Faster Than Kudzu

I'll comment on B4B on the writers website I frequent. Perhaps it will spark some interest.
Tina

Ok, for the first time, I am actually entering B4B!

Here is my entry (albeit one that was previously written)

http://haloscan.com/tb/rileymom/113164047030402625

It didn't work....I pasted the wrong url (sheepishly hangs her head in first-timers shame)

Sorry!

http://wilsonworld.blogspot.com/2005/11/grandpa-gilles.html

Here is mine!

http://3minionsintow.blogspot.com/

Not writing on the topic this month, but I am writing about B4B for BlogHer today.

Here's mine, and though it's old, I think it fits the theme well.

http://www.gipsysmusings.com/archives/2003/11/sucker_for_a_ca.php - Sucker for a Cause

Great idea!! I haven't written anything about the military, and only just started blogging, but I love this idea. I hope you keep it going a bit longer so maybe I can get in on it....

http://desperate2bhousewife.blogspot.com/2006/03/letters-from-home.html

Here's my entry that I actually just posted yesterday. Then I read over at Mir's blog (Woulda Coulda) that I was morally obligated as a blogger to enter this contest...which I read about today for the first time and think is a great idea BTW!

The post is not my opinion about the military (as we don't share the same military - mine is Canadian), but it does have the word "soldier" in it....once. Letters to my brother in Afghanistan from my children. The military through the eyes of a child.

http://whereitends.typepad.com/this_is_where_it_ends/2006/03/whats_the_worst.html

Here's my entry- something I've never talked about before! Just for you! And Mir! And the Blogging for Books tradition!

OK, I'm in! My entry is here:

http://www.socalmom.net/travelblog/2006/03/blogging_for_bo.html

I'm pretty new to the blogging thing. In fact, I don't even have my site design finished, but, what the heck! I'm in! I'd hate to see Blogging for Books die an untimely death so, here's my entry

http://pridemama.com/blog/index.php?blog=2&title=just_a_soldier&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1

Hopefully that should get you there, like I said, new to blogging. If that doesn't get you there, it's the entry entitled "Just" a soldier at www.pridemama.com

If you should see me anytime soon with someone named Lani IN PERSON, check out HER shoes, but when it comes to mine, AVERT your eyes woman! You have been warned. You will be so sad if you should mistakenly look down at my feet. They are not feet a shoe shopping lover should have to endure. I apologize in advance....

I'm posting for my husband who writes often about the military. Check out my favorite posts of his at:

http://www.laflamme.us/art/?p=176

http://www.laflamme.us/art/?p=173

http://www.laflamme.us/art/?p=242

Ooops, I posted too many B4B entries. This shall be the official post:

http://www.laflamme.us/art/?p=242

Wow. Great to see so many entries this month. Here's mine: http://cynicaldragonfly.blogspot.com/2006/03/field-marshall-mom.html

Good luck to everyone!

Mir sent me. Can I come in? :)

Here's my post. This is the first time I've done this type of thing, so please be gentle.

http://crazedmommy.blogspot.com/2006/03/blogging-for-books-confessions-of-ex.html

Hope you like it!

Shash

I'll advertise on my blog!

Here's my blogging for books entry about the military. I'm glad blogging for books has been resurrected as I never got around to doing it before.

http://jaycee.typepad.com/semantics/2006/03/blogging_for_bo.html

http://daramusing.blogspot.com/2006/03/pancake-suppers-of-days-gone-by.html

Thanks for the broad entry rules!

Oh, okay - you twisted my arm. Good thing this topic is so dang BROAD...

http://pithmarrowandcoffeespoons.blogspot.com/2006/03/stars-stripes-and-shields.html

Some terrific entries so far! Here's my post: http://cluttermuseum.blogspot.com/2006/03/blogging-for-books-military.html

I love B4B, I don't want it to die. I love reading all of your words. But often the topic doesn't inspire me - this one didn't either.....but I ran with it, or tripped with it, or...well at least I did it.

http://ohjoyitsme.blogspot.com/

Here's mine, such as it is.

http://ccbanzai.blogspot.com/2006/03/military-eh.html

This is my first trying to do the B4B. I tried to post my link to my post but I get an error that says "my comment was denied for questionable content." Follow my url to get to my blog and it is the March 16th post.

Thanks,
Stacie

Let's try this.. since I can't get anything in the URL to work for me...

it is at http://dimplespoo blog-city com

Stacie

It's time to give this a try!

http://lorykc.blogspot.com/2006/03/blogging-for-books-little-soldiers-on.html

Here is my entry:
http://excruciatingminutiae.blogspot.com/2006/03/military.html

Amy

OK, here's my entry. I wouldn't want any dogs to be put down because I didn't submit something. Gads.

http://blog.cyndidavis.com:81/wordpress/?p=56

Does poetry count? If so, one I wrote a while back:

http://tcbbz.com/index.php/2006/02/18/dark-thoughts/

Oh yeah, an essay I also wrote:

http://tcbbz.com/index.php/2006/01/13/spaghetti-stuffy-nose-and-tear-gas/

http://www.opendiary.com/entryview.asp?authorcode=D575467&entry=10242&mode=date

I did one :)
I'm a fan of 'gods' and a fan of your blog, and this is my first B4B. Yeehaw!

ROFL! I, personally, am rooting for Janet. I know her, and she's a darn good writer and dead sexy. :) She sends me poetry and funny ecards. Can't help but love her. That, and I have personally seen the "garden" of which she writes. Alabama at its finest.

I am a military wife of nearly 12 years. I don't write about being military, it's just something that is. I don't expect non-military people to understand, because they don't. Much as they might like to, want to, try to, they often don't.

It was nice, today, to meet a woman in the commissary (that's mil-speak for "grocery store") whose husband had done a recruiting tour (like mine did five years ago). It was nice, because she understood. She understood like no one who has not done a recruiting tour understands. I bet, even though she's Air Force and we're Navy, she wonders where he is when he's deployed, and I bet she leaves a light on for him. And I bet... she would know exactly who the unsung hero is.

http://www.figure-skating-blog.com/2006/03/blogging-for-books.html

This is my first attempt at B4B but I thought I'd give it a shot. Here is my entry:
http://kaleidosouls.info/2006/03/b4b-innocence-denied.html

okay I'm doing this, granted not sure what we were really allowed to write about but I kind of wrote a book. :) I'll post in a bit.

Okay this is just about life in the military and how different two services really are and how I learned what moving and deployments really were. :)

http://www.xanga.com/elizajane202/459430927/blogging-for-books.html

Okay it didn't appear the last time I posted so this is my entry. akkk so sorry.

Something I wrote a couple of years ago when my brother and bil were both in Iraq.

http://jensgalore.blogspot.com/2004_11_01_jensgalore_archive.html#110023359000818658

A great idea for finding new, interesting essays...no entry here but one comment. While I'm thrilled for Sarah Smiley--both for her personal success with Going Overboard and for her talent in bringing alive the long unrecognized challenges of the military spouse--I'm not sure she's the person to be judging essays on military subjects. The whole dilemna of the military spouse (as Sarah heself writes) is having to put up with unreasonable sacrifice while largely being left out of the action. A military spouse is the ultimate outsider--an outsider with more at stake than anyone else--but still an outsider. Most of the military spouses I've known can't describe their husbands' (or wives', in a few cases) jobs. They're good at spotting the often absurd rules, but are typically at a loss to explain why the rules exist.

Please don't take this as sour grapes. I'm very happy for Ms. Smiley, but having her judge a competition on military blogs is like having her Navy pilot husband judge a competition on, say, raising children in times of war...something in which he would have an acute interest but would (if he were fighting the war) have little experience.

Sincerly,
Kim Ponders
Major, USAFR
author of The Art of Uncontrolled Flight

I might agree with you if this was a contest for military types writing, as you say, military blogs, but it's a contest for writers. Most of the entries so far have been written by "outsiders" very like Smiley herself----CONNECTED or NEAR but not IN or OF the military. The entrants are mostly people with military spouses or siblings or parents (me too, by the way) or grandparents or lovers, one woman who THOUGHT about enlisting but didn't, even one metaphorical thinker who wrote about being labeled a FIELD MARSHALL by Meyers Briggs. (Me too, by the way.) I've only read the first half of the entries, but so far, only one essay has been written by someone who is or has been in the military.

PS, Your book showed up on Amazon as a link on one of my book pages...you know, one of those, "people who bought gods in Alabama also bought..." and I followed the link and got very interested and ended up ordering it. It's in my TO READ pile. I'm ashamed I haven't gotten to it, since, look, here you are, but I've been reading Truman Capote in honor of PSH's win and because, WOW, brilliant writer, brilliant STYLIST, right? But I am very much looking forward to cracking it when I get off this Capote kick.

I don't take it as sour grapes at all. In fact, if you're interested, I'd love to have you as a B4B judge in the coming months. We base the topic on the BOOK and the author has input into what the topic should be. I just require that it be broad enough to be taken several ways and be OPEN to all....So, for example, instead of "write the story of how you birthed your first child," which would be only open to women who have become mothers in the traditional manner, I would say "Write about birth, be it biological or artistic or getting skeeved out watching cows do it on the Discovery Channel." Like that.

I will CC this to your email addy,
Joshilyn

Here is my paltry offering:
http://hthemeanteacher.blogspot.com/2006/03/americas-finest.html

Long Live Blogging For Books!

http://datingthetoothfairy.blogspot.com/2006/03/semper-paratus-usually-i-dont-have.html

It was VERY hard to think of what to write. Maybe the broad topic made me panic a little bit.

http://amusedslinky.blogspot.com/2006/03/in-those-dark-days.html

My very first attempt to BFB!

Joshilyn--Is there any way the B4B Yahoo group could be updated when the contest is live? I gave up checking it and have had trouble tracking since I entered and was a finalist awhile back.

Hh

I'm in - my entry is at:

http://fabricnfiberfanatic.blogspot.com/

and is titled: Blogging4Books

Here is my entry:

http://blog.darkgraysheep.com/archives/2006/03/the_hot_texas_s.html

This wasn't the post I originally intended to submit about military life, but somehow this is what I ended up with. http://twinsmom603.blogspot.com/2006/03/lessons-learned.html
Good luck, all!!

Love B4B!! I'm happy to see all of the entries you've gotten this time. Here's mine:

http://theseglasses.typepad.com/my_weblog/2006/03/dreams_choices_.html

ok, here's mine...

http://barbie2be.blogspot.com/2006/03/blogging4books-topic-military.html