Liebster Award

Thank you Wordy Rose for your nomination. I’m honour as I’m still finding my way as an author and it’s great to meet so many other writers.

The Liebster Award is a way to help promote and discover new bloggers, is given to bloggers by bloggers, and has a similar concept to a chain letter (a fun and no-pressure chain letter of sorts), in which you receive, participate (if you choose to), and then pay it forward.

Here’s how the Liebster Award works:

1. Link the person who nominated you to your blog post and let them know you answered their questions.

2. Answer the 11 questions given to you by the nominator.

3. Nominate other bloggers for the award (ideally new(er) bloggers to help beef up their following).

4. Create 11 questions for your nominees to answer.

5. Let the nominees know that they have been nominated by going to their blog and notifying them.

My nominator’s 11 questions.

1. How did you get involved in writing/what was your first writing experience?

I wrote poetry as a child. I remember my family and I went to the Lake District and we climbed Hellvellyn It was hard and for an eight year old, scary, so I turned my experience into a poem. On another holiday, we spent a week on a canal boat and I penned a daily diary. It is particularly notable for my inability to spell steer – I stirred the boat. My first novel, if you can call it that, was set on a tropical island and was my Robinson Crusoe re-write.

Given my love of writing, it seems some what crazy to study biology, however, there is a lot of writing essays, articles and reports in science, they just lacked a good plot and decent characters!

2. Who is your role model?

In writing, I’m not sure I have one. I read PD James as a teenager and admired her main character Adam Dalgliesh. She died last year, but not before she gave her top ten tips for writers.

3. What is your dream job?

Sadly, probably the one I lost due to outsourcing. Can’t replace a dream job, but I can enjoy the memory of it.

4. What is your top writing-related goal?

Get published in print and on display in a bookshop. Yes, I can self-publish and put myself on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, etc, but the bookshop is where I’d like to see my book.

5. What is at the top of your bucket list?

To be able to return to Africa while I’m still fit and able to enjoy the incredible continent.

6. What one person in history would you most like to meet?

Leonardo da Vinci – the genius who thought well outside the box that contained his contemporaries.

7. What is your favorite book?

Argh, not very good at favourites because they change daily and my bookshelves are full of favourites. If I had to create a top ten list, these would always been in it:

Birdsong- Sebastian Faulks, A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth, Eva Luna – Isabel Allende.

8. Who is your favorite author, and why?

Just as hard as picking a book …. Ed McBain for Crime, Bill Bryson for factual, Dorothy Dunnett for historical…. you see I could keep breaking down until I’ve picked all my favourites.

9. What is your favorite post you have written? (Please provide a link!)

I’ve not being going long, so not much choice, but probably this one, which explains my problem with picking favourites and my fickle nature.

10. What is your favorite quote, and by whom?

I love Monty Python, there’s always quote there for me, and many other comedians too. But, for a serious quote, it would have to be Shakespeare and the sonnet that was read at my wedding. Sonnet 116 –

Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,

11. Why did you start your blog?

Connect to writers, readers and record my trials and tribulations as a working mum turned full time writer.

As for my nomination – I’m enjoying reading many blogs participating in the A-Z challenge, but most have been blogging several years, so I’ve chosen Megan, who has touched on many issues I relate to:

Megan Morgan

My Questions:

1. What five words describe you best?

2. Your dream holiday destination?

3. How did you decide what to blog about for you A-Z?

4. What advise would you give to a new blogger?

5. What’s your main writing goal for his year?

6. Which would you rather do – a luxury cruise or take a space flight?

7. What are you reading at the moment?

8. Do you watch TV much and what kind of programmes do you enjoy?

9. Why did you become an author?

10. Which country would you most like to visit?