Two Blogger Awards! Wow...

*girly squeal* I could really get used to this. It's fun, it's frivolous, and who doesn't like awards, even if they're virtual? So to start, I'd like to thank Justin, whose blog "The Key of the Twilight" celebrates the ups and downs of writing and offers hints about a really cool world Justin is writing about. Best of luck with those stories, Justin! He awarded me the "Versatile Blogger Award":

In response, I'm supposed to

1. Thank the one who gave me this award.
2. Share seven things about myself.
3. Present this honour onto 15 newly discovered bloggers.
4. Drop by and let my fifteen new friends know I love them.

Thus,
1. I'm a coffee addict.
2. I have three cats, one very big dog, and two wild bunnies to make up for the fact that I don't have kids but still need to take care of something.
3. I help run a writing community, in which I take enormous pride.
4. I collect swords and dragons and fairies and other make-believe critters.
5. I'm terrified of spiders but like snakes.
6. I have a birthmark on my leg and like to walk barefoot in the grass and wonder, if I'd been born five centuries ago, would I have been burned as a witch?
7. I believe that I'm not the only fantasy writer dreaming of a Hugo. I.e. I like to reach for the stars.

Now to pass it on. Since this young blog has only 19 followers so far, and I'm supposed to pass this to 15 bloggers, why not pass it on to everyone of you? If you've received the award already, don't feel obliged, but if this is your first Versatile Blogger Award, take it for yourself and pass it on. I.e. if your blog is listed under the "Wonderful People" heading, then I give you this award.

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As for the second award. Nicole Murray has awarded me the "Bold Faced Liar Award":

The Bold Face Liar Creative Writer Award requires me to:

1. Thank the person who gave you the award and link to them.
2. Add the award to your blog.
3. Tell six outrageous lies about yourself and one truth. (Another variant: Tell six truths and one outrageous lie. YOU get to guess which variant I chose – and which statements are true, as well as which are lies.)
4. Nominate six creative liars/writers and post links to them.
5. Let your nominees know that they have been nominated.

Truth or Lies:
1. I've been to all 50 states in the US and three European countries.
2. I was born in Fort Worth, Texas.
3. I managed to graduate with straight B's in college.
4. I married my high school sweetheart.
5. I didn't know I had a brother until I was ten years old.
6. I wouldn't be caught dead attending a Renaissance fair.

So, you now get to have fun guessing which are the truths, which are the lies. Hmmm... I'll post the answers in a few days.

Okay, to pass it on. I wanna hear the truths and lies of:
Brian Fatah Steele
Milo
izzey
tab
Justin
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Birthday Surprise!

I am just thrilled. Expect nothing and you'll likely be pleased beyond measure.

My birthday is Sunday. I try to ignore the approach of my birthday and treat that day like any other. Having expectations about my birthday in the past have led to some very bad birthday experiences, so I refuse anymore to allow myself to expect anything at all from anyone. Usually, my mom and sister (and now niece) and I go out to eat and shop a bit (my mother insists she buys me the clothes I pick out) and that's usually about it. But this year I caught hints of my mother and my husband scheming behind my back. "Whatcha up to?" I'd ask. "None of your business!" he would reply. Then on Wednesday he came home with a huge box in the front seat of his pickup truck. My mother bought me a brand-new color laserjet printer. The old one, we'd had it for about a decade, had finally printed it's last novel draft this last winter and died with me cussing it till its last pathetic breath. Since then I've had to email every doc I've needed printed, so my husband could print them off at his office and bring them home to me in the evening.

So praises to my mother, the best Mom on earth!

Then last night, after our LifeGroup get-together, my husband took me to Carino's for Italian nachos and tiramisu. Junk food city! After that, he said, "I gotta run over here for something." Yeah, that's vague. But he's often vague, so I didn't question him, just rattled on about whatever we'd been discussing. Next thing I know we're at the bookstore. He says, "Go to the magazine aisle and don't look over the shelf. Stay there." I give him the "I know what you're up to" look. But I don't want to mess up his scheming, so I hide in the magazine aisle, ignoring covers of sexy half-dressed men and women and try to find a magazine of genre fiction. (Sadly, there is only one, the new Analog, which I don't read b/c it's only Sci-Fi, but I bought it anyway b/c I can't leave a bookstore empty-handed.) A little while later James comes back and says, "They didn't have what I needed. Let's go." We paid for the copy of Analog I'm likely to never read, then went to the truck. In my seat was a bag tucked around two items. I had to laugh. My husband found what he came for, paid out, ran to the truck, then ran back inside to get me, and I was so involved in looking for a fantasy fic magazine that I missed it all. He's so sneaky, and so sweet.

So what was in the bag? Why, George was in the bag. Not the curious monkey. My favorite author, rather. The Ice and Fire guy. I guess it was three posts ago that I worried that I'd not get back to a bookstore to buy that particular calendar until too late. Well, that calendar was in the bag. Strange to be excited over a calendar, I know, but the art of Westeros's castles is outstanding! I'm gonna frame the suckers when 2012 rolls around and hang them up in my writing room for inspiration. The other item was "Warriors," the collection of stories edited by GRRM and Gardner Dozois. I had been eyeing that too, last time I stopped in. Started the first story when we got home. Late, it was, and I fell asleep dreaming of vikings.

Art of the Week, Sept. 7

Meh, so it's Tuesday... It's bizarre, it's surreal, it's Michael Parkes!




THE CREATION
by Michael Parkes, 1989



Parkes's work is so strange, it stretches my imagination to its limits. How about yours?

About writing: Some days it just doesn't happen. The magic belongs to someone else, has slipped off next door or something. I simply could not wake up today, despite two cups of coffee. Couldn't make myself get on the exercise bike either. Typed in some revisions on the novel and stuck it out for many pages, so all is not lost. Now I'm baking a big fat lasagna and mean to veg on the couch tonight and recharge with a good movie. I hope.

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Haiku Blogfest!

Below is my very rushed entry for Stephanie Thornton's Haiku Blogfest. A weekend that I thought would be available for me to participate to the fullest suddenly got overwhelmingly busy. When I thought I'd be able to visit everyone's blog and praise their efforts, instead I will be visiting with family I haven't seen in about two years. Yeah, it's an estrangement thing. Uncomfortable to say the least, so I will wish I were reading your haikus instead. I still hope to catch some during stolen moments to myself.

Without further ado, the haiku:


"WIP: a decade later"

In the hand fire sleeps
testimony of the will
written, inferno

Art and Jon Snow

Well, it's almost Tuesday and I haven't even thought about my "art of the week" entry. I think I'm gonna have to rework my little idea, to post some strange-lovely-wonderful art whenever I can post other material. Well, I'm posting, so how about some art? -

CASTLE BLACK AND THE WALL
by Ted Nasmith
(courtesy of www.tednasmith.com)

I've never had cause to anticipate a calendar before, but I can't wait till the new year so I can stare at paintings of the settings of my favorite novels ever, all year long. This one depicts, as the title says, the massive wall made of ice that protects southern Westeros from all the baddies of the far north of the world in George RR Martin's Song of Ice and Fire series. Now, personally, I'm not a huge fan of Nasmith. His human figures are stiff and unnatural, in my humble opinion, but his landscapes and cityscapes are really spectacular. I had imagined the buildings of Castle Black a little more rundown than depicted in this piece, but I suppose it might've looked like this a few centuries before Jon Snow signed up for the crows ... er, Night's Watch. So I can't complain. Anyhoo, I'm excited about this collection of art. Saw the calendar on the shelf yesterday and got to gawk at it before my husband rushed me out the bookstore door. He has to keep tabs on me when I'm in a bookstore or bad things will happen ... like weighing down the counter at the checkout and depleting a tiny bank account to nothing. I didn't have $16 in my purse so I had to put the calendar back on the shelf with a sigh -- and the slight terror that next time all these beauties will be bought up and I'll miss out. Please, please, please, someone save one for me.

Such wistful and powerful depictions (and the occasional reread of the previous novels) will tide me over until Dances With Dragons hits the shelves. *sigh* Ah, the waiting is exquisite.

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Art of the Week, Comparing

It's Monday already!? Yikes. Well, I wanted to try something a little different this time by posting two works of similar subject matter, but in totally different styles:

GREETING THE MORNING
by Dale Wicks
(courtesy of artbywicks.com)

















ABSINTHE DRINKERS
by Degas


















Early morning coffee and a stiff, hallucinogenic drink after hours. What could be better? Seriously, I love viewing these two side by side. People in repose, moods totally different, styles of human creativity at opposite ends of the spectrum, yet not. Colors and strokes separated into small dabs and small areas to create a whole that works.

About writing. Revisions have begun on "Dreamflier." I can openly write about it by title now. It didn't win the Shredder contest. Ah, well. It was up against some fun entries, so at least the contest made for a good reading and critiquing experience. While I can't agree with the voters who complained about some mysterious grammar issues (I'm a grammar Nazi, after all, and still haven't found anything wrong grammatically), they were right about the opening being less than smooth. I can do better. And now that I don't feel constricted by a word count requirement, I feel free to elaborate on some setting, etc. to fill out the picture. Can't wait to submit this one!

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Art of the Week, Aug 16

THE KNIGHT, DEATH, AND THE DEVIL
by Albrecht Durer, 1513

I love Durer's copper engravings. The stories they tell, the texture and lighting conveyed. His work was groundbreaking, setting new standards in this particular medium.

There's so much going on in this example, it takes a while to take it all in. The trees and Death's nag, especially, bring to mind the later work of Arthur Rackham, while the knight's warhorse is gorgeously Italian in influence.

Last May, I had the privilege to travel through southern Germany by train. It wasn't until I opened the tourist's map of Nuremberg that I realized Durer was from that city, an unexpected treat. His house, painted gaudily in red, still stands beneath the old medieval wall and reconstructed Nuremberg Castle. The place was packed with tourists, so I didn't pay to go in, just stood and stared in awe at the exterior and tried to absorb the vibes of genius. Not sure my efforts paid off. Ah, well.

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