A Stylish Blogger

On By Patrick RossIn Bacon, Creativity, Humor, Inspiration, Writing

I’ve avoided having to pick my “Fave Five” friends because I’ve never had a phone from T-Mobile. Here in the United States, the mobile phone carrier advertises a service with free calls to five friends. Who would want to learn they are at best  my sixth favorite person?

What is it that makes me a stylish blogger? Is it the shades or the hat?

I face that dilemma now. Through the generosity of Cheryl Reifsnyder of Cheryl’s Musings (one of my favorite blogs), I have been given the “Stylish Blogger Award.” You can see its logo on the bottom of this blog’s right column.

There are two catches. I have to share seven random things about myself, and I have to pass on the award to five other blogs.

Yes, that’s chain mail, but I believe in our 2.0 world it’s called “viral.” And since in this blog’s first six months it’s never sniffed an award (not that I’d know where to even find a contest), I’m keeping it, just like Nixon kept Checkers.

First I’ll list seven random things, then I’ll list five blogs I’m choosing to call “stylish”:

  1. I worship bacon. (No surprise to regular readers.)
  2. I have an obsession with antique maps, particularly those by the 17th Century Dutch.
  3. Instead of waxing eloquent with lines from James Joyce or T.S. Eliot, I quote The Blues Brothers, Spinal Tap, Animal House, Monty Python classics The Holy Grail and The Life of Brian, and just about any Coen Brothers movie.
  4. I have almost no sense of smell.
  5. I turned down a chance to be interviewed on camera for a segment on The Colbert Report.
  6. In the mid 1990s I wrote a humor column titled Certifiably Inane.
  7. Should I ever form a rock band, I’m naming it Defenestrating Taxidermists.
Different shades, same hat. Must be the hat.

Now to my “fave five” blogs. As readers of my Creativity Tweets of the Week know, I regularly peruse dozens of blogs. I’ve decided here, however, to highlight some of the first ones I came across when I went on Twitter last fall. I return to them regularly, I love their tone of sharing and support, and I feel they need more exposure than they are currently receiving. Like my blog, they address creativity and writing. Here they are in no particular order:

  1. Charlotte Rains Dixon: I love the way Charlotte (@wordstrumpet), a creative writer and writing coach, treats her readers like old friends.
  2. Fear of Writing, Milli Thornton: Writing coach Milli (@fearofwriting) is the author of a book by the same name. She offers helpful tips, hosts interesting guest blogs, and is joined by another sharp writer, Judy Clement Wall (@jclementwall).
  3. Dose of Creativity, Melanie Sklarz: This is one of the first blogs I found when launching my @on_creativity Twitter feed. Melanie is an artist and creativity coach (she trained with Eric Maisel). Her blog posts are engaging and fun. She could post more frequently, but the links she tweets on creativity are golden.
  4. Danielle Meitiv’s Barefoot Blog: Learn about the sea and follow a writer’s creative journey at the same time! Danielle (@danielle_meitiv) is an oceanographer and writer who has seamlessly combined her twin passions into one blog (and fiction as well).
  5. Kate Arms-Roberts: Kate (@KateArmsRoberts and @MorePlayful) is an Interplay coach and writer who encourages play (she has another blog, A More Playful Life). Her sincerity and positivity shine through in her writing.

FYI, if anyone else wants to give me an award, I”m game, just like my daughter was when she played on a basketball team that won no games and yet was given a big trophy by her coach. She loves that trophy, and I’ll love your award, regardless of the level of merit I demonstrated in “earning” it.

22 thoughts on “A Stylish Blogger”

  1. Hey. Fun! Congrats on your award. I love learning random facts about people – and happy to have new blogs to check out (though part of my commitment to creativity was to try to spend *less* time online! But there are too many cool people out there for that 🙂

    Like

    Reply

      1. Hey, thanks for pointing me to that post. I loved it! Erin seems so awesome. On a totally different point, I loved how she said she wants to kill herself whenever someone asks her what she writes about. I feel the same way. I know it’s the question everyone will ask and I should be prepared by now – and yet the question always makes me uncomfortable and I bumble through an answer. I should work on that 🙂

        Like

        Reply

  3. Congrats on winning the Stylish Blogger Award. Personally I think the Easter Monkey clinched it for you, but the cool shades might have helped. 😉

    Loved your seven random things, esp. #3! Can you also sing Minnie the Moocher while morphing from your regular writing duds into a white tuxedo with Brylcreemed hair?

    I’m touched that you’ve included the Fear of Writing blog in your Fave Five. The feeling is definitely mutual – your blog is one of my very favorites too.

    Need more awards? Gotcha. I hereby award you the “Milliver’s Travels Gold Seal Award for the Best Road Trip Interview Skills by a Writer Who Worships Bacon.” And also the humble but much sought-after “Best Captions Award.” (That one’s from the Secret Committee for Blogs Against Creative Stagnation . . . but you knew that, right?).

    ~ Milli 😉

    Like

    Reply

    1. Ah, the Easter Monkey, see him here in all his glory:

      For an 8th piece of trivia on me, my personal connections to The Blues Brothers: in 2007 I interviewed the band’s guitarist Steve Cropper (the one with the long beard), and in 2009 I had lunch with the director, John Landis. I’ve been blessed in life.

      I’m honored to win the Captions award from the SCBACS, but I fear that organization will not win any awards for Best Acronym.

      Like

      Reply

  4. I believe it’s the hat-shades combo that really puts you over the top on the stylish thing. 🙂

    Can’t believe you turned down Colbert…although I would have to. I can NOT keep a straight face.

    Congratulations, Patrick! As you’ve probably figured out, I am a big fan of your blog and you definitely deserve this award! I applaud in your general direction. ;-D

    Like

    Reply

    1. Thanks, Sue! I appreciate your support, even if I smell of elderberries.

      I’m a huge Colbert fan, and should that day come when I’m a published author, I’d like nothing better than to sit at that round table of his and try to keep up with his zingers. What was proposed to me was, let’s just say, not likely to be very flattering, so I passed. 🙂

      Like

      Reply

  7. Okay, love the list of seven random things 🙂 AND the great blogs to check out. Thanks for playing! Although, IMO, you could keep the award even without the chain mail part…NEXT award I get to pass on, I’ll make sure to add that modification.

    Definitely the hat/defenestration combo. That’s my vote.

    🙂 Cheryl

    Like

    Reply

  9. Pingback: The Blogger Chouchou Warm & Fuzzies | Fear of Writing

  10. Nice to meet you Patrick — I’m a little surprised I haven’t been here before! So happy to be featured in Milli’s blog post with you today! I am absolutely stunned that you turned down Colbert; I might’ve done it just to meet him! So glad I found your blog. Now I’ll check out your other favs! Cheers, Julia

    Like

    Reply

    1. Glad to have discovered you, too!

      I’m a big fan of Colbert, would love to meet him and be on the air with him on his set, but I was going to be interviewed for a field report and just didn’t feel comfortable with the premise.

      Like

      Reply

Chime in!

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Gravatar
WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Cancel

Connecting to %s