This week, I had the honor of being given the Kreative Blogger Award by John Wiswell of The Bathroom Monologues. The game involves listing 10 things about myself as well as awarding this to other bloggers whose work I admire.
I’ve played similar games before, so I apologize if I’ve already listed some of these things about myself. Here’s my list!
1. I never attempted to write fiction (other than for school assignments) until my late thirties. The only reason I started was because Nanowrimo offered me to the chance to write down stories that I thought would make a nice keepsake for my son when he was older. They were about a character I created for him called Monkey boy. Needless to say, the ‘novel’ was pretty unreadable (the entire first chapter was an info dump), but I was hooked and decided to keep practicing until I got better.
2. During my senior year of high school, my Lit teacher liked one of my flash stories (it was an assignment) and told me that I should consider writing. I was flabbergasted and asked what I should do. He just told me to write. Without direction (I assumed you needed a plan, etc.), I did not write again until my late thirties, though I never forgot that conversation.
3. Until the late 90′s, I was computer-phobic. In high school, I had taken computer classes though I didn’t own a computer, and through the wonder of high school I developed a long-standing hatred for programming and all things computer related.
4. During the late 90′s, my husband introduced me to search engines and chat rooms. I got over my hatred/fear of computers.
5. My original alias for chats and other on-line activities was ‘Titania’, from A Midsummer Night’s Dream, but I got tired of being constantly ‘hit on’ in the chat rooms because of my female moniker. So I changed it to the more androgynous ‘ganymede’ (the alias of Rosalind in As You Like It when she poses as a boy, as well as the name of Jupiter’s…uh, ‘cupbearer’). Then I was ‘hit on’ by gay men in the chat rooms, but much less frequently.
6. ‘Ganymede’ became ‘Ganymeder’ because I screwed up when I was creating my original blog. I added the ‘R’ to stand for the first initial of my last name.
7. When reading and writing, I prefer everyday language that’s easy to read. I don’t believe good writing equates to using big words.
8. I’ve written approximately 271,000 words of fiction since I started writing in 2007. That’s four Nanowrimo ‘novels’ of 50,000 words each, and (conservative guess) 142 flash stories of roughly 500 words each (according to my blog, not including links to other sites for flash). I am also not including word counts for short stories that have not been published or that I haven’t finished because the task of adding them up separately is too troublesome.
9. Open Office (now Libre Office) is my word processor of choice. I’ve lusted after other writing programs, occasionally used other programs, but I always seem to come back to Open Office.
10. I do not have a writing schedule. I write between doing other things, because I usually have to work my schedule around those of other people.
I apologize if I’ve said some of these before. I tried to keep my list restricted to information that has to do with writing, so my awardees are also some of my favorite flash fiction writers. My recommendations for the Kreativ Blogger Award are:
3. Annie Evett
5. Jack Holt
And last but not least, thank you, John! I’m flattered that you thought of my blog for the award.
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Helen
June 8, 2012 at 12:28 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Thank you so much Catherine, I am humbled that you should award this to me. So now I will try to think of 10 things that I haven’t told before – PS I love the avatar of this award – so pretty! ^__^
Helen
June 8, 2012 at 12:30 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I also meant to say Catherine I am honoured as well – thank you!
Helen
June 8, 2012 at 7:03 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Dear me I’ll forget my head one day, I also loved reading the 10 points about you, I liked that you the same as me don’t have a writing schedule. The amount of words comments was so interesting – I don’t think I’ve ever thought about how much I’ve writted – now I will! ^__^ Thanks again Catherine.
Helen
June 8, 2012 at 7:04 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
writted >-< I mean written
John Wiswell
June 9, 2012 at 1:21 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
You’re quite welcome, Cathy. I’d never thought about why it was “Ganymeder” – for some reason I’d assumed you were turning the notion into a verb and way of lfie.
John Wiswell
June 9, 2012 at 1:21 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Or life. That’s a word.
Jack
June 11, 2012 at 8:51 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Thank you very much, Catherine. This is great!
admin
June 14, 2012 at 12:41 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
The word count thing was something I stol- uh, borrowed from Tony Noland. He mentioned in one of his blog posts how many words he had written overall, and I tried to guess mine. I don’t have the software to add everything since I’ve started.