Inspiration Has Struck!

Marian Allen named my blog as one of her Very Inspiring Blogs for my actions in the face of adversity. And here I thought I was just carping and whining.

Rules:

Display the award logo on your blog.
State SEVEN facts about yourself.
Link back to the person who had already nominated you.
Nominate seven other bloggers who deserve this award.
Notify each of the bloggers of your nomination.

My seven facts:

1. Marian has never seen TITANIC. I have never seen TOP GUN.

2. I took classes in dancing during college. Because I enjoyed it, not because I was necessarily good at it.

3. My burning ambition in my teenage years was to write and draw for Marvel comics.

4. Many authors start with fanfic. But did you know that my first fanfic was inspired by The Black Stallion?

5. I co-founded a Pagan church in Kentucky. My official position, as I described it to the IRS, was 'genetrix'.

6. I still buy Pretenders albums. Yeah, it's no longer the Eighties, but Chrissie Hynde isn't dead.

7. I loathe James Joyce's writing, no matter how much Joseph Campbell loved it.

My most inspiring blogs:

1. I gotta kick the first one back to Marian. She finds joy in the littlest things.

2. Doctor Grumpy in the House: Dr. Grumpy's posts about strange patient encounters are hilarious, but he also gives us insights on American history. The Love Boat - 1863 is probably my all-time favorite.

3. The SL Newser. Coverage of the arts and community in Second Life. A great boost to the creatives there and a revelation of how many good-spirited people there are in SL.

4. Other Things Amanzi. This is the blog of "Bongi", a surgeon who works in Mpumalanga, South Africa. His observations about life, surgery, and his area of South Africa always take me out of myself. It's a whole other world. He doesn't post enough.

5. Gwen Mayo's blog. Yes, she's my spouse. Her view of our shared life, however, does the same thing Bongi's posts do.

6. Magpie a la modus operandi. Marguerite's great personal accounts about her life that make observations about life in general. Perseverance is a virtue after all.

7. Terribleminds: Chuck Wendig. His combination of writer's coaching and drill-sergeant language inspires me to get back on the keyboard when I think my writing sucks.

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The Other Side of the Writer: Political Blogging

One of the political blogs I post on, BlueGrassRoots, was selected to represent Kentucky at the Democratic National Convention last month. The site is sort of like DailyKos, with people posting their diaries for others to read and review. Most of the members are Kentuckians, although not all of them are.

I had the great honor of attending the Convention as one of the reporters representing the site: media pass and everything! Twenty-three years after getting my degree in journalism, I had my first press gig.

There were three of us, so we took turns for who got which night at the Pepsi Center. I covered Tuesday night and got to see all the Hillary action. I also got a pass for the final night at Invesco Field, where I got to see Obama deliver his speech from a skybox seat! It was an experience of a lifetime.

If you would like to see my political posts in general, you can check them out at:
http://www.bluegrassroots.org/userDiary.do?personId=82

Interest or Commitment?

Well, it’s time for the rubber to hit the road.

I have spent the past six months querying agents, working on synopses until my eyes crossed, and pondering rewrites of my novel. So far, no nibbles from agents, but I need to get on with my writing. I didn’t go on hiatus entirely from writing; I’ve worked on some short stories and have done a good amount of political blogging. Political blogging is, of course, when you root out the fiction in other people’s words.

My blogging, in fact, is where I’ve been most successful this year. I was invited to a bloggers’ panel at the local university earlier this year, and I’m one of three bloggers from Kentucky who will be using a press credential at the Democratic National Convention in August. My first press gig comes twenty-three years after getting a degree in journalism! I guess I had to wait for the Internet to find my niche.

In terms of my next novel, though, I find myself in a quandary. After much deliberation and one very telling Tarot reading, I think I would be better off not taking one specific character into the novel format. Too many people are familiar with him and would attempt to take credit for any book I wrote, regardless of content. This leaves me with the following options:

1. I could write the follow-up story to All This and Family, Too and see if I could sell it alongside or separately from the original novel.

2. I could write a Bethany Howard novel sans woo-woo. I’m not certain I want to do this, though.

3. I could write a novel featuring Lana, my lesbian detective in Asheville.

4. I could write an entirely new novel with characters from scratch.

My wife and I do plan to write at least one novel together, but I believe that having separate projects will make us better writers.

Meanwhile, I need to make some decisions... because six months is long enough to take off from writing novels, and I have made a commitment to writing them.

The Bluegrass Blogger Bash!

This Friday, I am one of the invited guests at the Bluegrass Blogger Bash, which will take place in the University of Kentucky Student Center. The focus of the event is political blogging, so I was invited on the basis of my work on blogs like Bluegrass Roots and Focus on the 88th. It's not a fiction-oriented event, although there does seem to be plenty of fiction in politics. Come by, if you can!