Three, seven and fifteen

This morning I woke up feeling a little blue, because as you know in this writerly world, things are not always pink. Anyway, things swiftly picked up. First England were playing Georgia in the Rugby World Cup, this meant I got to stay in bed while the Frog and the Bubba watched it. So, I checked my e mail and saw that Sheri over at Finding Joy in the Journey had left me not ONE but TWO blog awards. Can you imagine the little smile starting to form on my face? I hopped out of bed with a spring in my step (this may be a little fictional) and went to deal with breakfast (before the France/Canada match). I had a little read of some blogs and this time came across Beth Kemp at Thoughts from the Hearthfire and found TWO more awards waiting for me. FOUR!!!! Wow! Alright one of them is the same as the other, but who's quibbling? 

Now feeling very cheered up I got cracking with passing these awards straight on. I know that some of you already have these, but there are three to choose from so hopefully ONE of them will be new. 

Number 1: The Versatile Blogger

The rules:

• Thank the person who gave you the award and link back to them in your post. SEE ABOVE and thank you BETH and SHERI. 
• Share 7 things about yourself. SEE BELOW

1. I used to blog under the pseudonym Verilion, meaning Very Lion, as I'm a Leo, but not in a typically Leo way, just that I'm a bit like a cat, I like cats and I sleep a lot.  
2. Since starting this blog I have acquired: two cats (one died of FIP), a French man, a baby (now a very boisterous toddler), a flat, two WIP's and what will be next? (This happened in five years, so we have a long time frame here).
3. I like cooking, and stuff tastes nice, but I ALWAYS follow recipes!
4. After Primary school, my relationship with the education system went downhill. Yep, I'm a teacher and I really like my job. 
5. I like sticking my hands into a big pile of wood chip or soil and feeling the warmth.
6. And adore walking on damp grass barefoot. 
7. I don't get golf. When people start talking about it (and you'd be surprised by how many people do) my eyes glaze over and I go to a special place with wet grass, wood chip and bubbles. Sorry, pardon… what was that?

• Pass this Award along to 15 recently discovered blogs and let them know about it. SEE A LITTLE BIT FURTHER BELOW

Number 2: Leibster Blog 

The Liebster Award, is intended to show bloggy love to blogs with fewer than 200 followers. Count me in then. 

The rules: 

1. Show your appreciation to the blogger who gave you the award by linking back to them. THAT'LL BE BETH. 
2. Reveal your five picks and let them know by leaving a comment on their blog. UGH THAT'LL BE THE 15 A BIT FUTHER BELOW
3. Post the award on your blog. DONE
4. Bask in the camaraderie of the most supportive people on the internet. THAT'LL BE ALL OF YOU. YEP, YOU TOO.

5. And best of all have bloggity fun and spread the love. DONE

Number 3: Our lovely blog award

1. Thank and link to the person who nominates you: MERCI SHERI.

2. Pass this Award along to 15 recently discovered blogs and let them know about it! So right below is a list of recently discovered blogs. All 15 of them have been discovered thanks to Rach Harrie's 3rd Writer's Platform-Building Campaign

1. Stephanie @ Word by Word who will be interviewed right here on this blog TOMORROW. 
2. Brittany @ Hills and Corkscrews who will also be interviewed here on this blog in October
3. Kelley @ Writtled Kelley is also going to be interviewed here on a very SPECIAL day in October.
4. Cat Gerlach @ Always try a little harder The demigoddess who organised the 'Who started your dream?' Blog hop
5. grillyfish @Grillyfish  who pops by from time to time
6. Lady Gwen @Run Gwen, Run! Write Gwen, Write  another lady who pops by.
7. Shannon @ The Warrior Muse  who was also part of the bloghop
8. Melissa @ MG Higgins  another bloghopper.
9. Kate @ The Scribbling SeaSerpent a fellow Litopian and campaigner
10. Elizabeth Varadan @ Elizabeth Varadan's Fourth Wish a fellow scribblerati and campaigner
11. Robyn Campbell @ Putting Pen to Paper the lovely lady whose interview you may have read, or maybe you'd like to read it. 
12. Michael @ In Time… another fellow bloghopper
13. Laila @ The Untroubled Kingdom of Laila Knight a regular visitor and campaigner.
14. Rosalind @ Rosalind Adam is writing in the rain Check out her interview at the beginning of October.
15. Andrew @ Strange Pegs and check out his interview towards the end of October. 

Writing on Wednesday: Aww, aha! and Oh!

Aww

This week as I was reading through the new posts on some of my favourite blogs, I discovered I had won an award: L'Aussie's Fair Dinkum award. It's been a while since I've won one of these bloggy things so it made me go: Aww. And thank you very much Rachna for your warm welcome and good advice.

I have to pass it on to six people and define what I think is 'fair dinkum'. Mmm... well, in keeping with the Aha! moment, I'm passing the award on to blogs that have made me go Aha! recently:

1. Sarah Towle over at Time Traveler Tours - This project is so exciting I almost want my own kid to be a bit older so that I can try it out! If you are in Paris and have an iPhone, iPad or iTouch please check this site out. If you don't have these things, just check this site to learn an amazing amount. 
2. Scarlett & Viaggiatore have been hanging around this blog and offering support for a good couple of years now. You can find out more about this pair here 
3. Another long time bloggy friend is Nicky Schmidt, who I first came across in the guise of an alien chicken. We've never met, but we've talked on the phone once and I get loads of helpful e mails, as well as quite a few funny ones. 
4. Fifteen days without a head I'm looking forward to reading the book, but until it comes out, the blog is pretty good too. 
5. Rebecca Brown loves musicals, has two lovely little kids and blogs here.
6. Last but definitely not last is Becky from The Bookette. She is amazing.   

Aha!
So there I was this week, with a list of blogs all about writing. What was I to do but check them out. It was at this point that I had my Aha! moment. I've been reading ad infinitum about how your query letter has to hook in the agent. That most agents toss about 80% of query letters without even reading the partials, blah,blah, blah ... bad, sad, grey news. So I clicked on each site and after about five I realised I was doing this: I was looking at the title, reading the tag line under it. That was enough. If the tag line didn't grab me I was gone. All of a sudden I saw myself in a well tailored suit, with an inbox full of queries and partials and I could see myself going: no, no, no, no, mmm. This moment kind of put a chill in my heart and has made me think that I need to take more care over my own tag line!

Oh!
Vickie Motter from Navigating the Slush Pile has a post up discussing why titles can't suck. So, I clicked through the hundred titles in the list and kept thinking: These are not best titles! I don't agree, these titles are rubbish. No, she's wrong. Titles aren't that important. No, I've read loads of books that aren't on this list. In fact these are no way best book titles, there are a bunch of books on this list that I would NEVER read based on the title alone, no... OH! Oh! She's right, titles can't suck. And can I just add, that personally, any book with the word 'suck' in the title is definitely not on my 'to be read' list.

So, that's my learning curve for the week. There hasn't been much writing what with very exciting real life events taking place and having visitors. Tonight is scheduled writing night*, so I bid your farewell to go and sort out Ella, who's going to sneak out of Maths any minute.

*hence the fact that this was actually written on Tuesday night, if you can get your head round the timing of that!

On Cats (and Writing)

On Friday the Critique group squeezed into my flat and I gained a major insight into Tibo's little feline brain. I think he thinks that everyone who walks through my front door is there to see him. And after all why shouldn't he think that. The day he arrived Jane did come just to visit him. I remember watching a sporting event one night and realising the person I thought I was talking to was actually in the bathroom playing with Tibo. There was even the lady from the cat association who came specially to see him. Even the postlady and the census lady have cooed all over him. So of course he thought these women who walked through the door were here to see him. As realisation slowly dawned he decided that if they weren't here for him, he would sure as hell make his presence felt. He jumped in and out of handbags, bit knees and hair, stole pencils, tried to taste the snacks, took nips out of everyone's writing and generally TOTALLY misbehaved. After all this when someone did arrive who would pet him, he curled up on the back of the sofa and fell asleep.

Despite the fact that I spent the evening with one eye on the critiques and the other seeing where Tibo would stick his nose next, I felt the evening went quite well. Two things became very apparent to me:

1. Show not tell - Ok it's not an earth shattering discovery. It's not even new, it's not like I haven't heard it a million times before. But then I suddenly discover the advice has flown out of my head...
   
2. Along with my grasp of punctuation. I have a very intuitive use of punctuation. I think a comma or semicolon should go there. And there, yeah there, let's slip in a dash! Anyway it becomes kind of glaring when one of your crit partners sends you a link for a punctuation website. So yesterday I purchased New Hart's Rules - The Handbook of style for Writers and Editors. It's got a whole bunch of other sections that I will probably never look at, but it seemed to fit. I do own Eats, Shoots and Leaves, but I seem to have Read, Thought and Forgotten! And really to find the rule in amongst Lynne Truss's rants is not really practical.

Despite these minor flaws (uh hum) I seem to have acquired myself not one, but two Roars for Powerful writing. Eeek! The first one was from Kimy over at Mouse Medicine and she made me blush she was so kind. The second one is from Marie over at Deep Thinker. And I now have to tell you 3 things that I think make powerful writing. So here goes...

1. Write from the heart. Be it fiction or non-fiction love your subject, love your words.
2. Edit and let your love sing clearly and loudly.
3. And because you always can - keep on learning. I'm hoping YOU guys, my crit group and Stephen King's On Writing will continue to teach me a lot.

And so on to the fun bit, passing it on. It'll be interesting to see what these people find powerful.

So Kimy, I have to pass the roar right on back to you.

Vanilla at Absolute Vanilla - I hope you don't me borrowing your words, but you say it so well.

David at Witnessing am I

Apprentice at My Gap Year

And Jon from Writing in a Vacuum (and not because he's collecting awards this time).

When you're smiling...

It seems that I make people smile; well more specifically Vanilla, I make Vanilla smile. To prove that I make her smile she’s gone and given me this award, which in time honoured tradition I need to pass on to 5 people.

I always find that part so difficult because for a start you want to pick EVERYBODY. But then you go and think about it and the people you have picked have already got the award. The next thing you know you’re no longer smiling. And then you think about the people who you didn’t nominate and maybe they are no longer smiling.

But Susan at Patchwork Reflections, who made the award says, comments make her smile and everybody who comments deserves the award. Oh I see. So the last people who did actually make me smile because they left lovely comments were:

Jon (hobbies include gorehounds, writing children's books and collecting blog awards), Monsieur Moon Topples (who still plays with his spiderman toy, so of course he puts a smile on your face), Scarlett (the most enthusiastic blogger in the history of blogging), Matthew at Common Misadventures (who has got the most gorgeous picture of a woodpecker up, don’t get distracted by the baby squirrels, just keep scrolling down, you can do it), Vanilla (and her reflections), Minx (who has also got a big smiley moment captured on her blog) and Marie (who sings to put a smile on her face).

OK that’s not 5, but where did I get 5 from hey?

For Phoktober 14^th here are some other things that made me smile.

I will do a proper Fete de la Vendange post later in the week, but in the meanwhile here is an erratum. Vendange means Harvest, so although this is to celebrate the Montmartre wine, it seems that because the wine is so bloody hard to get hold of and usually not very nice, now every winemaker is invited (which might be why my head hurts)!

Catching up - Part II: The Nice Bit

So here is Part II of the catching up, see I’m getting there.

Apparently I am ubernice, see it says so here. I like to keep mentioning this because it’s not often you get called nice and it brings a smile to your face. I don’t know about you, but I hear that word and my eyebrow arches so high it disappears into my hairline. Anyway this latest little badge (to add to my thoughtfulness and schmoozyness) came to me via Maht at The Moon Topples. And if I’m ubernice (see I’ve mentioned it again) it’s going to be kind of hard to find someone who tops that, but here goes:

Debi Alper – as the only blogger that I have met in the flesh so far, I can totally vouch for her niceness. She gave me a big hug and smiled a lot and was really nice the whole time we wandered along the South Bank.

Scarlett at From the shores of introspect and retrospect – Now despite the fact that I am quite possibly the worst commenter in the history of blogging, this chick is the Queen of Bloggy Enthusiasm and Positivity. My question Scarlett is: How do you do it?

Jon M at Writing in a Vacuum – Again I always leave Jon’s page with a smile on my face. He is so nice that you almost wish you could give him a little hug (and his gorehounds). Oh and he’s collecting these awards, so I have to help, don’t I?

And then there’s Canterbury Soul – He’s fully deserving of this award, he’s just always so nice. Oh and the thing that wins him this award hands down is the fact that he’s a Liverpool supporter, that’s just got to make him a good guy.

Kimy is a fairly new reader of my blog and again I apologise for commenting so infrequently, but I do read you on the feeder thingamajig. Anyway, Kimy is always posting these little quotes that are sure to get your brain cells working in a good way, so I think she is also deserving of a ‘nice’ award.

I have to say that in comparison to the other two award things I’ve received this is probably the ‘nicest’ design as well. OK already, enough niceness.

Phoktober 8^th

In terms of the comments yesterday it seems that most of you liked the pictures of Tibo (rolls eyes) or the water shot. Obviously I can’t force you lot to share my love of gargoyles, so here’s another shot of the fountain.

Schmooze

Vanilla has nominated me for a Schmooze award. It kind of makes me laugh because the description:
schmoozing is the natural ability “to converse casually, especially in order to gain an advantage or make a social connection.”
does not describe me in any way shape or form. I'm the one in the kitchen at my own parties. Still this is a blog award so definitions change a wee bit:



As it goes, Good schmoozers effortlessly weave their way in and out of the blogosphere, leaving friendly trails and smiles, happily making new friends along the way. They don’t limit their visits to only the rich and successful, but spend some time to say hello to new blogs as well. They are the ones who engage others in meaningful conversations, refusing to let it end at a mere hello - all the while fostering a sense of closeness and friendship.”

So in keeping with the great blog tradition of passing on all awards to 5 fellow bloggers, I hereby nominate:

Jefferson Davis
Jon M at Writing in a Vacuum cos he's collecting (or stealing) blog awards
Marie at Deep Thinker
David at Witnessing am I
and I don't care if she's already had one, she is the Ultimate Schmoozer Minx.

I think therefore I am

Well it all started with Poetess really. She gave one to Marie and Jon M, then Marie gave one to me and Jon gave one to Vanilla and then Vanilla gave it to me as well. What am I talking about? I’m talking about this:

Firstly, I'd like to give a big thank you to Marie and Vanilla for giving me this award. The award goes to bloggers who answer blog comments, emails, and make their visitors feel at home on their blogs. The description on the original post is a bit more in depth, and you can read it all here, but for now according to the rules I am supposed to pass it on to 5 more bloggers.

Can I just say now that if you are on my blogroll then it’s precisely because you are a thoughtful blogger that you are there and I’m sorry I can’t choose you all. Having said that, there’s quite a few of these little badges popping up, so if you’ve recently had one, ehm, I’m sorry but I want to share the pleasure of receiving one of these little things, so I haven’t picked you again.

So finally to the point, ta ta ta tahhh da da da da da daaaaaaahh:

Jude from Jude’s Writing Corner – she is a positive little bean in the blog universe, gives good advice about writing and doesn’t seem to moan about her job at all (scratching my head in confusion there)!

Kyklops – He’s a Canadian living in Japan and he’s got a bad shoulder, but he still had time to show me how to put italics in my comments box yesterday (and being such a good pupil you may notice that I’ve excelled and can now do bold too).

Apprentice at My Gap Year – She always replies to my comments over at her blog and she even comes over here and leaves lovely comments. She also takes beautiful photographs that make me think and is kind enough to introduce her readers to new things like renga and haiban.

Shameless – My fellow kind of Frenchie blogger. He writes very thoughtful posts, poems and short stories and is always completely positive and courteous and he gave away all his lions.

And lastly (but definitely not least) Mr. Moon Topples – he’s a bit quiet at the mo and maybe this might tempt him out, but if not no matter. He’s one of those thoughtful, creative, multi-talented types who has always made me feel more than welcome over at his blog.

So have a nice Friday all. I’m feeling all glowy from my awards and having a really good writing day yesterday. I was so pleased with myself that I thought I would treat myself with episode 18 of Heroes that I had been putting off because I knew that if I allowed myself to watch it, then I would want to watch 19 and it would become a distraction and not a treat. So could I find it anywhere? Could I hell. Bum, bum, bum, bum.

PS I also got this award from Scarlett as well, but I didn't realise until after I had put up this post.