Next week, Nightwolf’s Corner officially turns 1 year old. (I can’t believe it’s already been that long!) And as the countdown to announcing the giveaway winner continues, I find myself looking for other ways to extend the celebration. Thankfully, Andrew Toynbee once again supplied me with the perfect solution. He’s honored me with a nomination for the Dragon’s Loyalty Award. Not a bad pre-blogiversary present, huh? It’s actually my first blogging award of any kind, so thanks, Andrew! You’re awesome!

The rules for this one are pretty simple:

1. Display the award certificate on your website. (Mission accomplished. It’s above.)
2. Announce your win and link to whoever nominated you. (Why do I get the feeling these rules should have been left to common sense? Who wouldn’t want to thank the person that gave them a shiny gold star?)
3. Present 15 awards to deserving bloggers. (Hmmm, they assume I’m much more popular than I am. This could be challenging. I sense some creative rule-breaking in the near future.)
4. Drop them a comment to alert them of the awesomeness. (Again, duh! That’s kind of an obvious part of these games, right?)
5. Post 7 interesting things about yourself. (Uh-oh, I’m starting to run out of interesting things! I’ll have to see if I have any left after the last time I posted some.)

Alright, I need a little time to figure out how I’m going to magically find 15 worthy souls to direct you toward, so I’m going to do things slightly out of order. (I told you I was a rule-breaker.) I already used some of my best random, interesting factoids in the last go-around, so here are some b-grade, semi-interesting ones. 😉
 

7 Supposedly Interesting Facts About Me:

 

1. I grew up in The Middle of Nowhere, California. Like seriously, the town’s not even on most maps. It literally took an hour (in any direction) to get to civilization and our nearest neighbors were a mile away. (What can I say, my parents decided they wanted to be hermits, I mean, back-to-landers. 😉 )
2. I don’t know how to talk to kids until they’re about 10 years old. (That may be a sign I’m missing the mom gene. I’m not sure.)
3. I like popcorn with my ramen. (Yeah, you read that right.)
4. I collect journals, but because I can’t stand my handwriting, I never fill them. (Don’t look at me at like that, you already knew I was weird.)
5. I was a complete chatterbox as a kid (according to my mom) but absolutely loathe public speaking/social situations now and avoid them at all costs. (Is being a hermit hereditary?)
6. I think car karaoke is awesome. It lets me pretend that I can actually sing. (Pretend being the operative word there.)
7. My brain comes to a screaming halt when I’m hungry, and I seriously have the IQ of a jellybean until I eat something. (Yep, I just attributed jellybeans with intelligence.)

Whew! I made it. That was getting rather difficult, partly because factoid #7 is in full effect right now, (intelligent jellybeans? WTF?), and partly because I don’t know what else to say that might qualify as “interesting.” Fortunately, I don’t have to fabricate any more fascinatingly random tidbits because that task is over. For now. On to the next part– nominating some peeps!

I chose these first few people because they consistently support me with comments, links, and friendship.

Andrew– Andrew Toynbee’s Very Own Blog (That’s right, I’m nominating you back! Thanks for always sending people my way. 🙂 )

Jon– Jumping From Cliffs (For all the supportive comments and always providing a laugh with your sarcastic wit.)

Robert– An Orthogonal Universe Blog (For supporting all my endeavors. Can’t wait to see your book finally released!)

Kym– Redheaded Blackbelt (For introducing me to blogging and giving me the encouragement to start.)

(Thanks goes to all my other regular commenters too. Since some of you don’t have blogs, I couldn’t include you in the link round-up, but you have my gratitude and appreciation all the same. As does everyone who follows me or even just randomly stops by for 2 seconds to helpfully inform me– in broken English, no less– of how difficult my site was to find and how I’m lacking in my SEO optimization. [Really? Then how did you find me, Mr. Luis Vuitton Knock-off purse vendor from the other side of the world? Clearly, Google didn’t think I was that hard to find.] ;))

These next blogs are not ones that follow me, (that I’m aware of), but rather, are ones I follow regularly and feel are deserving of a shout-out.

Katie Jennings– She Writes With Love (For some initial encouragement and awesome information about self-publishing.)

The girls over at The Pub(lishing) Crawl (For consistently informative posts on all things publishing/writing.)

Lindsay Buroker (For amazingly thorough and insightful posts on self-publishing and the legalities of writing.)

The ladies of Self-Published Authors (For all the information on publishing, marketing and writing.)

Catherine Ryan Howard– Catherine, Caffeinated (For a mess-load of information on self-publishing wrapped in sarcasm.)

And, lastly, Rachelle Gardner (For insight into the publishing business from the other side of the fence.)

Ok, so not quite 15, but hey, 10’s not a bad number, right? There are a lot more really awesome blogs I follow on a routine basis, but I didn’t want to bore you guys, so I capped it at these few. If you’re looking for some new reading material, be sure to check them out!

That concludes the assignment portion of the award and today’s post. Next week, I’ll reveal the winner of the giveaway and wax nostalgic about my year as a blogger. (That means I’ll be doing a link round-up of all my favorite posts over the past year.) If you haven’t entered the giveaway, there’s still time! (One more week, to be exact.) You could win your choice of a substantive editorial critique, a custom logo design or a ready-made demo concept. All you have to do is click here. And remember, the more entries I receive, the more chances to win there will be. Good luck!