the honest scrap award

it's been a long time since anyone gave me a blogging award. i don't feel like i blog enough to get one, but Abby Annis decided i was worthy. thank you, Abby.

the whole blog award thing leads me to my first honest...? whatever we're calling these:

-- one -- i'm not sure about the blogging game. i know bloggers visit other blogs to connect with like-minded people, but sometimes we do it so other people will visit our blogs. i know i want people coming to my blog because i think i have encouraging things to say. the only ways to get people to come to my blog are tell my friends, link to it from my emails, and go to new blogs and leave comments.

i'm not saying there's anything wrong with it. i just think it's strange. the fact that bloggers give each other awards makes it even more bizarre. who comes up with these awards? just anybody? maybe i'll make up one of my own, just to see how far it goes and how many people give it out.

-- two -- i'm still not sure about connecting with people via email, yahoo chat, and facebook. i would rather talk with someone over the phone instead of chatting via any of these. more than that, i would rather meet with someone face to face, but i know that's not always possible. i suppose that people who enjoy writing letters have resisted using email. letters are certainly more personal, but there's no going back to the way things were. you can hide your head in the sand and pretend these modes of communication don't exist, but they're still there.

on the other hand, i've connected with friends i thought i'd lost forever because of facebook. of course, i've also connected with some unexpected friends from highschool and some people i've never met and probably won't ever meet, but we're "friends" because facebook says we are. weird.

also, if it weren't for yahoo chat, i wouldn't benefit from the encouraging, and often humorous chats with my writing partner, so i'm grateful for that little feature.

-- three -- i used to be an avid scrapbooker and paper artist. i started scrapbooking soon after the birth of my second child (almost 14 years ago - yikes! is he that old??) and continued up until the moment i realized i wanted to try to write a novel in 30 days.

the writing bug took hold and i've hardly touched my supplies, which are numerous and varied. i think i've scrapped with my daughter once or twice in the last few months, but mostly, the stuff sits there in the beautiful scrapbook cabinet and armoire that my father in law made for me the year i started writing. ironic, isn't it?

one of my favorite things to do was work on altered books, but i've abandoned that as well. now i make my own books, as in novels, but i did find this lovely blog background and i'm happy that it looks so much like something i would do in a scrapbook or altered book.

-- four -- i still think it's very strange to have a fan page for Eldala on facebook. one of my friends suggested i make a fan page for myself, but that was really strange, so i settled for making one for my book. the problem with that is, now i'm working on a sequel and giving out news about the sequel on the Eldala fan page. i'm thinking of just switching the whole thing to a fan page for me. my other writing friends have done it. why won't i?

-- five -- i vascillate between wanting everyone to know i wrote a novel and wanting no one to know. i suppose i'm not alone in my wishy-washiness. writers tend to be shy creatures who poke their heads out of their writing caves once in a while to see what the weather is like and then go back inside so they can describe the experience in their stories. the idea of drawing attention to ourselves is horrid. the problem with telling stories, however, is that we want to share them, and in order to share them, we have to draw attention to them somehow.

there are days when i wish someone else would promote my book so i could get on with telling stories. and no, having a publisher wouldn't solve that problem because unless you're a Nora Roberts or a Dean Koontz, a publisher is not going to promote your book.

that nicely leads into my next confession (??) which is:

you'll have to wait for the next post because this one is getting long and i really don't enjoy reading long-winded posts myself, so i'll spare you. if you know me well, you can imagine what it might be. you can find the second part here: honest scrap award, part 2.