41 Reasons Why Blogosphere People Are the Best People

41 surveys. 41! In less than 24 hours! (Even though Chanelley brought to my attention that I didn't actually put a deadline on it...I'm really bad at that.)

You can't see me, but I'm smiling deliriously (see pumpkin picture).

When I first told my professor that I was going to give my survey to my writer friends, he said to be sure that I could first find 30 writer friends. I giggled. This is why -- you guys always come through, and you always come through in the GREATEST WAY POSSIBLE.

For that reason, I have UPPED THE PRIZES to show my appreciation.

(Yep, still in that CAPS LOCK mood.)

Anyhoo, here are your NEWLY UPDATED PRIZES:

First Place: A Post-Apoc Book Pack containing Candor by Pam Bachorz and Feed by MT Anderson

Second Place: A Fairy Tale Book Pack containing As You Wish by Jackson Pearce and Once Upon a Marigold by Jean Ferris (a classic, I tell you)

Third Place: A Maze Book Pack containing The Maze Runner by James Dashner and The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan

So without further ado, the winners, in no particular order:

First Place -- Sandy Shin

Second Place -- exploringeliza

Third Place -- Chanelle Gray

Shoot your addresses to seesarawrite(at)gmail(dot)com and I'll get the books in the mail to you!

You ALL rock, and I wish I could give every single one of you a book. I seriously cannot thank you enough; you just made the close of my quarter so, so much easier. And once I get the results in a viable format, I will post them here for everyone to see. Hopefully along with news of my shiny, exciting A+.

Again, THANK YOU!!

HELP! And 100+ Followers? WOA

So, exciting stuff happens during blogging hiatuses.

Firstly, I now have more than 100 FOLLOWERS. *insert wide-eyed, gaping-mouth stare*

Secondly, I have a book-related school project that I need YOUR HELP with.

I'm a CAPS LOCK mood, apparently.

Being a creative being, I think I shall combine the two into some sort of super-exciting contest. Yes? Yes. First things first though -- that school project. I'm doing a needs assessment paper on the "wicked" problem (no, not that Wicked) of eBooks vs. Real Books. What I need YOUR HELP with is filling out a brief survey. See, I need 30 people to fill out this survey. And since I have 100+ FOLLOWERS now, that should be easy, yes?

Yes?

That's why I'll make it a contest too. From the people who fill out the survey (30! Please!), I will do random drawings with the handy dandy random number generator and gift prizes to, oh, let's say 3 of the 30 people. That's 1 for every 10. And what will the prizes be, you ask? Well, since the project is about eBooks vs Real Books, it seems fitting that the prizes are Real Books. So:

Third Place: The Maze Runner by James Dashner
Second Place: As You Wish by Jackson Pearce
First Place: Candor by Pam Bachorz

Sound good? Good. Now, here be the survey; please, please, PLEASE be one of the lucky 30 who fills it out and gets entered to win 1 of 3 OUTSTANDING books. Please. Don't make me beg.

You can put your answers in the comments section, or email them to me at seesarawrite(at)gmail(dot)com.

Real Books versus eBooks: What Next?

Directions: Please help me understand your needs/concerns/ideas related to the eBook revolution.

1. Role (select all that apply) a) Writer/Author b) Editor/Agent

c) Other Publishing Professional d) Reader

2. Have you purchased or do you own an eBook Reader such as the Kindle, Nook, or Sony Reader?

a) Yes b) Not yet; plan on purchasing

c) Not yet; no plans of purchasing

3. If you answered A or B to question 2, please evaluate the statements below:

Statement	True(T) --- Unsure(U) --- False(F)
I still or will still purchase hard copies of books.	T --- U --- F
I still or will still purchase hard copies of the eBooks I have on my eReader.	T --- U --- F
I only purchase or will only purchase hard copies of books I do not have on my eReader.	T --- U --- F

4. If you answered C to question 2, please evaluate the statements below:

Statement	True(T) --- Unsure(U) --- False(F)
I have tried an eReader and prefer hard copies of books.	T --- U --- F
I have not tried an eReader.	T --- U --- F
I will never purchase an eReader.	T --- U --- F
I would like to try an eReader.	T --- U --- F

5. What is your position on eBooks vs Real Books?

Mental Notes of a Super Bowl Sunday:

--Must ask a male counterpart why they squeal with glee when men in strange helmets run from big yellow Y to big yellow Y.

--I suspect strange little helmeted men have something to do with training for a reenactment of the final battle of Return of the King, as tiny men in strange helmets make Orc-like noises.

--More determined than ever that strange little helmeted men are reenacting Return of the King. One strange little man in even stranger striped outfit threw down a flag that halted the game. Surely a sign of magical powers. But why did they choose to dress a wizard in stripes?

--Eagerly awaiting appearance of the hobbits.

--Had a revelation when two groups of Orcs took a break. The battle consists entirely of helmeted ORCS -- where are the people? Didn't these morons read the book?

--Getting more and more frustrated with Return of the King reenactment. Instead of using swords, Orc groups fight with a single leather projectile. Lack of funding?

--Entirely at a loss. Male counterparts taking reenactment training very seriously. Cannot figure out why one Orc group is superior to another.

--Reenactment training is taking far longer than the actual battle. Orc groups look fit to me; why are they going in to the third hour?

--Eyeballs melting out of skull. Reenactment training has taken too long.

--Have retreated to the kitchen where male counterparts spread out chips and dip to celebrate Reenactment Training Day. Why they are so excited about this when they wouldn't watch Lord of the Rings is beyond me.

So, uh, about that comeback...

So that big return-to-the-blogging-world surge I experienced? Um. Yeah. Not so much anymore. I feel morally compelled to do this, seeing as I have numerous gorgeous followers upon whom I would like to bestow much well-wishes and warm-hearted I LOVE YOU's, and would not like for any of them to feel lead on, misused, or disappointed in any way, shape or form. It is with a heavy heart and a slow typing hand that I then must regretfully submit my official:

BLOGGING HIATUS

Effective immediately. My life has become far more chaotic than I thought it would be, and it does not look to be slowing down any time in the foreseeable future. Thus, I now reserve the right to blog at completely random, non-sequential times and about completely random, non-sequential things. I do apologize. If you have any complaints or concerns, please submit them to my secretary on your way out.

All My Love,
Sara

Unrelated

I have about 25 minutes until class starts. Le sigh. The entire point of scheduling classes back to back was to avoid these long stretches of NOTHING. Bright side: long stretches of nothing give me time to blog about nothing. Win.

Win?

Hm. Maybe not. I'll let you be the judge.

Anyway, since my brain is still on writing hiatus (Max? Crystal? Lu? Anyone?) I spend most of my free time (ha! What's free time again?) doing completely un-writing-related stuffs. Like reading horoscopes.

I know horoscopes are a borderline-touchy subject. Because horoscopes lead to religion, and religion leads to giant, flailing, blubbery masses of angry blog trolls. I don't want blubber blog trolls here, so I'll define the parameters of this horoscope talk:

1) I don't hold any religious belief to horoscopes.
2) I read horoscopes for one reason and one reason only: they're funny. FUNNY. Not real and life-altering and important. Funny. Funny in that sometimes they're freakish right, and sometimes they're freakish wrong. I realize that this is simply statistical probability; if someone were to say one prediction every day for a year, they would eventually get one right.

Now, on to horoscopes. Mine for today made me chuckle in a wow-they-must-be-stalking-me way:

"You're itching to jump ahead quickly -- but you can tell that you can't do so just yet. It's a good time for you to marshal your resources and wait a little longer until you know the time is right."

Grr. If you've read any of my Twitter posts recently, you know how much I loathe and detest and very much dislike school. I would give anything for someone to go "You've wasted enough time/money on this worthless degree. Here's your diploma now." I'm very much itching to get ahead quickly and be done with this %#@#% thing.

Sorry. Sore subject.

What about ya'll? Do you read your horoscope? Do you chuckle when it's something good or cringe when it's something bad? For instance, this year is supposed to be 38% favorable, with 10 unfavorable months and 2 favorable for me. That's fun. I choose to reject that prediction, thank you.

Absences

Thanks for the hearty re-welcome, guys! Makes me feel all warm and special and stuff, and reminded me that taking such a long leave of absence from writing/blogging is bad. Bad, bad. But now I should at least have loads to blog about, yes?

Um. Sure.

Since the entire month of December I was basically AWOL from every aspect of writing, I have no new insights into that world. No revelations. Just lots of concern. Heaping, massive amounts of concern that continue to make my chest tighten.

See: I haven't written anything in a MONTH. A month, people. And not only that, but my motivation has gone *ffwwwwpt* (that was supposed to be the sound of something deflating. Just FYI). I've been in denial for about a month. Maybe it was just the holiday chaos? Maybe it was just life stress? Maybe it was just back-to-school madness? Maybe it was just Puppy's mind-control making me want to play with her instead of spend time with Max or Lu? Maybe maybe maybe.

Whatever the reason, I feel utterly out of the loop. I spent some time with Yazoo and Lu today, and realized just how much they've grown in my absence. Their hair is longer. Yazoo is a little taller. My oh my, you turn around and they sprout up without you even knowing...

*sniffle*

But anyway, I'm trying to ease back in. Jumping back in all at once (while still trying to balance school/work/a newly-discovered social life) would be painfully overwhelming and just make my chest hurt even more. Baby steps, folks. Baby steps it will be.

Oh, Hi. Who are you?

*rubs eyes* *squints* *rubs eyes again*

Um...where I am? It's so cold and damp and...bright.

*digs sunglasses out of purse because a lady always has sunglasses in her purse*

There, that's better.

Oh, I'm sorry, horribly rude of me. Introductions, yes. I'm Sara. And you are? Don't be shy now. We're all friends here. *shifty eyes* I think.

Oh! It's all coming back to me now. I used to blog here, or something, right? And -- what? I used to be witty and clever? Oh, you're too kind! Surely I wasn't THAT witty. Now, now, we MUST be friends. Or you must be trying to suck up for something. I can't tell. You're not just sucking up? Okay. I'll pretend I believe you.

But back to that apparent blogging thing -- what was that about?

*scrolls through past posts*

Man, I WAS witty. Downright hysterical, if I do say so. Well, you don't have to call me pompous! I was agreeing with what you just said! I KNEW you were only sucking up. Fiend. Fine, I'll just talk to my OTHER blog followers.

*turns to other blog followers*

Hi guys. Apparently it's also, like, 2010 or something? And apparently a lot of stuff has kind of happened, like books coming out and deals getting made. Garsh. I feel positively out of the loop. Might I trouble you all to fill me in? What have I missed?

While I await your news-giving, here is proof that I have been alive, if not blogging, in the past month.

Smithsonian!

Oh, Mr. Jefferson, you Casanova, you.