7X7 Link Award!

I have been a very bad blogger lately.

The absent, not very engaged kind. I'm sorry about that.

Life just went wildly busy as the school year began. I am starting to realize I can't work full-time, commute 12 hours a week, raise 3 children, manage a farm and household (with help from Dan), belong to 2 writing groups, write/revise my 2 1/2 novels AND blog about it all too.

I'm afraid "Lesser Apricots" has proven easier to ditch than the herd of sheep. At least I didn't have to chase IT all over the yard today and back into the pasture. (grrr!)

But look!

Lisa over at the fabulous Kicked, Cornered and Bitten has sent an award my way. In this award, bloggers hold their own old posts up to the light-- maybe giving new readers a chance to check out the old gems in certain preordained categories.

So here goes:

Most Beautiful post: Perhaps "Beautiful" is not the right descriptor, but I really felt I said something kinda cool and important with "Work and the Work". It's about how my work with challenging teens relates to my work as a writer. Not exactly beautiful or even profound, but I think I said exactly what I meant to with that one.

Most Popular Post: A surprising one. "Unknowable" a post about a monkey who adopted a kitten (really) but really, there's more to it than that.

Most Controversial Post: A One Hit Wonder post is the most controversial so far (What that says about me, the blog or my readers I just don't know...). I mistakenly labeled the group "Madness" as a one-hit wonder. ooops. I'm afraid I rely on faulty-- or Americo-centric-- sources.

Most Helpful Post: This is a two parter-- a summary of what I learned at The Muse and The Marketplace last spring (Part One/Part Two)

Coolest Post? Okay, I made this category up. But what about all those one hit wonders? Though they are neither helpful, beautiful or profound, I couldn't leave them off my list! So here they are post after post of flash-in-the-pan cool.

Most Surprisingly Successful: My review of "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo". Hate to say it, but this was probably due to random Google searches.

Post that Didn't Get the Attention it Deserved: Going All Picasso about how great artists can break the rules. Perhaps even "telling" rather than "showing" when the story calls of it. No one had much to say about this. Perhaps you all just 100% agree?

And the Post that I am Most Proud of: Hmmm. Posts? Proud? It's all a blur. But I do like this one, about the mystery of the creative process, birth and "birth." I'm also pretty proud of my John Henry post (This one could be called the 'most controversial' too as the folk hero's story can be interpreted in all sorts of ways.)

I'm sending this award on to a few cool, newly discovered bloggers out there:

To Ashley at Ashely Elston

PK Hrezo at My Fiction Addiction

C Lee McKenzie at The Write Game

and Lea McFalls at Wanton Redhead Writing

Thanks again, Lisa. You gave me the bloggy push I needed.

Irresistibly Sweet (and whiny)

My thanks go out to Elizabeth, for this sweet award.

She could somehow tell I had a lot to deal with these days and though I might appreciate it (which I do). Although I did my best to avoid "the whiny," I guess it leached out anyway. So maybe I'll just go with it and let my seven things tilt in this direction.

Here they are:

1) Having lost all perspective on my manuscripts, I seem to be stuck in a stage of constant revisions. Perhaps this is because I am stalling (and stalling and stalling) before plunging into the disheartening query pool or perhaps its because my manuscript is just not quite good enough (yet) Sigh.....

2) I have a farm-- sheep, chickens, turkeys.-- and lately this feels like more responsibility than I can muster... especially when the sheep are sick (with mastitis and the chickens are being picked off by foxes.)

3) My kids are heavily into baseball these days-- we have "little league" baseball games three times a week. Which is a lot of fun, but also very much a time-sink.

4) My kids take hip hop dance lessons out here in rural New England which is pretty darn cute (if I do say so myself). Their big recital is coming up in a few weeks.

5) I have a bunch of exciting new novel ideas just simmering away in the back of my mind but can't seem to get to them because of all these revisions and query attempts (see fact #1)

6) There are 7 orphaned chicks in a brooder on my porch (see fact #2) and because I brought them into work for a few weeks and my students became attached to them, I worry about them a lot more than I ought to.

7) I really will get back to a somewhat regular blogging schedule soon-- promise.

I'd like to send this award out to...

Krista V at Mother. Write. (Repeat.) which is a fabulous blog. I especially love all the agent interviews

Macy at The Unrepentant Escapist, another super helpful blog

Stephanie Thornton who has an admirable interest and WIP set in ancient Egypt

Robert at 101 Books who is reading and blogging about all 100 of Time Magazine's "Greatest English-Speaking Novels"

Sierra Godfrey whose blog is both informative and terrifically stylish

And Lea at Wanton Redhead Writing, which is a lot of fun.

Check them out!

Whew and Woo-hooo!

Ah, The Muse! I have a looong post coming about the conference, how wonderful and horrible, exhausting and energizing it all was. I will even try to decipher my handwritten notes and put up a bit of what I learned about plot and editing and the world of publishing. But I am not quite there yet: back in my work week and seriously dragging.

Here's something that put a little more pep in my tired typing fingers:

I got this brand new shiny blog award-- twice! Thanks, Jenny Phresh and KO. This was just what I needed today.

This award's only requirement is that you pass it on to some other fiery folks.

So here goes:

Nina Badzin at Nina Badzin: The Writing Life, Married Life and Motherhood This blog may literally catch fire thanks to a kind (and well-deserved) mention by Janet Reid.

Mary Frame at It's All Fun and Games Until Someone Gets an Agent (Great title, huh? This blog is new and lots of fun.)

Amie Kaufman at Amie Kaufman, Writer, Buccaneer, Etc (Tremendously helpful, this one)

France Rants at FranceRants (Who doesn't enjoy a good rant now and then?)

and...

Saumya at Left and Write Brained (Love the variety over there!)

...And Versatile Too!

Well, I feel doubly blessed. Magpiewrites has send a shiny new award my way. Thanks so much, Magpie! (You should check out her blog, guys; it's a good one.)

Here are 7 (more) things about me:

1) We raise our own Thanksgiving turkeys here at Maggie's Farm. These turkeys free-range around the orchard, wander the pasture and grow to gargantuan proportions. Some are 35 pounds!

2) When I was a kid, I thought "Raiders of the Lost Ark" was the coolest thing ever. I watched that movie at least 10 times. But recently, I revisited it with my kids (thanks Greenfield Library!) and didn't like it at all, not even a teensy bit. My kids weren't crazy for it either.

3) I have no writing space to speak of. I mostly write at the kitchen table (Amid near-constant interruptions) and at coffee shops and bakeries. If one of my books ever gets published, I will have a long list of cafes to thank in the acknowledgements.

4) I used to tell my little brother and cousins stories about a giant friendly shark named Edward. These evolved into tales of a whole, complex ocean kingdom with gangs of "badsharks", sea witches, and a giant eel that was able to wrap itself around the whole globe.

5) I went to Montessori school until 2nd grade and my early school memories involve pouring colored liquids from one size pitcher to another, sand tables, and a giant wooden farm house with plastic animals (this was my favorite-- little did I know, I'd end up with a farm of my own!)

6) The town I live in has one gas station, and one pizza place that is open only 4 days a week.

7) When I was eight or so, my friends and I tried busking, singing "Paloma Blanca" for spare change (this didn't work out so well, but it's a memory I won't forget.)

Hey! Since "Una Paloma Blanca" is indeed a one hit wonder (1975 by George baker Selection,) I'm including it here as part of my Weekly One-Hit-Wonder feature:

(Baffling that this one ever became a hit. But then, that's the 70's for ya)

Passing it on now:

There are so many terrific blogs out there. It's so hard to choose just a few. But I'm passing on this award to these worthy (and versatile) bloggers:

Misty at Nothing Cannot Happen Today

StoryTeller at A Life Less Ordinary

Teresa at A Likely Story

Katherine at The Insect Collector

Holly at Super Mom Writes

Jen at Unedited

and Shawn at Musings on a Former Life-- Boston's South End

Enjoy!

Stylish!

I feel doubly blessed to be deemed Stylish again! Thanks so much to Jen at Jen's Bookshelf for making a tough week a little brighter.

As is the custom here in this strange (e)land. Here are seven things about me:

1) Actual style. My actual style is pretty much non-existent. My clothes, aside from the fabulous yellow crocs, range from olive green to brown. I wear jeans everyday-- ill-fitting baggy ones-- and shapeless thrift store sweaters. A student once told me "My jacket costs more than your whole wardrobe" and you know, he was probably right.

2) This summer, my family spent almost two weeks Newfoundland. We loved it, and dreamed about living in "Jerry's Nose", a small town on the Port au Port Peninsula

3) I was a vegetarian for over ten years, though now I am able (sorta) to slaughter and eat our own sheep, pigs and chickens. I still don't buy meat from the grocery store.

4) Back when I was a vegetarian, I volunteered to take care of rescued wildlife at a local zoo/refuge. My first job was to cut "bite sized" chunks for the carnivores from this bloody pile of raw meat. It was close to a hundred degrees that day, and there were hundreds of shiny black flies that'd buzz up from the carcass every time I touched it. I spent my whole three hours doing this without complaint and never went back.

5) I am a rockhound. I used to cut and polish stones and make jewelry for a hobby.

credit

6) The best vehicle I ever owned was a little red Nissan Truck with a white cap (15 years later, I still miss it!) the worst was an olive green pinto named "Reuben"

7) I would be very happy owning almost nothing, living in a conversion van and traveling the highways. (My family, however, has other ideas.)

Okay, then. I'm sending this award on to these fabulous bloggers:

Amy at The Poem Farm

Samantha at The Slight Detour

Krista at Mother. Write. (Repeat.)

Llevinso at Sarcastic Female Literary Circle

Jen at OxyJen and Query Goblin

Marion at Joy and Wonder

Valerie at Something to Write About

Sorta Stylish...

Yesterday I got my second ever blog award. Woohooo! Thanks so much to Laurel over at Laurel's Leaves. I believe this is the first ever time I have been referred to as "stylish" in any context.

So. I am supposed to tell you seven things about myself and pass on the award. Here goes:

1) As a teenager, I was obsessed with Richard Adams' Watership Down. I wrote a suspiciously similar novel (about Rats not Rabbits) and got about 150 pages in before I quit.

2) I have a weakness for bad Chinese Food, most notably vegetable egg foo young which is more or less deep fried scrambled eggs with gravy. (I know its sort of gross, I just can't help it....)

3) I have three kids (ages 7, 9 and 11) who right this minute are squabbling over Legos in the next room

4) I live on Maggie' Farm along a ridiculously muddy (snowy, bumpy, dusty, icy) dirt road waaaaay out in the wilds of Western New England with 3 dogs, 7 sheep and a gazillion chickens.

5) Like Laurel, I have the teenaged habit of listening to the same album or group over and over. Right now, I'm on a baffling Modest Mouse Kick that just won't quit even though at 44 I should be into more sedate music.

6) At 19, I was fired from my summer job as a breakfast cook for The Hatchet Motel in Wyoming. (Not the best job for a vegetarian college student who liked to sleep late and couldn't cook.)

7.) When I was 7, I impressed my parents' friends with my ability to quote Bob Dylan's "Subterranean Homesick Blues" from start to finish.

Bonus #8) I truly appreciate all your comments and follows. You make my days-- many of them! Thanks.

I am passing this award on to:

1. My writing group buddy Ariel at "Writing Blog"

2. Grub buddy Alicia at "Slice of the Blog Pie"

3. N. Blank at "The Blank Pages"

4. Erinn at "Something Else to Distract Me"

5. Catherine at "The Writing Room"

6. Amanda at "A Fortnight of Mustard"

7. Jen at "Scribo Ergo Sum"