I'm a Winner! (and a nominee)

Last week something super-fun happened! Mary Kate Leahy at House of Laoch awarded me my first blog award. It's called the 7x7 Link Award.


The idea is that I find seven posts on my blog that fit seven categories, and then I award the 7x7 award to seven of my favourite bloggers!


So here goes:


Most Beautiful --Chapter Fifteen: In which Katie makes a speech and a friend shows up to save the day!
Katie's emotions are very real and honest in this chapter; it's the first time she seems very vulnerable. I was definitely in The Zone while writing it, which is a beautiful experience, and I think that the writing itself is pretty lovely, too. I have also gotten lots of great, positive comments about this one, (many of you thought it was a really moving read), which is beautiful, too!

Most Helpful -- Chapter Six: Katie has supper at her mother's house

At the end of Chapter Five, I really thought you'd all go for the "Stalk Ex Boyfriend On Facebook" option. I was so confident, in fact, that my second option, which was "Have Supper at Her Mother's House" was kind of a throw-away: I didn't think I'd have to write it. But then you all picked the wrong one, and suddenly I had to write about Katie and her mother. In the end, this proved to be an extremely helpful post to have to write, because I had to explore Katie's family life, which ended up creating a much more intricate story about Anne, the homeless sister.

Most Popular -- Chapter One: In which we meet our heroine

Surprise, surprise! The first chapter has had the most views. Now if I could somehow get those people who stopped reading after one chapter to move on to Chapter Two, ect...

Most Controversial -- In Chapter 19: In which Katie attempts Cognitive Therapy Katie has to decide what to eat for supper -- Thai or Italian. In the chapter, Katie makes some rather stereotypical observations about the other cultures with whom she shares Toronto. While nothing of what she says is overtly racist, I wondered if Katie's comments, such as worrying about the restaurant being filled with "intimidating Italian men in their undershirts, drinking tiny cups of coffee, leering at her" and her insistence on referring to the man who owns the Thai restaurant as "Mr Thai", might be construed as insensitive and, well, not very P.C. I did hope that within the rest of the chapter, Katie's uncomfortable ignorance might be humorous, and, I suspect, somewhat familiar to some of us...But I still worried this was a bit controversial.

Most Successful --Well, obviously THIS one that you're reading right now, since this is the post where I'm talking about my award!

Most Under-rated -- In June I attempted Jenny's First Giveaway! in which I was giving away a novel to a lucky reader. I was convinced I'd have dozens of people clambering to win the book, and I didn't. I really thought this was just the best idea ever, but my readers just waited patiently for me to post another chapter. What did I learn? My readers aren't interested in winning other authors' novels. They're interested in reading mine. Which is pretty great, actually.

Most Pride-worthy -- I think this would have to go to the last chapter I've written (in this case, Chapter 34: In which Melissa cries cause she wants to. (You would cry, too, if it happened to you.). I'm proudest of the last chapter I wrote, because it means I'm still writing.

So now I will nominate seven other super bloggers! They are:

Retirement is Work, where the Reluctant Retiree finds one good (and funny, and true) thing to say each day about retirement.

Shopping Detox, where you can learn all about how to live frugally, fashionably, and fabulously!

Bread and Jam, because Frances knows what a cutlet wears before it's breaded.

Famscans, where Nina posts no-holds-barred photos of her hilarious family. Most of them were taken at Disneyland (Disneyworld? Someplace with rides and large fuzzy animals) and most of them feature extreme outfits and/or emotions. It's like Awkward Family Photos with only one family.
 

Kitchen Retro, where you can look at fun old advertisements, and read witty commentary by a fine writer!


Adventures of Cinderita Rita is currently engaged in a super-awesome project in which she hugs a new stranger every day for a year. By the end of the year she'll have 365 new friends!

http://readywritego.blogspot.com/ Where Cherie shares wise words about writing. I also quite like this blog's design!


Also, I just discovered I've been nominated for the 2011 Canadian Weblog Awards in the Best Written, Humour, and Writing & Literature categories!