Welcome to the Awards Show

Dana at The Daily Dose has passed some awards on to me.  Thank you so much! It's always good to feel special.

First up.

In order to accept the award: 

1. Link back to the person who gave it to you. Check.

2. Post the award to your blog.  Check.

3. Give the award to 5 bloggers with less than 200 followers.  Will do at the end of this post.

4. Leave a comment on the 5 blogs to let them know that they have been offered this award.  

Step One. Thank the person who gave you this award.  Thank you again Dana!

Step Two. Share seven things about yourself. 

Since the Versatile Blogger Award (see below) also requires me to share seven things about myself, I'll have this list count for both of them.  Hey, people can only stand to know me in small doses.  Trust me, I know from experience!

1. I am, on occasion, my own worst enemy.  I tend to make myself feel like my writing is inferior without the help of others who might otherwise discourage me.
2. Lately I've started working on editing another WIP, which is called (for the time being anyway) The Minor War.  Since posting scenes from that book for the First Fight, First Kiss Blogfest, the support and encouragement I've received from many of you has inspired me to go back to it.  I already know what many of the issues with this MS are.  Let's see if I can fix them!
3. One issue I have is length.  The current draft of The Minor War is sitting at 123,000 words.  I know I need to get it down to 120,000 at least.  Still, that seems doable enough.  It's the ones that follow that have me concerned.  The sequel is 131,000 words, and the third one is 136,000.  Those will be much more difficult to trim down.  At the same time, I should probably focus my neurotic worries on the MS I'm working on right now.  I can worry about the others later.
4. I think I took on too large of a project when I started this series.  As an unpublished author, it's a big task to tackle.  I'm learning as I go, which doesn't make things easy.  Yet I'm too emotionally invested in this series to give up on it.  I just love it too much, so I have to make it work.
5. I like prologues.  They're handy in that they can deliver necessary information that could be difficult to introduce nicely into the actual narrative.  Also, if I forget any detail, I can just flip back to the prologue to find it.  They may be the driest part of the book, but the utility of them is enough for me to forgive that.
6. That being said, I don't much care for the actual process of writing a prologue.  It feels tedious.  Editing them is even worse.  That is a process I suffered through last night.
7. I have a gigantic folder with my printed MS in it.  It's been made thicker with pages and pages of notebook paper with revision notes written on them.  It's large enough to use as a deadly weapon.  My sons like to open it and flip through it.  It's a good thing they don't know how to read yet, because there are things in there inappropriate a 3-year-old and a 1-year-old.  It's cute though!  My 3-year-old says he's reading mommy's book.

I've received this one a couple of times, and I'm running out of interesting stories about times I dressed up.  However, I can give you pictures of times when I was trying to look good, though I felt like I was put together all wrong.

The above picture was taken in the hospital after I gave birth to my first son, Jude.  We are about to go home.  I tried to look stylish, but my legs and feet were so swollen I had to wear old worn-out tennis shoes.  I even had to take the laces out of them.  My feet were too big to tie them.  I couldn't wear shoes for four more days after this either.

This is me just before going home with my next child, Lyle.  I tried to look good, but physically I felt like I'd been hit by a bus.  Still, I was smiling, in part because I couldn't wait to leave the hospital.  I'm not too fond of hospitals.

Though I just received this one recently, I like to dig deep and find more to say.  I'm probably a masochist that way, but if I don't push myself, I'll never get anything done.  This is simple one more way to push myself.  To see how I answered the first time, go HERE.

1. Post the rules on your blog.
2. Name five of your most fabulous moments, either in real life or in the blogosphere.
3. Name five things you love.
4. Name five things you hate.
5. Pass the ribbon on to five other bloggers. (Leave them a comment to notify them of their win.)

Okay.  Here we go!

5 Most Fabulous Moments

1. Getting my first poem published at age 12.
2. Having an essay published at 13 (though I read it now and go, What was I thinking writing this?)
3. Completing my self-portrait in 9th grade for Art1.  I am no artist, but we were charged with doing a painting.  It was supposed to be a portrait composed of things that represent who we are.  I painted a collage of cool things.  It did not look amazing, but I put in the work and created the best piece of art I'd ever done.  I also got an A on it, so that's cool too.
4. Getting my acceptance letter to Drake University.  I felt pretty tall that day.
5. High school graduation.

5 Things I Love

1. Watching science fiction movies.
2. Eating popcorn while watching science fiction movies.
3. Traveling.
4. Going for walks with my family.
5. Eating root beer floats.

5 Things I Hate

1. Taking math tests.
2. Going to the DMV.
3. Paying for cable and realizing there's still nothing good to watch.
4. Hangovers.
5. The constant bad taste I have in my mouth while I'm sick.

Now to find five blogs to pass on all these awards to.  I always find this is the hardest part.  I know some of you already have a few of these awards.  Feel free to take all of them, or only the ones that you want.  Whatever you decide is okay with me.

1. Gossip_Grl @ Just You Wait! One Day I Will . . .
2. Andrea Teagan @ The Enchanted Writer
3. Kelli @ Delightfully Ludicrous
4. Jennifer @ A Creative Exercise
5. Jenn @ Scribbles From Jenn

Thanks for being patient through this admittedly large post.

Oh, and I'd also like to say Happy Father's Day to my dad, my husband, and to all the other dads out there. You rock!