Friday, March 1, 2013

Liebster Blog Award

On February 6th, I was honored to receive the Liebster Blog Award. Thanks go out to my good friend, Katie Kenyhercz for the award.

The Liebster Award is given to up and coming bloggers who have less than 200 followers. Liebster is German and means sweetest, kindest, nicest, dearest, beloved, lovely, kind, pleasant, valued, cute, endearing, and welcome. Wow! That's a lot of work for one little word!

Here are the rules for receiving the award:

1. Each person must post 11 things about themselves.
2. Answer the questions the tagger has set for you. Plus create 11 questions for the people you've tagged to answer. (It’s the same 11 questions.)
3. Choose 11 people and link them in your post. (I have 7).
4. Go to their page and tell them.
5. Remember, no tag backs!

Eleven things about me:

1. I love singing as much as I love writing.
2. I’ll forever be a Bostonian.
3. I still love Disney’s GARGOYLES.
4. Goat cheese is my favorite cheese.
5. My favorite Broadway musical is WICKED.
6. When I wear makeup, I wear tasteful purple eye shadow.
7. I have a wrap-around dragon bracelet that is my signature piece of jewelry.
8. I can’t live where it’s very warm most of the year because I’m a boots, jeans, and sweatshirt person. I like to project “don’t mess with me” even if I can’t necessarily follow through.
9. My preferred type of fantasy character is a thief/assassin.
10. I’ve always wanted a motorcycle.
11. I’m a Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy fangirl.

Eleven questions about me and my answers:

1. Beach or mountain holiday? Mountain. I live eight minutes from the beach.
2. Where in the family do you come? Only child.
3. Dog or cat person? Dogs, but cats love me for some reason.
4. What's your favorite season and why? Fall. It’s warm enough to be comfortable outside but cool enough for me to wear my boots, jeans, and sweatshirt ensemble from above.
5. What's the last book you read? The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler
6. What's the last movie you watched? Um. I don’t remember. Muppet Christmas Carol, I think.
7. What's your favorite weather and why? Between 45 and 65. See clothing preference above. Up to 85 is okay, though.
8. What would you like to be written on your tombstone? “She was an –ism—enough said.”
9. How would you like to be remembered? As an author and a good person to those close to me.
10. When and why was the last time you giggled uncontrollably? A few days ago. I can’t remember exactly why, but it’s the laughing that really counts.
11. What's your favorite photo on display? There’s one of me at the aquarium standing beside a tank of jellyfish. I put the caption as “I shall call them Squishy, and they shall be mine. And they shall be my squishies.”

Here are the people I’m tagging. Go to their blogs and congratulate them!

Lauren Michaud
Rachel Robins
Heather Sedlak
Tiffany Avery
Alexis Lantgen
Louise Findlay
Desiree M. Mondesir
Sam Mandhla Moyo
Bruce Atchison on blogger and wordpress

Monday, February 25, 2013

Writing Music

Good Monday,

Recently, I decided I was going to replay Kingdom Hearts. For those who don’t know, Kingdom Hearts is the Disney rpg PS2 game that came out back in 2002. It centers around Sora, whose tropical island home world is destroyed. With the help of Donald Duck and Goofy, he must use the Keyblade to save the worlds and his friends.

What does this have to do with writing? Aside from being an exemplary sample of combining plots, many writers I know use music as inspiration while writing. Kingdom Hearts offers an amazing soundtrack for just such inspiration. I have the entire soundtrack and love it. Below are my top recommendations for Kingdom Hearts music.

My personal favorite is Hollow Bastion. Stunning orchestration. There is also the Kingdom Hearts Suite (Hikari Kingdom Orchestra), an instrumental version of Simple and Clean.

Any of the battle music is good for writing, well, battle scenes. There’s some gentler music for romantic moments as well.

And of course, since it is a Disney game, there are some lovely Disney music instrumentals. These include Winnie the Pooh, Under the Sea, and This is Halloween.

Happy writing!

P.S. Five bonus points to anyone who knows Donald Duck’s middle name. I’ll answer the question next Monday.