OH, HOW I MISS YOU BLOGFEST, hosted by Andrew Leon, Matthew MacNish, and Alex J. Cavanaugh

First, a big hand to the hosts of today's blogfest: Andrew Leon, Matthew MacNish, and Alex J. Cavanaugh! You can drop by either of these blogs to locate the entire list of participants.

The Premise: Do you have a couple blogger buddies who aren’t posting as often? Those who’ve pulled back and seem absent from the blogging world? Do you have blogger buddies you are grateful they are still around and would miss if they vanished? Now is your chance to show your appreciation and spotlight them!

On November 16, list one to three bloggers you really miss and one to three bloggers you would miss if they stopped blogging. Then go leave a comment on those blogs.

Our blogger friends are special – time to let them know!

With no further ado, here are my choices ...

Bloggers I miss because they don't post as often (or have stopped commenting and I therefore lose track of):

Nicole Ducleroir:

I'm a short story author, aspiring novelist, and world traveler who has penned fiction from homes on three different continents. I currently live with my husband and two children in the Atlanta area. When I find myself less inspired by my Southern locale, I have only to rifle through memories of adventures abroad until colorful characters or thrilling plots come forth. And on the rare occasion that none arise...I've been known to finagle a flight out.

Michelle Davidson Argyle:

Michelle lives and writes in Utah, surrounded by the Rocky Mountains. She loves the seasons, but late summer and early fall are her favorites. She adores chocolate, sushi, and lots of ethnic food, and loves to read and write books in whatever time she can grab between her sword-wielding husband and energetic daughter. She believes a simple life is the best life.

Hart Johnson:

I write books from my bathtub and blog in my basement. For a full bio on the 3 faces of me, check out the tab. As for the shenanigans around here... lots on writing, some life... mostly I just want to encourage you to play with me. Silliness abounds.

Bloggers I would miss if they no longer blogged (I'm sure we'd still keep in touch via email, but it's still nice to read their posts!):

Dawn Ius:

I started writing at age 8 upon discovering writing about monsters was less scary than looking for them under my bed. I'm still leery of things that go bump in the night, but hope my thriller writing skills have improved. I live in Canada will my husband, stepdaughter and three bullmastiff hounds. You know, just skulking around.

Leigh T. Moore:

*Writer, editor, wife, mom, friend. *My books THE TRUTH ABOUT FAKING (YA rom-com) and ROUGE (Mature YA romance) are now available on Amazon, B&N, Kobo, & Smashwords. *New posts on Mondays. Leave a comment, make a suggestion, stay a while~

Matthew MacNish:

I'm the father of two beautiful young ladies, three lazy cats and one adorable German Shepherd. Together we live in the mountains of north Georgia amidst my endless collection of vinyl records. I run this blog in an attempt to help other novice writers avoid the mistakes I made in the beginning of my road to publication. Believe me, I made many.

So there you have it! My top six favourite bloggers :-) PS: I'm also to blame for the "lack of commenting" situation. It just gets so hard to keep up once you garner a large following ...

______________________________

Reminders:

• My poetry book FABRIC is a Goodreads Choice Awards nominee. Please vote! You can read an excerpt at this link too.
• My latest release, Show & Tell in a Nutshell, is being featured today onWriter's Digest. For a chance to win a copy of the paperback, comment at this link within the next two weeks.

Deja Vu Blogfest: What do we women wish for?

Today, DL Hammons has teamed up with three awesome blogging buddies, Katie Mills (Creepy Query Girl), Lydia Kang, and Nicole Ducleroir, to bring you … the Deja Vu Blogfest. Please click the Blogfest Badge to locate the list of participants.


Basically, the idea behind this is that we re-post a post which didn't get the attention it deserved, either because it was written at the beginning of your blogging journey and didn't have any followers yet, or perhaps it was posted during a holiday season (um ... hello?) and not many people were lurking by.


Anyway, here's a post from the very first month I started blogging (March, 2010), and it is in MUCH need of an edit. A BIG edit. Yikes!!! But, I have refrained from doing so. So please, have a read, and just try to focus on the content, rather than its execution, please. Ha! Oh dear ...


What do we women wish for?

Sometimes I wish I was brought up living on a little farm and all I knew how to do was milk the cows and collect eggs. I wish all I ever knew about the outside world was what I read in the out-of-date secondhand school books I had as a child because that’s all my parents were able to afford. If I lived on a little farm, I would grow up to be so loyal to my family that I would take over the farm when they died simply to keep it in the family.


I would then teach my kids how to milk the cows and collect eggs and when it would be time for me to die, I would die content and satisfied with my achievements, because I would have achieved what I had set out to achieve. My kids would then take over the farm to keep it in the family too and it would continue like this for generations. My great great grandchildren would look at photographs of me on the farm and say, ‘Wow, can you imagine being alive then?’ That’s what I do when I look at old photographs of my grandparents. I look at the captured moment of happiness and that’s what lives on forever.


Has it ever occurred to you that the less one has and knows, the happier they are? The more one knows about the world, the more one wants to explore, and the more torn one feels. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, in fact, it’s exactly like me, and it's called ambition, but I do wonder sometimes, would my emotions fluctuate so much, if I didn’t have all these ambitions that I can’t possibility do, all at the same time, and which make me feel like I’m not achieving my goals because there is too much that I want to achieve? If I had a simple life on a farm for instance, and never knew any better, would I be happier?


Do you think you would be more content if you wanted less?