It's Party Time!

Today I have two really fun things to celebrate. The first is that I was gifted a new blog award by the lovely and talented Catherine Stine who spent the first part of her summer teaching writing classes in Greece. Lucky Girl!

I love the tag line because that's exactly how I've felt the past ten days. Which brings me to the next fun thing to celebrate...I finished!

Woohoo, happy dance time!

In ten days I've written just under 50,000 words. Grrrrrr, I'm like an invincible writing panda bear.

I tend to write sparse in my first drafts so it's a bit on the short side, but I'll fix all that when we start RevisionHell on Saturday. Until then, it's a few days of relaxation for this lady. And a mani/pedi because I deserve it.

So, back to the Booker. This award is for blogs who focus at least 50% of their posts on books (writing or reading). As a recipient I have to choose my five favorite books (only 5, are we sure about that rule) and then pass the love to another book loving, blog god/goddess.

So here are my five favorites in no particular order:

1984 by George Orwell
From the first line of a clock striking thirteen this book pulled me in to another world where I both hated and loved the protagonist. That was a first for me, and it made me think about characters in a completely new way. I've probably read this book at least a dozen times.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by JK Rowling
I love this whole series but this one is my favorite, because I felt like we started to get more emotions from Harry and the others that had nothing to do with fighting magical beasts and passing exams. This is also when the books started to phase from MG to YA.

Alas, Babylon by Pat Frank
This is another book that completely transported me. As one of the first post apocalyptic books to focus on a nuclear fallout, it really set the stage for so many other great authors to run with the theme. Frank doesn't try to hide the darker side of humanity, but at the same time he shows us the greatness of people.

Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
It was a close call between this one and P&P. Really all of Austen's work is great. I spent much of my teens years dreaming of being as witty and clever as Austen's heroines.

Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton
Please don't watch any of the horrible movies that have been made based on this book, because none of them even come close to doing it justice. Crichton is a master at weaving in complex technology without making me feel like a dolt and sucking me into his world where the worst things can and will happen.

This blog post is already super long, my brain is shot from FastDrafting and I just gave out blog awards a few days ago, so...I'm completely coping out and passing this award along to anyone who posts a comment below. But no cheating! If your blog is about home brewing, raising chickens or knitting; no award for you. Though I wish I had an award for you cause those are all cool things to blog about.