The Liebster Blog Award

Had anyone bothered to ask me four or five years ago if I'd ever write a book, let alone a work of fiction, I would've told them they were nuts. It was never my dream to be a writer and it would never have dawned on me that I'd ever write a novel or even a blog. Then Jess popped up and I wrote my first draft of my first book in less than a month. 

After submitting the first book to a few agents, I realized I would need more help if I were to ever get this thing published so I checked out a few local groups. They didn't like Jess, because she swears, and the first book is a bit dark in spots. (How can you not get dark when writing about a dead child?)

I then found Grand Rapids Region Writers Group and emailed then-president Cheryl Sterling about whether or not I might fit in their group, given Jess' penchant for swearing like a drunken sailor and having a BFF that is a Drag Queen Diva. The very first meeting I knew I found a new home.

Fast forward a year, and here I find myself the recipient of the Liebster Blog award courtesy of Patricia Kiyono, a fellow author/crafter/seamstress/procrastinator (I especially love that last one). Patricia Kiyono has fun blog Creative Hodgepodge – complete with cute grandbaby pictures - and is the author of three current titles at Astrea Press: Aegean Intrigue, A Chrismas Phoenix, and The Legacy. You can check them out at her site or purchase them directly from Astrea Press.

The Liebster Blog award is supposed to be given to "up and coming bloggers who have fewer than 200 followers". Thank you Patricia for granting me this honor! And now it's my turn to pass it on.

All that's required to accept this award is:

1. Thank the person who gave it to them and link back to that person's blog.

2. Copy and paste the award to your blog. (It's up at the top!)

3. Choose 5 blogs to award in kind and break the news by commenting on those blogs.

4. Hope those people pay it forward in turn by accepting and awarding "The Liebster Blog Award" to blogs they'd like to honor.

I'm choosing these five bloggers:

Erica Clodig at The Pen is Mighter than the Darkness. Erica is the one who introduced me to NaNoWriMo, where Collie was “born” and has an amazing number of books in progress and who, like me, is not yet published. She inspired me to keep working on my writing and gave me my first introduction into the writing world.

Jennifer Armintrout at Sweaters For Days And Moves Like Jagger . Jennifer is the USA Today best-selling author of several paranormal romance novels and makes me laugh often. She's also the one to get me into my first real critique meeting which has been hugely beneficial and loaded with lots of much needed advice and suggestions for improvements.

Mia Watts at The Art of Seduction is Watts Beneath the Covers. Mia is one of the writer's I connected with at the first meeting and assured me that Jess' swearing really isn't an issue. She also is a prolific romance author who appears to have book releases every week!

Tanya Eby at www.tanyaeby.com. Tanya is my mentor and writes fun, quirky characters that I can totally relate to. She has an amazing sense of humor and continues to keep my faith up by allowing me to see her own struggles with getting books published.

Andrea Dickinson at Diary of a Romance Writer.  Andrea writes some amazingly hot, quick romance reads and has a similar appreciation of the LGBT community. She also makes me laugh often and I could easily spend a day having fun with her and feel like we'd barely gotten started.

So those are my 5 nominees, now to finish up the comment/contact instructions!

You know, for being currently unemployed I seem to have tons of work to do.

Blogger - is it an "Issue" or a "Feature"?

For some silly reason, Blogger won't allow me to respond to posts on my own blog.  Really?  WTH?!  So, if you're thinking I've ignored you, please don't.  I'm not, I just haven't gotten the folks at Blogger to get it straightened out yet.

I had someone ask me this question the other day and thought I'd share:  "How many passwords do you have?"  I had to get it clarified, because that question has a different meaning for different people on different sides of the IT equation.  It was not the one meaning how many passwords do I have "on hand" to rotate through when my password expires on any account I may have.  Instead it was more along the lines of: how many accounts do I have that I have separate AND unique passwords in use.

Easy: Well over 50. Why?  Because I know too much about how hackers work, how script kiddies work, and how easy it really can be to ruin someone's life or business by getting simply one password.  So yep, over 50.  And no, I don't rotate them through my other accounts.  They are complex passwords, not easily remembered.  And I make up new ones everytime one expires or needs to be reset (roughly every 90 days).  Which is why I have an electronic safe that keeps track of a good chunk of my more rarely used accounts and passwords for me.

Sure, it's a bit more work.  No, it's not foolproof.  But just like having very large, heavy, protective dogs with BIG teeth at home, it's just another obstacle in the way of whoever's trying to get at my stuff.

Although truthfully, I have no idea why anyone would want my data anyway.  My credit rating is pretty much crap, I don't have much in assets (unless you want to count all my books, vintage sewing machines, and unfinished craft projects) and my truck is older than all but one of my nephews and nieces.  And I'm still un-published.  Still, it's my crap and I'd kind of like to keep it mine thank-you-very-much.

Think about these: How many accounts and passwords do you have?  When did you last reset your email/blogger/Amazon/B&N/social networking/gaming/website passwords?  Are they all using different passwords?  Do you have all the security devices in place?  Example: gmail and Yahoo! ask for a primary email address to be able to send reset password requests to, and Facebook would like your cell phone for that as well.  Kind of like routine maintenance on air filters for your furnace and batteries for smoke detectors, you really should change them on a regular basis.

Ready....Set...Write! Yeah, right!

So here I sit, Diet Pepsi and Chocolate on hand (doesn't everyone have Diet Pepsi and Chocolate for breakfast?) ready to write something fantabulous for the Grand Rapids Region Writer's Group for my first blog entry and my brain goes "Yeah, right. I'm taking a nap." and hands the reigns over to Jess, Paul, Collie, Merie, and Myrtle. Let the chaos ensue!

I even tried the tactic of hitting FaceBook to get them to back off to no avail. Instead, I now have notes for 2 more books, three more scenes written for existing stuff, and none of it edited or even in one spot. Too bad I don't make enough at the day job to afford an assistant, I could really use one today. And to top it off I have a fund raiser to appear at this afternoon, found a Drag Queen in town that I just MUST meet - she's GORGEOUS! - and luckily a friend of mine is FB friends with her, and I got myself volunteered to help with IT stuff for the next Network Neighborhood Bash. This is all on top of my normal workload, upcoming IT training session (I'm the leader/presenter), planning for a 2-day local tech event organized, manned, and pulled off by volunteers who all have full time IT jobs.

The chocolate is gone now, the Diet Pepsi is about 1/2 drained, the dogs have finally stopped barking, Jess is still chatting, but much quieter now, and I'm still trying to figure out what to write for the GRRWG blog. Something will come...I hope.

I'm also thinking about the latest news from my newly assigned mentor, an established, published author, and dreading the fact that not only do I need this blog, I now also need to set up a website for myself. I work in IT all day long, the last thing I want to do is do more IT work when I get home. I wonder if I can teach the dogs how to code in Ruby, Pearl, PHP, or HTML5. They're certainly smart enough, but they're pretty lazy. I'd try to teach the cats, but they're cats, they don't even deign to work...unless it's to unravel what's in my knitting bag.

The last of the Diet Pepsi is drained (I wonder if I can get money for product placement on a blog?...hmmmm....) and my brain has walked by, yawning, stretching and heading for a coffee pot. Perhaps it'll finally cooperate and come up with something novel for my first assigned blog spot.