Tumbled Words

Damien realized, I think, so many of us were either procrastinating, having trouble choosing which inspiring person to write about, or simply too busy to think out a great post right now. So he chose to give us a gentle shove - and an extension.

And shove he did, he linked to a group of us suggesting ever so gently (in my words) that we get the lead out and write! Now, what he really would love, instincts tell me, is for a bunch of us to post, including people who are new to his site. So, if you haven’t been introduced to Damien yet and there is someone you would love to write about, someone you admire, here’s your chance. And if you know Damien, come on, humor him, grin.

Damien loves to read and write about “people who use their common brain and inspiration to do amazing things.” That said he is also flexible about how we interpret his contest, we could admire someone merely for their personality. So, run over to Postcards from the Funny Farm, (the link is the quote above) read the rules and the prizes - and realize he has extended the deadline to late June.

It is a good thing he is flexible, because my first instinct was to write about how much I admire Shelly K. Tucker, aka This Eclectic Life, for standing behind her ideas, including Share A Square; for seeing a vision of something and then doing more hard work than one person should have to do on the project; while at the same time being smart enough to delegate with grace and appreciation. She is charismatic and has an uncanny knack of igniting desire to volunteer while also, finding time and heart to support her volunteers emotionally. I have written many times that I admire Shelly, though often it was probably disguised in my posts to spread the news about Share A Square or the need for bags or money or squares.

She sneaked in here, in the middle of my post about Damien — both quite intentionally and quite unintentionally:

• Intentionally because I could not talk about a contest that required writing about a person I admired without mentioning Shelly
• Unintentionally because, though my first instinct was to write about Shelly, my second instinct was to write about a specific group of people that I admire, whose role as inspiring people is lesser known in the blogging community. And this is where flexibility comes in.

That post will not be exactly what Damien is asking for… writing about Shelly was, but it is another one he inspired.

Now, you, start writing!

(P.S. Have I told you Shelly is amazing?)
(P.S. Have I told you how great Damien is about inspiring us?)

Tags: Amazing Visions Writing Contest, Damien, inspiring people, Share A Square, Shelly

I really should read the entire site I link to. Rembrandt Charms is running two contests to win a charm bracelet. One ends April 30th, and one is repeated between now and the end of 2008. You just write your mother’s story via their charms for the first contest, and your life via their charms for the ongoing one. Now, it takes copying style numbers of the charms into your story, and some may not want to win one, but just browsing the charms is apt to bring many memories to the surface - and what better prompt for blog posts than memories. Previous winner stories are here and the link to the contests are on their sidebar.

You know I can’t resist entering…. but choosing from all those charms will be the hard part, but I picked my first charm… a laptop in Sterling. I dare not buy it yet, though, for Leon would just say, “Oh, you bought your new laptop! Looks like you don’t need the Macbook Air now.”

Not that he would WIN that battle… I would just buy HIM a sailboat charm and tell him that he no longer needed a new Hobie next year!

The contest results are in. Damien was a great judge, and Shelly has offered us all her cute little contest logo for our blogs….

The participants were:

* KatelynJane’s Notebook Scared Silly
* SusieJ entered Definitely something foul going on over there…from her archives.
* Crystal at Song Of My Soul entered from her archives “Hey, at least I can laugh at myself, right?”
* I entered at MeeAugraphie,“The mask, three prompts combined.”
* Jessica at Life As I See It entered a post from her archives, “It’s Here.”
* Penelope At Cafe at the End of the Universe wrote “The Bathtub Below.”
* Cyn at Rage Against The Cliche entered “The Tears of the Phoenix.”
* Robin at Around The Island posted “Treed, or rather staircased.”
* Amy Palko at Lives Less Ordinary added “Scare Silly By The Fairies.”
* Cindee at CiNdEe’s GaRdEn entered “How I Scared My Daughter Silly.”
* The Wandering Author wrote “Wake Up, Little Susie.”

Now, to find out who won, you have to run over to Shelly’s and see! While you are there, click on something there, anything, you’ll be glad you did… And to see just how Scared Silly we all were, read these entries. I’m going to. You should have entered, you know… but she will have another soon, she can’t resist, especially since she now talks other people into judging them since she is so busy!

Tags: , Contest, Scared Silly, stories