Six Random Things About Me

Or...The Dragon got tagged for another meme

My good friend Jamieson Wolf, whose blog you can see at http://www.jamiesonwolf.blogspot.com/, tagged me for a meme that I swear I've seen before. This thing is making the rounds... So I'm playing along like a good little blogger.

Instructions: Write down six random things about yourself and then tag six bloggers with the same task. As a refresher, here's what you do.

Rules: Link to the person who tagged you. Post the rules on your blog. Write six random things about yourself. Tag six random people at the end of your post by linking to their blog. Let each person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their Web site. Let your tagger know when your entry is up. Have fun!

Six Random Things About Fantasy Author Sandy Lender:

1. I lived in Mallorca, Spain, for a year when I was an infant. While this seems to have had no lasting effect on my Spanish vocabulary, it has influenced my Spanish accent. When I string words together, it sounds as if I know what I'm saying.

2. I am a fantasy author who enjoys dabbling in the paranormal realm under the speculative fiction umbrella. My current fantasy novel, Choices Meant for Gods, is available on http://www.amazon.com/ from ArcheBooks Publishing, and its sequel is due for release this summer.

3. I was the Vacation Bible School director at a Southern Baptist Church in Kansas City for eight years and taught Youth Sunday School there for longer than they should have let me. Bwuahahaha. But I don't recall anyone dying under my watch so I think it turned out okay. (Hi, Judy!)

4. Despite the Southern Baptist background, I believe the Golden Rule applies to ALL of us, so I have a wide variety of friends and support anti-bigotry in my novels. (It's not in-your-face, but it's in there.)

5. I own several medieval-looking weapons. They bring me comfort and joy. (see image above)

6. I'm a volunteer with Turtle Time, which means I have a section of beach I patrol to watch for and report sea turtle nesting and hatching activity to help protect these endangered pookies. Their incidental capture in shrimp trawling nets, despite governmental regulations regarding the use of Turtle Excluder Devices (TEDs) is why I refuse to purchase and/or eat shrimp and I encourage others to boycott the shrimping industry as well. :)

Now here are the six people I tag to play along!
Henry R. Hermann, author of Beginnings, due out next month
http://henryhermannnovelist.blogspot.com/
Tina Murray, author of A Chance to Say Yes, due out next month
http://www.achancetosayyes.blogspot.com/
Barie Fez-Barrington, blog URL on its way…
Laura Crawford, copywriting and proofreading professional
http://www.greetingsfromthepolebarn.blogspot.com/
Mikeeeeeeee!, writer
http://mikeysmoods.blogspot.com/
Steve Hart, author of Down Yonder, Florida, available now http://www.downyonderflorida.com/

"Some days, I just want the dragon to win."

Tags: Choices Meant for Gods, fantasy novel, fantasy author, Sandy Lender, Jamieson Wolf

The Dragon Got Hit With Another Meme
Or…doggonit…networking in the blogosphere

I’m playing along because this one is easy and it doesn't take a lot of time away from the high of receiving Choices Meant for Gods the other night (see the post below today's Word of the Day for yesterday's explanation). Any of you regular visitors will remember the first meme to appear here at The Dragon. Holy cow. Jeni, I’ll get around to forgiving you for it one of these days, but I haven’t had a chance to burn any sage incense yet. ;)

Now my friend Mikee up in Tampa tagged me with a meme about obsessions. Considering I have a few of those…here we go. You could view Mike’s responses at his blog if I could remember things with only 8 hours of sleep over three days. Mike, you’ll have to put it in the comment field, Darlin’.

For those of you not familiar with memes, I put my responses to a question(s) here on my blog, then tag a set number of people to copy and do the same at their blogs. (Insert evil laughter here.) And then we leave comments for each other summarizing our success on the exercise. Yeah, Mike, that’ll happen during the lunch hour.

Five things I can admit to being obsessed with:
1) writing (no surprise – I’ve only been doing this since age 6 – have I mentioned on here that I used to write books that began with the table of contents? – yeah, included page numbers and everything - I don't think Choices Meant for Gods even has a TOC...)
2) Duran Duran (there are not words to describe this problem of mine – and whoever broke into John Taylor’s house Monday night will have me to deal with when he/she is caught)
3) turtles (I’m a volunteer with Turtle Time, which means from May 1 until sometime in October, I haul my behind out to the beach every Saturday morning before dawn to patrol for sea turtle nests and babies – it’s the greatest thing in the world)
4) baseball (the St. Louis Cardinals made me proud in October – and Scott Rolen is my man – and ESPN needs to be reminded that there are a few teams outside of New York)
5) Petri! (my bird)

I’m tagging the following five:
Eric Maisel www.ericmaisel.com (who will be appearing in an author interview here at The Dragon May 10 for his new book Ten Zen Seconds)
Jamieson Wolf www.jamiesonwolf.blogspot.com (who will be appearing in an author interview here at The Dragon in June for his new book WRITE NOW! Exercises for the Aspiring Writer)
Robert Gelinas http://fwaswflorida.blogspot.com (the Florida Writers Association’s southwest branch leader)
Tina Murray at www.achancetosayyes.blogspot.com (author of A Chance to Say Yes)
Raven Bower at www.ravenbower.com (author of fantasy works to be released by ArcheBooks Publishing this summer)

Now each of you are to answer the question and tag five folks of your own choosing to expand the networking joy.

“Some days, I just want the dragon to win.”

Greatest Songs of the Seventies
Meme me, baby

No mocking me, now, but I’m a member of the Barry Manilow International Fan Club (hey, I love the man) and his PR machine (which works overtime, let me tell you) sent me a message late last week inviting me to vote for my favorite thirteen songs of the two-hundred he’d narrowed down from the canon of seventies tunes he could include on his upcoming covers album. Fantastic! I got to weigh in!

I carefully considered which ones I would ABSOLUTELY DIE to hear Mr. Manilow sing, which ones I thought he could market in 2007/2008, and which ones I thought he’d sound great singing, and came up with the list I’ll post below.

But here’s the meme I’m sending out! List your top five songs of the seventies. Yes, I said seventies. What five songs moved you then to such heights that you can still listen to them now if they come on on the Old Fuddy Duddy Station when you’re in the car? This might be easier after I stir your memory banks with my top thirteen list (in no particular order) that I want Mr. Manilow to perform…

Cecilia
Hooked on a Feeling
I’m Not in Love
Imagine
Lady (hopefully the one by LRB)
Pina Colada Song
Silly Love Songs
You Light Up My Life
You’ve Got a Friend
Take a Chance on Me
She Believes in Me
Maybe I’m Amazed
Everything I Own

And here are the folks I tag to answer the meme challenge!
Michelle (M.B. Weston, author of A Prophecy Forgotten, www.elysianchronicles.com)
Tina Murray (author of A Chance to Say Yes, http://achancetosayyes.blogspot.com)
The Author Mike (author of Jessie Remembers, www.freewebs.com/justsaywhat)
Dorothy Thompson (co-author of The Search for the Million $$$ Ghost, www.overthehillchick.blogspot.com)
Jamieson Wolf (author of Garden City, http://www.jamiesonwolf.blogspot.com)
Thingfish23 (http://tamingoftheband-aid.blogspot.com)

Now, this isn’t to say you visitors can’t participate, too. If you’re just stoppin’ by and this tickles your fancy, there’s a comment link just beneath my tagline about dragons winning the day. And you don’t have to come up with five if you don’t want to. No rules for you to adhere to! You can just list one that’s your favorite… And yes, anything off the ’73 release of Houses of the Holy is fair game! Rock on!


“Some days, you just want the dragon to win.”

Tags: music, Barry Manilow, meme

A Meme That Makes You Think
This viral message gets philosophical

A friend of mine at http://oldavonladysorders.blogspot.com/ tagged me to receive and pass along the following meme. (It’s not “Word of the Day” time, but I’ll define meme for you because I went to a great deal of trouble to make sure I knew just what this was: noun – a nugget of information or theme for a conversation; in the blogging world, a meme is a viral message that people seem not to mind receiving as it gives them something to blog about and drive some traffic to their site – I fall into that category.)

The meme I’ve received has been referred to as “the thinking meme” by its progenitors, and I find that I’m not so thankful that it’s the one I get to try my hand at. Wah. Look at this thing. Eleven questions of questionable “positivism”, and you know how I harp on positivism around here! So let’s give it a shot.

1. If you had to choose one vice in exclusion of all others what would it be?
I’d like to take on the vice of gratuitous intimate liaisons with a specific rock star. But something tells me maybe this question is asking what current vice I want to give up. Because gratuitous intimate liaisons with rock stars don’t happen in my life (often), I’m going to have to go with “cursing”.

2. If you could change one specific thing about the world, what would it be?
No more commercial fishing! Blasted shrimpers… Save the sea turtles!

3. Name the cartoon character you identify with the most.
I guess Marvin the Martian has my anger management issues, but I really have to applaud Pepe le Pew’s attitude. (Do the muppets count? ’Coz Animal and I are cut from the same cloth… And did I just butcher Pepe’s name?)

4. If you could live one day in your life over again which one would it be?
There have been pieces of days that have been fabulous (i.e.: Dec. 18, 2005; Dec. 15, 2006) for the specific-rock-star-related reasons, but a day that I’d like to relive involves Nassau and the crystal-clear waters of the vacation spot and a really great drink at a bar where my friend Bianca and I sat after this fabulous powerboat ride. I could live that day over and over and over…especially if it ended with a Duran Duran concert this time. There’s a picture of Bianca and me in the water with these sting rays, and we look euphoric. We look pretty content at the bar, too. And laying on these chaise lounge chairs on the beach… Yes, it was a good day.

5. If you could go back in history and spend a day with one person who would it be?
In this order:
My Savior
Charlotte Bronte
The guy who wrote down Beowulf

6. What is the one thing you lost, sold, or threw away that you wish you could have back?
No regrets

7. What is your one most important contribution to this world?
The Choices and Blood and Vine trilogies (but do they count if they haven’t “happened” yet?)
I think the most important contribution(s) I made was/were the eight years of leading Vacation Bible School at the church back home. You never know but one of those kids might have caught the right “stuff” out of all that and it’ll keep him or her on the right track later on when he or she needs the right track most.

8. What is your one hidden talent that nearly no one knows about?
I can write fantasy novels like Choices Meant for Gods.

9. What is your most cherished possession?
Is my bird a possession (or am I his)? If the house was burning down and I could only save one item, it would be Petri, my bird.

10. What one person influenced your life the most when growing up?
My great grandmother! She’s the one Choices Meant for Gods is being dedicated to when it comes out next month because she’s the one who encouraged me to write. She’s the one who read my silly little stories when I was a child and shared them with the people in her apartment building.

11. What one word describes you better than any other?
Oof…depends on who you ask. In social circles: Crazy. In work: Professional. How bizarre is that? But I guess that’s the Gemini in me!

I tag the following five people to participate next!
Jeff “Ski”
http://consultski.blogspot.com
NathFanJT
http://johnnath.skyblog.com
Tina
http://achancetosayyes.blogspot.com
Dwight
http://gkupsidedown.blogspot.com
Michelle
www.elysianchronicles.com

"Some days, you just want the dragon to win."