A Year of Blogging and Time for Me to Give Back

I have been blogging for one year now.  Today is my blogs birthday!  Last year,  the night before my birthday was the winter solstice and it felt like a night to make changes.  I was frustrated with my writing career and had just been moved by my publisher  from an 18 month contract to a 3 year contract meaning that they may not publish my book until 2014.  Part of me wanted to give up and another part of me just wanted to write about something I loved and enjoy it and not worry about publishing houses or agents or anything else.  So I picked something I loved, ghost stories, and began writing everyday, well, almost everyday.  I fell in love with writing all over again and fell even more in love with ghosts and hauntings and old buildings that creep and moan and speak of forgotten histories rich with tragedy.  Blogging was wonderful!

I was helped along the way by other bloggers who found my blog and encouraged me to keep writing.  Courtney Mroch from Haunt Jaunts was and is amazing.  Her blog inspires me every day.   Autumn Forest of Ghost Hunting Theories was also there with ideas and inspiration from the very beginning.  And what have I gained from my year in blogging?

*  I have posted 299 posts of ghosts, hauntings, and all things dark and beautiful
*   I have met numerous other bloggers, artists, and ghost hunters and found a world of wonder that I have    enjoyed exploring
*  I got to travel all over the country and go to some amazing places looking for wonderful stories.
*  I was invited by a publisher to write a book based on my blog and it was published this year
*  I am working on my second book that will come out next year
*  I have a column in the Valley Planet and I can write even more ghost stories there!
*  I have learned that sometimes if you just do what you love everything else will follow.

If you had told me a year ago that I would gain all these things just by sitting down almost every day and writing I wouldn't have believed you.  It has been a wonderful year filled with travel, hauntings, and fun and I accomplished all this in one year of blogging and I owe it to all of my readers and those other bloggers who have helped me on the way.   So,  in order to give back to my blogging friends,  I will be giving away 2 Barnes and Noble Gift Cards for $25 dollars  on my birthday, tomorrow.   Spread the word.  All you have to do is comment below and twitter or facebook about this post to enter to win!  Thank you all for a wonderful year of blogging, it has been an amazing year.

I also made a promise to the Mobile Rape Crisis Center 6 months ago that when by book came out I would give them  five cents for every follower I gained on twitter.   Well,  I am now on a three year contract with my publisher, but since I've had a wonderful year with blogging I'm celebrating by doing that now.   I have 2,800 followers on twitter today and I'm writing a check.   I learned from Courtney Mroch from Haunt Jaunts who gave to the Leukemia Society on her 1 year anniversary that the best way to celebrate is to give back.  So I'm giving back to victims and I'm giving back to my readers.

Passing on the Life is Good Award!

AutumnForest of Ghost Hunting Theories gave me this award this week.  I love it!  Life is good.   She didn't say how many people to pass this on to, but here are a few wonderful bloggers I can't get enough of!

Haunt Jaunts
The Weekly Spectre:  Paranormal Blog
Ghost Stories
Frog on the Pumpkin
Labrynthian Creations
Above the Norm

This award came with questions I was supposed to answer!  Here are the questions and answers:

1. What celebrity would you like to have as a real life sister or brother?
Phillipa Gregory.  She's a great writer and I'd love to talk about books and history with her.


2. What was the first career you imagined for yourself when you were a kid?
Writer

3. Given a free first class flight round trip anywhere--where would you go?
Back to France

4. Which character on Gilligan's Island are you most like?
The Professor

5. What would you like to be famous for doing, making or being?
Writing good stories.

6. Who do you think is the most frighteningly influential and asanine person in the public eye?
Sarah Palin.  She horrifies me.  Why do we want uneducated Sports Reporters as our leaders?

7. Are you a breakfast, lunch, dinner, or dessert person?
Breakfast.  I could eat breakfast for every meal.

8. Cheap mass produced beer? Import beer? Or local brewery?
Import Beer.  I like high gravity beers.  Belgian Lambics, Belgian Ales, Trappist Ales,,, yummy. 

9. What do you most want to change about you, Physical? Mental? Spiritual? Emotional?
Physical... Eek, but I could probably use some spiritual help as well.

10. Boxers or briefs or boxer briefs? (for you or your man--depending on which sex you are)
Boxers. 

Here are some questions for those I'm passing this on to:

1.  What is the one place in the world you feel at peace at?

2.  What is your favorite haunted location or attraction?

3.  Zombies, Vampires, or Ghosts?  Which are your favorite and why?

4.  What is your favorite kind of food?

5.  Where did you grow up?

6.  What is your most interesting reoccuring dream?

7.  What inspired you to start blogging?

8.  Is life beautiful?

Thanks Autumn Forest!  Life is good!

Passing the Beautiful Blogger Award Along to Some of My New Favorite Blogs!

Last Friday, Courtney from Haunt Jaunts stopped by to let me know she’d named Ghost Stories and Haunted Places among one of fifteen other blogs she was passing along a Beautiful Blog Award to.  She had listed many of my favorite blogs in her top 15.  I would like to mention that although they didn't make the list, Para-blog and Above the Norm would have been on my list if Courtney hadn't already grabbed them.    She has a great eye for good blogs and I'm honored to be on her top 15.


THANKS, Courtney!

BEAUTIFUL BLOGGER AWARD RULES

1. Thank the person who gave you this award.
2. Share 7 things about yourself.
3. Pass the award along to 15 bloggers who you have recently discovered and who you think are fantastic!
4. Contact the bloggers you’ve picked and let them know about the award.

15 BLOGS GHOST STORIES AND HAUNTED PLACES PASSES THE BEAUTIFUL BLOG AWARD TO:

1. Labrynthian Creations
2. Magikal Seasons
3. Dark Destinations
4. Beyond the Wire
5. A Haunting We Will Go
6. Poetic Zombie
7. Giardian Diner
8. The Ghost Lounge
9. Zen and the Art of Zombies
10. Frog on a Pumpkin
11. Zombie Zadie
12. Illiteration Nation
13. Court’s Corner
14. Lady Lovecraft
15. Allison Gregg

7 Things About Myself:

1.  I have two books coming out at the end of this year.  Both are ghostly.  One is a Haunted History book and the other is a horror novel set in a haunted institution.

2. During the day,  when I am not writing,  I work on the psychiatric floor of a hospital.  I run psychotherapy groups, do individual therapy, and do intakes. 

3.  I always try to see the best in every situation.  Life is hard and the world can be horrifying, but every tragedy has a ray of light and every dark place hides beauty.   I travel to find this beauty and I work to find this beauty in the most broken and lost of human souls and I hope that I can help these people find the beauty in themselves.

4.  I love the outdoors.  I've hiked most of the Appalachian Trail and I have climbed Mt. Kilimajaro.  I'm a den mother for my's son's cub scout den and I love taking the boys into the woods to hike and discover nature.

5.  I have a lot of pets.  My sister and I breed corgis.  I have two corgis, 1 cat, 1 snake, and 2 frogs.  My sons also fill the house with all kinds of bugs in jars and plastic containers.

6.  I have an interesting family.  My father is Filipino.  My brother is a concert pianist and composer of some repute in the classical music world..My parents spent much of my early childhood travelling from place to place with their band.  My 2 sisters and 1 younger brother grew up  in a boat with my father.  My mother's family has had a haunted house that has been in the family for 150 yrs and her mother had a love affair with a ghost via the ouijia board.  We are a strange lot, but we are never boring. 
7.    I love reading.   I read almost every kind of book,  but my favorite will always be history.  I love historical fiction like Bernard Cornwell and  real history and everything in between.