Haven’t posted lately but that doesn’t mean I’ve been idle. As John Lennon and others have said, “Life is something that happens to us while we’re busy making other plans.” Beyond time-consuming personal and medical issues, I’ve continued work on the second book in my Runevision Murder Mystery series as well as writing more short-stories for my second book in that genre. I also have three books in queue to finish reading, at least one of which, I plan to review here.
If you have a WordPress site as I do, you might want to go into your WordPress Reader and check the settings on each of the sites you follow.
Earlier this week, I lost the ability to access any wordpress.com sites including my own. It took three days of frustrating attempts to figure out the problem before the ISP tech people isolated the problem to a “ping/no ping and track-back feature” that malfunctioned on my router. We were able to reset the router and that solved the problem.
I thought everything was back to normal but a quick check of my Reader revealed something else amiss.
Over half of the blogs I follow have been reset in the WordPress Reader to show both email and post settings for those sites had been turned off. I’m not sure if this problem has any relation to my router’s problem but it seems like a strange coincidence.
Did WordPress get hacked or did they just happen to have a ‘glitch’ the same time my router acted up? No idea, but I’m spending time today to check and reset each and every one of my followed sites. You may want to do the same.
Since mid-June I’ve been dealing with some personal issues, primarily medical, and they have put me far behind on many things like finishing up my reading list, writing book reviews, posting to blogs, and working on my manuscripts. My apologies to those I’ve promised book reviews. I assure you they will be posted, albeit later than expected.
With the many annoying, unexpected life interruptions lately (all of which will be overcome) I find it easy to empathize with this Dilbert character.
A writer whose work I greatly admire nominated me for this award. As readers of this blog know, my creative pursuits run the gamut from painting and sculpting to poetry, short stories, and novels. I tend to take my time and linger over the written word, which is just another way of saying I’m not the fastest reader or writer on the block. In contrast, milliethom, the blogger who nominated me, is a frequent contributor to Word of the Week and Flash Fiction for Aspiring Writers. I’d hardly call her “aspiring” as she’s published two seriously excellent books already. I reviewed her first book Shadow of the Raven in April (see that here) and am currently reading her second book Pit Of Vipers. Her books are available on Amazon.
So, with thanks to milliethom for honoring me this way, I’ll share five facts about myself, and then nominate 15 bloggers whose blogs I enjoy.
1. Like the blogger who nominated me, I’m no fan of television shows, especially those of the American variety. On the other hand, I have a DVD collection of British mysteries. At the light end of the scale there’s the Lovejoy Mysteries. When I want to study plot development, characterization, etc. I watch Poirot with David Suchet, Miss Marple (both Joan Hickson and Geraldine McEwan), and the Midsomer Murders time and again. I also enjoy Foyle’s War—exceptionally well written with characters you can love, villains you can loathe, and strong stories set against the backdrop of historical WWII Britain.
2. I grew up in the Ouachita Mountains of Arkansas and spent a lot of time out in the woods—even when I didn’t want to be there. That was certainly the case one frigid December day while hunting deer with my father and grandfather. We’d had no luck despite being on the stand for a chance to make a kill; my grandfather’s dogs had already run past chasing deer—likely as far as Oklahoma and who knows where else, but it wasn’t anywhere near us. Wet, cold, and hungry (a common state of affairs), we tried to get a fire started as the snow fell. We managed a few sparks, a lot of smoke, and eventually a few flames. We’d resigned ourselves to making camp without fire when my grandfather took a long pull from a jug of moonshine, and spat it over the tiny fire, sending blue flames roaring up into the air. Moonshine. White lightning, some call it, and with good reason. Hot beans in a can cooked over that fire tasted better that day than any other I’ve had since.
3. One of my favorite places in the world is the library. From the tiniest community library I’ve visited (saluting St. Paul, Arkansas, population 163 at the last census) to the great libraries of the Smithsonian Institution (2 million volumes and counting), I could happily spend my days lost among the books. One of my more memorable library experiences came when I spent all my life (okay, twelve months) at a remote air base 60 miles north of the Arctic Circle. I kept a list: 365 days, 350 books.
4. I come from a long line of storytellers and stone carvers. Visit the cemeteries around my hometown and you’ll see their work—tombstones expertly crafted by generations. As a young boy I walked past Cotner Monuments on a near-daily basis, and perhaps it was that which set me on a path of stone carving in my own way as part of my art career. I took up hammer and chisel to create garden decorations, mixed-media sculptures, and even some museum work.
5. I’m passing along my passion for books. My granddaughter loves libraries as much as I do, and she reads a book at least once a week (and often more). She’s got talent, too, and is already creating stories of her own.
Now For My Nominees:
For my fifteen nominees: If you wish to participate in this exercise (it is optional) here are the guidelines:
Visit milliethom’s post for additional information if needed. If I’ve nominated anyone whose blog is award-free, please accept my apologies in advance.
I enjoy each of the blogs I’ve nominated, and hope you have time to visit some or all of them!