My instructions were to write six interesting things about myself or my work and then recommend six other blogs for visiting. I got the impression, though the rules never said outright, that choosing writers’ or writing-related blogs would be better than not.

Okay, so six interesting things about myself or my work. That’s quite tricky really…*thinks*

1. I met my husband online on a silly photo-rating website. He traveled to come meet me in order to model for some pictures I wanted taken, and despite my best intentions I fell in love with him almost immediately. We were engaged within four months of meeting and married on October 31st a few years ago. We wore costumes — he and our daughter dressed up as pirates and I was a wench.

2. I am ridiculously addicted to World of Warcraft. Thankfully, for family peace, my husband and daughter both play as well. Danica is far less addicted than Jo or I, which I think is definitely a good thing, but it’s nice to have the game as something we can all do together. It’s not a traditional family activity, I grant you, but we make sure to do lots of things with actual face-time as well, so I think it’s all good

3. My Aphanasian novels, Swamp Story* and Shadows are about to be joined by another. I plan to write a third story set in Aphanasia this November for NaNoWriMo. “See The Sky Again” will tell the tragic story of the mountain elf A’nuntu. What makes this extra cool to me is that A’nuntu makes a small but pivotal appearance in Shadows, continuing my trend of having all the Aphanasian novels connected in some way.

4. I’m currently in the second year of a four year degree; a B.A. with a double major — Psychology and English. I am incredibly busy so I tend to take one or two courses at a time with long stretches in between. My goal is to finish it before I’m 40, and sadly it may take that long. That’s okay though, because I really enjoy the courses…mostly. Statistics sucked, but in the end I got an A

5. The only television I watch are re-runs of Law and Order while I’m working out every afternoon, and Doctor Who which we tape on our VCR (no TiVo here) and watch later as a family.

6. I enjoy cooking and baking (though I’m not very fond of cleaning up afterward) when I’m making something special, but day-to-day standard meals bore the crap out of me.

Bonus: I’m attending the World Fantasy convention in Calgary this year. It will be my first convention and I’m equally nervous and excited. Okay, perhaps a bit more excited than nervous…a bit

Now for the fun part…picking six of my favorite writing-related blogs. For the record these are in no particular order.

1. BD Wilson: BD is one of my best friends and a phenomenal writer. Best of all, she’s promised that when she becomes a world famous author she won’t forget me. Yay!

2. Carrie Jones: Carrie rocks. She’s hilarious, has an awesome dog, is running for office and is an amazing writer. Her novel, Tips on Having a Gay (ex)Boyfriend is incredible. I’ve not read Love (and Other Uses for Duct Tape) yet, but it’s totally on my list, and I intend to buy Need as soon as it hits the shelves.

3. Jim C. Hines: Have you read Jim’s Goblin series? If you haven’t you totally should. You should also be anxiously awaiting his Princess series as I am. Jim’s a great writer and his blog is not to be missed — where else can you find gay fire-spiders and LoL book covers?

4. Amber Stults: Amber is a friend, writer, book reviewer and book blogger. Her website always has loads of interesting links and information and I drop by at least once a week just to look around. You should too.

5. Greg Schwartz: Greg is a wonderful poet who I had the pleasure of meeting through Niteblade. I love his work and I find his informative posts about what markets are looking for what and such very helpful. If you like dark poetry or market information, this is a blog worth visiting.

6. NaNoLJers: It’s probably against the rules for me to link to this blog because I know damn well they aren’t going to do this meme no matter how many times I tag them. I know that, because I run it LOL NaNoLJers is a friendly NaNo-centric writing group that was formed to cheer its members toward victory during NaNoWriMo. It has since grown and now has writing exercises posted twice a week, a word of the week every Wednesday and we host our own NaNo-like writing challenge in May called Writo de Mayo.

Voila! I’m done. I hope you enjoyed getting to know a bit more about me, and that you visit these very awesome links.

*formerly known as Blood and Stone

First, my short story Axe was chosen to appear in the first ever print edition of Demon Minds. Yay! I was very excited about having it accepted for the online version a few weeks ago, but I’m one of those writers who love, love, loves to see their work in actual print. Axe is the most disturbing story I’ve ever written, though, so it’s exciting and nerve-wracking to know it is going to print.

Also in the category of nerve-wracking is that I heard back from one of the agents I’d queried about Blood and Stone (which I’ve renamed Swamp Story). She requested a partial. *squee* I’m so excited, but nervous too. Keep your fingers crossed for me…

But wait, there’s more!

The day before yesterday I got an email from Carolyn Clink inviting me to read some of my poetry at an open mic event during World Fantasy. I don’t intend to read, but I hope to attend and listen, and I did do a little fan-girl squeal and bounce in my seat at reading the email. It was sent to me and a few other people, but we were all mentioned by name in the body of the email. Yes, I really did think ‘Oh my god, Carolyn Clink wrote me an email, she totally knows I’m alive!’. Yup. For those of you not familiar with Carolyn, she’s a very talented poet and she is married to Robert J. Sawyer. Yup. So full of awesome.

But, more about yesterday…

I’d entered a contest a few days ago and I got the email yesterday that I’d won! I would include a link here to the book I won, but um…I don’t have the link yet. Once I do, I’ll share it

Last, but certainly not least, my copies of Lost Innocence arrived yesterday. They look amazing! I can’t wait for people to see them, they are so gorgeous. Now I just need to figure out how to get them to the post office (I don’t drive and 40 books are heavy). I suspect they will be being mailed out in waves.

So yes, I had a fantastic day yesterday. Have you ever had a day like that? I’d love to hear about it.