Molto Bella

That's Italian for "very beautiful". It can also be translated "very nice." I thought both were appropriate descriptions for the award I was given by the ever lovely and generous Cherie.

I've given and been given so many awards that Mom has dubbed us "the mutual admiration society." I think that's a very accurate description of what the online writing community is. It a place for writers to support and encourage, to inspire and be inspired by each other. It is so nice to sign into my blog and be effectively surrounded by other writers, even if I don't have the time to actively converse with you all. And I feel very blessed to have found and been found by the particular bloggers I have.

You are all molto bella.  

7 Words + 7 Links

Today has been one of those really lovely days. The weather is perfect - the last taste of summer with the first taste of autumn. I got to study outside with the sunshine and warm breeze all around me and my little brother's laughter in the background. And then I got a great score on an exam I had to take. And, as if the fact that I'm now only 16 credits away from my degree, I got an award! It came all the way from Ireland (which isn't nearly as impressively far away as it sounds since places in the blogsphere are only clicks away not miles and miles), courtesy of Christine Murray. I'm supposed to match/link my own posts with the seven descriptive words given, and then pass it on to seven others. So here we go.

Most Beautiful: This one was easy. Because dreams are beautiful things and I wrote this on a beautiful day

Most Helpful: Oh dear, oh dear. Unlike so many of my fellow writers who blog, I don't post helpful things; unless words count, in which the majority of my posts could be classified as helpful. But I don't classify them that way. When I think "helpful," I think of all the grammar/query/writing-related instructional posts that so many of you have done. So...I'm going to go with this, to help you with insults. Because if we must insult, we ought to do so with wit!

Most Popular: This is actually my second most popular post. I'll tell you about the post that was really the most popular in a minute. But I'm so glad that so many of you liked this as much as I did. It gives me an excuse to post it again. And I'm always ready to post about how stinkin' sweet my little brother is. He'll be half-asleep walking to the bathroom at midnight, see that my light is on, and call me: "CayCay? I want to give you a hug."

Most Controversial: No one actually voiced controversy over this, which surprised me exceedingly. I kept checking for comments, waiting to cringe because I had offended or angered someone. That never happened, but the post certainly has the potential to cause controversy. At least, it's the only post I can find that comes even remotely close to fitting the "most controversial" category.

Most Surprisingly Successful: Technically, this post was the most popular. It had the highest number of page views (assuming the stats button is accurate), but I couldn't believe it. Why? Well, normally my Wednesday posts get at least one comment (Cherie should get a "Faithful Commenter" award for that. Seriously.) Not this time. I really liked the character in it and just assumed that no one else particularly cared for him or that the whole post was too long or, or, or. You can imagine my surprise, then, when it topped the stats listing!

Most Underrated: I'm going to go with my post on the Vikings for this one. I don't spend a lot of time talking about my manuscript or the research that went into it. I do try not to bore you to tears, so I've purposely refrained from telling you absolutely everything I know about Viking culture. I find it fascinating but, like most research, not all of it needs to be shared. That's the difference between great historical fiction (which gives you enough detail) and boring historical fiction (which suffocates you in detail). That said, the Vikings are close to my heart because there's so much more to them than the legend/stereotype/etc. Their non-pillaging qualities are vastly underrated.

Most Prideworthy: I'm proud of myself for actually starting a blog, so this category was easy. See?

I was going to write blurbs on the seven people I'm going to pass this 7X7 award on to but (a) I've spent too long on this post already. I really can't neglect my reading assignments any longer and (b) I can't do them justice in a matter of seconds. SO, know that every single person I link is fantastic and you should go browse their blogs. It's worth it.

Cherie

Anita

Mark

Jen

Ashley

Julie

and Lydia.

More Bloggity Love

I have been bequeathed yet another award! Behold the verdant object:

It was given to me by Anita. She recently signed a book deal for her debut, SPLINTERED. I think all of her followers, myself included, were almost as excited by her news as she was ;) The banner of her blog matches the description of her book: eerie and whimsical. Anita isn't eerie herself, though. She's actually very amusing and friendly and just plain 'ole fun. Click over to her blog and browse if you have a minute :)

So the rules for this award are as follows:

1. Thank and link to the person(s) who nominated you.
2. Share seven random facts about yourself.
3. Pass the award along to five blogging buddies.
4. Contact those buddies to congratulate them.

When Anita was passed this award she shared seven reasons why her main character was cooler than her, because she's creative like that. All the reasons my MC is cooler than me boil down to one thing (and if I go through the un-boiled reasons, I'll get into all the cultural and ideological facets of those reasons and then this post will too long for consumption), so I'll give you the one reason my MC is cooler and then six random facts about myself. But first I have to thank Anita - the thanking rule should never be broken. Thank you, Anita!

And now, why my main character is cooler than me:

He's a Viking. Think this guy only younger:

I think that pretty much sums things up, don't you?

Now for randominity regarding me...

1. I'm half Italian. I have the dark hair and dark eyes to prove it, though I didn't get all of the Mediterranean skin tone.

2. I was obsessed with the Far East when I was younger. To the point where I made myself a kimono and wore chopsticks in my hair.

3. I've never been in an airport by myself. So the idea of flying to and from Italy alone and navigating terminals with no one to make sure I don't get lost or miss my connecting flights? Slightly terrifying.

4. I used to collect hotwheels. My sisters and I would set up hotwheel races with our cousin during holidays. Let me tell you, they don't run very well on carpet.

5. Purple is favorite color, which isn't saying much because everyone in my family loves purple, but still. I maintain my favor.

6. I want to have the entire Prince Valiant comic collection. My brother got a hardcover volume with original illustrations and...well, my love of Prince Valiant was immediately resurrected. Although, I think it may have ruined my brother for life. He keeps talking about how he wanted to be born when he could be a knight. Him and I were born in the wrong time period ;)

Well, that takes care of rules 1 and 2. Rule 3 is giving me problems though. See, within the last few posts (which is a few weeks for me) I've passed the Liebster and the Cute Blogger award on to fellow bloggers. I'm pretty much out of people to give award to that (a) I haven't given one to already or (b) haven't just gotten one themselves. So, if any of you lovely followers would like to pin the verdant square on your blog, take it with my leave and blessing. I'd be happy for any and all of you to have it.

Fair enough?

Oh Me, Oh My

My Merlin-musicals-and-peanut-butter buddy Jen has given me an award and tagged me in a meme. Because she's just that generous :) I'm not a cuddle-with-pets kind of girl, but if I was, I'd cuddle with my award. Look how soft and fluffy and cute it is:

Told ya ;) And now for the meme...


Show us the cutest most adorable picture of your favorite animal.

And just because I'm not sure that "cute" or "adorable" are appropriate adjectives for wolves, here's my other favorite animal:

You have five seconds to survive the Zombie Apocalypse. Choose one friend who would save your butt and tell us why you choose them.

Um. My sensei. He's a black belt in ten different martial arts and almost a brown belt in Gracie Jiu-Jitsu. I'm pretty sure he could handle the Zombies. Or...my little brother. He's biologically protected by the cuteness factor so I think my chances of survival with him would be really, really good.

Share a quote with us.

Oi. Quotes. You know those people who have all these wonderful, inspiring quotes plastered all over their rooms and in their journals? Yeah, I'm not one of them. I like the idea, I really do. The execution of such an idea, though, has been and is still elusive. But for you, I will find a worthy quote.

"Books are good company, in sad times and happy times, for books are people - people who have managed to stay alive by hiding between the covers of a book." E.B. White

I know you had trouble choosing just one, let's have another.

I'll do better than that. I'll give you two more but you have to guess who says the second one. Okay?

"It takes courage to grow up and turn out to be who you really are." e.e. cummings

And:

"You keep using that word, I do not think it means what you think it means."

Using exactly 27 words tell us your life story.

Born. 17 years in Upstate NY. Moved to KY. 18 months renovating home. Writing in between. Goal: English BA in 2 years. Graduate: December. Future: Writing + Jiu-Jitsu.

Please do not throw your hands up in the air. This is not a stick up.

Hands? What hands? I had to scratch my head.

All the dead rock legends live again. You're standing in a fifty mile long line for:

This would involve me knowing at least one rock legend....

Describe yourself using six words that start with the third letter of your middle name.

Sweet (I'm not being conceited, I promise. This is the most common way my friends describe me). Sincere. Scholarly. Steadfast. Sensible. Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.

What is your middle name? (This is for research purposes only. Your response will not affect your chances of employment)

Rose.

There you have it. I guess the last thing is to pass it one, so I hereby dub the following people Memed:

Tamara

Mark

Huntress

Kate

K.V.

It Almost Sounds like "Lobster"

But it's not. It's "liebster" and it means friend in German. It's also an award that was given to me. See?

It was given to me by K.V.Briar. She is personally responsible for at least my last three followers, so that little number over there that says "50 Followers," that's because of her :) This is my shout-out to her, with my thanks for the award and for introducing me to her own followers. Make sure you check out her blog! You can't go wrong with the woman who thinks in ink and who's mother to the Prince and Princess of Briar Castle.

There's no tell-us-seven-things rule to go along with this award. It's sole purpose is to connect bloggers, specifically those with less than 200 followers. Look how quick and simple these rules are:

1. Show your thanks to the blogger who gave you the award by linking back to them.
2. Reveal your top 5 picks and let them know by leaving a comment on their blog.
3. Post the award on your blog.
4. Bask in the love from the most supportive people on the internet—other writers.
5. And best of all – have fun and spread the karma.

You know what's crazy? I had to go through the list of people I follow three times to find five bloggers who had less than 200 followers. So, these five people listed below are slow-and-steadiers like me whose blogs ought to have more traffic than they do because they're great.

1. Melissa
2. Ashley
3. Bluestocking
4. Krista
5. Christine

I'd spend more time talking about each of them, but my textbooks are calling me. With only twelve credits of the BA left, I cannot ignore them any longer. So I'm off to study and I hope you're off to check out my Liebsters :)

Versatility

I have received yet another bloggity award. This one comes from the cheerful Ashley Nixon. She has a boyfriend who looks like Aladdin and she's written a book about pirates (which sounds like a boatload of fun and adventure). Check her out.

So, this award comes with rules. You probably know them by heart now ;)

- Thank and link to the person who nominated you.
- Share seven random facts about yourself.

- Pass the award along to 5 new-found blogging buddies.
- Contact those buddies to congratulate them

(I will do my best to follow the rules but that's all I can promise)

1. I look significantly younger than I am. I'm almost 22 but most people guess that I'm somewhere between 12 and 15. And they think that my sister (who actually is 15) is around 18. I don't understand it.

2. I use a giant coffee mug for a pen-holder.

3. I've hiked Mount Algonquin - the second highest peak in the Adirondacks.

4. I love peanut butter. I'll eat it straight out of the jar. Or with apples. Or chocolate chips.

5. I have a typewriter. It doesn't work. I just like having it.

6. I can remember actors' names and what they've been in without trying. Even if I only see them in a trailer, I can name a bunch of movies they're in if asked. It sounds like I spend hours looking up actors/actresses and memorizing what they've been in even though I don't. At my house, it's always "Hey, Caitlin, what has So-and-So acted in?" 90% of the time I can answer.

7. A Sonic Mocha-Caramel Java Chiller is my favorite thing to buy whenever I want a treat to celebrate a small accomplishment. They're amazing.


I'm passing this on to:

Courtney
Jennie
Anita
Bluestocking Mum

Enjoy, ladies!

Berry Goodness

Look at all that yumminess! (Actually, if you're hungry right now like I am, looking at a strawberry desert is a really, really bad idea...) I was given this award by the ever-sweet Cherie. If you aren't following her blog already, you should be. She's highly amusing and intelligent and writerly.

These are the rules that go along with that strawberry goodness:

1. Thank and link to the person who nominated me.
2. Share seven random facts about myself.
3. Pass the award to 15 blogging friends.
4. Contact the winners to congratulate them.

I'm afraid I'm going to have to break two of them. And Cherie is nice enough that I'm sure she'll forgive me. You see, I don't have 15 blogging friends to award this too. See those 28 lovely followers on the right? Not all of them have blogs...some of them don't even have profiles I can view. And I've already given several awards to my favorite bloggers, and my new followers (*waves hello*) just got the same award or a similar one. So I'm about 15 people short of being able to fulfill rule number 3. Instead, I'm going to use this award to celebrate all the writers in the blog community who are sharing their admiration and enthusiasm for each other. I raise my strawberry pastry to you.


And now for seven more random facts about me:

1. Lucky Charms is my favorite cereal. If I kept that stuff in the house, I would turn into a marshmellow from eating so much of it.

2. I don't make my bed (except on rare occasions). It's much more comfortable to sleep in a messy bed with all the covers heaped up on top of you than a nicely made one where the sheets are tucked in just so.

3. I love doing laundry. Odd, I know, but I really do like it. I find it very therapeutic to turn piles of dirty laundry into stacks of neatly folded clothes that smell like lavender dryer sheets.

4. I can't eat eggs for breakfast. I can eat them for lunch. I can eat them for dinner. But if I try to eat them for breakfast, I get nauseous. So I avoid eggs in the morning.

5. I'm frighteningly bad at frisbee. If my life depended on my ability to throw a frisbee accurately, I would die. Within seconds.

6. I have a monogrammed wax seal that I use on my letters. I love it. You can look here to get an idea of what it looks like.

7. This makes me laugh. Every single time:

Look, it's Sparkly ;)

Christine has bequeathed this shiny new award to me:

Isn't that classy? I'd like to thank Christine and encourage you all to check out her blog. Oh, did I mention that she's from Dublin? Yes, she's Irish - which I think adds to her cool-and-classy-chick factor :) So go pay her a virtual visit.

This award comes with rules. And they are the following:

1. Thank and link the person who nominated you.
2. Share seven random facts about yourself.
3. Pass the award along to 5 new-found blogging buddies.
4. Contact the winners to congratulate them.


Seven Totally Random and Unimportant Things About Me

1. My ears are asymmetrical. My right ear sticks out more and is higher on my head than my left ear.

2. I have a pair of fingerless purple zebra-striped gloves that I wear when I write. Not the jotting down ideas kind of writing, but the kind where I'm actually sitting down and in-putting words onto the blank screen. I found them in some random store I don't even remember the name of for a couple dollars and I've worn them ever since. It's weird, but I feel more creative and writerly when I have them on.

3. I was named after a character in a movie that I have never seen.

4. I have my own mini museum. All through middle school and part of high school I collected just about everything: stamps, foreign currency, insects, rocks, shells, etc. Everything that hasn't disintegrated is in an old type-case my grandfather gave me and my family calls it "the museum," even though we hardly ever look at any of it. I still like to collect rocks and minerals (especially geodes) but I've lost interest in most of the others as collectibles.

5. I over use parentheses (can you tell?). It's a really bad habit that I can't seem to break myself of. Somehow, I managed to keep them out of my manuscript and I hope to keep (most) of them out of future novels as well. Apparently all that restraint has spilled out into my blogging and letter-writing. My pen-pals will attest to the fact that my parenthetical statements tend to turn into whole paragraphs about bunny-trail topics.

6. I am almost always cold. My dad calls me a cold-blooded vertebrate because 99.99999999% of the time I am wearing layers. I even wear sweaters in the summer (though, in my defense, I only wear them in the air conditioned house after I come in from being out in the sunshine).

7. I want to have a pet dolphin someday.


And now I'd like to give this award to...

Cherie
Huntress
Katie
Angelica
Jessie

Enjoy! :)

Apparently, I'm on Fire

'Tis true. See?

I was given this award by a lovely lady named Cherie. And I feel so very privilege to have received it, especially since I am so new to the whole blogging world. But, back to Cherie. She was one of my first blogger friends and is still always among the first to comment on my posts. And, for those of you who already know Cherie, I think you'll agree that she is never less than kind and generous :) She always has something interesting or amusing (or both) to share and, let me tell you, this chick can write. So, go check out her blog at Ready.Write.Go

And now I'm going to pass this award on. It goes to several people who have made me feel welcomed and important, though I'm just one little link among thousands in the blogsphere (aside from Cherie, of course). Here they are:

Christine
Krista
Jeana
KO
Dwight

Here's the writers and all we do to connect with each other and our readers. Cheers!