Awesome Blogger Award

Hello Voidfriends!

Today I got nominated by From A Stranger to You, which is awesome! Thank you so much for this! You should check out Arena’s blog because it is seriously both beautiful and charming with wonderful flash fiction stories / excerpts and a general feel good mood. I always get this whiplash when people comment or talk to me. It’s so odd to remember that actual people are reading my blog, so thank you for following me!

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What is the Awesome Blogger Award?

Now this was a bit more difficult to find but I went to another blog to find it. I am pretty sure the hyperlink does not work anymore so I would keep that in mind.

The award was created by Maggie @Dreaming of Guatemala. This is an award for the absolutely wonderful writers all across the blogging world. They have beautiful blogs, are kind and lovely, and always find a way to add happiness and laughter to the lives of their readers. That is what truly defines an awesome blogger.

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Rules:

• Thank the person who nominated you.
• Tag the post with #awesomebloggeraward.
• Answer the questions you were asked.
• Nominate at least five bloggers and inform them of their nomination.
• Give them ten new questions to answer.

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Questions:

What inspired you to pick up blogging?

Okay so this is a long winded question that ultimately comes down to, War Storm by Victoria Aveyard and Pennedcon. Officially, my Pennedcon post was my first post here on my blog. I’ll start with Pennedcon, for the sake of ease.

When I was in St. Louis in 2018, I went to Pennedcon with my best friend. It is a convention for self published authors. While sitting in a panel I heard how the authors highly recommended reviewing their books on GR, Amazon, or even a personal blog. See, now, I’m basically inept at GR, I really didn’t want Amazon knowing more about me than it already does, and I don’t write reviews the way that I was actually trained to. Trained to, yeah you read that right. In HS I was in journalism classes and in HS and college we learned how to write reviews for books in some of my english classes. (I also learned how to properly write film reviews, and the likes.) I just don’t like it, because it some ways it requires me to put so much more energy into some books than I would want to. And if you have noticed in some of my posts errors, you can probably tell that low energy, low stakes is what I tend to aim for with my reviews. So, a blog was probably the best choice to do reviews the way I want to, and how I currently do them.

But Pennedcon was the final push. It was not what got the ball rolling.

What started my path to blogging was The Red Queen Series by Victoria Aveyard. For a series that I had low investment in I ranted for about 72 hours about the end of War Storm. I started ranting the day I finished it, and did not stop until I saw my best friend in St. Louis and talked her ear off for almost five hours straight. I’ve only ever talked that much about a few series in my life, primarily series that ended in ways that made me go: wut (Naruto, Star Wars, Shokugeki no Soma, etc.) And while I can talk for hours on end on books I adore or hate, this was the first time in like forever, that a series made me talk like this one did. I had a low investment in this series. I hadn’t been reading from first publication. I only started after War Storm came out, and not for months after I had it either. It was a whatever series to me. However, this is how we come to War Storm and my blog.

I should preface this with a few facts. One. I like Victoria Aveyard’s style of writing but I hate Mare. Two. Because of how much I hated Mare, The Red Queen took me four almost five weeks to finish. Which, if you know me, is incredibly long. I don’t DNF but I probably should have because Mare? She was not for me. This probably will surprise you, if you’ve been around long enough, because I use Mare as an example for a lot of things. Because I actually did read her story. I might not like her, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t understand her story. She just drives me up a wall is all. Three. It took me four weeks to read Red Queen, two to finish Glass Sword, two days to do King’s Cage, and three to finish War Storm. War Storm‘s reading speed was about average for me, and King’s Cage was a bit slow, but Glass Sword and Red Queen were so slow that it’s a surprise I even finished them at all. But I did. Why? Spite. Pure and complete unfiltered spite. I was swimming in it. I never loved Mare, and I could probably still go off on all the things that bother me about the series, however, it was spite that drove me.

It’s no wonder that after being so motivated I had to talk about it. LOL the number one question I get is, why did you even finish the series? Why? Victoria Aveyard’s writing is actually really nice, IMO, even if I could rip apart her debut series. (Which, by the way, I have to my friends and then they ask me, then is her writing really that good? What a paradox.)

Anyway, I finished War Storm and was talking about it and talking about it and talking about it, and my best friend suggested I start writing reviews for the books I read. I said no one would actually want to read that, because no one actually cares. My friends care, because they care about me, but that’s probably it. Then Pennedcon happened, and here we are.

tldr; Pennedcon, War Storm by Victoria Aveyard and a whole lot of spite.

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What are some of your fears?

This is always one of those questions that draws a blank for me when I initially read it. I always go to the standard ones and I’m not afraid of spiders, or snakes, or speaking in front of people. So I’m always at a loss, but I do have two that I know specifically: the ones I always give and one I learned from blogging.

The first one I always give.

I’m not exactly afraid of heights. Heights don’t particularly bother me. I’m afraid of false security with heights. What do I mean? Have you ever seen those glass barriers? The ones that have no metal over or around them? Yeah those? Those make me cry. Full on, hug the wall, balling, freak out. Add metal? I’m good to walk next to them. Make em only metal with gaps, and I’m still pretty good but I’ll not be next to them. It’s just a rope, I’m good again. This is a fear I developed as a kid and my parents have no freaking clue how I did it. Because my dad has a massive fear of falling and my mom does too, so they always kept us away from ledges, but I on’y freak out when there is glass specifically. We don’t understand. Now this is where it gets funny. I have a fear of not heights or falling but false security. Here I am, just enjoying myself next to cliffs.

Throw me up against a glass barrier tho and I am crying. Like full on tears. It doesn’t make sense.

Two. Dogs.

I actually have two dogs at home, but that doesn’t mean my blood does not run cold when I hear any dog start barking at me. I particularly hate (i.e. scared of) big dogs, because they make me extremely afraid. And it’s not because they aren’t a good dog, it’s just a fear from a child. I was a small child and a family friend had BIG dogs who barked a lot. Its a residual fear that I’ve been working on my whole life.

One I understood from blogging.

I have a fear of posting. This fear that it really doesn’t matter if I post or not, but then at the same time what if it does and people hate me? It’s a really weird one, but it always bubbles up when I post something new for my blog.

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Chocolate or Vanilla?

Vanilla for Ice Cream Sundaes, Chocolate otherwise.

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Your favorite book of all time aside from Harry potter

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through The Looking Glass and What Alice Found There by Lewis Carroll. As well as Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger. If I had to pick one, it would be Alice, and I mean both Wonderland and Looking Glass, because they are put together so often most people don’t realize they are separate stories. If you force me to pick only one of the two of those, Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There, because Red Queen and White Queen have some of my favorite quotes of all time.

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Your favorite character and why

Lelouch Vi Britannia, 99th Emperor of the Holy Britannian Empire. He’s the main character from Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion and Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion R2, which is my favorite anime.

Why is a hard answer to give without going into the plot of the series. Ultimately he becomes the world’s greatest villain, while becoming the world’s greatest hero, all for the sake of bringing true peace to the world. For the longest time in life Lelouch was not a role model per say, but an ideology of sorts. Do not attack unless you are prepared to be attacked back, always be prepared, and strive for the greater good. Its a whole lot of stuff to explain, but he’s my favorite character and has never been replaced.

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Do you have a role model? If yes, who and why

My parents. I don’t know what to say about this other than my parents. My dad taught me pride and integrity and my mom gave me kindness and satisfaction in myself (and a whole lot of feminism). I’m proud to be their kid. I know this is so often a snarky remark or gets people to roll their eyes, but if I’m striving to be like anyone it’s going to be like them.

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Have you ever wondered how cotton candy is made?

Lol I had a cotton candy machine growing up, so I made a lot of it as a kid. So when I was a kid? Sure. Now, I already know.

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Tell us one thing you’re proud of

I graduated college with two degrees, one in business and one in theatre. I’m really proud of that. It took a lot of time, effort, and time management, but I did it. I also did it in 4 years and with a 3.6 GPA. I’m proud of my schooling, and since my parents are teachers, that’s how I was raised.

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Tea or coffee

Tea. I can’t drink coffee because of the caffeine. I can have a little caffeine but not too much, otherwise I get a head ache. Tea wise, I really like Green, White, Mint, and Herbal teas. Catch me with a rose, lavender, mint, or chamomile tea all the time.

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If you had to live in one country for an year which country would you want to live in and why?

Scotland or Japan. I was tempted to say Italy, but after being to Italy and knowing I couldn’t understand anything at all, I think I’d pick Scotland or Japan. Scotland, because it is just so freaking beautiful and they do speak english there. On my mom’s side we have Scottish and Irish blood from her mother (Italian comes from my grandfather), so I’d love to go there, and I think i could probably get by even if it is cold in the winter.

Japan, because I have a lot of friends in Japan, so I wouldn’t be there alone. I also can get back up to a passing level of Japanese so I wouldn’t be blind sided by the language.

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Nominations:

For this, I went with those who have consistently been there for me, because even if I don’t know you (and I promise, I’m just more shy on the internet than in person. I do want to get to know you all better), seeing your name pop up in my comment/likes/activity feed brings a smile to my face. So thank you, so much! I also, tried not to nominate anyone who was before lol. If you were and I missed it when doing a quick search on your blog, I’m sorry. lol

• https://dirtyscifibuddha.com/
• https://amyleighreads.com/
• https://kaylaswordsmithy.wordpress.com/
• https://delatintadorada9.wordpress.com/
• https://kittymariebookreviews.home.blog/

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Questions for you:

1. Old Books or New books?
2. Do you have any pets?
3. Favorite song right now (or music artist if you don’t have a song)
4. Name a book that is daunting to you but you’ve always wanted to read
5. If there was another world you’d want to live in, what would it be?
6. One thing you wish people knew about you
7. Cats or Dogs?
8. What decade of music could you listen to and not get bored with? (or at least not quickly bored)
9. Favorite authors?
10. Favorite magical creature?

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Okay! There is is! My answers and my questions. I don’t typically post on Thursdays, but I figured get the ball rolling as fast as I could to pass this on, hahaha. I also didn’t post twice yesterday anyway. I hope you are all having a wonderful Thursday, and that you are doing well!

Until Next Time,

MM

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