And now I break from my regularly-scheduled programming to accept the honor of the Versatile Blogger Award.

Blogs are strange little creatures. I wouldn’t be a writer without mine, for I started it with the sole intent of forcing myself to write as if I had an audience. Of course, I had not a single follower when I started, which was the ONLY reason I began to blog. Much to my mortification, people— strangers, friends, colleagues—began to follow and comment. I still babble away to myself here and I’m still astonished that anyone reads, but as long as you do, I hope I say something of value every so often.

But awards such as the VBA aren’t about the blogger herself. They are an opportunity to recognize and spread the word about a valued community. Many supportive, creative, passionate souls have appeared in the time I’ve been filling this space and getting settled into this writer’s life. We blog in isolation but if we keep at it, we’ll be rewarded with feedback and followers who assure us our voices are heard and appreciated.

Accepting the Versatile Blogger Award means following the rules. I’m not so good with rules, but in the spirit of this great community, follow them I shall. The most important rule is to call out and thank a few of the bloggers I follow. Their words, appearing in my e-mail or blog reader several times a week, remind me how and why writing changes lives. Y’all are so great.

 

Thanking first the blogger who nominated me for the Versatile Blogger Award: 

Anawnimiss  Thank you and Peace.

 

Blogs I Follow, for Inspiration and Empathy:

Writing and Other Forms of Suffering

Kev’s Stuff

Dragonscale Clippings

Highland Hind

Grace Makely

Sylvie’s World is a Library

BG Bowers

Claudia Cruttwell

Velvet Skies

Journey with Julia

Mag Offleash

Celenagaia

An Amateur Author

Ordinary Canary

Unexpected Paths

 

And Those Seven Things You Probably Don’t Know About Me. For Good Reason.

• Introvert that I am, I’m quite good at public speaking. In fact, I love being on stage.
• Dancing makes me outrageously happy. Me, dancing I mean. Not watching other people dance. That’s nice, too, but not the same.
• I have a potty mouth. Particularly when driving. It’s best I drive alone. You would be shocked.
• Clumped-together seeds in or on fruit give me the heebie-jeebies. Like the inside cores of bell peppers, or seeds on strawberries spaced too closely together, or seeds inside gourds. Oh, I just get the willies. Does this make me completely insane?
• I weep easily at movies. Or touching commercials. I’m a weeper. Completely sentimental. “Titanic”? Fuhgedabboudit. I bawled.
• I hate going out at night. And for me, night starts at 5:30. I’ll do it, for your birthday, or a concert, or for Lord of the Rings. But mostly, it’s torture. I just want to curl up and read, then go to bed at 8:30. Leave me alone.
• It took me a week to come up with this list. Who wants to talk about themselves? That’s why I write stories about other people.
  

  Impromtu Improvisation ©Julie Christine Johnson 2014