NaNoWriMo - Inspirational Books

A Very Inspiring Award

An award? For me? Aww, NevilleGirl, you shouldn't have! Thank you so much.

Yes yes yes, I know this goes against my usual Awards Policy - that policy being "politely decline, then slay all attempts by the award's interloping agents to breach the walls with fire, blood and a toaster."

But I made an exception today. And not just because the award has a nice pretty picture. Being inspiring to someone is not easy - especially when you're as pedantic and pernickety as I can be - and thus I think it's important to let people know that they inspire you. I've been honoured with being told I "inspire" people a couple of times, either by supporting their endeavours or doing something that made them want to do similarly, and it's a wonderful feeling to know that you've done something good for people.

So, today, I'm going to do that too.

The award runs as follows:

1. Thank the blogger who nominated you.
2. Place the award on your site
3. Share 7 random things about yourself.
4. Nominate 15 blogs. Let them know they’ve been nominated and how to accept the award.

Parts one and two here have been completed to my satisfaction . . . now . . . let's delve into the Fact File. It's a little old . . . I hope it's still decipherable.

FACT THE FIRST: The being known as Charley intends to conclude her full-time secondary education at the thirteenth educational venue she has attended (infant education omitted). 

FACT THE SECOND: The aforementioned Charley takes great joy from occasionally referring to herself in the third person during innocuous conversation. Studies suggest this is because she enjoys seeing if anyone will notice or, preferably, join in.

FACT THE THIRD: To this day, Charley maintains a lifelong mistrust of the number nine. Neither she, her parents, or anyone else, is sure why.

FACT THE FOURTH: Despite priding herself on a consistently strong grasp and use of language, Charley frequently fails to leave the "a" out of the past-tense spelling of the verb "to lead", frequently leading to confusion over whether she means "led" or is referring a the dense metallic element.

FACT THE FIFTH: If asked, after much deliberation and reference to the subjective nature of the question, Charley would define herself as a "cat person".

FACT THE SIXTH: Charley is prone to existential crises. Especially as a result of lessons spent studying religious and theological issues.

FACT THE SEVENTH: Despite being no expert on avian species, Charley maintains a peculiar fondness for crows. Seagulls, however, are like to suffer similar treatment at her hands as they would from a small terrier (studies suggest this may be the result of a slightly traumatising chip-thieving incident perforated by the aforementioned).

And now, nominations . . . fifteen nominations!

Some rules are made to be broken. This one probably isn't, judging by the high-grade material and fairly sturdy consistency, but my mace has never been much troubled by that.

I hereby declare that my nominations go to ALL MY FOLLOWERS!

Because every single one of you inspires me. You read my posts, you give your opinions, you sometimes agree, you sometimes disagree, you add things to what I've said, you suggest things I didn't see. I read your blogs, I see your posts. They make me think, they make me laugh, they make me cry, they inspire me.

You inspire me.

~ Charley R

"On Inspiration, Writing and Other Forms of Tickery" - The Director's Request Post!

Ack! Sorry, I've been swamped by illness and school and giant monsters..... o_O My most humble apologies.....

Why don't you do a post on what keeps you writing- what makes you tick, what you do when you're running dry on inspiration.... and your absolute favorite villains (from stories that aren't yours, I'm sure you love your villains, naturally)...
Sorry about the wait! *tips hat again*

Ah, the post that every writing blogger fears, but hey ho, let's go! (whoa .... that sounded so cheesy I could have melted it on my toast)

Anyway.

What makes me tick? Well, if you really want to know it's a system of small cogs and wheels installed below my frontal cortex which, when overloaded, can cause a somewhat suspicious noise that tends to convince everyone in the area that I'm mad.

But in the writing sense? It's this:

Yep, that's how I get started on my stories. A bunch of strange-looking oddballs wander into my head and demand that I pay attention to them. they want their stories written down, and they want it NOW! And, trust me, some of them you just don't want to say no to. Like the seven-foot-tall, sociopathic, mentally-disturbed, I-will-kill-you-for-my-own-amusmement, tea-and-scone-addict assassin character who is currently glaring at me from a particularly dark corner of my mind.
Don't ask me where he came from. Seriously.

So then, on pain of having a multitude of painful sharp things stuck into various parts of my personage, I have to build a world, make a plot, and get them going. Then I get my revenge.

Fun fact: Killing off characters is a great way to beat writer's block. Especially when you play epic music in the background.

And I'm not the only one! Sorry JK, I'm with Mr Martin on this one.

Yep, that's it: music and murder. They tend to unstick me quite nicely. Along with sugary drinks, jelly beans and watching particularly hilarious spoofs of my favourite films on YouTube. And sporking. I do love me a good spork.
Warning: Brain bleach is adviseable as a precaution. You will see things in there that you will never be able to un-see....

And now for the final part of the question: my favourite villains (who don't belong to me).

... Where shall I begin?

I've always been very fond of Shakespeare's Iago (Othello) and Edmund (King Lear). Iago is such a delightfully disgusting, plotting, chaos-causing git, it's impossible not to go head over heels for him. That, and the way he pokes fun at foppish Cassio just makes me laugh so hard. I may also sympathise with him because I've ended up playing his part in the play about three times. Edmund is a slightly different kettle of fish - he's justified in being a bit peeved off at life for treating him like doggie poo on their shoe because he's illegitimate, but the carnage he causes is simply delightful. I bet he was taking notes from Iago the whole time.

I've always had some respect for Cardinal Richleieu from Alexandre Dumas' The Three Musketeers as well. He's an incredibly shrewd and intelligent villain and, unlike most, doesn't seem to want to kill things just for the sake of it. That, and watching him nearly explode when our favourite troublesome trio rub the victory none-too-subtly into his face has to be one of my favourite scenes in the book.

And one last thing. The Master, from Doctor Who. Technically he's not from a book, but when you can be hilarious, tragic and evil at the same time, all other arguments are irrelevant.

.... MWUA HA HA HA HA HA HA! *swishes cape villainously and vanishes in a poof of smelly black smoke*