Two things to mention after a long stretch of non-blogging. I wish I could say I was working hard and that’s why I hadn’t blogged. Truth be told, I’ve been in a slump after NaNoWriMo. I seem to recall this happened last year as well. Perhaps NaNo throws me for a loop. Perhaps I should think twice about participating next year. Back on the horse, however. Trying to sleep so that I can do my 4 AM writing.<\/p>\n
So, what’s new? I was recently nominated for an award! No, it wasn’t the Big Jerk Award (although I would fuckin’\u00a0rock<\/em> that category), nor was it Competitive Cookie Eating Champ, though I’d take home a trophy for that for sure. It was a Reviewer’s Choice Best Paranormal Read of 2014 award through LSOR (Little Shop of Readers, for those not in the know.) for the Marnie Baranuik Files. No, for reals! I didn’t make the final cut, but I’m still pretty damn tickled about being nominated. I’m gonna just go ahead and print myself out a nomination certificate and frame it for my office. Don’t tell anyone, Internet.<\/p>\n Secondly, I’m going into hospital briefly for a little “routine surgery,” which to me inspires a mental image of my surgeon and his nurses doing some sort of synchronized dance whilst I’m unconscious. I’m comfortable pretending that’s what’s going to happen. Scalpels flying, butts wiggling in unison. Can one twerk and slice at the same time? Hope so. I’m packing a hidden camera. I’m packing a lot of things.<\/p>\n Viking: What’s all this?<\/p>\n Me: Just the bare essentials.<\/p>\n Viking: I thought they said no fragrances.<\/p>\n Me: I’m sure they didn’t mean incense<\/em>. Who doesn’t bring their lucky incense<\/em>?<\/p>\n Viking: No incense. What–what is that thing?<\/p>\n Me: What does it look like?<\/p>\n Viking: It looks like a frozen chicken carcass.<\/p>\n Me: Don’t worry, it’ll thaw.<\/p>\n Viking: What could you possibly need that for?<\/p>\n Me: For voodoo. Or chicken stock. Chicken soup HEALS, dude. That’s just science.<\/p>\n Viking: When did you get this trophy?<\/p>\n Me: I made it for myself. If I die, I want it to be the last thing I see, so I can go into the great beyond feeling like a winner.<\/p>\n Viking: A winner.<\/p>\n Me: It’s a Competitive Cookie Eating Champ award. Also, a Big Jerk Award. It’s a two-fer!<\/p>\n Viking: You gave yourself third place.<\/p>\n Me: I didn’t wanna be presumptuous. There’re a lot of big jerks out there.<\/p>\n So, in answer to your obvious next question, no, I’m not going in for a lobotomy. I’ll be back and fighting fit by the weekend, I’m sure. From here on out, I hope to blog more often than I have been lately. Wrath & Bones is still limping along, but I need a fresh infusion of sleep and inspiration to kick my muse into overdrive. Maybe the rest will do me good.<\/p>\n Until then, this is Writerghoulie signing out! Be good, folks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Two things to mention after a long stretch of non-blogging. I wish I could say I was working hard and that’s why I hadn’t blogged. Truth be told, I’ve been in a slump after NaNoWriMo. I seem to recall this happened last year as well. Perhaps NaNo throws me for a loop. Perhaps I should […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3184","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-writing"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ajaalto.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3184"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ajaalto.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ajaalto.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ajaalto.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ajaalto.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3184"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.ajaalto.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3184\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3185,"href":"http:\/\/www.ajaalto.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3184\/revisions\/3185"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ajaalto.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ajaalto.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3184"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ajaalto.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}