A while back KiwiBee from Snap Thoughts kindly nominated me for the Virtual Blog Tour. I’m not normally a lover of awards or of nominating others for them because as a rule they are very time consuming and once the first flush of excitement passes, quite frankly sometimes they can be a pain in the ass. The fact that people visit here and oftentimes comment is reward enough for me. I read this one though and it’s something different, so I decided to give it a try. The hardest part, as with all these awards is knowing who to nominate, because I follow so many brilliant people. My hope would be, that as we all in someway interlock with each other, this will eventually make it’s way around us all.

The three rules of this tour are as follows:

1. Compose a one-time post which is posted on Monday (date will be given to you from whoever passes on the tour)

2. Answer four questions about your creative process which lets other bloggers and visitors know what inspires you to do what you do.

• What am I working on?
• How does my work differ from others of its genre?
• Why do I write/create what I do?
• How does your writing/creating process work?

3. Pass the tour on to up to four other bloggers. Get their permission first, give them rules and a specific Monday to post.

So here goes:

What am I working on?

Right now I’m working on keeping my blogs afloat. I want to try and get back to the fun posts from before, because of late life has become quite intense and manic and somewhere in the middle of it all I lost myself.

Mental Mama from Mental in the Midwest and I also run the Cartoon Craziness Challenge, where each week people submit doodles / cartoons based around a given theme.

I have two blogs, this one and also The Misadventures of May Dupp. May is all the things that I am not, fabulous, fashionable, fiesty and confident. She is also totally fictional, which gives me another level of creativity that I don’t always have here. She also has her own Twitter account, where I can portray a level of confidence I wish I had, I mean I would never in a million years say something like this, not even in jest:

As easy as it sounds, though, assuming the identity of someone else and writing as them is harder than I thought, essentially I am a story teller, but I would have to say, not a very good one. With time I hope I can improve.

How does my work differ from others of it’s genre?

I’m not all together sure that it does. My intention would be to make people laugh, which would be the end goal for anyone who writes in that genre. Whether I succeed or not is a matter for those who read me, but I would like to think I have made each person laugh at least once. It’s hard though to be funny all the time, so seriousness has to creep in sometimes, but if a little humour can be injected into that as well, then that’s no bad thing.

Why do I write / create what I do?

I could say for others, but the truth is, it is every bit as much for me too. If I am going to be this stupid and ridiculous I might as well share it out, it would be nothing short of a crime to keep it all to myself. How will I ever know how many more eejits there are in this world of ours if I do not reach out to them. In just over a year I have found quite a few already and I love each and every one of them.

How does your writing / creating process work?

Occasionally I will take notes, but when I look back on them, they usually make no sense. Usually my process works like this:

• I think of something.
• I forget to write it down.
• I’m all excited because I feel it is the best idea I have EVER had!
• I get distracted.
• I forget my idea.
• I write about something completely different.
• Repeat cycle.

I’m pretty sure I am not alone in that creative process and up until now the ‘Haphazard Method’ as it will now become affectionately known has served me quite well!

Over to you

I would like to nominate the following bloggers for a virtual blog tour on the 13th October 2014, I have not however asked their permission, because although I had this set in my calendar to give me plenty of warning to get things done, I forgot to check my calender….Doh!!

Like I said before I follow many blogs all of which are amazing in their own right, however my nominations are for people I feel are a different class of writer to me, as in I am coach, they are first, and I am genuinely interested in their thought processes:

Rob’s Surf Report

Write Up the Spine

A Prompt Reply

Jed’s Playhouse

Please also check out the blogs of the other eejits who comment here, there are many hidden gems among them you have yet to discover.

Thank you KiwiBee for your nomination, I actually enjoyed writing this post, but don’t tell anyone in case I get more nominations :)