Remember chain letters? I suppose only if you are from a certain generation. I hated them, but had guilt if I didn’t follow through, thinking about all the people anxiously awaiting the arrival of their recipes, or whatever the chain letter promised. The premise was that you received a letter with a list of people and addresses. You had to respond, add your name to the bottom of the list, and mail it all off. Supposedly you’d end up with hundreds of new recipes if no one broke the chain. In reality you might get one or two, which always told me not many suffered from guilt.

These days, in the blogging world, chain letters have been replaced with the Liebster award. Which is basically a chain letter to introduce other blogs and learn a bit about a person. Having just been ‘nominated’ for this award, I now have guilt. The rules are, you link back to the person who nominated you, answer eleven questions, nominate eleven bloggers, and ask them eleven questions.

To ease guilt, I was nominated by ‘Simply Sam’ at http://www.sschroth53.wordpress.com. I’m going to answer her eleven questions below. I’m also going to add eleven questions. However, I’m not going to nominate eleven bloggers. Instead, I’d rather have a conversation and see who wants to answer some or all of the questions, and what those answers might be. So consider yourselves all nominated, and enjoy the guilt.

Simply Sam’s questions for me:
1. Favorite thing about blogging. Meeting new people, learning from them, stretching my imagination from conversations.
2. Favorite thing to write about. Mountains, forests, wild country. For me, the setting creates the associated stories.
3. Most interesting place you’ve been to. Dunnet, Scotland.
4. Favorite book. Come on, that’s like asking a starving person their favorite food. Can you really only have one favorite? I think not.
5. Favorite author. Similar to #4. Elly Griffiths, the late, great Elizabeth Peters, Meg Gardiner, Patrick McManus, Gary Paulsen…
6. Favorite genre. Mysteries
7. Favorite season. Spring or fall. Here in the mountains they’re the same. Some sunny days with underlying chill, clean fresh air, fat raindrops.
8. Favorite food. Anything related to bread, unfortunately.
9. Day or night? No preference. If it’s dark you’re supposed to be asleep. If it’s light you’re supposed to be up. Makes for long days in the summer.
10. Prefer the movie or the book? Depends on the book and the movie, and how well both are done.
11. Pets? In the past year I have gone from ducks, chickens, cats, dogs, a turtle, and a horse, to a cat, two dogs, and the turtle.

And my questions for all of you (pick one, some, or all and let’s chat):
1. What makes a book speak to you? (the characters, the plot, the setting, etc.)
2. What form does your creativity take? (writing, art, cooking, running, etc.)
3. What influences your creativity, makes it slam to a stop, makes it sing…?
4. What is courage, to you?
5. What is fear, to you?
6. Do you prefer crowds or solitude?
7. Why? (see #6)
8. Define ‘family’ and what that means to you.
9. Tell me one thing you are curious about that you hope to one day answer/see/do, etc.
10. Did something in the past week make you laugh out loud (not just smile)?
11. Can you answer the question, ‘who are you’ without telling me what you do?

The photo below is taken on a cousin’s farm. We rode that road on ATVs for a long, long time. The road seemed endless. Rather like chain letters and guilt.

A chain letter road?