Sunday, September 9, 2012

The Sunshine Award

Posted by M.L. Falconer on 4:23 PM


Hello everyone.
One of my best writing friends, L.J. Kentowski, has honored me with the Sunshine award. I'm grateful that she thought of me for it. L.J. is one of the most talented writers I’ve met. Her first book, Guardian of Fate is an amazing read, and the sequel, Seeker of Fate will be released soon. Go check her out, read her work, you won't be disappointed.
This was more difficult than I imagined, though it was a blast to complete.

This is how the Sunshine Award works:
  • Thank the blogger who nominated you
  • Post the award icon above
  • Answer the questions below
  • Nominate ten other bloggers (I don't think I know ten other bloggers ;\)

On to my questions!

  1. What is your favorite Christmas/festive movie? It's difficult to choose one favorite. I do enjoy A Christmas Story; it’s a writer’s movie for sure. I’m also partial to the movie Jack Frost. Sad ending, yes, though it's a fine movie. Reminds me of all the Christmas' I'd missed with my kids because of the divorce and how I wished I could have, somehow, shared everyone with them.
  1. What is your favorite flower? My mom used to plant Pansy flowers around the lantern light in our front yard and I loved them. I find them to be amazingly beautiful, and of course, when I see them I’m reminded of my mom.
  1. What is your favorite non-alcoholic beverage? Yet another wonderful reminder of my mother … we didn't have much soda in the house as I grew up, but on occasion my mother would send a Dr. Pepper with me in a sack lunch for my grade school field trips. The flavor takes me back to my childhood, to Tautphaus Park and that fantastic surprise she left me in my lunch sack. I have grown quite fond of the cherry version of Dr. Pepper. Also, I’m a sucker for Egg Nog during the Fall and Winter Holidays.
  1. What is your passion? This is a loaded question. I think my first passion, if speaking of family, would be my kids. If I had one, my Girlfriend/wife. As far as extracurricular activities; writing, reading, and audio production. My ultimate goal is to produce my own audio books and other writing audio productions. I also have a passion for beautiful outdoor areas and hiking.
  1. What is your favorite time of year? Fall. I love the the changing color of the leaves, a fire in the fire pit and tiki torches in the dimming light or curling up to a fire in the fireplace. I become most giddy around Halloween, Thanksgiving and through Christmas.
  1. What is your favorite time of day? Dusk and night. As stated in question 5, I love a fire in the fire pit and tiki torches in the dimming light, watching the stars twinkle and shoot across the sky.
  1. What is your favorite physical activity? Is this question PG?! Well, I am a single guy after all. Ok, in all seriousness, hiking would be my physical activity of choice. I enjoy the outdoors, beautiful expanses of wilderness and trees.
  1. What is your favorite vacation? Anytime I can get up to a wooded area and spend a few days in a cabin, I’m in heaven. However, I must mention that this October I’m going to Disneyland for the first time. I'll keep you posted how that goes.


Now I get the honor of nominating ten awesome peeps for this award:


5 comments:

Hi Mel, thank you for nominating me for this challenge. Wow, I learned some new things about you: audio production. I never knew! Do you read/narrate the stories yourself? I have such high admiration for this particular talent, actually, I'm jealous like hell :)

Soo you're a holiday/Christmas person, I like that! I wish I could get my hubby to be more like that, he is such a grinch. When the time comes, I'll have to lure him with home baked cookies and hot wine punch..presents don't do it..

Hiking in the woods, alone in the cabin - your dream vacation - my biggest nightmare! Maybe it comes from watching too many bad teenage horror flicks or a general irrational fear of woods, being in them, alone, I mean. Disneyworld sounds more like my cup of tea. Are you going there with your kids?
Thank you again for the nomination!

This was a fun post, Mel, and I learned much about you too. Loved your descriptions of autumn, night time and the holidays. As much as I love the woods, I'd have to agree with DasNuk. No hiking alone for me, or even holing up in a cabin. I zone in on the slasher movie creepiness. Makes for great plotting and writing though.

And BTW, loved the pansies around the lantern light. Such a lovely image.

And enjoy Disney Land!

I love the woods too M.L.! It just seems so peaceful compared to living in the city. You can actually hear your own thoughts up there! Great post!

Dana; I'm proud to place you among my favorite writers. I wasn't sure you'd enjoy doing this sort of thing, though I'm excited to learn more about you.

Absolutely, Audio Production/Music Mastering is an intense passion with me. I did produce an audio book version of Squishing Whistle Pigs for my semester final in college, though my hard drive crashed the night before my final and I lost most of my voice tracks. I spent 40 hours in the studio and lost 90% of that work. It was so disappointing because studio time was not easy to come by. So, long story short, yes, as much as I detest my own voice, I narrated my own audio book. It would have turned out so cool, better than normal audio books. The good audio books are either narrated by the author or a voice actor who can do different voices for each character. But my book had sound effects mixed in too. The upside to all this is that, since I produced it as an audio book, I've made a lot of positive edits to it that would not have been in the audio book version. So, maybe losing all that work was a good thing.

I do have a few Audio Production projects that I did for school assignments I’ll post on the blog here under the Audio Production link at the top, though I'm technology challenged and I need to find a place I can store the audio files so I can embed them on the blog. Not exactly sure how to do that yet.

The fall and winter holidays are my favorite time of the year. I'm so young at heart, I love decorating the house for Halloween. I made some cool audio mix projects that I would play on the porch when trick or treaters would come. When my kids were little we would have a fire in the portable pit in the front yard and make a pot luck. Neighbors would come to share in the pot luck and combine our candies and talk while the kids would trick or treat along out street. Thanksgiving is such a great time as it was a rare time that all my family would be together in the same place at the same time and I love to cook so it was always fantastic. Christmas is another holiday that I can be young at heart. I miss snow ball fights with my kids and making snow angels with my daughters. I enjoy planning a nice meal and planning for Christmas day with my roommate. It's just an amazing, magical, giddy time. And home baked cookies and hot wine punch …. now who's jealous of who? Sheesh. ;)

For the record, I'm a chicken, I wouldn't go hiking or stay at a cabin in the woods alone either. All of those contingencies are in mind with someone going with me for sure.

Mae: Thank you for that. It was a beautiful thing. That tall lantern lamp out there with pansys all around the base, it was gorgeous.

L.J. You can also see the stars up there. It's amazing how much you can't see them in the city limits.

Hi ML! Thanks. :-) How have you been? I try to take it as a good sign when people are scarce online. I imagine you out hiking, logging some nature time :-) I hope that is the case, my friend.

A Christmas Story? Yep! At our house, we often quote lines from it. The writing was pure genius! lol...

Pansies. what a sweet recollection of your mom. They are beautiful posies and so tough. I've had a pansy bloom in every month of the year. I always think about the pansy blossom the day I brought my second newborn home from the hospital. February! :-D The flower of thought, Je pense ;-)

So many of your answers resonated with me. No wonder we clicked. :-) The family, looking up at the stars. Someday I'll get far enough west to really see them. Even though I live in the country, there are small cities nearby. Even the exits from four lanes are all lit up and glow in our horizon off in the distance. Obscures the night sky.

Thank you so much for the nomination. I am do far behind, biut noted and I will get to it.

You take care, my friend! ;-)



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