The Versatile Award & Things I’ve Neglected

Hello my lovely readers! And a special hello to my new readers, thank you for following me! 😀

I was recently (well about 2 weeks ago or so) was nominated by Quackermole for the Versatile Award for this story, so a very huge thank you!!! Unfortunately, I had no time to post my answers to your questions, I’m sorry, but I really do appreciate your nomination so very much! 🙂

My days have been very hectic with work and other personal endeavors that I just haven’t had the time to work on the next chapter. For that, I am very sorry! I never intend to stop this story, so no worries there. I am working on it little by little, but have no idea as to when I will be able to get it posted. My hours at work have been cut due to slow activity, which is a good thing in my dept, so I do have a little more time now so I’ll do what I can during my downtime.

If you’re also wondering about the future of The Wake of December, that story is on hiatus for the time being. I still intend to keep that going as well, however, this story is my baby so I want to focus more on this one first.

As always, I want to thank you all again and again and again for staying with me and for encouraging my stories! I really hope to get this next chapter to you all very soon! ❤

 

The Sunshine Blogger Award

An incredibly big thank you to ViolenCat (she has an awesome story, so go check that out!) who nominated my story, The Life & Times of the Willows for the Sunshine Blogger Award! She also had nominated me for the Spirit Animal Award, but it was during my hiatus and I was so busy, I totally forgot about it and couldn’t get that one published, so thank you for that also! This is my third award overall, but I’ve never received this award until today.

Editing to Add: I was also nominated by lomai, so thank you a thousand times for nominating my story!!!

 

What is the Sunshine Blogger Award?

Well, it is of course an award for bloggers from other bloggers. It is a beautiful way to share all the amazing things other bloggers do and write about. To recognize their efforts in inspiring others to do what they love.

The Rules:

1. Thank the person who nominated you and add a link to their blog.
2. Answer the 11 questions sent by the person who nominated you.
3. Nominate 11 bloggers and add their links.
4. Notify the bloggers you included.
5. Keep the rules in your post.

 

Questions from ViolenCat:

1. Do you have any favorite characters in your own stories? Who? Yes, I loved Corrina Willow and actually teared up a bit when my old laptop crashed and I lost her. I never could replicate her either. 😦 She just possessed such innocence, but yet she was still so very spunky and knew what she want and got it. Declan I also loved and could never replicate afterwards. I just loved his face. Max would be my third favorite for the same reason.
2. What are your favorite genres to read or watch? Crime fiction novels and I also love to watch reality crime shows like Dateline, etc. I’m a Criminal Justice/IT major, so I guess that’s why my interests always seem to veer in that direction.
3. Which fictional character do you wish you could be real life friends with? That’s a tough question…I honestly don’t know! O_O
4. Would you rather land the perfect job or find true love? Find true love, but I’ve already found and married my true love, so now it would be to land the perfect job, haha.
5. Do you cook or bake? If not, would you want to learn how to? Both, although I prefer to bake. My husband is the chef so I leave that part up to him.
6. What is your dream career? Forensic Specialist or Investigator. I also always wanted to be in the Air Force too.
7. What is the one thing you absolutely can’t live without? A computer.
8. Which country do you most want to visit? Greece.
9. Are you a day or a night person? Day. I like to sleep, LOL.
10. Would you want to become famous? Nope. Couldn’t handle all the attention.
11. What do you like the most about gaming? The only PC gaming I do is Sims. I love how I can create stories with it and build houses. I also having a PS3, but I haven’t played much of anything on there in a long time. I use to be an avid gamer. It just relaxed me for the most part.

Questions for lomai:

1. So, why do you write? For stress relief or…?
   It’s a passion of mine. I’ve been writing since the age of seven, so it just comes naturally to me–that need or urge to write. It’s also a stress reliever for me too.
2. I love animals, although currently I only have 1 dog. Do you have any pets?
   Not at the moment. We use to have two dogs, a pitbull named Honey and her offspring, Wrinkles who was a pitbull/golden retriever mix. I miss them both terribly!
3. If you could be a food (like to be eaten or not xD) what food would you be?
   Interesting question, LOL. I guess it would be sushi because I really love sushi, haha.
4. Since all of you play the sims, what made you get into it? Who do you have to thank for your addiction if it is one?
   This was my ex-best friend’s fault! We were 15 at the time The Sims was released and she had the game and invited me over to play it with her one day. Ever since then, I’ve been hooked. She eventually lost interest in it, but I was completely addicted and still am 16 years later!
5. Do you have any favorite games?
   Besides The Sims? Uhm…I don’t really play many other games these days, but if I had to choose, I would say my favorite game to play on a gaming console would be Battlefield 3 and my favorite board game is Monopoly. 🙂
6. You’re on a desert island, who’s on this island with you? Pick 3 only.
   My husband, a pet of my choice and my kid.
7. Hot or cold weather?
   Even though I live in the desert, I prefer cold weather.
8. If you could meet a character from your stories who would it be? What would you say?
   I would want to meet Corrina and ask her how did she cope while growing up having a mother who was a notorious serial killer!
9. Name one thing you can’t live without.
   My laptop.
10. Pokemon or Digimon, and in the same catergory, cartoons or anime?
    Pokemon, definitely. I love Pickachu!
11. What irks you the most about someone/thing/time?
    What irks me the most is when someone acts like they’re better than everyone else.

My nominees are:

• The Insane Dubois Legacy
• The Dustyland Fairytales
• Our Different Paths
• Summerdream
• The Windsor Legacy
• Jill’s 100 Baby Challenge
• The Legacy of the Xaviers

My Questions are:

1. If you could be anywhere in the world (or fictional world) right now, where would you be?
2. What drew you to start playing The Sims, TS2, TS3 or TS4?
3. What is your favorite genre to write about?
4. If you could make any one of your characters in any of your stories come to life, who would it be, and why?
5. When writing your story on a blog, do you prefer to write on a white background, a black background or a colored background? Why?
6. When you are writing or taking pictures in game for your story, what do you have going on in the background? (TV, music, etc.)
7. If you were a Sim, would you choose to be a PlantSim, Zombie, Alien, Werewolf or a witch? Why?
8. If you could be any animal, what would it be, and why?
9. What is your favorite season?
10. What is your favorite Sims world?
11. What has been your favorite Sims challenge that you either have done before or like to read?

Other Leiber Nominations x 3!

So since receiving my first Leiber Award nomination from LilyShadowWriter, I have received two more nominations from TotalSimmer518, Undergroundedgar, and MsMidnightBlonde. Thank you all so very much for nominating my story! You don’t know how much this means to me just to know that my story is being acknowledge and favored by someone. I work so hard on it and knowing that it’s paying off just gives me more motivation to keep it going. 😀

If you are unfamiliar with the rules for nominations, I have posted them in my previous post here. My answers to my first nomination can also be found on that post. 🙂

Now here are my answers to the others who nominated me:

TotalSimmer518’s Questions:

1. What gave you the idea to write your story? I always have some sort of scenario or some sort of story idea running through my head, so one day, I was watching a movie (I forget which one) where the mother had murdered her husband. Something clicked for me and I instantly got this idea of writing about a woman who’s mother was a serial killer and had killed her father when she was little and her fending for herself is what starts the legacy. I hadn’t read a Sims story like that and thought it might be a good idea. I’m glad I did! 😀
2. Who is your favorite character? Who is your least favorite? If you mean from my story, then I would say my most favorite is Max Willow because he’s so sweet and caring and yet still very troubled. He deals with a lot in his present while trying to find a way to deal with his past at the same time. He reminds me a lot like Declan, which is weird because I wasn’t even trying to make them similar in personalities. My least favorite was Corey, Annalise’s ex-boyfriend. When I created him, I didn’t like him. LOL! He had one of those asshole type of faces and I thought he would be good fit to be her ex-boyfriend. I didn’t like Blair either, Max’s biological father, but at least he was kind of cute.
3. What are some of your hobbies other than simming? I read a lot. I also love to write, obviously. I play other games on the computer and I guess hanging out with my husband is a hobby too, haha!
4. What is your favorite Sims game? My favorite Sims game is TS3. Before it came out, I was a die-hard TS2 fan, haha! But TS3 had a lot more to offer that I was craving for TS2.
5. Do you pull from your personal life experiences when writing out your story? Yes, I do act actually! Even if I’m not going through the same things that my characters are going through, I will relate to how they are feeling to my own feelings at that time or how I use to feel in my past. I think every writer does that. It makes the writing even better in my opinion because you’re pulling something out of you onto paper or onto the computer and into these characters and you can sense the passion and feeling in the writing.
6. What is your favorite trait in the Sims 3? Ah, so many things that I like! I absolutely love the age groups and the various types of things they can do. That’s what attracted me to TS3 in the first place. I know a lot of people don’t really play with their Sims in the toddler stages, but I do. It adds a lot to my stories. I also love the pets and the seasons too. Makes storytelling more realistic.
7. Favorite Expansion pack? Generations. I remember when the first time I bought this EP. It got broken and I had to go without it for a couple of years. It made my game-playing slightly dull. I finally was able to buy another copy last year. I also love Pets too, but that’s only because I’m an animal lover. 🙂
8. When you first started play the Sims, which game did you start with? 1, 2, 3, or 4? Oh, I started playing right when The Sims first came out. I was 15, I believe. My best friend at the time had gotten it for her birthday and I would play it every time I went to her house. Then my mom bought it for me shortly after. I was hooked, but didn’t become obsessed with it until TS2 came out. And I mean OBSESSED! LOL!
9. Favorite aspect of the Sims (do you like building, interior decorating, Create-a-sim, or actual game-play)? My most favorite part is interior decorating and then it’s building. I wish I could get my house to look the way I make my Sims’ houses look! It takes a long time, but I find it relaxing. I do build a lot in my game though. Probably more than I do anything else. I use to want to become an architect and was going to go to school for it, but once I saw that I had to take Physics, that dream went right on out the window! 😛
10. Best place you ever lived? Uhhh, I’m still trying to find that place, hahaha! I would say Southern California, I guess. It’s beautiful out there, but really expensive! I was born and raised there. After I got married, we moved to Oklahoma for a job for my husband, then we moved to Las Vegas, which I really don’t like, but it’s way better than Oklahoma!
11. What snack food do you like to eat when you’re writing? Usually something sweet as I have a major sweet tooth. More than likely some sort of cookie, haha. Can you imagine how fat I must be?! LMAO! I don’t really eat much while I’m writing though. I always have to have something to drink. I don’t know why, but it helps me to concentrate better.

 

Undergroundedgar’s Questions:

1. What had gotten you into the sims franchise and how has it taken over your life (if so)? My ex-best friend got me into it when The Sims first came out. I was 15 then. Since, I’ve been hooked and can’t go too long without needing to play it, hahaha! I use to be highly addicted to the game and would play everyday for hours straight, but that was when I was a teenager with nothing to do, lol.
2. What are the best things about the Sims and what are the worst things of them Sims? The best things about the Sims is that it allows your story to come to life. It’s one thing to be able to write a story, but it’s another thing to be able to visually make it happen without having to draw it out. The worst thing about the Sims is that if you’re not pose savvy, then you’re very limited to what your Sims can do. That is, if you’re a storyteller. Before I learned how to make poses, I always had to find the pose that I wanted from another creator and often times, you can’t find the one that you want. I’m glad I took the time to learn it because it’s made my story experience much more pleasant!
3. If you had to play your own simself in a game how would you treat them? My self-Sim does all the things I cannot do in real life and lives in a big house with a pool and horse stables…Actually, she’s pretty spoiled!
4. Are there any other games apart form sims that you play, or is it just the sims? I play a bunch of other computer games, none of which are like the Sims, but are more like the games you’ll find on Facebook, except you don’t have to wait for other players to send you stuff, haha! I play a lot of games on my PS3, such as Medal of Honor, Grand Theft Auto IV, and most of the Battlefield games. Yeah, I like war games mainly. Sometimes I’ll play Madden Football with my husband too. But it’s mainly Sims that I play.
5. What kind of music do you listen to while you write? (e.g soft music, instrumental, pop, ect) I don’t listen to music while I write because it distracts me too much and I always end up getting into the songs, lol. I always have the TV on low so I have some background noise. I can’t write in silence.
6. On a bad day what helps to make it better. (this could be anything, like writing, or exercising, ect) I always play the Sims on a bad day. It’s the only thing that distracts me from a crappy day.
7. Is there any other hobbies part from writing that you would like to share? Nothing that I haven’t mentioned before really. I use to have a couple of Sims magazine that I worked on with other collaborators. That was fun, but real life got in the way for all of us and we had to stop. Haven’t done anything new since.
8. What helps you get into the mood for writing? Usually a rainy day will do it. When I know it won’t be raining for awhile, I will wait for the right day to work on my writing. It’s something I can’t explain. It’s just a feeling that I get that let’s me know that I’m in the right mood to write. Weird, I know.
9. Who is your favorite fictional character (this can be from your own work or other work) I’ll think of a fictional character from another story than my own since I already mentioned my favorite character from my own in a previous question from someone else. I would say…Superman, does he count? LOL. He’s always been my favorite superhero. 😛
10. PC, Mac or Laptop for writing? PC. I don’t have a Mac. Although I should have a Mac.
11. Is WordPress the only place that you share your creative writing and publish it? No, I also have two other Sims 3 legacy stories on my Simblr. 🙂

 MsMidnightBlonde’s Questions:

1. If you could restart one generation or a couple chapters from your story, would you? Yes, I would redo a couple of chapters from generation one because towards the end, the world I was using corrupted my game somehow and I had to speed ahead in my story, so I felt the ending was rushed, but I did my best considering what I had to work with.
2. Do you prefer making sims, building houses/lots, decorating, or any combination of the three? Making lots and decorating is more of my preference. I’m okay at creating Sims, I guess, but I find it too time consuming for me considering that I’m just making a Sim and not building a house or decorating, haha.
3. Who is your oldest and most cherished sim you created? If you’re talking about since I’ve been playing the Sims period, I would say it would be a teenage female Sim named Remy Carter whom I created for a Sims story in TS2. She was the prettiest Sim I’ve ever made and one of my oldest. Unfortunately I lost her when my desktop went out. 😦 I’ve thought about re-creating her, but I don’t have enough patience for that. LOL!
4. When writing your stories, do you already have an idea of how you want the generation or chapter to go or do you just play and take it a chapter at a time? I normally have an idea of how I want the generation to go, although as I’m writing each chapter out, I do take it one at a time because sometimes I change my mind and want the story to go a different direction.
5. Have you ever made a sim you didn’t really like too much, but they grew on you the more you played them? Yes, and that would be Declan Chadwick from generation one of my story! I wasn’t sure if I liked the way he looked at first, but as I kept taking pictures of him–especially with Corrina–he eventually grew on me. Unfortunately I lost him too when my laptop went down. I have the worse luck with computers, I swear!
6. When developing your story, have you made a complete character background of your main characters, or even the minor ones, or do you learn more about them as the story progresses? I always plan each main character before I start, and then the minor ones come along as I’m writing and then I make up my mind about them at that time they are created and introduced into the story. 🙂
7. Dialogue: difficult or the easiest part of the story? Does it feel natural, like it flows, or kind of stilted? It feels natural to me. When I use dialogue, I write it out as if I am that particular character. I always have each character’s personality in mind when I write out their dialogue. It’s the easiest for me and it allows me to become more enthralled into that character’s life.
8. If you’re introducing a character with a background (i.e. a doctor, police officer, scientist) or a place (i.e. city, state, country, time) you’re unfamiliar with, do you research it or just make things up? If involves an occupation, I’ll do some research about that type of work. I never want to assume anything in fear of offending anyone. The locations I use are always fictional, so I make up any facts about that place to save some time and to be more creative with the story.
9. What time period(s) do you typically write in? Are there others you’d be interested in doing in other stories? I tend to write in modern day. I prefer it that way because it’s the easiest for me and I can relate to it more than any other time periods.
10. Do you write via pen/pencil, computer, or a combination? Computer, always. I use to write with a pencil and paper when I was a lot younger, but it takes more time and I type as fast as I’m thinking things through, so it’s faster and easier. I type really fast, haha!
11. Do you get nervous showing your work or are you pretty confident in what you’ve written? There are times when I do get a little nervous about publishing my writing if I am not sure of it, but most times I feel pretty confident about it. I’m not perfect and I will make mistakes and I’ve learned to accept that and be comfortable with that. 🙂

Liebster Award Nomination

I was recently nominated for the Liebster Award by LilyShadowWriter, which is an award I’ve never heard of before, but am very glad and much obliged to be nominated for it anyhow! So thank you so very much for the nomination!!! ^_^

RULES:

• Post award on your blog.
• Thank the blogger who nominated you.
• Nominate 5 – 11 other bloggers who you think deserves the award and have fewer than or equal to 3,000 followers.
• Answer the 11 questions from the blogger who nominated you.
• Ask 11 questions of your own to the bloggers you’ve nominated.

 

So here I go with my nominations…

1. The Insane Dubois Legacy by SimComix – This story has captivated me from the start and I find myself searching for new updates every single week, LOL. I love the storytelling and you can really sense how the main characters are feeling in each generation. Definitely one of my favorite stories!

2. The Ouroboros Legacy by Simsl3gacies – Another one of my favorite stories! This story is NSFW, but I love the beautiful pictures and the story is quite funny. Definitely a lot different than from the other stories I’ve read and that’s what makes it so unique.

3. Echoes of Eternity by Late Knight Simmer – I have just really started on this story not too long ago and I absolutely love it! I love the descriptive writing and the expressions on the characters faces were captured beautifully.

4. Different Winters by LilyShadowWriter – She’s already on generation 5, so I admire her dedication, LOL. She’s a great writer and I really enjoy seeing her pictures and her lovely sims!

5. Another Life To Live by MsMidnightBlonde – Another story I just recently started reading, but this one is really great! She’s very detailed in her writing and her sims are very beautiful!

6. Big City by TotalSimmer518 – I’m new to this story as well and I’m already hooked! This is a great story with great pictures with a very nice plot! The main character is so pretty too! I can’t wait to see the next generation!

LilyShadowWriter’s Questions:

1. Describe your typical writing process, including what you do to prepare to write and your editing process (if you have one). Usually, I like to write in first-person if the story I’m writing is a more serious one. If it’s just for play, I tend to write in third-person because there’s less work involved in those than my serious stories. I always prefer to write out an outline of what each chapter will be about, then work on any poses I need, go in game and take the pictures, and then I’ll write it all out before posting. It works for me. 🙂
2. If you could turn any of your characters into real people, who would you transform and why? That’s a tough question! I really loved Corrina from generation one of The Life and Times of the Willows, but I think I’d rather bring her son, Max to life. There’s just this sweet aura about him that draws me to him. He’s so protective over the ones he loves and cares about the most and it really says a lot about his character.
3. What is your favorite aspect of The Sims? What keeps you playing it? It’s funny because before Sims 3 came out, I was dead set on Sims 2, but I somehow got sucked into playing Sims 3 and now I’m dead set on that one! I would say my favorite aspect on Sims 3 would be the many types of age groups there are and the fact that you can do so much with them all within each expansion pack. What keeps me playing is that there are so many different ways you can play the game. It never gets old to me.
4. If you could be miniaturized into a sim for a day, what in the game would you want to do? I would want to go to all of the lounges, dance clubs, and dive bars, hahaha! Just seems like so much fun in the game.
5. Do you have friends in “real life” who are also simmers? If not, how much do you talk to your friends about the sims/your sims blog? I use to have a couple of friends who did play the game back when we were in high school when The Sims first came out, but they lost interest in it over time. I never did. I think because for a long while, I wasn’t able to play the game, so when I was finally able to, I became hooked all over again. Now, I only have one friend who plays it just as much as I do. We actually talk–well text more so–daily on the phone! We met on Tumblr and just clicked and eventually became best friends. 🙂
6. Do you also write outside of The Sims? If so, what do you write? If not, why not? Yes, I write a lot outside of the Sims. I’ve been a writer since I can remember. I mainly write fictional stories just like I do with the Sims. I use to write more poems and song lyrics back when I was younger, but then switched to just solely short stories.
7. What are you most proud of when it comes to your sim blog/your writing? Hmm, that’s a good question. I guess I’m more proud of my writing style when it comes to my blog. I’m not that great at Photoshopping my pictures, so I think my writing is the best aspect of my blog. I don’t know, haha.
8. Do you have any regrets regarding your sim blog? Why, or why not? No regrets. I love my Sims blog. It’s apart of me and says who I am as a person.
9. What are your favorite hobbies aside from The Sims? Writing, reading, other computer games, and spending time with my husband.
10. For you, what is the most difficult part of writing and/or maintaining your sims blog? The most difficult part of writing for me is keeping the story interesting, I suppose. Sometimes, building up the storyline can get a little boring to some readers, so I try not to drag it along for too long. Also since real life tends to get in the way, I find it hard to update my blog, which isn’t as often as I would like for it to be.
11. LOOK TO YOUR LEFT. The first object you see is about to come to life—how screwed are you? Eh, not that screwed…It’s just a cup of iced tea. 😛

 

My Questions To My Nominees:

1. How long have you been playing the Sims? What made you start playing?
2. Which version of the game is your most favorite?
3. What is your writing style, and why did you choose that style to write your story?
4. What inspired you to write your story?
5. Which character out of your story is your most favorite? Why or why not?
6. What is it about writing that you like the most?
7. If you could be a Sim for a day, which of the in-game Sims would you be, and why?
8. If you were a Sim, what would be your Lifetime Wish and which of the jobs/careers would you have?
9. If you could change anything about the Sims to make your writing experience much easier, what would it be, and why?
10. Do you create your own poses for your story or prefer to download them from other creators? Why or why not?
11. Do you prefer to write out your chapters first before taking your pictures or do you prefer to take your pictures first and then write out your chapters? Why?