Friday Fun at the Dragon Cave and More Celebrations

I'm hosting part of Martin Willoughby's amazing Friday Fun. It's not that he suddenly ran out of space. This is part of the blog tour for his first book, Tempers Fugit.

If you haven't been at From Sand to Glass, you're missing the chance to get plenty of smiles in your day and meet an author with a wonderful sense of humor. After you're done here, please go there for the other half of the fun and make friends with Martin.

Martin Willoughby has performed on stage in comedy, drama and pantomime and makes people laugh wherever he goes, sometimes deliberately. Tempers Fugit is his first book, published by Bubble Books and is available as an ebook on Amazon, and will soon be available as a paperback.
Links
Blog:  http://mwilloughby.blogspot.co.uk/
Twitter: @Willabywriter
Alan Ayckbourn clip: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/hardtalk/9709576.stm

FRIDAY FUN

Good News Stories

In Ethiopia, the land of famine according to the aid agencies, people are starting up tech companies.  (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-23086014)
In Manchester, UK, a museum allows visitors to unwrap a mummy. (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-23045904)
Still on the subject of mummies, a statue of one is moving by itself....as far as anyone can tell.  (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-23029507)
Lastly, how would you like your arm returned to you after it was amputated. One Vietnamese man waited forty years for its return. (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-23124347)

Youtube audio of an eight year old Irish girl making a prank call. She wants a local building firm to knock down her school, preferably with the teachers in it.

Celebrate the small things is the brilliant idea of VikLit. Each Friday we post something we wish to celebrate achieving or doing during the week. It can be writing/reading or life related. You can find the list and join us  here.

It's 11 pm as I type this part. A recent phone call is having me struggling hard with disappointment, sadness, hurt pride and some annoyance too. Gosh! My dragon size pride is quite a sting when hurt. More so over 50 cents of a dollar. It sounds idiotic if not because there is a story behind the 50 cents. Aside from this, earlier this week I realized a very stupid mistake I did (for my lack of patience) resulted in two lesions. Due to these lesions, I have to interrupt my therapy of exercise. (Pity, we were doing so well.) There's no one to blame on this but me. 11:22 pm and my Zen is seriously messed up. I feel bad about feeling bad. I'm far better than 50 cents. I'm far wiser than tripping on the same stone for a second time. And I'm far stronger than allowing my low emotions have a field day with my spirits.

By the Higher Powers and my Dragon Ancestors, may all my scales fall off if I don't celebrate today and the whole weekend with fireworks and smiles (even if I have to force them) and sunshine. May my magic fire disappear if I don't dance all around the garden in gratitude for the permanent chance to become a better being. Every obstacle, every mistake, every concern, every fall hides in it a chance of choice. We all have the choice to be more patient, more forgiving, more brave, to have more faith, to believe more in ourselves, in our capacities and our gifts.

I am not able to choose when storms will come but I can decide whether I will allow the rain to ruin my day or not. I cannot control many of the things that happen around me but I can select what kind of thoughts I'll allow into my mind, and what kind of feelings will reign upon my heart. I cannot stop someone from giving me shit, but I am the one who decides if I'll take the "gift" and let it infect me or I'll just pass. No one can upset you unless you get in their game and let them. I deserve better than the shit game. I am deciding to attune with the beautiful things I've got. Attune with flowers, with birds, with breathing, with friends and loved ones, and with all those things that put a smile on my face. This is my choice and no one can take it from me but myself. And I would be a fool if I waive this right.

11.56 pm. Let's celebrate choice!

  
Choice is your right. Use it! Choose the smile, choose the sunshine, choose love, and choose to be happy. Dragon hugs for you who bring smiles to my life.

Liebster Awards

The dragon cave here at Father Dragon Writes has received the Liebster Award thanks to the nomination of J.A. Ward Writes.  In behalf of one hundred and fifty dwarves, my ninja muse, my adoring muse and Yours Truly, I say thank you to J.A for this honor.

*checks the mic and clears throat* So the rules of the Liebster Award are as follows:

1. Thank your Liebster Blog Award presenter on your blog and link back to the blogger who presented this award to you.
2. Answer the 11 questions from the nominator, list 11 random facts about yourself and create 11 questions for your nominees;
3. Present the Liebster Blog Award to 11 blogs of 200 followers or less who you feel deserve to be noticed and leave a comment on their blog letting them know they have been chosen. (No tag backs)
4. Copy and Paste the blog award on your blog.

Let’s fulfill step number two. I am ready for J.A’s questions *Smoothing mane to hide nerves. The lights turn off and only one spot light remains on top of me*:

1.       Who is your favorite author and why?

 Master J.R.R Tolkien. He was my strongest influence when I started writing.

2.       If you could hang out with one character from a book or TV show for a day, who would it be?

American Dragon Jake Long, hahaha. *I shake my head and sober* Seriously, I think it would be Jethro Leroy Gibbs from NCIS. I am fan of this guy and the whole team.

3.       Edward or Jacob? Or neither? Or..both?? 

Who? *Tassin whispers nearby* Oh! The Twilight Series. Didn’t read them…watched them…er, can’t tell.

4.       What was your favorite book series you have ever read that wasn’t Harry Potter?

It was The Black Corsar by Emilio Salgari.

5.       Do you have any pets? If so, what do you have?

A Golden Retriever that believes herself a Chihuahua, a Chihuahua that believes herself a Mastiff, a mariachi wannabe Amazon Parrot, and six vultures that Mother Dragon lovingly calls her “canaries”. We are all messed up here. During the parrot's molting season I believe myself Quetzalcoatl, the "feathered snake" god.

6.       What aspect of writing do you find the hardest?

* The aspect of me wanting to write in English when my mother language is Spanish.

7.       If you could live anywhere else for a year – all expenses paid – where would you live and why?

Geez! So many places begging for a dragon visit! But I think the top of my list is…Mexico. I would travel it from coast to coast and from border to border. Mexico has all type of landscapes. There are paradise beaches, deserts, mountains, valleys, jungles, forests, magic towns, ghost towns, legends, history, folklore and one of the widest and richest varieties in food in the world.

8.      Who is your favorite band/singer?

Besides the mariachi? I don’t have a favorite. I like Pop, New Age, Samba, Bossa Nova, Jazz, Classic, Tribal (the more drums, the better), Film Scores, everything of Andrew Lloyd Webber, Indian Bollywood, Japanese Anime, French ballad, Egyptian and Arab rhythms, Spanish Flamenco, some type of Rock.

9.       Name a celebrity crush.

It’s an harem. My heart for celebrities is like my fire; it ignites, it consumes and it extinguishes to start all over again.

10.   If you could go back and change your name from birth, would you do it? What would you change it to? 

I have two names. One I love and one I don’t. I can’t tell the name I would choose instead because I would laugh so hard I would eat the mic.

11.    Favorite vice or addiction? 

*After two hours of thinking* I am addicted to over think everything. I have caused persecutions against me with forks, torches and crossbows for that, worst than for raiding villages. I can’t help it.

Eleven random facts about me.

1. I used to sing Jesuschrist Superstar while in the shower.

2. Once upon a time, I was an hospital clown volunteer. Took a training for that. One of the signatures was "Loosing the fear to ridicule." Still applying it.

3. Once upon a time, the distance between my bed chamber and the main chamber was the biggest distance I could walk and only did it twice a day.

4. Once upon a time, I danced break dance. 

5. Once upon a time, I was in a theater group and did two opera-rock plays. I had playback but I was a hit in dramatic scenes.

6. Cats don't like me.

7. I walked in a yard full of mentally disturbed people in order to rescue a lost boy who ran away from home.

8. I dodged cars in a highway once in order to save a dog that jumped off a pickup. 

9. I stood in front of a bus, to protect a dog that had been already hit by a car.

10. Scent to chocolate makes me sick.

11. I am both claustrophobic and aracnophobic.

Questions for my nominees:

1. What genre do you write?

2. What are you working on right now?

3. Panster or plotter?

4. What do you do when you get writer's block?

5. The best lesson you learned about writing?

6. Which POV do you prefer to write?

7. How do you respond to critiques?

8. Do you argue with your characters?

9. Do you have a bad timing muse (i.e. the one who gives you the best ideas when you can't do nothing about them)?

10. The book you cherish the most?

11. Do you listen to music when you write? If so, what kind?

And this is my list of nominees. You really have to meet these people if you haven't. Good stuff there. Congratulations to all of them and thanks to all of you:

Sharon Bayliss 

Steph Sessa 

Yvonne’s Poetry Corner

Martin Willoughby - From Sand to Glass

Mike Swift from M.L. Swift, Writer

Melissa Maygrove

VikLit from Scribblings of an Aspiring Author 

Mina Lobo from Some Dark Romantic

Jeff Hargett from Strands of Pattern 

M.J. Joachim from Effectively Human 

JeffO from The Doubting Writer 

PS. For the nominations on the Premio Cutie Pie award, please click here.