Lovely Blog Award

Recently, I held open my dayplanner for one week of March and, showing it to my daughter, I said, “This is why my life is crazy right now!”

She took one look at all that stuff written there and screamed.

They don’t call it “March Madness” for nothing! Yes, I know that has to do with sports, but, for me, March has always been a little bit of crazy.

But it’s a good kind of crazy. I love to stay busy and there has indeed been plenty to keep me busy. So, it’s all good!

The first thing that has come up this month is that I am once again working with Martha Jette on a nonfiction book. It has something to do with UFO/alien abductions. I know, a lot of people shy away from this topic, and even roll their eyes over some of the stories being spread about, but I have always been interested in this kind of thing, so of course I was delighted when Martha asked me to work with her on this book. She already has A LOT of the book written up and I’m looking forward to writing some of the other chapters in the book. Martha and co-author Usko Ahonen have written a majority of the first part of the book. I have been taking the time to read over everything to be brought up to speed on it before I proceed to write some of the other chapters (among them, a chapter about SETI). I love science, I love anything that has to do with outer space, so I’m very excited about this!

Something else came up this month that also gave me an extra reason to smile. In fact, I’ve been smiling quite a lot lately! I am thrilled to announce that I am now an editor with a publishing company. Hooray! They don’t have their “staff page” set up yet (it’s a very new company), but I have had one week on the job so far and LOVING every minute of it! This is my dream job and I am just so thrilled. (I am not their only editor and I do line editing.)

Also this month, I finished the rewrites for Shadow of Samhain. It is now with my trusted readers. I am looking forward to sending it to my publisher next month and I have a feeling she will be happy with this one.

And, finally, I have submitted the first book in the Revisions series this month. Woo-hoo! The publisher likes the manuscript but wants to go over some things first before a contract can be sighed. Stay tuned for more on that book!



Last but not least, the lovely Joleene Naylor has given me the Lovely Blog Award. Thank you, Jo! I feel so honored and grateful for this award.

And now I will give the lovely Jenn Greenleaf the Lovely Blog Award. Congratulations, Jenn! Your friendship and support have been such an inspiration to me for these many years. Stay lovely, my dear.

The Versatile Blogger Award

Lillie Ammann at A Writer's Words, An Editor's Eye has nominated me for The Versatile Blogger Award. Thank you, Lillie! You can learn more about the VBA here.

Being nominated for the VBA means two things for me. The first is that I share seven random things about me. The second is that I nominate fifteen excellent blogs that I read regularly or have recently discovered.

So, here it is. Seven random things about me:

1. I have 4 sisters and 2 brothers.

2. I am currently reading Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand -- a book that has been sitting in my room for MONTHS that I finally picked up to read!

3. Coffee is not an addiction, just a necessary part of my diet -- especially if there is lots and lots of it!

4. I have 2 children, a boy and a girl.

5. Because it seems like the dog I end up owning ends up being a Chihuahua and because Chihuahuas used to flock to me in the past, my sisters jokingly called me the Chihuahua Queen.

6. Even though I read both print and ebooks, I love reading print books the best and will NEVER give up on them!

7. This year, I am posting on the writing blog whenever I have the time, when participating in blog tours or when the mood strikes, as opposed to just once a week like last year. So expect to see more posts on this blog this year!


The 15 bloggers I nominate are:

Karen Putz at A Deaf Mom Shares Her World.

Jenn Greenleaf at Jenn Greenleaf: Wearer of Many Hats.

Martha Jette at Aging With Creativity.

Jana at Jana's Journeys.

LK Hunsaker at Thoughts and Sketches.

Dellani Oakes at Writer's Sanctuary.

Catherine Cavendish at her blog.

Sheila Deeth at Sheila Deeth Blog.

Jeanna Guzman at Romance in Flight.

Aubrie Dionne at Flutey Words.

Ann Gimpel at her blog.

Sutton Fox at Fox Tales.

Lee-Ann Graff Vinson at Writing Commando.
Mridu Khullar Relph at her blog.

Beth Bartlett at The Writing World of Beth Bartlett.

Courageous Blogger Award

My friend Karen at A Deaf Mom Shares Her World http://putzworld.blogspot.com/ passed on to me the Courageous Blogging Award for my Palms to Pines blog: http://palmstopines.blogspot.com/

Later, Stephen Hobson over at Adversity University passed on the award to me for this blog.

Thank you, Stephen! :)

Here is the post:

http://adversityuniversity.blogspot.com/2007/07/courageous-blogger-award-for-adversity.html

Stephen said that he thought of people for this award because of taking part in his "overcoming adversity" experiment. In his blog, he talks about how some people had refused to participate, because their stories were too personal. As a writer, I could relate to this. There are MANY personal experiences that I've had which I'd rather not share unless I am compelled to. And sometimes, being compelled to write about something takes very little, if any, encouragement.

I have learned that sometimes, writing about the personal stuff and about the hard stuff can be a very healing experience. It can help us to grow, to understand ourselves better and come to terms with our past. There are, of course, SOME experiences from my life I could NEVER share. Maybe I wrote about them, but I just can't share them with the world. At least, not at this point in time. But, I think, if we are able to separate ourselves from an experience and put it to good use with our writing, then it's all the more worthwhile to take the time to write about it.

This is, at least, the lesson I have learned as a writer. And I hope it is a lesson others can eventually learn and benefit from, as well.