web site recommendations

Morgan Mandel surprised me yesterday by putting up my post at Spunky Seniors almost as soon as I sent it to her. It was about my Aunt Ruth, and how she inspired Pearl in “The Dragon of North 24th Street” and Aunt Libby in EEL’S REVERENCE. Check out the other posts there. It makes me proud to be a crone. Not just for women.

I’ve never been on this blog, but I aspire to: WOOF: Women Only Over Fifty. SUCH a fun site! The other day, they had ads from back in the day, with shoes for $1.98. Cute shoes, too.

One I subscribe to by email is Aging Abundantly. It covers the age spectrum from empty nest to eldercare, from being the caregiver to needing one. Since the blogger, Dorothy Sanders, is a woman and since most caregivers are women, the posts tend to be weighted toward women. It isn’t just a single-gender blog, though. Lots of encouragement, advice and strength for everybody of any gender, any age, any stage.

WRITING PROMPT: How old is your main character? What relationship has he or she had with elderly people and/or caregivers?

MA

The fabulous Holly Jahangiri, who is not the Godzilla of NYC, though not through any lack of trying, nominated me to carry on this meme. So here I go.

Here are the My 7 Links rules, and here is a list of some of the already-nominated bloggers. I say “some”, because I wasn’t on there, the last time I looked. I’m a ninja! Imbizibal!

- Your most beautiful post

This one, on the term Sky-blue pink, because it’s about my late grandfather and has a picture of a sky-blue pink sky.

– Your most popular post

The one on how I self published.

– Your most controversial post

That would probably be Bejection Dancing. A publisher felt I was unfair to publishers in it, and decided he didn’t want to be my publisher, if that was my opinion. Either that one, or this one about okra. My commenters, by the way, convinced me to try okra in soup and I’m a total okra convert. I can be taught.

– Your most helpful post

Has to be the one on formatting for Smashwords and Kindle.

– A post whose success surprised you

For years, I got masses of hits on this short story. I’m vain, but I’m not that vain, and I couldn’t figure out why this story was so popular. Then I looked at the title, looked at the flood of hits coming all together, and looked at the origins of the hits. People taking English as a Second Language were ripping it off for assignments with the same title. So I changed the name of the page, and the hits stopped. Boo-hoo for me.

– A post you feel didn’t get the attention it deserved

The Friday Recommends post with the link to Spec the Halls, the winter-holiday speculative fiction anthology benefiting Heifer International. There were very few click-throughs, and that was disappointing. Yes, it’s pricey for an eBook–more than I generally pay–but ALL the proceeds go to buying animals/birds/bees for people in third-world countries. A milk cow or a flock of chickens can lift a whole village out of poverty.

– The post that you are most proud of

This review of a two-fisted Kentucky Opera Association production of Madama Butterfly. It was a wicked good production, and I think the review nailed it. If I didn’t like opera, that review would make me want to go see one.

Now, I need to pass the torch. Here are five bloggers I read every day, or should:

Well, Holly, obviously, but I can’t tag her back.

1. Marion Driessen’s Figments of a Dutchess. I met Marion on Twitter, which illustrates one reason I love the interwebs. How else would I become friends with this wonderful woman in Holland?
2. Jennifer Burke’s Jen’s Bookshelf. Again, how else would I have met a woman in Australia who shares my detestation for possums? At an I Hate Possums worldwide convention?
3. Leah Porter’s On Capitol Avenue. In contrast to the first two, Leah is a face-to-face friend who lives right here in my own beloved town, but she’s a citizen of the world in the best possible sense.
4. Bodie Parkhurst’s Magic Dog Press. Bodie is another long-distance friend. We met in Dani Greer’s blog book tour class. We’ve read each other’s blogs, guested on each other’s blogs, read each other’s books and reviewed them. She’s extraordinary.
5. Steve Saus’s Ideatrash, with its essays, reviews and information on writing. Great reading for writers, readers and/or thinkers. I’ve actually been lucky enough to meet Steve a few times at conventions (speculative fiction ones, not I Hate Possums ones), and he’s the publisher of the Spec the Halls anthology.

There are SO many more, but I’m following the rules or I’d be rummaging around forever.

WRITING PROMPT: What animal or insect does your main character hate, and why?

MA

Last week, I promised anthropology in my title and then did not, apparently, follow through. This is because I’m so stupid subtle. I had it in mind how the fabulous Sara Deurell, who is posting again, is currently thinking about anthropology as a major in college and forgot to post the actual anthropology link I intended to post.

So NOW I recommend the series of posts Barbara J. King (my favorite anthropologist until Sarah graduates) is doing for the NPR Cosmos and Culture blog. The latest one (as of 10/21/2011) is Do Animals Grieve.

From the Department of Self-referentiality, I call your attention to the menu above the post. It is now a drop-down menu and people looking for posts specifically about food can hover over the Recipes tab to find posts about food. People looking for posts specifically about writing can hover over the Writing tab and find posts specifically about writing and–and this is the interesting bit–specifically by frequent guest F. A. (Floyd) Hyatt.

I have a post up today at The Write Type called Telemarketers For Fun And Profit. Some people like to mess with telemarketers’ heads. I don’t, unless you call “connecting with them as one person/worker to another” messing. As Maude said of people in “Harold and Maude“, “Well, they’re my species!”

Again, I recommend visiting Ironclad Tech Services. Sean has some way cool help articles on there, especially for Android and Linux. He’s very responsive to questions, too. It’s a fairly new site so it isn’t, as we blog-heads say, “fully populated”, but there’s plenty of good stuff there. I recommend that you bookmark it and visit, just to see what’s new.

Now, from the department of Coolest Thing Ever: Mitchell Allen (no relation) of Morpho Designs loves writing prompts. If you go to his site and scroll down to Dirty Chocolate, you’ll see his response to one of mine. Cool!

If you write something in response to one of my prompts and post it somewhere, please feel free to come back here and drop a link to it!

I’ll be walking for–well, against, actually–breast cancer tomorrow, then going to an all-day church retreat (No, they are not deprogramming me, shut up!), but I’ll try to crank out something before I go. Sunday is Sample Sunday. Not sure if I’ll have an excerpt or a flash or what. Have a good un!

WRITING PROMPT: A telemarketer calls someone who messes with his/her head. Write the scene from the point of view of the messer and then from the point of view of the telemarketer.

MA

First, Sara D vs. Reality is back! It’s a wonderful blog about life, writing, and the writing life. FTC full disclosure: I gave birth to her.

I recently met S. M. Worth on Google+ and love his comments and his blog. He’s a fellow spec fic writer and a fellow NaNoWriMo participant. Visit his site for NaNo desktop calendars.

If you don’t know what NaNo is, it’s National Novel Writing Month–the month of November, traditionally. I’m doing it again this year. Come with!

Debbie Ridpath Ohi (aka Inkygirl) is a terrific writer and illustrator. Her blog is well worth a full exploration.

I’m not yet a vegan or even a full-blown vegetarian, but my new favorite food site is the wonderfully named Vegans Eat Pencil Shavings. Fab food!

This is the 14th of the month, so my blogging schedule (see the drop-down menu above under “About”) tells me I must have a post up at Echelon Explorations. Oh, look! I do!

See you tomorrow for a Grab Bag post and then Sunday with a sample of my writing. Have a good weekend! (Only if you want to, of course.)

WRITING PROMPT: A character has to do something under time pressure that usually takes a long time.

MA