SCB Award

I would like to thank Tony Noland for nominating me for the Seriously Cute Blogger Award, and he’s right; this is not an award I’d expect to have bestowed upon me. I am not ungrateful, and I’m willing to play along with the conditions of the award. In this case, I have to discuss five books, television shows and or other creative works I’ve consumed lately.

1. Teen Wolf, The Series – Probably one of the most pleasant surprises this year, as I have been on a severe anti-TV tear for close to two years now. Seriously, I hate everything on TV. But here in this story is EVERYTHING I could hope for. No one is truly good or evil. Everyone is cat in shades of grey, and even sweet innocent Scott becomes a grey once his inner wolf begins developing. There’s humor to balance out the dark bits, and a bit of romance to make me go “aaw” and have hubby make fun of me again. (ahem.)

But even better, there’s real depth to the antagonists, to the hunters, to the surly jock Jackson, to the brooding werewolf mentor Derek. Even the alpha is evil for a reason, and once they and their motives are revealed, I think they had damned good reasons for turning evil. And, there’s no attempt to drag out the mystery. Season one ties everything up, and leaves me wanting season two even more. Which is good, because MTV renewed for season two, and twelve episodes of this just wasn’t enough for me.

Kreativ Blogger Award

Melanie Edmonds, a webserial writer and Twitter friend, informed me last week that she’d nominated me for the Kreative Blogger Award. First, I want to thank her for thinking of me. I really do appreciate that.

This is the third award of this kind that I’ve “won” in the last few months, and while I appreciate the sentiments behind each nomination, I’m starting to look at the process of accepting them as a minor nuisance. It’s true that being nominated creates yet another link to my site from another writer’s blog, and this creates another trickle of visitors to read my blog and my stories. But since I don’t read that many blogs, I end up writing the same names down in my own nominations.

The rest of the instructions change from award to award. The first had me name 7 mystery writers and then list 7 blogs I read. The second just wanted 7 other names. This time around, the rules call for me to thank the blogger who nominated me (check) and list 7 “interesting facts” about myself. Then I can list 7 blogger’s names/links.

So, this time around, I’m going to give you 7 facts about me, but I’m going to just copy and paste the nominations I made from the Prolific Blogger award. So if you get the feeling that you’ve read the blogger descriptions before, you have.

Lazy? Maybe you can choose to see it that way, but I’ve been busting my butt to get out a lot of new material, and these awards take time away if I’m spending all day trying to think up new names to add. And again, I just don’t read that many blogs. If I read more blogs, I wouldn’t have time to write as much as I do.

Prolific! Yep, that’s me!

Back at the beginning of February, Becky Sutton had nominated me for the Prolific Blogger award:

This was very cool and kicked off a few weeks of great interviews and reviews. Unfortunately, I was so busy working on other things that I didn’t have time to acknowledge it, much less follow the instructions and nominate seven other bloggers.

I’ve also been terrible about reading other blogs this month. Between posting Waiting for a Miracle and revising the format of my web site’s story archives, I barely have time for recreational reading at all. But now, here is my list of Prolific Bloggers:

1) Karen Koehler – The author of Slayer and Black Jack Derringer is also a blogger with a love for reviewing films and talking about her upcoming projects. Karen had gone offline for a lot of 2009, and this made me a very sad panda. But now she’s back, and back at the top of my blog reading list. I do a happy dance every time a new post. Really.

2) Michele Lee – You’ve seen Michele’s name often on my blog and in my tweets. This is because Michele is a damned fine writer, and her blogs actually make up two of my regular stops for recreational reading. Her Booklove blog is full of honest reviews worth checking out, and her blog is full of thoughtful articles. Both are worth adding to your regular blog reading habits.

3) Jerrod Balzer – Jerrod recently released Fear the Woods – Book One: How to Make a Vampire and Zombie Bastard. His blog is combination of talks about his books, his work on the Metal Crypt, his work with Skullvines Press and life with his wife Robin. That’s a whole lotta variety, so every visit to his blog offers something new. That’s why he stays high in my lists of blogs to visit routinely.

4) S.D. Hintz – The HMIC of Skullvines Press and writer of Charnel Harbor is fucking insane. Any casual glance at his blog will confirms this. Enough said.

5) Maurice Broaddus – Maurice has recently release an urban fantasy novel, Kingmaker, and a horry novella, The Devil’s Marionette. He’s also a blogger who deals with topics of spirituality, perceptions of values, and race. His blogs often inspire me to really think long after I’ve read the post, so that can’t be a bad thing, can it?

6) PZ Myers – The writer of Pharyngula is funny, smart, and knows how to make science fun and interesting. I admit that I typically read his blog over my hubby’s shoulder, but I read him regularly enough to know I like him. Be warned: He’s got an cephalopod  fetish, but other than that, he’s okay.

7) Neil Gaiman – The…oh, fuck it. I mean, do I really have to explain who he is, or why he’s on the list? This man is so prolific that he puts my writing output to shame. (No small feat, let me tell you.) If you don’t know who Neil is, go to his blog and search for “George R. R. Martin is not your bitch” in quotes. Read that, then pick up his books and educate yourself.

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And so that’s my list. I want to thank Becky for the nomination, and I want to apologize for not mentioning it until a month afterward. I shall go flog myself in shame before I get back to work.

Oh, and I want to mention Jodi Lee, who also has an awesome blog. But since I’ve published stories on her New Bedlam Project, and I have a book coming out through Belfire Press, I decided that nominating her for this award might be seen as favoritism. But still go check out her stuff. She’s got several blogs, and she’s both a good writer and a great editor.

I won! Uh…this is like work, or something…

I’m really behind on mentioning this, but Jodi Lee, editor, writer and artist extraordinaire, has nominated me for a Kreative Blogger award last week.

I was all happy until I realized that I have to turn around and nominate seven other bloggers plus seven mystery writers. Picking the other bloggers will be no sweat. (Though it does sound a bit like picking boogers, doesn’t it?) Even though I just finished bitching about uncreative bloggers, my rant does not apply to everyone, just a select few people who try too hard to be helpful.

No, my real issue is picking seven mystery writers. I haven’t read real mysteries since my teens, so this felt like a major pain in…well anyway, it occurred to me to just do what Jodi did, and bend the definition of Mystery in order to complete the list. Before I get to those Mr. Ee folks, let me nominate seven bloggers who I visit regularly (after the cut):