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Tuesday, June 10, 2014

The Leibster Blog Award.....

has been administered to this little blog my friend Kat Clements over at The Cat’s Cradle. Please visit her very informative site on creative writing, editing, and grammar galore. Thanks so much for tagging me, Kat!


So here are the 11 questions she has for me to answer:


1.      What personal trait of yours do you most often give to your fictional characters?

My fictional characters don’t always resemble me, but when they do, they usually wind up being warm-hearted and impulsive. They’re sensitive and caring, but also have something of a temper and express their emotions with passion.

2.      Which part of the writing process do you dread the most and why?

Depends what type of writing I’m doing. In fiction, I usually know what I want to do with the beginning and end, but then have trouble connecting the dots in the middle! Non-fiction always hinges on the burning question of which facts to include and which to leave by the way-side for fear of swamping the reader. Making these decisions always has me biting my nails!

3.      What’s your favorite book and why?

The Prey of the Priest Catcher by Leo Knowles. I am a great devotee of The 40 Martyrs of England and Wales who were executed during the persecution of Catholics after Henry VIII’s break with Rome.  This book really makes the story of the underground Church come to life in an almost novelized retelling.

4.      What time of day do you usually write?

Gosh. It really varies when/if I write on a daily basis. I don’t have a set schedule that way, although I often find time in the evening and have been known to sty up most of the night on a creative splurge!

5.      Do you prefer libraries or bookstores?

I concur with Kat that libraries are superior to bookstores because you don’t need the green papery stuff to delve into their treasures. I also take full advantage of the interlibrary loan privileges in both Maryland and Pennsylvania. What a joy to be a borderlander!

6.      What do you normally eat/drink while writing?

I usually don’t eat or drink while writing, but will take breaks to snack on whatever I can scrounge up (currently strawberries and chocolate!) in the kitchen….for energy purposes, ya’ see!

7.      What are your muses?

My muses include the mystical relationship between God and humanity, the spark of divine grace that connects all souls, the power of legends passed down by word of mouth, the glory of music that transcends cultural divides.

8.      What kind of genre do you read?

I am a major non-fiction reader. I know this may sound sort of sad, but I have always been a fan of historical eye-witness accounts and rare, musty tomes from days of yore. Biographies and history texts are the cat’s meow! I also read some historical fiction and a little fantasy.

9.      Who’s the best character ever written?

As I mentioned, I am not a major fiction reader, so I’m probably not the best person to ask. I have grown to like Cat Royal created by Julia Golding. She’s clever and caring, with enough street-smarts to survive 18th century London but enough charm to mix with the upper classes. Don’t care much for her swearing, but she’s still quite relatable.

10.  If you could travel through time, would you go to the past or the future?

Being a history buff, I’d definitely like to visit the past…..providing I could return to the present at the end of the excursion! There are so many different time periods I would like to visit, including the Dark Ages, the Middle Ages, the Elizabethan era, and the Georgian era.

11.  How do you balance your life while reaching your writing goals?

Er….I don’t? But to me that sort of tension between the real and imagined world is part of the beauty and adventure of being an artist-in-the-making!


       And here are the 11 random things I have to say about myself:


1.      I am a practicing Catholic, and as such I believe in the sanctity of life and that each one of us is a Child of  God. I hope to spend my life sharing the love and truth of Christ who became one of us to save us through His death on the Cross.

2.      I am deeply moved by the music of Canadian Celtic/World singer, Loreena McKennitt. She has the most richly ethereal voice that echoes with a spiritual resonance. Her compositions seem to fit perfectly into an older folk genre, and her choice of poetry to put music is excellent.

3.      I refused to watch the Narnia movies or LotR until I was 16….and I finally succumbed only because numerous friends threatened to tie me to a chair and never speak to me again if I didn’t! Amazingly, I am now grateful to them, since I have come to appreciate both!

4.      For the past two years, I have taken an increased interest in the upcoming Scottish Independence Referendum, and actively come out in support of the Unionist Camp which aspires to keep The United Kingdom a united kingdom.

5.      My interest in all things British began with my childhood crush on Robin Hood and fascination with the folklore surrounding him. It has since developed in leaps and bounds and in all directions!

6.       I have become a fan of Kung Fu, a TV series from the 1970’s about a young Buddhist monk and martial artist who is exiled from his home in China and travels through the American Old West in search of his long-lost half brother. Along the way, he uses his fighting skills to mete out justice to the oppressed.

7.      My parents had a baby before me who was born in Italy and Filomena Marie. Sadly, she died 14 days after she was born and is buried in the Provence of Avellino. Still, I feel blessed that I have an older sister in Heaven who I know is praying for me and my family.

8.      I am double-jointed in my thumbs! ;-)

9.      I can sing some songs in Welsh and Gaelic, and would love to learn more of both languages and actually be able to carry out conversations in them! I would also be interested in learning more Latin (the language of my religion!) and Italian (the language of my cultural background!).

10.   I suffer from vertigo, so I don’t do well with heights and generally dislike climbing up tall monuments or attic ladders! I also am pretty allergic to the outdoors, but I do love nature, so I work around my condition the best I can.

11.   I have been nominated for the Leibster Blog Award….!! Oh, you guys know that already? Sorry…..<:-(


And now it’s my turn to nominate eleven other blogs and bloggers....drum roll, please....


1. Mary and Lena from The Best Thing Since D5W

2. Rae-Rae Franchi from Tides of Honour: The Great Cabin

3. Mach Hall from Reactionary Drivel

4. Jonathan Platt from JP Thinks

5. Emerald from My Turn to Talk

6. Sasch from Sasch’s Place

7. Henry Hill and Paul Watterson from Open Unionism

8. Jordon from Defending the Legacy

9. Elizabeth from One Light in a Dark World

10. Chloe from Mountaintop

11. Ricky Yates from Ricky Yates


And, since this is a movie review blog, my questions to them are:


1. What do you consider the greatest movie of all time and why?

2. What do you consider the worst movie of all time and why?

3. Who is your favorite actor/actress?

4. Who is your least favorite actor/actress?

5. What scene from a movie do you find the most inspirational?

6. What movies have mad you laugh the most?

7. What movies have made you cry the most?

8. What movie do you find the most hoaky?

9. If you could only watch one more movie forever, what would it be?

10. What are some movies you’ve wanted to watch but never gotten the chance?

11. What are your top 5 movies you would like me to watch and review?


I will try my best to watch and review at least one-of-five of the films each of you guys suggest to me!

Anyone else who feels the urge (especially Kat!) is welcome to answer these questions as well! Please either leave your answers in the comment box below or on your own blogs, putting the link to your answers in the comment box instead. You can also list 11 random things about yourselves if you'd like. Hope you all have fun!

"So...is this like...the Oscars???" ;-)


7 comments:

  1. Thanks for the nomination! My answers are in the link below:

    http://myturntotalkblog.wordpress.com/2014/06/12/liebster-blog-award-again/

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  2. Very interesting! I concur with the crush on Robin Hood (thank you, Errol Flynn!) Never heard of "Kung Fu," but it sounds really interesting! And it's so cool that you can sing in Welsh and Gaelic. They are beautiful-sounding languages. Tell me, do the Welsh have more letters than "L" "Y" and "N"? Or is that just a rumor? ;-)

    I've got to break the answers to your movie questions into a few parts because I type too much!

    PART 1:

    1. What do you consider the greatest movie of all time and why?
    That's a really hard call to make. There are movies that are very well-made technically (like "Titanic" that I don't think are "great" in the sense of changing my life or making me want to watch them over and over again. And there are movies that I love (often from nostalgia) like "King Kong vs. Godzilla" that are kind of campy, silly, and far from objectively "great." However, I think the original "Star Wars" trilogy comes the closest to being great in all aspects: special effects, story, acting, emotional impact, and social impact. (I really can't consider them separately because they are part of one big story, although "Return of the Jedi" is my favorite installment.)

    2. What do you consider the worst movie of all time and why?
    Oh boy. It is hard for me to find movies I consider great, but very easy to find movies I consider abjectly terrible. Two of the most horrible examples I can come up with are "Battlefield Earth" and "The Last Airbender." "Battlefield Earth" was made in 2000 with a $73 million budget for this "epic" adaptation of L. Ron Hubbard's horrible book. It has shoddier special effects and camerawork than episodes from the original Star series, and some of the WORST acting I've ever seen. "The Last Airbender" was an attempt to adapt an entire television series into a movie, and while I give them props in the costume department and the fact that they did technically hit all the main plot points, it is a soulless production with monotone actors, poor special effects (especially for the bending, a.k.a. magic, of the world), and nonsensical deviations from the original story. This is especially bad because the television series, "Avatar: The Last Airbender" and its sequel series "The Legend of Korra" are mind-blowingly good. Oh, and the Twilight movies. Awful. 2 hours of deadpan monologue and plot holes the size of Miami. Horrible, horrible, horrible....okay, I'll stop now. ^_^;;

    ...

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  3. PART 2:

    3. Who is your favorite actor/actress?
    SO MANY OF THEM ARE DEAD! *weeps* Errol Flynn, Basil Rathbone, Claude Rains, Vincent Price, Peter O'Toole...but then there are many who are not dead! Tom Hiddleston, Benedict Cumberbatch, David Tennant, Martin Freeman, Harrison Ford, Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, Matthew McFayden...okay, yeah, I admit it, I kinda really like classically trained British actors. What can I say? I don't have as much of a list for actresses...a lot of the ones from black and white or even early color tend to look and sound alike to me, so I never really picked up on following them. But I do recall liking Olivia deHallivand and Katharine Hepburn (who I was named after!) As far as modern actresses, I like Tilda Swinton (she has such a neat face!), Nana Visitor, Claire Foy, Gillian Anderson, Ruth Wilson, and Anna Maxwell Martin. (Yes, I was really struggling and looking them up on IMDB because...yeah. I could see their faces but didn't recall their names.) I like actresses with dynamic presentations and interesting faces. The constant barrage of classic Grecian goddess beauty gets old after a while.

    4. Who is your least favorite actor/actress?
    If I don't like them, I don't remember them. I usually don't dislike an actor or actress unless they are miscast and ruin a good role. I recall having a hatred of Leonardo DiCaprio for many years thanks to "Titanic" (sorry, did NOT like the character Jack), but I've liked his later work, like "Inception."

    5. What scene from a movie do you find the most inspirational?
    A specific scene from a specific movie? Or a type of scene that I find inspirational? Either way, it kind of depends on my mood. Defeating a bad guy or being reunited with someone you thought you lost or would never see again are always deeply moving. Or when the character makes a difficult decision, but it's for the best, or they realize something important about themselves, a strength or power they didn't know they had.

    ...

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  4. Aaaaand PART 3:

    6. What movies have made you laugh the most?
    Probably the James Bond films. He has such interesting, madcap adventures. (Favorite Bond is Roger Moore, closely followed by Sean Connery.) "Chicken Run," "Spaceballs", "The Princess Bride," and "Wreck-It Ralph" are also pretty funny. I don't watch a lot of comedy, so I rely on humor found in adventure stories and drama.

    7. What movies have made you cry the most?
    "The Painted Veil," "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan," "Black Beauty"....I can't think of any others off the top of my head. Oh. "The Deep Blue Sea" with Tom Hiddleston and Rachel Weisz is deeply moving. I usually can't watch movies that make me cry more than once. And actually, television shows are more likely to make me cry because I've spent so much more time being invested in the characters.

    8. What movie do you find the most hoaky?
    Hoaky as in silly or hoaky as in dumb? Because the Godzilla movies are very cheesy, but I love them and have so much fun watching them. "King Kong versus Godzilla," Godzilla versus Monster Zero," and "Godzilla versus Mothra/The Thing" are my favorites. I find most romantic comedies or straight up comedies to be hoaky in the stupid, uninteresting sense.

    9. If you could only watch one more movie forever, what would it be?
    "The Lord of the Rings" Extended Editions. Because that really does take forever. ^_^

    10. What are some movies you’ve wanted to watch but never gotten the chance?
    "Shutter Island," which is a psychological horror/thriller, more of the Godzilla movies (although the 1998 ones are pretty awful), more films by Miyazaki because the animation is so gorgeous....there are always more movies.

    11. What are your top 5 movies you would like me to watch and review?
    Well, that's entirely up to you, (and I'm not sure which ones you may have already reviewed), but my favs are:

    - The Star Wars original trilogy ("A New Hope," "The Empire Strikes Back," & "Return of the Jedi")

    - "Spirited Away" by Hayao Miyazaki (an animated film)

    - "Captain Blood" (Errol Flynn's breakthrough swashbuckler film)

    - "HALO 4: Forward Unto Dawn" (which I love, but it might be confusing with a little familiarity with the HALO video games, and there are some rather intense parts at the end. Very little gore, still but terrifying)

    - "Labyrinth" by Jim Henson (puppets and David Bowie)

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  5. Thank you so much for the award, Pearl of Tyburn!
    My answers and nominations are here: http://www.defendingthelegacy.blogspot.com/2014/06/liebster-blog-award.html

    ReplyDelete
  6. What do you consider the greatest movie of all time and why?



    That is like asking what is the best Scotch single-malt! Flame Over India? Sink the Bismarck? A Night to Remember? The Lady Vanishes? The Malta Story? 39th Parallel? More, more, more!



    2. What do you consider the worst movie of all time and why?



    Gandhi, fully as foolish as Plan 9 From Outer Space


    3.Who is your favorite actor/actress?



    Kenneth More / Maureen O’Hara




    4.Who is your least favorite actor/actress?



    Oh, any of those look-alike 30-somethings with three-day fuzz and whiny, upspeak voices. Don’t care much for the young men, either.


    5.What scene from a movie do you find the most inspirational?



    When Errol Flynn’s Robin Hood kneels before King Richard, we understand that a man must demonstrate leadership and courage, but must also remember that he is subject to The King, if not a king.


    6.What movies have made you laugh the most?



    Is there anyone who is so cruel and so mean-hearted that he cannot laugh and shed tears of joy when that whiny, tiresome Jack freezes to death in Titanic?



    7. What movies have made you cry the most?



    Mary Poppins was pretty darned grim.


    7.What movie do you find the most hoaky?



    Any Hallmark movie.


    8.If you could only watch one more movie forever, what would it be?



    I want them all. I love movies!



    10. What are some movies you’ve wanted to watch but never gotten the chance?



    Went the Day Well?

    San Demetrio



    Went the Day well?



    11. What are your top 5 movies you would like me to watch and review?



    49th Parallel, Doctor Zhivago, The 39 Steps, A Night to Remember, and Night Train to Munich



    Anyone else who feels the urge (especially Kat!) is welcome to answer these questions as well! Please either leave your answers in the comment box below or on your own blogs, putting the link to your answers in the comment box instead. Hope you all have fun!

    ReplyDelete
  7. Hi, Pearl! Here's the link to our replies:

    http://opinionsobsessionsordinaryjoys.wordpress.com/2014/06/14/the-leibster-award/

    Thanks so much for nominating us!

    ReplyDelete