'll be doing each day. That's the closest I usually get to being a Plotter, folks.

    Anyway, to conclude, I had a great time but they don't call it a challenge for nothing!

    Thanks to those who shared my journey, and thanks for sharing your great blog posts with me.

    Saturday, 26 March 2011

    Lovely Blogger Award - woo!


    I've envied (yes, I have envied) other bloggers for winning this award, and I've daydreamed of winning it myself. There were opportunities, as I told Brooke R. Busse (the very lovely chicky who finally made my dreams come true :D), where bloggers had said, "Hey, if you want it, take it!" but it just didn't feel right to me to take it on those occasions. I felt the compulsion to wait till I'd been singled out and specifically chosen. :) Now that I have been, I humbly (oh so humbly!) accept.

    Of course, I don't get it entirely for free. There are some things I have to do:
    1. Accept the award, post it on your blog together with the name of the person who has granted the award and his or her blog link. - Done! But I also want to add, thanks Brooke! :D
    2. Pay it forward to some other blogs you have newly discovered. (will do below)
    3. Contact those blog owners and let them know they've been chosen. (will do once I've posted this blog entry)
    Now, it was kind of tricky figuring out which bloggers to pass the award onto. Lately I've met a LOT of lovely people, and it wasn't easy narrowing it down. But without further ado, these people are very lovely indeed who haven't yet won this award, OR haven't posted a previous award on their blog yet. These people are all lovely and in some cases not very well known bloggers and I am happy to be drawing attention to them today!

    1. Akoss @ Fantasy Pen
    2. Sheery @ Sheery's Place
    3. Chris K @ the Kelworth Files
    4. Shayda Bakhshi
    5. Charlotte Jane Ivory
    6. Joanne @ Whole Latte Life
    7. Cheyanne with an A
    8. Jenni Merritt
    9. Sari Webb
    10. Margo Kelly
    11. Jess @ Falling Leaflets
    12. Michael @ Writer with a slinky

    In other news, I want to mention that I got spotlighted in Chris K's blog. Thank you Chris for the attention - I am a bit of an attention ho after all, and basked in this for quite a while. :D I want to reiterate that I was also interviewed (by Sari Webb) over here. Yep, more attention ho action for me!!

    I also want to mention that one of those things I won arrived in the mail the other day. It's a book called Curiosity Thrilled the Cat and is by Sofie Kelly. I won this from Lynn Viehl at Paperback Writer, so thanks Lynn for the lovely book! Oh, and she also sent me a very pretty bookmark! Currently I'm reading Grotesque by Natsuo Kirino (which is pretty amazing so far, by the way!), but as soon as I'm done with that I'm going to immerse myself in kitty magic (I do so love myself a feline friend).


    And because this appears to be shaping up as something of a photo entry, here are some photos of my (newly acquired) bass guitar, and my (not newly acquired) guitar guitar:


    Just one final note, about the Lost & Found blogfest. I will do this, but since we have so long to post our entries, I'm in no particular rush. This is a nice, carefree way to end the March madness! And I would like to thank all the people who hosted blogfests this month, for giving me so many fun things to do! I've had a great month!

    And, if you're a Crusader and still haven't done the latest Challenge, check it out here!

    Thursday, 24 February 2011

    The Stylish Blogger Award


    Requirements:
    1. Thank and link back to the person who awarded you this award.
    2. Share 7 things about yourself.
    3. Award 15 or so recently discovered great bloggers.
    4. Contact these bloggers and tell them about the award.

    This was getting a bit silly, so I thought I better get on with posting it at last! I want to thank nindogs, Brooke R. Busse, Jenni Merritt and Kari Marie for awarding me this...award. Yes, they awarded this award. To me. Hehe. Anyway, I am so grateful to have received this award from you guys - you are all people whose blogs I really enjoy reading and keeping up with, so thanks!

    Okay, so here goes with the 7 things:
    1. I am listening to Ratcat right now. One song, anyway. Bet you didn't know that before. Hehe. If you want to know, it's the Metro Choir mix of "That Ain't Bad", which is awesomely hilarious. Teenage girls screaming along with all the words - it's just classic.
    2. I bought my first ever new car at the end of 2009, a brand new Toyota Yaris. Almost immediately after I bought it (and my mum bought her own new car), we started discussing what car we might each get next. Not because we didn't like our new cars but because we were a bit overexcited at the new world that had just opened up to us (for mum it was her first ever brand new car too). ;)
    3. I've hitch-hiked all over the United States with my dad, and have had some intriguing times; a particular favourite was when we showed up in San Francisco out of money, and had to sleep in a homeless shelter the night. The next day we wound up in a 5-star hotel thanks to some very generous American relatives.
    4. In 2007 I happened to be visiting the U.S. anyway, and my favourite band the Smashing Pumpkins had recently reformed and were touring. So for the first time ever, I got to see them live - in both Tucson, AZ and San Diego, CA (reviews here). Best night of my life, that SD show!
    5. When I was a kid I co-wrote a story with a school friend called "Selly the Pain" - it was about a girl called Selly who was a real pain in the butt. Compelling stuff. I don't know if we ever finished book 1 though. ;)
    6. When I was about eleven I phoned up this singing competition and sang "Without You" (the Mariah Carey cover version) over the phone, coming in at first place that week and winning $100. Apparently all the other winners sounded like me. Or I sounded like them. Heh.
    7. The first novel I ever started working on is still not finished to this day. It's sitting at about 250k words at present. Don't panic - it is fantasy. :D

    So there you go, 7 things!

    Now for people who I want to award (in some cases for the second time or more! Just tack it on the end of your other awards, people! :D) this...award to. And there are so many new people I'm following, thanks to the Crusade. :P But yeah, here we go:

    1. Writing from the Tub ... Carly Bennett
    2. Sheery's Place ... Sheery Hall
    3. nindogs - Nina
    4. Paper Mountain - Brooke R. Busse
    5. Capricious Existence - Madeline
    6. Cheyanne with an A. ... Cheyanne Young
    7. Writing While the Rice Boils ... Debbie Maxwell Allen
    8. Scheherazade's Journal ... Linda Katmarian
    9. Demitria Lunetta ... Demitria Lunetta
    10. Far Seeing Fairy Tales ... Bettie Lee
    11. Inkpots 'N Quills ... Ann
    12. Pen, Paper, Lots of Coffee ... Heather Hellman
    13. The Girdle of Melian ... Deniz Bevan
    14. Think Dream Inspire - Shari
    15. Nerd Girl Reads & Writes - Becca C.

    The main thing holding me up for so long was getting around to finding 15 bloggers. It's not that I couldn't find any. It's that I could find HUNDREDS! Literally. So it took some time exploring my new friends (sounds kind of dirty doesn't it? I didn't mean it that way!) to add some names to this list. Some of you have indeed already received this award, but I truly do think you are stylish enough to have earned it again! :P

    So there you go! Another award done & dusted. Took me long enough. :D

    Friday, 14 January 2011

    The Versatile Blogger Award

    So, I got an award! Wooooooah. Anyway, the award was...well, awarded to me by Sheery - check her out at Sheery's Place. Thank you Sheery for giving me my first ever blogger award. I feel special. :)


    The rules of the award are:

    1. Share 7 things about yourself.
    2. Pass the award to 15 bloggers recently discovered.
    3. Notify the blogger recipients.
    4. Link to the blogger who gave the award.

    So without further ado, here I go!

    Seven Things About Myself:

    1. I'm a cat person, for sure. I love animals in general, but there is just something special about that "bitchy" cat attitude a lot of felines exhibit. Then again, I've got proof that cats can be perfectly smoochy, in my kitty Beyoncé. She was a foster kitty I decided to keep - how could I turn her away when she was the cat I'd always dreamed of (snuggly, cuddly and loyal). Weird, I never thought I wanted a dog, but apparently I've got one in this cat. Hehe.
    2. I can sing in tune. In the past I didn't tend to advertise my singing because I find it a little awkward to be so overtly self-promotional. Guess I'll have to get used to that kind of thing if I ever want to be published, right? But music is different. Still, I can indeed sing, and I've written many a song.
    3. My parents are New Zealanders (Kiwis as we call 'em), my brother's Australian living in Canada, and I was born in the United Kingdom. I've got two citizenships, Aussie and U.K., which makes it handy when you're lining up at the airport and have to choose a line. But my U.K. passport has lapsed. Yikes. I better get on replacing that!
    4. I've had an online "diary" for over 10 years at a different place, but it was only in December 2010 that I finally decided to start a blog to talk specifically about writing, and to focus on that. Networking, they call it. Well, since I've started this blog I've found lots of cool people and have begun to wish I'd signed up here a lot sooner! Oh well, better late than never, right?
    5. My favourite band is the Smashing Pumpkins, hands down, no question, forever and ever and ever. If you think their albums are where it ends, think again - they've got an incredible collection of b-sides and rarities for you to feast your ears on. Billy Corgan is my favourite musician and I still hold out hope I'll get to marry him someday. What? A girl can dream. And there's something about that bald head... I love the guy who plays Lex in Smallville too. What's that about? Hehe.
    6. I've never smoked a cigarette in my entire life. Never even taken a single puff. Saved me a lot of money, for sure! And while my lungs have still suffered from passive smoking, I guess that's life in this day and age.
    7. When it's been raining and I get home, I hop out of my car and move all the snails off the driveway to ensure I don't run over them. Sometimes it can take me a while, out there in the rain, moving all the adults and the baby snails to the safety of the grass. Only to be trod on later by passing pedestrians, no doubt. But still, I didn't kill them. I also rescue mice and rats (at least the baby rats) from my cats and throw them out in the empty lot at the back of my place. Recently I had to rescue a baby mouse that was so young it barely had its fur!

    Ok, so that's it! I'm done. Thanks again Sheery. :D

    Now for the 15 bloggers (and their blogs, naturally) I award in turn!
    I know some of you have had this award before, but...well...you guys deserve it again! :P Okay? Okay.

    1. Bronwyn's Writing Blog ... Bronwyn
    2. nindogs ... Nina
    3. Lynda Young ... Lynda
    4. Whole Latte Life ... Joanne
    5. Cheyanne with an A ... Cheyanne
    6. Pen and Chocolate ... Griffinclaw
    7. Opening the Vein ... GriffinFledgling
    8. Musings of a Palindrome ... Hannah
    9. The Eagle's Aerial Perspective ... The Golden Eagle
    10. Falen Formulates Fiction ... Sarah
    11. Paper Mountain ... Brooke
    12. Writing While the Rice Boils ... Debbie
    13. Shayda Writes ... Shayda
    14. This Is Not My Day Job ... Guinevere
    15. Cinnamon Quill ... Keri

    Phew! Done for realz! Back to your regular programming, ya know? :)