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Wednesday, December 5, 2012

Very Inspirational Award



So a little while ago Cindy Vaskova bestowed this Very Inspiring Blogger Award upon me. The real compliment  was Cindy finding my writing inspirational at all. It's one of the nicest things a writer can say to another. I mean, unless it turns out I inspired you to strangle your neighbors. Then I'd probably be closer to 'Neutral' than 'Flattered.'


The game requests you reveal seven things about yourself, and that you hand it over to fifteen other people. I've played a lot of games where you reveal personal details, and tried my best to come up with new stuff this time. Please tell me if I repeated something. I'll probably owe you a private revelation if you get me.

1. I root for the villains a lot. For instance, I’ve always thought the Ring Wraiths were really cool, and enjoyed the way they adapted into the movies. When the Nazgul attack in Peter Jackson’s Return of the King, I cackled so much that a friend turned to me, put her hand on my arm and said, “You’re enjoying this too much.” If only I could dive-bomb some good guys on my pet pterodactyl.

2. I’ve never had a drink of alcohol.

3. I’ve never smoked anything. For a year in my teens I needed a nebulizer for my lung medicine, which I guess counts as inhaling controlled substances.

4. I once dieted and exercised so hard that my gallbladder overreacted and I had to have it removed. I almost went bankrupt with medical bills. Healthy living, everybody.

5. One time while I was in the hospital, my brother and father gave me a bunch of rare football cards. I was so surprised that I flatlined.

6. I don’t have as much of a conscience as I have a modular sense of what some people might object to. When I love what I’m writing, even this modular sense goes on the fritz, and sometimes I’ll ask a friend to read it over to ensure it’s not horribly amoral. The most recent case was Exorcising Mother (thanks be to Max Cantor).

7. One reason that I’ve never bought Meme Theory is that human beings are not unconscious repetition machines. It’s not blind luck or survival traits that necessarily cause us to adopt an idea or behavior; we are quite often intelligent designers, altering a notion upon reception, or after a period of mulling it over. For instance, I’m changing how this award works. I’m going to pass it to three people, and I’m going to include the stipulation that you have to tell why you’re naming them.

So, I'll be passing this on to...

1. Stephen Hewitt of Café Shorts. While his blog is updated infrequently, every story he posts is lovingly crafted with provocative language, characterization and plotting. He is one of those fiction bloggers who not nearly enough people read. I deeply admire writers who experiment with different material, and Stephen does this with almost every piece. Sometimes the inspiration is simply that I should be as good at crafting the whole piece of fiction, with all its wiggling bits, as he is.

2. Elephant’s Child is obviously not her real name. However, it’s what she goes by on the internet, and I respect that. EC has one of the most positive blogs on the web. Even when she’s grappled with health problems and personal tragedies, she’s fostered compassion from her community of friends and followers. It’s something I’d like to be able to inspire as easily as she makes it look.

3. T.S. Bazelli is very transparent about her writing process. There are status updates, she's also happy to discuss what she got out of an article, a writing camp, or even her latest set of edits. She's been incredibly kind to me as both a beta reader and discussing her own process. I love transparency in how we get fiction to work.

15 comments:

  1. My neighbors are fine! I asure you..

    All of your seven "confessions" were new to me, and I enjoyed reading them. I second you one the first one- villains are way better! Cheers :)

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    1. I'm glad to hear about those neighbors. I assure you I've not secretly endorsed any campaigns against them.

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  2. Interesting, John. I like that you root for the villians. My family has a habit of doing that as well.

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    1. Watched V/H/S last night. Most recent case of me rooting for villains.

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  3. One aspect of meme theory has to do with the evolutionary costs of social exclusion. Being isolated as a social outsider has known costs in health, income, and lifespan. This is a reduction in evolutionary fitness for your and your offspring.

    If everyone else is doing something, you may choose to do it as well, not because you particularly benefit from doing it, but because you would suffer excessively for NOT doing it. It may be conscious (like the way I tried for years to be able to talk about pro football with friends and coworkers) or it may be unconscious (like the norms of profanity usage among your social peers).

    That being said, I approve of your intelligent re-design of this meme from 15 to 3. 15 is just crazy.

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    1. I'm not entirely sure how your first two paragraphs disagree with me, so it's hard for me to take offense. Your description of when someone might adopt a behavior for benefit wouldn't preclude all the times when one doesn't, either consciously or unconsciously, and even in those cases an individual may willfully change the idea and behavior to suit some ends. Very different from blind luck and genetic mutation.

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  4. Oh my, thank you for passing this on ;) Interesting tidbits as always. Funny, but the medical nuggets are horrifying too.

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  5. Wellm your 7 things are far more interesting than my 7 were! Congats on also receving this award. ^)_^

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    1. I strive to keep these sorts of things entertaining!

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  6. Of course one barracks for the villians. They are so often much more interesting. And I agree with you about the Ring Wraiths. Darth Vader was an exception. He always struck me as a bad tempered emphysemia sufferer rather than a died in the wool villian.
    I assume that your brother and father regretted their generosity very quickly.
    Thank you for the award. However, it is my followers and readers yourself among them who display the amazing compassion - and I don't think that it is something which can be produced artificially or coerced. Perhaps it is you and they that are inspirational.

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    1. I was fine a minute later. Flatlines are most frequently the result of a poor equipment attachment or oversensitive readings. Plus I got to keep the cards!

      As far as the compassion of an audience, it can be attracted and fostered. You absolutely do that. That's why so many people congregate around you.

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  7. I'm not sure if they were part of an award post like this one, but you've explicitly mentioned #4 and heavily implied #1 before. I also seem to remember seeing #2 and #3 in a post at some point, but I might be making that up. So do I get extra special reveals? This is important for my ongoing internet-stalking campaign. ;)

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    1. How did I heavily imply the Nazgul thing? I want to know that one!

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    2. 11/13/12

      "9. Who or what inspired you to write this book?
      J.R.R. Tolkien for making the Ring Wraiths so much cooler than the hobbits. Peter S. Beagle for giving the Red Bull majesty, and Michael Crichton for making the t-rex and raptors the stars. Stephen King for making Leland Gaunt and Randall Flagg so much cooler than anyone they preyed upon. Grendel. Circe. Skeletor. Thanos. Pretty much an entire life of finding the villains more appealing set me up to eventually write about a desperate army of them."

      So you didn't imply the cackling, but you did explicitly state your well-justified love for the villain. I'm only tweaking your nose because I want to see what else you'll come up with. :DDDD

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    3. You know what? I'll count that! I'll send you some super-double-secret-probation revelation over on Facebook or e-mail. It's only fair.

      Now I have to come up with something, though...

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