Liebster Award 2013

As I mentioned yesterday, I used to try to crawl into a hole when someone was sweet enough to nominate me for a blog award. Who wants to listen to me answer questions? But now I know better, and moreover, even if you think my answers are boring, I have people I want *you* to meet.

So I thank KS Collier for nominating me for the Liebster award, and I’m also going to tag back Tricia Clasen, who tagged me for the same award awhile back and was very gracious about the fact that I crawled into a hole.

Here’s a bit more about Liebster:

Liebster Award Rules:

1. Thank the blogger who presented you with the Liebster Award, and link back to his or her blog.

2. Answer the 11 questions from the nominator; list 11 random facts about yourself, and create 11 questions for your nominees.

3. Present the Liebster Award to 11 bloggers, who have blogs with 200 followers or less, whom you feel deserve to be noticed. Leave a comment on the blogs letting the owners know they have been chosen. (No tag backs.)

4. Upload the Liebster Award image to your blog.

So without further adieu, my answers, my facts, and my questions.

B is for Blog Hops—the A-Z Blog Challenge

One thing I was completely unprepared for in the blogosphere was the plethora of contests, awards, and hops. And the ways in which those things allow us to meet all sorts of other wonderful people along the way. See, I’m the shyest extrovert I know—the idea of speaking in front of 25,000 people doesn’t faze me in the least (and I’ve done it), but tagging someone I don’t know on a blog hop? That makes me break out in cold sweats and want to crawl into a hole.

But guess what? Turns out I have nothing to be shy about. I blogged last year about learning that all of this is about first and foremost, making friends. And I like making friends.

So....I’m participating this year in the A-Z blog hop. If you don’t know what that is, it’s a challenge where during the month of April, bloggers blog short posts on a myriad of topics, but all linked via blogging straight through the alphabet. So “A” might be for “agents” on a writer blog, or for “apple pie” on a food blog. Last year, I saw a lot of people participating in my feed, and it looked like fun. It’s going to be crazy, given that I’m teaching and trying to make waves on my dissertation, but a challenge isn’t a challenge if it’s not challenging, right? To learn more, head on over to A-Z Challenge, where you’ll see the full linky of all those participating. It looks like we’ll be numbering well over 1,000, with bloggers of all different ilk. You’ll find the link in my badge over here, as well.

I’m looking forward to meeting as many A-Z bloggers, especially writer bloggers, as I can during the month of April, and hope those who drop by here enjoy the ride!

Meanwhile, all of us are starting to visit each other, and so, I find myself once again being nommed for a blog award. As it turns out, blog awards aren’t something to crawl into a hole about—they’re another way to make friends and to introduce some friends to our other friends. So stop by tomorrow for my thanks to KS Collier for nominating me for the Liebster Award, my answer to her questions, and my eleven friends I’d like to introduce you to!

Blog Hop: Re-Introduction!

Through my friend Rachel, (whom I know better as "Smiley" and it's SO TRUE, she is a smiley personified), I got alerted to this blog hop: "Please Allow Me to Reintroduce Myself." Since I am aiming to make 2013 "The year in which Jess actually blogs," this couldn't come at a better time So, to my cohort of people who follow—bless you all!—here's some things about me, old and new!

My full name is Jessica; I often go by Jess.
I used to work in publishing, now I work in bookselling, but mostly I'm a grad student.
I have a cat named Pacey, although this is only tangentially related to the character on Dawson's Creek.
I've been writing YA my whole life, but only realized that in the last two years when I actually looked at my accumulated portfolio of unpublished shorts and trunk novels.
I live in Washington, D.C. And yes, I actually have met the President.
The best book I read in 2012 was probably the fifth Gallagher Girls book.
So far, the best book I've read in 2013 was a book I beta read. It had better sell so you all can read it, too.
My favorite book is an obscure little literary book called The Soloist by Mark Salzman.
I take photos for fun and am starting to learn more about it. 
I drink 40 ounces of coffee a day. Every day.
In 2013 I'm going to try to revise a novel, write a new one, and produce a dissertation from start to finish. I recognize this may make me insane.
I own all 7 Harry Potter books in hardcover in both the US and UK editions. I also own two copies of book 4--a first printing one where Lily and James Potter come out of Harry's wand in the wrong order, and a second printing one where they come out in the right order.  

And with that said...

Here's a poorly-cropped photo of me at Wizarding World. By sheer accident, I wound up in Orlando visiting family and was there on opening weekend. It was an awesome, awesome day and I left in tears that I couldn't come back the next day.

It's nice to meet you! Thank you for reading my blog.

Top Ten Tuesday: Series I Haven't Finished

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish that combines lists and books.  This weeks topic is...Top Ten Series I Haven't Finished. 

This bloghop was brought to my attention by Rachel over at Rachel Writes Things. Yay, I've found a new hop! 

First off, let me confess: I don't have 10. I am a sucker for finishing series, and buying them all so they look pretty on my shelf. I am that guy. On the other hand, I am totally that guy (gal) whom you want to read the first book in your series, because I'll totally read the rest of them. Especially if you have pretty covers. 

But here are the ones I haven't gotten through. You'll notice many are in the same genre...as it turns out, epic fantasy? Not my thing. 

J.R.R. Tolkien, THE LORD OF THE RINGS. I am bored of the rings. I have tried to read LOTR at least five times, first in high school, then before the Jackson films came out, then when the Jackson films were finished (because I loved the Jackson films), then when I had to teach LOTR:FOTR in the reading classes I taught, then when I was on a cruise and thought I'd have enough time to finish them (I packed them to go on a cruise! Why did I do that? There's THREE--I read SHADOW OF THE WIND by Carlos Ruiz Zafon instead).  I realize it's darn-near book sacriliege to have never finished LOTR, but there you are.

Christopher Paolini, THE INHERITANCE CYCLE. Now, I loved ERAGON. LOVED it. Loved it so much I went out and bought ELDEST at the 24-hour grocery at 11 PM one night so I could keep going. Loved it so much that I asked for a hardcover of ERAGON for Christmas that year so I'd have a matching set. And then? I got about four chapters into ELDEST, laid it down one evening, and never picked it back up. Now I don't remember who the characters are any more, and I have no desire to go on. 

Ally Condie, MATCHED series. I thought MATCHED was pretty catchy. But I didn't buy the love triangle at all, and I didn't care about...gosh I don't even remember his name. Kyle? I feel like it was more future-y than that. So when it split into a dual-POV in CROSSED I was pretty much done. I didn't care enough about half the cast to want to read his POV. 

Rick Riordan, PERCY JACKSON series. These just didn't cross over well enough for me. Unlike Harry Potter or some other middle grade series I've read, I felt like I was reading middle grade. There's nothing wrong with a book that's correctly written for its audience, and I can see why 8-12 year-old boys love PERCY. But he didn't hold much appeal for me. 

Two that I've started but haven't even made it through the first book: DIVERGENT series by Veronica Roth and GAME OF THRONES/SONG OF ICE AND FIRE by George R. R. Martin. The Roth series I dropped because as I read it, I was thinking, "This book opens perfectly, is paced perfectly, and is otherwise exactly what this genre should be." That was when I realized I was just exhausted from reading too much YA dystopian. Even though I knew it seemed like a good book, I was just bored. The Martin books have too many characters for me to handle at this time. My friends have told me to watch the TV series first, to have faces to put with the names, but I just don't have the time to do that right now. Maybe later.

And last, THE GIVER quartet by Lois Lowry. Why haven't I finished that, even though I love that series to pieces? Because she just added another book! Squee! And thanks to the National Book Festival, I have a copy of it even though it isn't out for another week! Stay tuned--it'll be my Strict Pick for October 2.

YA Highway 130: A Book that Brings Back Memories

"Road Trip Wednesday is a ‘Blog Carnival,’ where YA Highway's contributors post a weekly writing- or reading-related question that begs to be answered. In the comments, you can hop from destination to destination and get everybody's unique take on the topic." Today's question on the YA Highway Road Trip is: "What is a book that brings back memories?"

For me, the answer is super, super simple. THE BABY-SITTERS CLUB series, by Ann M. Martin. I devoured these books. They were hot right when I was busy being a precocious reader--like many people who go on to spend the rest of their lives writing, I read middle-grade novels early, in first and second grade. I found the eleven and thirteen-year-old protagonists so glamorous, and longed for the days when I could baby-sit.

AW Blog Chain October 2011

So I decided to jump out of my hovel and write for the AbsoluteWrite blog chain this month. Maybe make some new friends. Of course, I've managed to sort of screw up posting twice, because you know, I picked a month when I was unpredictably busy, but I'll do better next month. This month's prompt was:

Choose a word from this list of Lovecraftian words or this list of obscure words (or one from both if you're feeling ambitious). Use your chosen word(s) to craft your post. It doesn't have to be Lovecraftian or even horror, but it should be dark, or unsettling, or scary, or Halloweenish in general.

NaNoWriMo is right around the corner, and I wanted to try out my protag's voice a bit (maybe not my protag, actually--I'm not sure if I'm going to write this book or not. Hey, there's still two days to decide, right?) So even though this book won't be fantasy or magical realism at all, I saw the word Necronomicon, and my brain ran off with me. Since I felt I was going to use the concept and not the word, I also worked with antediluvian, for fun. Enjoy, and visit the other entries and blogs of this month's participants at the end of the post.