Author Shout Out: The very talented Miss Holly Current has had her short story, The Poe Toaster, published online in Lost City Review. Come, read . . . you know you want to, and you certainly will not be disappointed, I assure you! You can also follow Holly’s blog, “A Little Literary, a Lotta Coffee.” Again, you won’t be disappointed. Honest!

Word of the week: amenable \ə-ˈmē-nə-bəl\ adj. - 1: liable to be brought to account; 2 a : capable of submission (as to judgment or test), b : readily brought to yield, submit, or cooperate, c : willing

Liebster Blog Award

Holy smokes, and other random exclamations!

I tell you, the number 11 in duplicate has followed me around like a lost little puppy for nearly a year now. Um . . . well, no . . . more the like the itty-bitty leggies of a lost little (invisible) stick-figure puppy. Or maybe like two sets of dancing chopsticks . . . or two yummy double popcicles . . . or one half of a tarantula . . .

Anyway, now the number 11 has come in triplicate—nay, quadruplicate! (Hurray! A whole tarantula!)—as I discovered I was nominated by SLS Oborowsky of Authors Thought to receive the Liebster Blog Award.

To her I say: “Thank you, thank you! Thank you very much!” and I would say this eleven times, but honestly . . . that would get really annoying. I could just hand her a tarantula, though she might not be completely amenable to this.

What is the Liebster Blog Award, and how does it work? Eleven random personal facts, eleven questions answered, eleven questions asked of eleven nominees.

Here, I’ll show you:

First, eleven random personal facts:

1) I’m highly allergic to peppermint oil.

2) I love the smell of honeysuckle and lilac (separately).

3) I’m the mother of four (two human, two canine) children.

4) I abhor money; I think it causes too many problems between people.

5) One of my favorite things to do is to help out fellow authors.

6) I love golden retrievers.

7) I helped build the house I currently live in – yes, with a hammer and nails and hard labor and all that.

8) I absolutely cannot walk in stiletto heels, and I prefer jeans and sweats over fancy skirts and dresses.

9) I used to traipse through the woods in the middle of the night – alone.

10) I think “whimsical” and “wholesome” are the two most fake sounding words – ever.

11) Not much ever “creeps me out”; thus, I wish to eat a scorpion-pop.

Now, eleven questions answered from the one who nominated me: SLS Oborowsky:

1) What is your favorite animal and why? Ooohhh . . . that would have to be the golden retriever, only because they’re so cuddly and lovable and soft and squishy and cute and, and, and . . . need I say more really?

2) If you had a choice to live anywhere in the world, what place would you choose? Someplace warm. No snow. I can’t stand snow. Abhorrent white stuff . . .

3) What is your favorite food? Wow. Um . . . I don’t have one favorite food. I love all foods, really.

4) What is your most memorable moment? Wait, I have a memory? *puzzles*. . . Oh! Hang on . . . yes. My most memorable moment (say that ten times fast!) would have to be my wedding day, when I married the most wonderful man in the world.

5) Do you have a hobby? Gardening, if I ignore the fact I’m terrible with most plants.

6) Do you have a favorite childhood nursery rhyme? Not in particular, although it was an interesting moment in my adult life when I discovered what the rhyme “Ring Around the Rosy” really referred to!

7) What type of music do you enjoy most? Not sure how to categorize it, but stuff by Linkin Park, Evanescence, Muse, and, well, generally music with lyrics that actually make one think or tell a story.

8) Are you a country bumpkin or a city slicker? Oh, country bumpkin, most definitely! I’d rather pull weeds and walk through the woods, haul hay and ride horses than bumble around, lost and alone, in a scary city setting.

9) If you could rewrite a chapter in your life would you? Yes. All of middle school. No, in fact, I’d delete that entire chapter out of my life.

10) Do you have a fear of anything? Clowns, spider webs in the face, and someone driving heavy machinery through the woods. Combine the three, and I’m likely to have a heart attack.

11) Do you have a favorite place you go for a latte, coffee or tea? My favorite place to go for coffee is . . . my writing desk.

Eleven nominees (well, really twelve now, due to a previous mix up on my part!) . . . :

Holly Current – A Little Literary; a Lotta Coffee

Stephen Dodgson – The Beach in Tenerife

Court Ellyn – Wordweaver

Robert Evert – Neurotic Novelists of the World Unite!

Heather Frizzell – Heather’s Revision Diary

Eve Gaal – The Desert Rocks 
David Gilmore – David Gilmore’s Blog

William Kendall – Speak of the Devil

Logan Keys – Logan Keys Fiction

Lorraine Sears – Red Lorry’s Journey

Ben Wallace – Dumb White Husband (blog)

Lena Winfrey Seder - Pearldrops on the Page

. . . and eleven questions asked of them:

1) What is your favorite mythical creature?

2) What are your five least favorite words, and why?

3) What inspires you to write what you write in your blog posts or other writing projects?

4) If you could have any super power, what would it be, and why?

5) If you knew the end of the world was coming, how would you spend your final day on earth?

6) What’s your biggest accomplishment?

7) If someone handed you a tarantula, what would you do?

8) How do you write? In total silence, or with background noise?

9) Who is your biggest writing influence?

10) Who’s your favorite author?

11) What do you believe is the most important thing in the world?

And finally, here are the eleven official rules of the Liebster Award. (Well, all right, there are really only eight, but I had to keep to the “eleven” theme!)

Copied from the blog “Lorraine Reguly’s Life.” :

If you have been nominated for The Liebster Award AND YOU CHOOSE TO ACCEPT IT, write a blog post about the Liebster award in which you:

1. thank the person who nominated you, and post a link to their blog on your blog.

2. display the award on your blog — by including it in your post and/or displaying it using a “widget” or a “gadget”. (Note that the best way to do this is to save the image to your own computer and then upload it to your blog post.)

3. answer 11 questions about yourself, which will be provided to you by the person who nominated you.

4. provide 11 random facts about yourself.

5. nominate 5 – 11 blogs that you feel deserve the award, who have a less than 1000 followers. (Note that you can always ask the blog owner this since not all blogs display a widget that lets the readers know this information!)

6. create a new list of questions for the blogger to answer.

7. list these rules in your post. (You can copy and paste them from here.)

Once you have written your post, and published it, you then have to:

8. Inform the people/blogs that you nominated that they have been nominated for the Liebster award and provide a link for them to your post so that they can learn about it (they might not have ever heard of it!)

. . . See? Super easy!