I am sorry I’ve been away — too long — and the worst part is — due to my crazy superstitions (see my previous post), I can’t even blog about it! Argh!

In the meantime, while I was running around doing stuff,  a few marvelous things occurred in the blogosphere.

Marvelous thing number one: I won my very first book giveaway ever, an ARC of a historical fantasy I cannot wait to lay my hands on! Just received it last week, Joanne, thank you so much! I will read it as soon as I can and blog about it here, of course. (As soon as I can). As soon as I can, that seems to be my mantra these days. (Clears throat).

Anyway.

Now for the marvelous thing number two: would you believe it? I received my first EVER blogging award: The Versatile Blogger from Ben over at “Story Multiverse,” a blog about all things IF (imaginative fiction). And if you aren’t sure what exactly that means, then stop over and visit Ben to find out.

Here is the shiny badge:

Ta-da!!!

Thank you, Ben. I am flattered. So flattered, I had to re-write this post a few dozen times to cut out all the some of the babbling. Glad I don’t have to accept this via Skype!

ANYway, here is how my pocket Webster’s dictionary defines “ver-sa-tile:” “having many abilities or uses.”

(They’re nice and laconic those small paperback dictionaries, aren’t they?)

I take “versatile” as a great compliment. It means someone out there thinks I have a lot of different things to say. Someone out there thinks I am multi-faceted. Which I take to mean, “not too boring, most of the time.” Maybe even unpredictable? Maybe a little different.

Next week I will be passing the compliment along. I will be passing this award along to 15 bloggers whose blogs tell many-sided stories and reveal either depths of an interesting life, or show unique ways of looking at the same old subject. Stay tuned!

And later on this week — as part of accepting the award — I will blog about random tidbits from my life — just stuff most people never knew about me. I thought I had to wait until I am, like, a famous author with a following — or at the least a nice shiny book deal — to do that, but now, thanks to this whole wonderful versatile blogger enterprise, I don’t have to wait for that at least. He-he!

I’ve thought of a few bits to reveal, but if you guys have things you’d like to see, or things you’re curious about, feel free to throw out some ideas to me as well.

And by the way, thank you guys, for being there for me. You’re priceless to me in this sometimes-lonely and sometimes too-quiet writing journey. You guys make it possible for me to have a versatile blog, for goodness sake, and to reveal TMI bits about myself, and have all kinds of other virtual writerly fun.

When I started this blog, I hoped to one day build a small writing community, and now I feel like yes, I have.

I would like to thank my fabulous fans… Okay, seriously, must stop now. This award is really getting to my head. 😉