“It’s an honor just being nominated.”

Posted on 2013/05/10 by Tonette dela Luna

And that’s the truth.

Barely a month out of the gate and I’m privileged TWICE to be nominated for awards: The Liebster Award and the Very Inspiring Blog Award, respectively. The Liebster apparently goes to blogs with fewer than 200 followers, though I’ve seen varying numbers on different blogs. The Most Inspiring Blog Award, from the blogs I’ve seen, doesn’t have a follower limit. Because I couldn’t find enough blogs with fewer than 200 followers, I decided to nominate blogs because I enjoy them and believe they deserve the kudos. 🙂

The Liebster Award Rules:

1) Put blog award on blog, thank person who gave the award and link back to their blog.

2) List 11 random facts about yourself.

3) Answer the 11 Questions from the person who gave you the award. (Thanks, Julia!)

4) Nominate 11 bloggers you want to pass the award to. (I’m fudging and some blogs have more than 200 followers, but they deserve the award.)

5) Post 11 Questions to them.

(with thanks to Julia. Her awesome blog can be found here.)

11 Random Facts About Me:

1) I dislike anthropomorphic cartoons (i.e. when bugs, rocks etc., have humanlike faces). Also, the Baby Sun in Teletubbies.

2) In line with this, I do not like clowns.

3) I have a habit of triple checking (or more) an item in my bag, thinking I left it at home, knowing I have it with me, assured it is with me because I. Just. Checked. It.

4) When I was nine years old, I was at Sir David Lean’s home in London and held his Oscars for The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) and Lawrence of Arabia (1962). (It was one of those ‘I want one of these’ moments that later became a driving force in my writing career.) Look at that. He had two awards, I now have two awards. The world is filled with awesome. 🙂

5) At aged six, I was in a department store with my mom. We roamed the toy section and I asked her if she could buy me a little sister. True story.

6) I love kids. We get along great. Brain twins, and all that. I love my nephew and niece, aka the Keysmashing Tots and they inspire me everyday.

7) I’ve always wanted to be a writer. Outside of that, I wanted to be a teacher.

8) I’m a globetrotting mutt. I’m multicultural, also having lived and learned on three continents.

9) I had a couple of distinct déjà vu moments as a child with recollections of events and locations (some of which I’d never been to or seen a picture of beforehand).

10) My Oma let us know she passed on. Short version of this day was: smoke detectors went off in the house and Dad took out the batteries one by one. They kept beeping until the phone rang and Opa told us she was gone. At that exact moment, the beeping stopped.

11) I worked in film for a time when I moved to Vancouver, BC. It’s a humbling experience working eighteen to twenty hours in the freezing rain with the occasional thrill of cleaning up celebrity garbage. Good times, though. It was like living inside the DVD Extras of a movie.

11 Liebster Award Nominations (i.e. My turn to share the love):

LIEBSTER AWARD – 11 NOMINATIONS:

http://albertaross.wordpress.com

http://allmeanssomething.wordpress.com/

http://dmaccreativefog.wordpress.com/

http://gloriaweber.wordpress.com/

http://jesstopper.com/blog/

http://joeowensblog.wordpress.com/

http://kelliforniadreaming.wordpress.com/

http://kwillblog.wordpress.com/

http://www.m5carolin.blogspot.ca/

http://mommysangelinheaven.com/

http://tom-gillespie.com/

11 Questions for You People of AwesomeTown:

1) Book or movie?

2) Book first or movie first?

3) If you weren’t writing/blogging, what is your passion?

4) Are you doing what you’ve wanted to do in life, if not, why not? (If so, yay you!)

5) If you had one million dollars, what would you do with it? (Any and all answers… the zanier, the better!)

6) What’s your favorite mode of transportation?

7) What is your earliest memory?

8) Are you an introvert or an extrovert?

9) What is your writing process? Plotter/pantser?

10) Do you have quirky writing rituals?

11) Quick, what number am I thinking of right now? Just kidding. Real question. And don’t think about it. What do you wish for right now?

Thanks for this award. I look forward to hearing everyone’s responses. I will do the notifications over the weekend, fingers crossed.

=8=

The Very Inspiring Blog Award Rules:

1) Link back to the person who gave you the award.

2) State 7 Things About Yourself.

3) Nominate 15 Bloggers.

(with gratitude to Tommia’s Tablet. Check out her blog here.)

7 Things About Me (Hmm… aside from the 11 already mentioned above):

1) Last year I participated in Script Frenzy, Camp NaNoWriMo, and NaNoWriMo. I ended the year with drafts (now in various stages of revision) for an Alternate History Thriller Screenplay, an MG Urban Fantasy Adventure, a YA Thriller, and an Urban Fantasy Short Story.

2) Last month, I wrote two novels at the same time: Contemporary Fiction and a YA Fairytale Mashup. I did these writing challenges at the same time as the Blogging A to Z Challenge, so I blogged everyday, too. *phew*

3) I love my online writing community. Social media is a newer thing for me, but the last couple months have been fantabulous.

4) I love pizza. I can and have eaten it all day (not in massive quantities but during each meal.)

5) I learned the hard way that I’m allergic to cats. Super puffy eyes and closed throat. However, I think I may have outgrown it. That bad experience was when I was a child.

6) I cry easily if I find a connection in anything from a story to a film to a television commercial. Emotional hooks. Gah!

7) I love to travel and am a foodie. I’d rather do these than go clubbing.

15 Very Inspiring Blogger Award Nominations:

http://www.cfitewrite.blogspot.ca/

http://www.debamarshall.com/

http://www.denisejaden.com/

http://www.helpingwritersbecomeauthors.com/

http://jordanmccollum.com/

http://www.kseniaanske.com/

http://lstaylor.blogspot.com

http://manyworldsmanyminds.wordpress.com/

http://moodywriting.blogspot.co.uk/

http://sarahcradit.wordpress.com/

http://sharigreen.wordpress.com/

http://shanjeniah.com/

http://thebrokentree.blogspot.com

http://www.thecreativepenn.com/

http://yascribe.blogspot.com

What a wonderful start to a busy week. This weekend my sister and I have taken the Mothership to Seattle for a Mother’s Day mini-vacation. After the frenzied writing of April, May’s been filled with a lot of RL events that remind me how wonderful my family is. It’s always good to recharge. I’m offline a lot this month, but the writing continues. 🙂

Again, humbled and honored for these awards. Thank you for feeding the writing muse!

#ROW80 Mid-Week Check-In

Posted on 2013/05/08 by Tonette dela Luna

~ WRITING, BLOGGING, READING & TECHNICAL GLITCHES ~

For a writer in this technological age, not having access to a computer makes the day incomplete. Not having access for three days is a travesty.

100 Pages in 7 Days Challenge – I managed 67 out of 100 for the first seven days this month. Respectable and it all went towards gussying up my pretty fairytale mashup from Camp NaNo, so I don’t consider it a loss by any means. 🙂

The Blog – Sunday I’m greeted with a Liebster Award from Julia Stevenson. Monday morning, A Very Inspring Blog Award from Tommia’s Tablet. I’m doubly honored. I need to pre-write my Friday blog post and spend what little time left before then to do the research on fellow bloggers I’d meant to do with the computer I lacked. Made sense, right?

MIDDLE GRADE MAY – Ugh. The twisted relationship I have with the interwebs this week is akin to a lovelorn character on a telenovela. Nonetheless, despite my hectic offline schedule, I’m on Chapter 22 of 54 on Jennifer A. Nielsen’s THE FALSE PRINCE. I quite like it and will get it to it more in my #middlegrademay thread. I’ll fix this week’s post and prep for next week’s line up. I love that I get to increase my reading time with check-ins at Deb Marshall’s blog. She’s also hosting May’s #wipmadness check-ins. So I’m guaranteed triple accountability this month!

Catching up in a major way with my workshops, writing, and all things computerly… yep, that’s a word in my personal dictionary. And with a busy weekend ahead, I hope I can stay afloat. Of course, I’ll give a play-by-play in my weekly review, fingers and toes crossed.

How’s everyone else doing? 🙂

#middlegrademay Reading Challenge

Posted on 2013/05/06 by Tonette dela Luna

NOTE: I’m blogging from my iPad today because so all the pretty formatting and linkydoo action might not show up properly. Advanced mea culpa. I’ll check back tomorrow night and fix any visual errors. 🙂

Aside from my writerly goals this month, I joined the wonderful reading challenge hosted by the equally wonderful Deb Marshall. The books I decided to start off with were the following:

THE FALSE PRINCE

EYE OF THE CROW

DOUBLE VISION

THEODORE BOONE

Due to a more hectic schedule than I anticipated this first week of May, I’m only the way through THE FALSE PRINCE and a few chapters into EYE OF THE CROW.

Week in Review – 2013/04/29 – 2013/05/05

Posted on 2013/05/05 by Tonette dela Luna

First of all, I must say that it’s weird I’m not posting daily. I’m sure I won’t sing that tune after years of blogging but now that I’m just in my second month of it, I think I’m in withdrawal. 🙂

100 Pages in 7 Days Challenge – 44 out of 100 pages, so far. This weekend, a lot of it was research and plotting, but it’s still towards my fairytale mashup and I’m pleased. 🙂 I’m not going to worry if I don’t reach 100 pages but I’ll chug ahead and give it a go. Either way, I’m working through at least this month to get it all shiny.

The Blog – Going well. In fact, I got a Liebster Award shout out today. That’s pretty awesome. I’ve been swamped with work that I think I’ll spend the week looking for blogs to nominate (I need eleven with 200 or fewer followers, as it’s aimed at newer blogs) and will do my spiffy Liebster-centric post this coming Friday. I’m super excited about this because this lil’ puppy is only six weeks old.

MIDDLE GRADE MAY – READ MANY BOOKS. It’s safe to say that I like to multitask. I extend this masochistic endeavour beyond writing and into reading, as well. I began the month reading two books at once. For a time, I even alternated chapters. It was fine for a little while but it got tedious to keep switching from one Kindle book to another. Also, I grew attached to one story more, so I decided to focus on that one first. I’d like to finish at least three books this month. Wish me luck. Busy busy. More on the reading challenge in tomorrow’s dedicated #middlegrademay check-in post.

Round of Words in 80 Days – Five Mid-Week Check-Ins and Five Sunday Check-Ins (including today).

So far, so good, these first cinqo dias de mayo. Exciting stuff ahead. Stay tuned.

Blogging my ABCs: A Look Back

Posted on 2013/05/03 by Tonette dela Luna

When I first started my blog just over a month ago, it was with the intent to chronicle a zany idea I had of writing two novels at once during April. I had the option of writing just one story for both challenges, but I upped the ante. In the last days of March, I was pleasantly surprised to see people commenting and following my lil’ blog. I decided to check out some of these blogs and I happened upon a blogging challenge that was just days away. The countdown for the sign-up egged me on. “You’re going to blog anyway for the novel challenges, might as well blog through the alphabet, too.” With a Kanye shrug, I decided to give it a whirl. I mean, what did I have to lose except sleep, meals, a little bit of my sanity, and a lot of the feeling in my fingers.

April was filled with writing, blogging, and tweeting all things writerly. The Blogging A to Z Challenge gave me a chance to dive into the blogosphere with that ‘learn-as-you-go’ appeal. By day one, I had the themes picked out for 40% of the alphabet and had already pre-written three posts. Out of the gate, I was on fire and the excitement of people liking what I had to say pushed me forward on this writing spree.

I took to heart the tips on blogging etiquette and wanted to get posts out as early as possible so that fellow-bloggers in different timezones would have a chance to read them. I could have set up the schedule posts and gone to bed, but I also wanted to tweet the announcement of the post as well as post a FB message on my writer page. That meant I’d stay up late for these tasks. At least I had the good sense to switch from 5am postings to just after midnight.

However, that extra step only worked for so long due to long days of writing (in back to back sprints) along with the highs and lows that happened outside of my writing life. The last handful of posts were done closer to the wrong midnight, but I managed to get them uploaded before I turned into a pumpkin.

I learned a few things about myself as a writer and as a neophyte in the blogging world.

1) The first and most important thing is to respect myself as a person. I was unkind to myself as I spent hours on end writing for novels or for the blog. I’d forget to eat and type well into the carpal tunnel danger zone, to the point that my hands and wrists would tingle and go numb with pain shooting up my arm. As much as I’d love to say that a writer is who I am, I learned to accept the fact that writing is what I choose to do. Writing is my passion but it is not what defines me. Who I am is still a mere mortal who needs to eat and sleep like the rest of the world. And if it comes down to me having to choose between writing and taking care of my family, like it did here, family wins, every time.

2) If I allow my imagination to run free as I write, I can pleasantly surprise myself with the results. This was made possible by twenty-six writing prompts. More specifically, twenty-six letters that compelled me to brainstorm further what I wanted to write about. On several occasions, what I originally planned on writing morphed into something better in the drafting stage. It was nice to have a loose structure to work from with enough leeway to get creative–which, I imagine, was the point. I learned to not take myself too seriously (it has adverse effects in writing) and still remained committed to completing the challenge.

3) Although writing is a solitary act, there is a great writing community full of support. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that there are other like-minded people in the world willing to write until their hands fall off because they’re so passionate about what they do. Taking part in the blog hop allowed me a glimpse into the lives of fellow artists. I was both humbled and inspired by everyone’s creativity.