Catching up: Blog Awards

I'm so honored to have received some lovely blog awards from really awesome people. I'm tickled to be included in the blogging community, and it's a pleasure to pay it forward.

Let's get right to it, then.

The wonderful Erica Chapman, whom I interviewed back in July, presented me with the Strange award. Very original, and quite fitting. I shall go forth and celebrate my strangeness every day, as a matter of fact.

Kelsey Sutton has awarded me a beautiful Life is Good award. This one comes with questions I'm supposed to answer, so I'll try to make them short and sweet:

Questions:

1. If you blog anonymously are you happy doing it that way; if you are not anonymous do you wish you had started out anonymously so you could be anonymous now?
I'm perfectly happy not being anonymous. :)

2. Describe one incident that shows your inner stubborn side:
Hehehe, just ask my kids. I'm sure there's more than one incident there.

3. What do you see when you really look at yourself in the mirror?
A woman trying desperately to hold on to her youth.

4. What is your favourite summer cold drink?
Sparkling water.

5. When you take time for yourself, what do you do?
Read a book.

6. Is there something you still want to accomplish in your life? What is it?
Getting published is pretty much still at the top of my to-do list.

7. When you attended school, were you the class clown, the class overachiever , the shy person, or always ditching?
I was a gleek, actually. But I won 1st place in a talent show singing with my classmate who is now one of the members of All 4 One.

8. If you close your eyes and want to visualize a very poignant moment of your life what would you see?
Poignant as in touching, not poignant as in sad: the births of my children.

9. Is it easy for you to share your true self in your blog or are you more comfortable writing posts about other people or events?
I'm a Leo, so I'm all for sharing. ;)

10. If you had the choice to sit down and read or talk on the phone, which would you do and why?
Sit down and read. Enjoy the silence!

Okay, now that that's taken care of, I have two more super awards to share. The One Lovely Blog award and The Versatile Blogger award come to me by way of Marieke at Marieke's Musings. I'm supposed to add seven things about myself, but I figure I've probably covered that in the questionnaire above. ;)

A big hug and thank you to these magnificent writers/bloggers. You all rock.


These awards of course come with some rules, so here they are:

1. Add the logo of the award to your blog post. 
2. Add a link to the person who awarded it to you.
3. Nominate seven other blogs telling us why you think the recipient is strange enough to deserve the award. 
4. Leave a message for those nominated on their blogs.


And here are my pay-it-forward recipients for all four awards:


Shelli at Market My Words: Shelli is so generous and helpful. Her blog is full of awesome and I love the contests she holds.
Eleni at La Femme Readers: Such a pretty blog (from a pretty lady) and her give-aways are fab!
JA Souders at Angels and Demons and Portals. Oh my! Talk about fantastic, this blog is a must-follow.
Anne Riley: She's a writer, she's having a baby, and she still finds time to share the joy. Oh, and I interviewed her back in March.
Tawna Fenski at Don't Pet Me, I'm Writing: Love Tawna. Plain and simple.
Jenn Johansson, whom I interviewed back in April. Definitely check her out.
Nikki Katz, whom I interviewed back in June. Nikki's great, so please visit her blog.


And there you have it. Whew!
.

Idle Engines

Hello, my dear friends.

I'm back from my vacation, but still trying to get back into the swing of things. I didn't want to leave you hanging though, so I thought I'd post an "I'm back" announcement and let you know I'll have some interviews for you again soon.

Thanks for sticking with me. :)

Aaaaaand BREAK!

Okay, my friends. Here's the deal. My family and I are going on vacation starting tomorrow. We will be in Singapore for two days, then flying to the Philippines where my mother's side of the family has put together a huge reunion. I mean HUGE. She has ten siblings, and they all have kids, and their kids all have kids. So, um, yeah. HUGE. But I'm very excited. My hubby and kids haven't been to the PI yet (that's short for Philippine Islands, in case you couldn't connect the dots) so it should be very interesting.

So all that to say, I won't be updating the blog while I'm gone. However, I will be back in two weeks with more awesome interviews for your reading pleasure. And if you're a writer who might want to be interviewed, leave me a comment with contact info and I'll get back to you when I return.

Until then, I wish you all a great mid-October!

Interview with Rebecca J Clark

Hello again, blogosprites. Are you ready for another interview? I can't hear you. Oh wait, I don't have my speakers turned on. In any case, I've got a great interview for you with an awesome author. Please welcome Rebecca J. Clark, author of BORROWED STILETTOS.

Welcome, Rebecca. Tell us a bit about yourself.

I live in the Pacific NW with my husband of 23 years and two teenagers. My day job is personal fitness trainer and group exercise instructor. I teach Zumba, Turbokick, Pilates and yoga. Thank goodness for a job where I get paid to work out -- supports my Cheetos and chocolate habit. :) My job now is a far cry from my bachelor's degree in graphic design, eh?

I'd say you're rather diverse. You had me at chocolate, lol. How long have you been writing?

I've wanted to be a novelist since I was 11 years old and read my first Harlequin romance. But I didn't start writing for publication until after my daughter was born. She's 18 now. When you realize I just got my first sale in 2008, you'll know it took me a LONG TIME to sell. Okay, so I wasn't writing full-time and raised two kids and moved several times over those years, but still. It took me a long time. I made so many mistakes along the way, I really should write a book called, "Everything You Need to Know to Sabotage Your Writing Career and Take Forever to Sell."

You really should! I'd buy it. Tell us about BORROWED STILETTOS.

Just thinking about this book makes me grin. This was one of those stories I just had to write and had a blast doing it. It's about identical twins who switch places in order for one to break up with the other's fiance. One twin is flamboyant and outgoing and very popular. The other twin has always been quieter and shy and more conservative. I got the idea from my own childhood. I'm not a twin, but I always lived in the shadow of my more beautiful, more popular sister. On more than one occasion, boys would use me to get to her. When I told a writer friend that, she said, "You have to put that in a book." So I did. I'm still living in my sister's shadow, by the way. Her name's Laurie London and her first book comes out next year with HQN. :)

I'll keep an eye out. What was the most challenging aspect of your publishing journey?

Everything's been a challenge, to be honest. But the hardest thing, at least for me, was to get "so close" (in my case, making it all the way through the senior editor with one big publisher) only to be rejected at aquisitions. You're so close you can almost taste it, then BOOM. The rug is pulled out from under you. It takes a while to recover from that, let me tell you. You start to question if you'll ever sell, if you're good enough, is all the hard work worth it, etc. This industry will kill you if you let it. I've almost let it a few times.

Any tips you've learned about writing you want to share?

I heard this once somewhere: "If you want to sell quicker, write to the market. If you want to enjoy what you're doing, write what you love." Right now, dark paranormals are hot, as are urban fantasy and steampunk. For writers who love those genres, their chances of selling soon are probably a bit better than someone like me who writes straight contemporary and romantic suspense. Unfortunately for me, the markets I love to read and write aren't hot right now. I've toyed with the idea of trying my hand at one of those genres, but if I don't enjoy reading them, that would probably come across in my writing.

Let’s get to know you on a deeper level. What do you absolutely have to have nearby when writing?

I must have my notebook nearby, for any ideas or notes I might want to jot down. I must have coffee, unfortunately, or at the very least a hot cup of tea. I would have Cheetos if they weren't so messy. What I can't have around is my husband--he's worse than the kids at interrupting me. :) Oh, and my thesaurus--the real thing, not the online version.

If you could have any super power, what would it be?

Wow, I've honestly never thought about this before LOL. Let's see, in my best dreams at night (at least the ones that aren't TMI), I can run like the wind, and it's an amazing feeling. So, I'll go with that. Boring, I know, but imagine how cool that would be.

Not boring at all. In fact, if I could run like the wind and not get sweaty - even better!

Quick writing test! Use the following words in a sentence: gown, race, and quarantine.

Oh, great. You're making me think. I'm really not a writer but a REwriter. Sigh. Okay, here goes:

Struggling not to trip over the long train of her gown, Matilda raced out of the church before the cops could quarantine the wedding party.

Awesome. Here’s the part where you thank the people who are supporting you. Let's hear your shout outs.

Obviously, I thank my family for putting up with a messy house and the only occasional sit-down dinner. It must be incredibly difficult living with a writer. If the writing is going well, I'm in a great mood but all I want to do is write. If it's not going well, I'm in a pissie mood and all I want to do is write. :) There are really too many other individual people to thank, so I'll do a quick shout out to my Golden Heart sisters, the Pixie Chicks; my local chapter, GSRWA; and my plotting group, the Cherry Plotters (as in Cherry Adair).

And finally, where can people find you online?

My website: www.rebeccajclark.com
My blog: www.shywriters.blogspot.com
My group blog: www.blameitonthemuse.com
Facebook: Rebecca J. Clark
Twitter: @rebeccajclark

Rebecca, thank you so much for letting me interview you. It was a lot of fun. I wish you continued success!

Thanks so much for having me here, Dorothy. You're the best!