I Won a Pot O' Gold!

As mentioned in previous post, my birthday week was a week for winning. Along with the two books, I was surprised to be the recipient of a Pot O' Gold blog award from my good friend Rob, The Middle Grade Ninja.

The Pot-O-Gold Blogger Award is the brain(child)pot of blogger Christie Wright Wild whose blog you can find here.

If you are the Lucky recipient of the award, here is what you do: 

1. Say thank you to the person who gave it to you. (Thanks, Rob)
2. Write a post and include the image of the award, a link to the person's blog who gave it to you, and a link to my blog, WRITE WILD. (Copy and paste the rules in your post.) (Done)
3. Award four bloggers this award and tell why each is a Pot-O-Gold! (If you receive this award more than once, you only have to forward it the first time.) (See below)
4. Share four simple things about yourself: 1-a time you had to exercise FAITH, 2-something you HOPE for, 3-something (or someone) you LOVE, and 4-a time when you felt LUCK. (see below)

Here are my Pot-O-Gold bloggers:

My wife, Marie. (She has not one blog but three!) Every Day is a Miracle is a mix of our family doings and all other things--books, movies, politics, religion, politics and religion--that take her fancy (She has strong opinions!) She's also a great book reviewer, as you can see at her book blog, Marie's Book Garden.

Matthew MacNish/Matt Rush of 'The Quintessentially Questionable Query Experiment.' Matt started his blog to, in his words, "help other novice writers avoid the mistakes I made in the beginning of my road to publication." His posts are always informative and/or amusing, and he amazingly seems to reply personally to each of his commenters!

Lisa Ricard Claro of Lisa Ricard Claro--Writing in the Buff. I met Lisa through the late lamented Microfiction Monday. Like all of the above, she's a great and entertaining writer, and has started a new meme, Book Blurb Friday, which unfortunately I've not yet had the time/creative energy to tackle.

Dan Ogilvie of DanPloy. Another Microfiction Monday friend, Dan is an Englishman living in Thailand. He calls it a "diary" rather than a blog, but his observations are always funny and trenchant. (Recently, on a trip to the U.S., he describes running across an eight lane highway in search of "some choice of menu other than toppings on a salmonella ridden donkey burger," and doing his "best Sebastian Coe impersonation, (as the athlete, not the smug Conservative git he is now)." His microfictions were always a hoot, too.

And now for me:

FAITH: Its biggest test was when my eldest was born 14 years ago at only 24-weeks gestation and weighing 1 pound six ounces. (He is now a witty, talented, and only mildly truculent teenager, going into high school in September.)

HOPE: Beyond the usual desire for a cessation of global hostilies, the perennial and never-ending hope is to one day see my words within the covers of a bound book (so the e-book revolution will have to stall for a bit, if you please.)

LOVE & LUCK: I'm combining these two. I was everlastingly lucky to live in Japan as the same time as my wife, and to fall in love with her there. She has been my best friend and supporter for the past 24 years (almost 21 of them married.) Every day with her is a miracle of joy.