Saturday, January 8, 2011

Game Two Winner and Blog Chain Time!

First off.....congratulations to Game Two winner....

Toni Kerr!!!

Shoot me an email and I'll get your prize pack out to you (upon the book's release of course :D)

Second - my day on the blog chain :D

Our wonderful Sandra asked the question this round and she wanted to know:

What do you think your strengths and weaknesses as a writer are? Did you have to develop your strengths, or did they come naturally to you? How are you trying to overcome your weaknesses?

This one I had to think about. I mean, it's stuff I've thought of before. My weaknesses I'm pretty familiar with :D I love adverbs too much; I repeat things like crazy (even though I'm aware of this and try to watch for it); I take breaks that turn into month long vacations, that turn into several months long vacations (I really need to stop doing this...I might finish more than one book a year if I could reign it in...working on it :D); I don't have enough confidence in myself and my work at times (working on this one too).

How do I overcome them? Work, work, work, practice, practice, practice :) And being aware of what they are so I CAN work at them :)

My strengths....it's always so much easier to pick on the bad stuff - but, I think I'm pretty good at descriptions. Sometimes I put a little too much in there :) but for the most part, I think I do okay. I think my dialogue is pretty good - I get a lot of compliments on it.

I think one of my biggest strengths is sheer stubbornness.....I just don't give up. Sure, I get discouraged (a lot), and take breaks (many and far too long), and I teeter on the edge (I'm usually the one throwing the parties), but eventually I pull myself up by my quill straps and get back to it. Whether it's finishing a book, querying through hundreds of rejections, tackling a rough edit, or rewriting a book I just can't let go of, I'm pretty good at sticking with it.

Check out what our awesome Eric had to say yesterday and head to the lovely Amanda's blog tomorrow to see her answer :)

So what about you? What are your strengths and weaknesses?

8 comments:

Charmaine Clancy said...

Great piece. My biggest weakness is dialogue, I'm not a chatty person so my characters tend to speak very little. I think my strength is spotting the quirky in any situation - life amuses me :-)

Sandra Ulbrich Almazan said...

As a stubborn person, I also like to think that the trait can be a strength. ;)

Michelle H. said...

I find myself repeating certain sentences too, maybe a mental glitch or a hole in the space-time continuum. I like to believe it is the latter :)

Vicki Rocho said...

Congrats Toni!

Jemi Fraser said...

Congrats to Toni :)

I think one of my weaknesses is including those sentences that either state the obvious or repeat information in another way - I'm working on them!!

Eric said...

It's so interesting to see how everyone on the chain views themselves, particularly because of how that differs from how I see everyone. Having said that, I think it's great that you have sheer stubbornness. That's a great way to bully your way past obstacles. Nice answer, and thanks for sharing.

Shaun Hutchinson said...

Never giving up is a great strength, and definitely needed in this business. I, for one, am glad you persevere.

Cole Gibsen said...

Ha! I love it. Now, having read your work, you have a lot more strengths than you're giving yourself credit for. One of them would be the ability to create imaginary characters that have real life people swooning over them. *ahem*