A Whole Bunch of Random Stuff on Me and an Award

I’ve been nominated for a Liebster award by three different bloggers which is just so lovely! Halley of Halley Gentil, JLenni, and Celina of LittleCely all nominated me, thanks a bunch guys!

The Liebster’s not so much an official award as a nice way to give a shout out to other fellow bloggers who are still new to the blogosphere – which is why it’s for bloggers with 200 followers or less, i.e. the new kidz on da block.

A Socially Lubricated Glance At The Blog So Far and ROW80 Update

[Full disclosure: I wrote this at an unsuitable time last night, with a few drinks in me. Following the great Hemingway’s advice, I wrote drunk and edited sober. No so much drunk really, as nicely tiddly. If it worked for Hemingway, it sure as hell is good enough for me!]

Ok, don’t judge me, but I’ve been reading through my old blog posts. Yes, I know, it’s a very narcissistic thing to do. In my defence, I’m a tad inebriated, and therefore my judgement is not operating at full capacity.

Giving Credit Where Credit Is Due

I have a confession to make. So far I’ve let you all believe that the writing on this blog (and on The Book, though you have not yet had the delight of sampling that particular bit of wordsmithery) is all mine, when it fact, very little of it comes from me.

You see, everything I write is meticulously torn apart edited by Blue Cat (look at those stern eyes, that disapproving stares as he picks out all my instances of weak writing):

Calvin and Hobbes on imagination and escapism.

Today, I wanted to write a post on escapism and imagination (did the title give that away? No way!) I started working on this post as I do all blog posts, by groping around the edge of the idea I want to write about, with all the skill and savoir-faire of a teenage boy on prom night.

I wanted to find a way to communicate just how important imagination is, how much we all (big and small) need to escape to the imaginary places that we or others have created.

As ever I was far more eloquent in my head when I was busy imagining said post (if only reality would catch up to my imagination, I’d be a literary goddess) – when it was time to perform, I found my powers of expression somewhat lacking. Luckily, we live in a digital age, where the Internet rules supreme and has the answer to everything. It gave me this Calvin and Hobbes strip. Breathtakingly simple as always: the sadness of a life without imagination, with a little side of commentary on the current tendency to throw medication at everything (pin it).

Reflecting on a month of A to Z-ing

Overall I’ve had a wonderful time, and I think the A to Z team did a great job in organising it all. Well done guys! I’ll definitely be coming back next year for more.

For me the big revelation was getting to chat and hang out in the comment sections with other bloggers (on their blogs or mine). I got to know some awesome people that I’ll keep in touch with going forward – not only was it great fun, it was most definitely worth the desperate daily scramble to find a subject and write the post for the day’s letter.

There is, however, one ugly cloud on the bloggosphere’s horizon, one stumbling block to the epic blogatory love-in that A to Z should be. And that is the inability of WordPress and Blogger to get along so that we can chat in a way that doesn’t involve epic headaches. WordPress and Blogger are about as compatible as Mac and Windows, it’s a bit ridiculous and really frustrating.

ROW80 goals

Right, now that April is done, I’m ready to start ROW80 (if you’re dropping by from ROW80, I did Camp NaNo and the blogging A to Z challenge in April so ROW80 seemed like a bit too much to add in at the time – so I’m joining in a little late!).

For those of you who don’t know ROW80, it stands for a Round of Words in 80 days. The principle is that you set goals for yourself from now until the end of June, post the link to said goals at the ROW 80 website, and every week there are “check ins” where you update on your progress. I haven’t tried it yet but it seems like a great way to hold yourself accountable to someone other than yourself. (And as I mentioned in my last post, I need that or I end up worshipping at the altar of slacktitude. That should be a word, by the way).

I’m probably overshooting a bit on my goals, but I’d rather fall short of an epic goal than a small one.

Z is for all the zzzzzzzzz I plan to get now that April is over

It’s been a crazy month, what with doing Camp NaNoWriMo and A to Z at the same time. I accidentally upped the ante by signing up for both the day before they started, so I had no time to prep or plan for either challenge, and I had only just started blogging (I think I have three blog posts before the two challenges started). It was very much a case of jumping into the deep end and sinking or swimming. I’m so glad that I figured out how to float!

Well done to all of you who made it to the end by the way. High Fives and pizzas all around. I feel like we should all hunker down around a rustic wooden table, with mugs of cider, and recount our various hairy moments of April, or simply sit in silence and ooze blogger worldliness and experience, like the blogging salty dogs we have become. You know, like that scene at the end of Lord of the Rings where Frodo, Sam, Pippin and Merry are sat apart from the rest of the village, silent and brooding, and you can see just how much they have changed compared to their fellow hobbits.

Ok, maybe a tad over-dramatic. Maybe just a knowledgeable blogger fistbump?