Awards and a tough chapter done

First, some housekeeping. Of the pleasant variety, thank goodness.

My blog received two more awards over the past couple of days, despite the spate of character sketches I foisted upon you all.

Anyway, the lovely Christi Goddard at http://christigoddard.blogspot.com/ gave me the Sunshine Award, ostensibly awarded to someone who makes us laugh. Why she gave it to me is anyone's guess. I only hope I make her laugh because of my wicked sense of humor, and not because of my ineptness. Of course, either way, dude I'll take it.

I am officially an award whore. Really.

So I am supposed to pass this on to any bloggers who make me laugh on a regular basis. This one is too easy.

Kristy Hutchison, this baby is all yours. If you don't believe me when I say this woman is truly hilarious, bop on over to her blog at http://kristy-hutchison.blogspot.com/ and read about how she was damn near killed by an innocent vial of Visine.

I also received the Soulmate Award from Justine Dell at http://justine-dell.blogspot.com/, who is not only an excellent writer, but someone whose book is destined to beat mine to the bookstore (provided mine ever gets there.).

Now this award requires me to pick five followers and make up outrageous lies about them. Look, I was a journalist for years. And you want me to go against the very grain of my character and write lies?

(Sorry. I had to stop typing to wipe the bottled water off my screen. God, I love that joke.)

Anyhow, the lying part is easy. But picking five followers is hard. Let's see. I'll just close my eyes and point at that little list of followers/bloggers on the left of my screen and .... ah, here we go.

First up is my dear friend and soulmate Gina at http://amuseinmypocket.blogspot.com/.

Gina is a former police officer who was run out of Cleveland because of some nasty scandal involving a one-armed judge, an automatic drip coffee maker and a pair of pliers. I'm not sure exactly what happened, but hot damn, it must have been good!

Next is Josin McQuein at http://josinlmcquein.blogspot.com/.

Josin's claim to fame is that she was fifth runner-up in the 2004 American Idol competition, which was all well and fine until those photos ended up the Internet. After that, um, unfortunate incident, Josin moved to Alaska, where she spends most of her time hanging out with Eskimos and writing best-selling romance novels. Under a different name, of course.

Then there's Marty Wombacher at http://www.aguywalksinto365bars.com/.

Marty is originally from San Diego, where he was once an up-and-coming starting pitcher for the Padres until he blew his arm out hoisting one too many brewskis while sitting in a hot tub with six nubile Playboy Bunnies. Now, he is forced to write books for a living. The poor guy can barely look at a hot tub these days, let alone a Bunny.

And of course, there's Christi Goddard (Satan's Daughter, as I like to call her) at http://christigoddard.blogspot.com/.

Christi was a young and innocent librarian in a small Iowa town until a tall, dark stranger arrived one hot summer day. With his rugged good looks and chiseled chin, he looked at her with those crinkly, smoky eyes and she literally swooned. Ah, but one day, during a mid-afternoon dalliance in the Young Adult section, Christi looked up to see a group of Cub Scouts staring at her and her rugged stranger, their little jaws hanging open in shock and horror. She is now a literary agent in New York City, where she represents only torrid romantic thrillers.

And last but not least, there's Wendy at http://quillfeather-blog.blogspot.com/.

Wendy is originally from England, but was forced to move to New Zealand following an unfortunate incident involving a certain handsome soccer player whose wife is a famous-but-washed-up-singer. She spends her time these days leading tours of bat-infested caves and watching Bend It Like Beckham over and over again.


Ok. These were all lies, except the one about Wombacher. No! I'm just kidding. That one was a lie, too, no matter how badly he wants it to have been true. :)

On a more honest note, I knocked off an entire chapter of revisions today. And it was a tough one, too. It's a part of the book where the action picks up and parts of it were very choppy, in the opinion of wonderful book editor Staley. Of course, she was right. So I spent many hours today smoothing it out while ramping up the suspense. I think it works nicely.

Until tomorrow.