Sunday, May 4, 2014

You Know You're a Fairy Tale Blogger When...


Graphic by Gypsy using Dore's illustrations & Debbie's vintage dust jacket project from Confessions of a Plate Addict (text is the opening lines of Le Chat Botté)

I got tagged by Gypsy at Once Upon a Blog, so now it's my turn:
- See where it began at: Kristin's Tales of Faerie.

You know you're a fairy tale blogger when:

  • Any fairy tale reference in the "real world" makes your ears and eyes perk to attention.
  • Your husband turns to you and says, "That'll make the blog!" a few times a week.
  • Forget a shelf or two, your home library has a section of shelves devoted to fairy tales and folklore. And it's the only section that keeps physically growing too quickly since you moved to pleasure reading on your ereader.
  • Ditto for the fairy tale DVD collection which does require its own shelves or drawer (my current system). And, no, Disney doesn't dominate it although it's certainly thoroughly represented.
  • You regularly auto search "fairy tale" in search boxes of all types.
  • You need a break so you don't read fairy tale related stuff for "free time fun reading" anymore but are thrilled when they creep into your pleasure reading anyway. Example: Reading Snow-Kissed by Laura Florand on an obscure recommendation while down with the flu and finding yourself thrilled to be floating around in more direct fairy tale references than in Frozen. Yes, Snow-Kissed uses Snow Queen and it is a romance novel of sorts, so beware if that bothers you. I enjoyed.
  • Who are we kidding? All reading and most other experiences of the world are colored by comparisons to fairy tale tropes.
  • You try not to lecture when someone casually mentions the first Cinderella as having sisters with their heels and toes cut off. (Not even close folks!)
  • You feel like shocking someone? Tell them about Sleeping Beauty and rock their sparkly world off their axis.
  • When someone you meet tells you that Goose Girl or Six Swans or Twelve Dancing Princesses is one of their favorite fairy tales, you have found a kindred spirit. Even if those aren't necessarily your own favorite tales.
  • You keep so many tabs open in multiple browsers, hoping for time to post about at least some of the content, that your computer eventually demands a reboot or reboots itself. Sometimes you get your tabs back, sometimes not.
  • If printed, your list of fairy tale blog ideas and links would be longer than your physical height, perhaps twice or three times. By the way, I'm 5'7". No Thumbelinas here.
  • You wish there were four of you so you could answer every email and post every item and read every book.
  • Your parents take pictures of fairy tale related things during their travels (David Hohn's Sleeping Beauty) just to share with you and occasionally bring something back (Fairy Tale Crayons, coming soon).
  • When you travel you come back with fairy tale related items, such as Snow White finger puppets from France, Granny eating Wolves from Ohio.
  • You see and notice an image of a frog wearing a crown somewhere pretty much every time you leave your house. Or go online. They are more common than glass slippers. Went out twice yesterday and saw crowned frogs twice, by the way.
  • You discover that the people who share your passion are some of the loveliest and strangest people on the planet. Both adjectives are compliments.
  • You've been sharing fairy tales on the web since 1998 and love it even more now than you did when you started.

Fairy tale bloggers confessions so far:
Tales of Faerie - Kristin
Once Upon A Blog - Gypsy
Heidi at SurLaLune (see above)
Now tagging... Adam (aka AdamYJ) of Fairy Tale Fandom!

What is this?

From Kristin, of Tales of Faerie: After having a fairy tale blog for years, it really starts to bleed into the rest of your life. Gypsy from Once Upon a Blog and I have been enjoying sharing some of these unique results of our bloggerhood and thought some of you might also have some funny and interesting things to share as well!

6 comments:

  1. Lol! "All reading and most other experiences of the world are colored by comparisons to fairy tale tropes"-yes SO TRUE! Thanks for doing this!

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  2. I age heartily,to the point that I crazy quilt them too!
    Does a whole shelf of OZ books count?
    If it does I have 3. not bad for a novice.

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  3. Mine's up! http://www.fairytalefandom.com/2014/05/you-know-youre-fairy-tale-blogger-when.html

    I will admit to embellishing one or two (I don't really own that many Andrew Lang books). Most of them are true, though.

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  4. The tabs thing - All. The. Time!
    Ideas & links - we could totally give Rapunzel a climb for her.. (you get the idea)
    Six Swans!!
    FT strangelings unite. ;)
    Re your last point - I'd go so far as to say it is thoroughly habit forming. With love. Addicted with lots of love. :)

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  5. I *hate* The Goose Girl!! Okay, I did when I was a kid. I mean, poor Falada, he just stays dead! It's so unjust! [Settles in to discuss obscure fairy tales for the next several hours... Obsessed? Who, me?]

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  6. Okay, now I'm going to start looking for frogs with crowns. (It's the new Where's Waldo.)

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