Blog of the Year Award! Also Year-end Writing Review and December's Sparkling Sentences

ay blog award!

Thanks so much to Melanie for the 2012 Blog of the Year Award!

Here are the official rules:

1 Select the blog(s) you think deserve the Blog of the Year 2012 Award
2 Write a blog post and tell us about the blog(s) you have chosen – there's no minimum or maximum number of blogs required – and present them with their award
3 Please include a link back to this page Blog of the Year 2012 Award and include these rules in your post (please don't alter the rules or the badges!)
4 Let the blog(s) you have chosen know that you have given them this award and share the rules with them
5 You can now also join our Facebook group – click like on this page Blog of the Year 2012 Award Facebook group and then you can share your blog with an even wider audience
6 As a winner of the award please add a link back to the blog that presented you with the award and then proudly display the award on your blog and sidebar... and start collecting stars...

I've learned from so many blogs this year, and had so much fun visiting blogging buddies! The A to Z challenge in April was a blast, as was this year's WRiTE CLUB.

I'm going to pass the award on to two lovely bloggers who've always got something interesting to say:

Laurel Garver at Laurel's Leaves and Trisha at Word + Stuff

And now, a look back at my writing in 2012:

Back in January we posted yearly goals on the Compuserve Forum. I've met quite a few of mine:

Edit Rome, Rhymes and Risk. I did, but on paper. I haven't yet entered the edits on the MS... I did conduct an character interview with the male hero, Devran, though.

Keep agent-hunting for Out of the Water. Ongoing. There was, and has been, much revision of the query letter.

Try to write another short story or two and submit them somewhere, and edit the plot bunny story. Sort of done. Rejections.

On top of that I spent the summer writing and typing a completely new story, Druid's Moon, a contemporary paranormal romance. I did a bit of editing on that last week, but it needs a lot more.

And for NaNoWriMo I wrote another historical romance - on paper, still not typed - Captive of the Sea, the story of Rosa's parents, which comes before Out of the Water. Every time someone mentions Columbus or the Wars of the Roses, I jump. I feel like I've been simultaneously living in the 15th Century for the past two years.

I participated in the Fourth Writers' Platform-Building Campaign and wrote short snips for the challenges.

I interviewed authors Barbara Rogan and James Forrester! Following on from my last post about all the Neil Gaiman books I read, here's the backstory that I wrote in January of How I Came to Read Gaiman, and also the first time Neil Gaiman wrote back! I also interviewed Zan Marie Steadham and Jamie from Mithril Wisdom!

Later on, I created the Kedi's Paw Badge of Honour Award.

Kedi is a... spirit who currently happens to be in cat form. Only those with whom he is in direct contact realise that he's more than just an ordinary cat - currently he lets his guard down only around Austin, the English boy he's befriended in my middle grade novel The Face of A Lion.

As a cat, he's a soft grey colour with a white underside and paws, and very long whiskers. He makes chirping noises and purrs very loudly; to Austin and others who understand him, this sounds to them like English or whichever language it is they speak. 

Here he is, passing on his Badge of Honour to you:

Please pass it on!

I wrote a piece of flash fiction for Özlem Yikici's Continuing Story. And then I shared a story I wrote when I was 10...

There were also houseparties on the Forum, and in October I hosted the Virtual Surrey Conference, featuring guest "speakers" Kait Nolan and Talli Roland.

The last writerly event I've been participating on in the forum is the December Sentences, created by Carol: "I am proposing -- beginning on Monday, December 3rd -- that those of us who commit to it, agree to post ONE sentence a day for 29 consecutive days onto a thread I'll begin for us.
Every day, no matter what you are doing, you surely have time to write -- even if it's only a new paragraph. But I am not asking for a paragraph -- just one wonderful sentence.
That's the only caveat to this craft collective: your sentence can't be mundane. It can't be "Look, Jane, look." Or, "See Spot run."
The sentence has to sparkle like the season of light. It has to be evocative. Or emotionally charged. Good description, or simile or metaphor. It has to reek of voice and originality.
In other words, it has to be a great sentence, a keeper."

Here are all the ones I shared, from various different novels and short stories:

The kiss was sweet, and though it did not leave her empty, it left her hollow, the shell of the kiss surrounding the empty air of all the unspoken words that lay between them.

So it was that he found himself wedged onto a pier crowded with shoving labourers and rank with the smells of a hundred different goods, saddled with an ill monk, a surly youth, and a captivating maiden – the only one among them that seemed enthused at the prospect of being in a hitherto unexplored city – all looking to him to provide a diversion, as they waited for the captain to finish trading and resume course for Nice.

With no one else around and the world forgotten, then might he kiss those flame-reddened cheeks, then might he brush her hand and linger on the touch.

Is that how I look when offering a prayer to the Lord?

He'd have to court her properly, gallantly, as was her due, except he did not know how much longer she'd remain on the ship, and it would take all his effort to thrust down the urge to throw his arms about her and coax kisses out of that rosebud mouth.

The day after my father told us the history of the curse - and I thought that was the longest night of my life - my brother was found drowned in the Severn.

He was very attractive, for a stranger, but his words spun a web around her, and if she showed any sign that she cared, the spinnerets would trap her in its threads and bind her to him.

A muddy splash would splatter on her forehead and she would instantly think back on all the things her father had said or done that day; his mood was the most important thing to consider.

If he tormented himself trying to weigh those kinds of nuances, he’d never sleep again.

The fire crackled, but the only heat came from his body, pressing against her back.

It was one thing to dig up old manuscripts of legends and curses, and quite another to find herself in the midst of one as it unfolded.

His obvious enjoyment made her attend to its flavour, both tart skin and sweet flesh.

What sentence would you share?