The Shameless Lion Award

I've received this award for good, powerful writing from Bev Jackson, and I'm honored! Much of what I post here isn't my own work, but it's work I want to share, and so I'm always chuffed when someone enjoys it. Plus, I like lions.

Part of the rules are that I must pass this award along to five other bloggers.

Those people I've given this award to are encouraged to post it on their own blogs; list three things they believe are necessary for good, powerful writing; and then pass the award on to the five blogs they want to honour, who in turn pass it on to five others, etc etc. Let's send a roar through the blogosphere! The image above can be copied and pasted onto other blogs. Also, a small size of the award for sidebars can be found over at the writing circle site.

So, before I list who I have given this award to, here are the three things I believe are necessary for good, powerful writing:

1) Passion. It's inspiring, invigorating and contagious. It's life force, it's chi, it's what keeps us going in the face of...evidence as to why we should just give up.

2) Honesty. It's essential to communication between humans. We don't have to agree; we don't even have to understand. But we must operate in good faith. We must be authentic.

3) Vision. What makes an artist is not, necessarily, excecution (though skillful execution is pleasing), but vision. It's how one sees existence that is unique and therefore interesting.

So here's my list of bloggers that I admire and enjoy:

Jordan Rosenfeld
Richard Lewis
Firefly Forest
Joshilyn Jackson
Stephanie Anagnoson

Oh. I didn't follow directions. Silly me, I thought the point might be what I admired in blog writing. But then I realized maybe I was supposed to take the 3 points from the site. So here they are, not so very different from mine:

Before I list who I have given this award to, here are the three things I believe are necessary for good, powerful writing:(I have borrowed these from the source site in order to preserve the integrity and intentions of this award).

1)Innovation: I love writing that doesn't rely on tired, easy phrases. I love a unique look at things, an attack on clichés and turns of phrase that have lost any punch. I need to see good grammar, but I love a writer who challenges me, who takes me on a journey into the fresh unknown!

2) Truth: I need to sense that there is some truth in what is being written. This doesn't necessarily mean I have to agree with what's being written, or that things have to be proven as true; but I do need to get the feeling that the words were absolutely true for the writer. I need to feel the conviction and passion that motivated the writer to choose those particular words.

3) Humanism: I need to feel that the writer has an idea about human nature, that as the author of work intended for human consumption, the writer has a grip on the mechanisms, sensitivities that strike a universal chord in all of us. The work that stays with me is often something that has enhanced my understanding - or triggered my curiosity - on the question of who we are.