Friendly Blogger Award and Historical Author Talk

My blog has been awarded a friendly blog award by Catherine Miller. Thank you Catherine.

 

In keeping with the award I must tell you seven things about me and recommend fifteen other blogs. So here goes:-

1) I met my husband on the internet! Married nine years next January.

2) Once starred as the Artful Dodger in the school play.

3) My first car was a Mini City nicknamed “Beep Beep”.

4) I have a Black Country accent and am proud of it.

5) I love watching Grand Prix. Favourite drivers are Jensen Button, Lewis Hamilton and Mark Webber.

6) My favourite bird is a goldfinch.

7) Suffer from “Stationary Acquisition Disorder” – pens and notebooks.

I recommend and pass the award onto the following fifteen blogs. It was difficult to choose, but these are some of my favourite reads. Please check them out, all are worth following.

A Zigzag Road
Annie Seaton
Bucolic Frolics

Cara Cooper's blog

Elizabeth Hanbury
Fat Girls and Fairy Cakes
Not Quite a Blonde
Flowerpot Days
India Grey
Kate Hardy
Sarah’s Book Reviews
Serenity Woods
Sue Moorcroft Writes
The Wittering Woman
The Writer’s Toolkit Blog

I went to a superb talk/writers’ panel at Kidderminster Library on Monday evening – Elizabeth Chadwick (Lady of the English, To Defy a King), Jane Sanderson (Netherwood) and Barbara Ewing (The Fraud, The Circus of Ghosts). Some useful tips emerged:-

1. Write to entertain.
2. If you write historicals try to include a real minor character.
3. Again for historicals, ask yourself - “Is it possible?” “Is it likely?”
4. Don’t feel you have to include all of your research. “As you know Bob” moments make books boring.
5. Try writing in ten minute bursts with thinking time between.

I came back full of writing ideas so I'd better get back to it. what has inspired you lately?

Reading, Research and News

I haven’t blogged for a couple of weeks. It has been a funny old time and I haven’t felt quite right one way or another. Hopefully on the mend now and bouncing back to my old self.

Happy birthday to Teresa Morgan

Get well wishes to India Grey, who had a nasty accident in London.

Congratulations to Sue Johnson on the publication of Creative Alchemy. This is a little book with an amazing feel and a lovely cover. It is billed as a writing course in a book. It was featured on Pauline Barclay’s blog this week.

I had a great lunch last Friday with Sue Johnson, Sue Watson (Fat Girls and Fairy Cakes), Ellie Swoop (my writing buddie) and Sheila Hames (an up and coming regency writer). We talked non-stop. Ellie and I also had lunch with Sarah Broadhurst. It was interesting talking about books from a reader and reviewer's point of view. Check out her blog for great book reviews.

At the weekend I went to a woodwork tool exhibition in London. Hubbie and little son wanted to go and I needed to do some research on chainsaw wood carving for a story. The poor guy doing the chainsaw demonstration couldn’t have been further away from the image of my hero. It was a little off putting that he kept completing these huge supposed mushrooms which to me looked more like sculptures of a certain part of the male anatomy! Nevertheless, I got my research information and hopefully can make my hero more realistic now.

I have been reading some great books:

• Fat Girls and Fairy Cakes - Sue Watson
• A Gathering Storm - Rachel Hore
• House of Silence and Untying the Knot - Linda Gillard

Lots of my friends have been getting publishing deals. If you read this blog please feel free to mention your publications below and congratulations from me.