Greatest Hits, 2010-2011

A couple weeks ago, Katy Upperman gave me a blog award. Yay! Thanks, Katy. [Dear readers: please check out the links on her post, and the rest of her lovely blog. Katy's a wonderful writer and her blog is fantastic!]

And now I'm finally getting around to doing it. The deal with the 7X7 Award is to share seven past blog articles that fit the superlative given. I like that this award gives the awardee a chance to curate his/her blog and dust off some of the archives. So here goes:

Most Beautiful: I wouldn't describe many of my posts as beautiful; that's not really my blog-writing style. But based on sentiment: I like this ode to my sister, Beth. And this letter my past self wrote to Future Me.
Most Helpful: I don't blog about craft that much, but I've written a few posts with tips or tricks: Using Wordle to weed out words you overuse or Chunking your MS to revise it with less stress. Also, I think remembering that first drafts can be crappy is pretty helpful.
Most Popular: Of course the posts in which I mention Milli Vanilli and Mean Girls. Or the one in which I dressed up like a turkey.
Most Controversial: I happen to like Kate Chopin's The Awakening. Thanks to Google Analytics's information on keywords that lead people to my blog, I now know that I am the only person in the world who doesn't associate these terms with The Awakening: "why sucks so bad," "horrible book," "should be banned." Apparently other people really hate that book.
Most Surprisingly Successful: People really love posts on Bossypants. Which isn't surprising--Tina Fey is awesome--but this review got tons of hits. Same with my homage to a Fun Facts page from Beauty Queens.
Most Underrated: This post on what makes a writer was from my early days of blogging, so probably only my mom read it. (Hi, Mom!) It's still one of my favorite posts, partly because of the context around which it was written. (Writing-friend drama; I was sad.)
Most Prideworthy: Ironically, the one not on my blog. I wrote a letter for Dear Teen Me, and that's the first time I've guest posted anywhere. It was a little intimidating to reveal my teenage insecurities (as opposed to my characters') to the world, so I'm proud I did it. Also, this one on taking risks with words.

Since I'm late to pass this one along, consider yourselves all awarded the 7x7 if you want a chance to share your favorite posts. :)

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