Julius Bailey a fantasy author/blogger has nominated me for a Q & A blogger's tag!

Here's how it works:

• Tag the blogger(s) who have nominated you
• Answer the questions you were given
• Nominate 10 bloggers
• Write out your 10 questions
• Let them know they’ve been tagged

We'll, I can't say I actually followed all the instructions. I'm not going to nominate anyone, per se, but if you're a blogger and you'd like to answer my questions, please do. Just tag me and share a link to your response in the comments.  Anyhow, here are my answers to Julius's questions.

J. Bailey's Blogger  Q&A Tag Questions from Realm Delver:

1: What is your favorite drink?

Coffee, with a close second of unsweetened tea. Yeah, I know... Exciting, right?

2: What is your least favorite book?

Well, least favorite... That's hard because I would not likely have finished it, and maybe it picked up later.  Well, I guess I'll give you Moby Dick, but only because I couldn't make it past the first page. I tried to read it in highschool, but haven't given it another shot since.

3: What's the longest distance you've ever traveled on foot?

Hard to say. I used to run four or so miles at a time when I was in the Navy, but that's not going to impress too many folks. I'd love to say I trekked the forest trails of some interesting location, but the closest I've gotten to that is just walking the paved walking paths between streets in my local area. Not quite as far as when I was in the Navy.

I did once lock myself out of my car at a mall in Norfolk and run all the way home to my apartment to get the back up key. I think that was a few miles. Nowadays, I live so far from the mall, it would be an epic journey of maybe few hours to get home. That trip took about thirty minutes, I think.

4: If you could own one of the batmobiles from any one of the live-action Batman movies, which one would you choose?

I'd get the one that jumped the bridge.  It's not quite the traditional look, but it looks like it would be the most fun to drive. I can't remember which Batman movie it was in, but Christian Bale played him.

5: Would you rather be chased by human eating snakes or human eating spiders?

I can't get over the "human eating" part of that question...

6: Would you rather have awesome kung fu skills, or awesome lightsaber skills (with a saber included)?

Kung fu, because if you're a badass, but only with a weapon, all your opponent has to do is disarm you to win the fight. I think weaponless fighting is the most impressive thing. Now, that's not to say I wouldn't love the awesome lightsaber skills, too, just being practical, you know.

7: If you had to be stranded fifty miles out in either a desert, the ocean, or the north or south pole, which would you choose?

Key word here is stranded. I'd prefer not to be stranded. Still, I think I'd be better prepared to survive in the desert (depending on what kind it is), but only from what I've seen and learned from the slew of survival shows I watch on TV. Pretty much all the ones that have someone just out there on surviving or showing how to survive are on my to watch list. My favorites, currently, are Naked and Afraid and Dual Survival.

8: What do you consider to be your greatest skill?

Writing and editing, but maybe crochet as well. I can crochet a mean purse (maybe literally with a little embroidery, picturing a scowling face on the side of a purse), and I'm fairly good at loom knitting and excruciatingly slow at regular knitting, though the projects turn out alright. Anyhow, creative outlets.. That covers it, I think.

9: What's your dream job?

Well, I think I'm doing it.  I'm a training specialist. So, I get to feed my creative side by designing eLearning, presentations, and workshops, and my social side by actually delivering those trainings. I love helping people, so answering questions and helping folks find good solutions is a plus. I also get to dabble in projects and I meet pretty much everyone who comes in the door because I run the orientation schedule and teach a couple of those classes, too. 

Second to that is writing. I do a lot of technical writing at work, but I love writing book reviews and coming up with stories of my own, as well. I used to think that would be my dream job, but I'm beginning to think that would just suck all the fun right out of it. I'm happy to leave it as a side gig.

10: What did you think of Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice?

I didn't watch it. I prefer to think of Batman and Superman as best friends, so I don't want to break the illusion...

Ok, so if you want to be tagged, volunteer below in the comments.  Here are the questions I'd like answered:

1. What's your favorite pastime?
2. Pudding or Jello?
3. If someone at work would to mix up skittles and M&Ms in the same dish (with no warning), what would your reaction be?
4. What's your favorite movie of all time and how old were you when you first saw it?
5. If you have a favorite series (book, TV, movie, any of that), what is it and why?
6. What is your post-apocalyptic skill set?
7. If you could visit anywhere (real or fiction), where would you go and why?
8. What was the most life-changing decision you ever had to make?
9. If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
10. If you read, what's your routine? Anything quirky or interesting you'd like to share?

Blogger's going nuts!

Holy bugs, batman. 

Blogger's going crazy. I move my pointer and the all the text and pics shift and follow it around, randomly changing justification and re-positioning. At one point, an image began to spontaneously reproduce itself and leave trails of itself throughout the post. 

I don't know what kind of gremlins have invaded, but I really hope Google can find a way to eliminate them. I've heard sunlight works...

Reading Lists: Do I need one? Yes, I do...

Well, I'm a bit late posting this week and I have no new reviews to share, so I figured I'd share my thoughts on reading lists instead.

So, reading lists. Lists of things you plan to read. Honestly? I've never really used a list to determine my next book to read. I've always been the kind of girl to browse along the bookshelf or scan through my kindle until a particular cover or title catches my eye and that's worked for the most part. But now that I blog, particularly because I write reviews for two sites and because I signed up for NetGalley, I have found that I can no longer leave all of my reading choices up to chance and whim.

Because of this, I've created a few reading lists and one to manage the overall order I read the books I plan to review. I may even add them to this blog. I've already added my currently reading shelf, which has been sparse at 1 book for quite a while, so it shouldn't be hard to add some more.

I have one for books I plan to submit to Pure Textuality, one for books I get from NetGalley, and one for book reviews requested directly from authors. The to-be-read shelf on Goodreads is too long and clunky to work for a near-future reading list, so I'm using the to-be-reviewed-by-me shelf to organize the reads from those three I just mentioned plus the books I've come across and purchased on my own.

Oh, and I also added a fun little shelf called "on-actual-paper" for books that I've purchased, you guessed it, on actual paper. So, anyway, without Goodreads and those shelves, I'd probably not have any kind of plan, which worked before, but won't work now.


Here are the books I'd like to read and review next. It's a shelf widget, so I think it'll be current for whenever you happen to be reading this. I love those widgets.

Patricia's bookshelf: to-be-reviewed-by-me

The Earth Dwellers

by David Estes

tagged: by-david-estes, to-read, and to-be-reviewed-by-me

Of Shadow and Stone

by Michelle Muto

tagged: netgalley, to-be-reviewed-by-me, and currently-reading

This Shrinking World

by H.L. Cherryholmes

tagged: to-read, pure-textuality-review, to-be-reviewed-by-me, and to-be-bl...

True Calling

by Siobhan Davis

tagged: to-read, netgalley, to-be-blogged, and to-be-reviewed-by-me

From the Ashes

by H.L. Cherryholmes

tagged: to-read, pure-textuality-review, to-be-reviewed-by-me, and to-be-bl...

Here's to progress.

Legacy post from my Goodreads blog.

This quick update from December catalogs how I was doing on my goals for attracting an agent.  Since then I have expanced distribution for Shadows of Valor, not The Golden Ship.  It has been published on Smashwords.com, which distributes to popular ebook retailers like kobo, Barnes & Noble, and Apple.   

December 15, 2012

Here's to progress.

My plans for attracting an agent include: 1) writing more books, 2) getting those books published, 3) gaining followers, and 4) writing a blog.

I can say I have made quite a bit of progress since I first thought up my plan to attract an agent.

I've completed one book, drafted another and am working on the draft for a third. All these in addition to The Golden Ship, the book that first made me consider getting an agent. Shadows of Valor is, of course, already published and I've mentioned it in a few posts already. The Zombie Logs is a draft ready for editing and revision. Finally, the as of yet unnamed Shadows of Valor #2 is in progress, perhaps about 80% complete (give or take depending on where the story takes me). So, that's one.

Writing for work and fun...

Here's another legacy post from my Goodreads blog.

Writing improves the more you practice, but the type of writing and the approach you must take to write effectively varies.  Writing blog posts is much different than writing a novel, and writing training materials is much different than technical writing.  Here are a few tips I've come up with through trial, error and research.

January 26, 2013

Today, I decided to write about the various types of writing I do, including creative writing, of course. Here's the breakdown, in order of highest to lowest volume.

1. Business writing (emails, memos, standard operating procedures, etc.)

2. Instructional Writing (training materials, eLearning Courses, lesson plans)

3. Creative Writing (stories)

4. Social Writing (blogs, essays, and reviews)

As you can see, the majority of the writing I do falls into the Business and Instructional Writing categories (my day job), but I spend a great deal of time at home on the Creative and Social Writing.