My Liebster Award

Anne Goodwin (run right now and read her Annecdotal blog) put a lovely surprise in my message box this week – a nomination for the Liebster Award in blogging.  It's a wonderful pay-it-forward exercise for those of us immune to going viral, a declaration from another blogger that your own words aren’t in vain, PLUS an imperative to connect with other bloggers.

My first task as a Liebster is to answer Anne's probing questions:

What surprised you most about your blogging experience?

How difficult it is to write honestly.  There's always an element of feeling exposed with a new blog post.  The second most surprising thing is that I've not been flamed, considering some of my content and that trolls are easily activated.  I've been well treated by my readers, which perhaps means there's safety in a lack of numbers (having fewer followers).

To what extent do you blog for your own entertainment versus for the benefit and/or entertainment of your readers?

Honestly?  Yes, Lora, honestly.  The phrase, 'for the benefit and/or entertainment of' doesn't resonate with me in this context, any more than it would apply to stopping by a neighbour's house to chat.  Having said that, the core of social interactions is to connect for our benefit/entertainment and/or the benefit/entertainment of others.  So it's there for me, but in what proportion, I'm unable to say.

I started blogging because an asshole agent said he didn't read submissions from anyone he couldn't Google, thus all writers should blog.  For my first year (2013), I committed to a weekly post, even when sick.  Even when disgusted with my lack of literary progress.  Even when other bloggers/writers who'd started around the time I had, were flying past me.  As mentioned, it was emotionally challenging, so after the New Year, I've let myself write when it happens, in order to explore the reason for ME to blog, keeping in mind the goal of slotting myself into a regular posting schedule once I get my land legs again.

If your blog were to come to life, what form would it take?

A garden with all the wonderful plants, trees, animals and insects that I love the most, plus a few that have never been seen outside the confines of my own skull.

How does your blogging voice differ from how you present yourself in "real life"?

It's edited!

Which words or phrases do you most overuse on your blog?

I probably swear too feckin much.

Which famous person would you most like to visit your blog, which of your posts would you most like them to read, and why?

Margaret Atwood, but she'd have to read them all.  Not letting her off the hook by giving her a choice sample.  Why Atwood?  She'd be honest without pussy footing or brutality, which is the only type of feedback that I understand.

If you could invite a fictional character to write one of your posts, who would you choose and why?

My initial reaction was, I'd choose the poodle in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, because I wanted to know the whole story, but then decided it would be too horrible to read, so bring on Liesel from The Book Thief.  Wouldn't you love to hear what she has to say about what her life taught her?  I would.

If time and money were no object, where in the world would you like to go to research your next post?

Paris.  No question about it.  Send me there today.

As a consumer of blogs, what are the main factors that entice you to read on?

The first paragraph gives an idea of where the post is going, even if the post starts with a story.  The blogger's voice sounds like a real person, makes that virtual connection with the reader. Content is also important, probably the reason I decided to read the blog in the first place, but I'll read a post that's outside my sphere of interest if the writer has grabbed me with the first paragraph and voice.

What else do you wish I'd asked you and how would you respond?

Come over for cake, Lora!  I'd be there in a flash (and is it chocolate?).

After this Q&A, I'm meant to post the rules, but they seem to evolve as the Award makes its travels.  Check out Lorraine Reguly's take on the rules and decide for yourself what they are.  

I'm also meant to nominate other bloggers and supply them with my own questions, all of which would make this post ungainly.  Anne broke her Liebster duties into two posts and I'm following her lead, saving the rest of my assignment for next week.

While I'm looking for likely victims worthy bloggers, mind yourself.  You could be next!

Home from Edinburgh*

The Butler (my husband, not the movie) planned to spend August covering his colleagues’ holidays rather than take one himself.  Fine with me, as I had a novel that needed attention.  However.  I didn’t do the responsible thing when one evening he said, ‘I have a few days off.  Let’s go to the Edinburgh Book Festival.’

The process of novel writing is a strange game of what-if.

Neil Gaiman 22/08/13

We took the afternoon train that rides the east coast, one of my favourite trips.  A friend met us on Princes Street, took us to Charlotte Square which had been transformed into a secret village.  There were no passport checks, but we definitely had crossed the border into Somewhere Else.

If you ignore your inside voice, you ignore it at your peril.

                                                                        Mark Billingham 23/08/13

Once inside, there was settledness to the place.  Not the spiritual tranquillity of a religious building, not an ivory tower concept or romantic notion, but the still hum of a thousand intellects invoking the imagination. 

 

It’s the journalist's business to write about politics.  The writer must write about more important things.  What is important in life is of the world without words.  The writer translates and is above the level of politics.

                                                                        Mikhail Shishkin 23/08/13

They weren’t all well behaved intellects.  Children raced and screamed and had tantrums.  Staff had to pick up litter.  These people got drunk, one woman shouting, ‘Fuck, fuck, fuck photography,’ and sent the Festival photo team skeedaddling.  

We’re inured to violence.  Fiction gets over the issue fatigue, a sneaky bastard that comes at you from the side.

Lauren Beukes 23/08/13

A thick Scottish accent bellowed at us to get in the queue.  Book signings ran like conveyor belts watched over by security.  Inside all of that, though, something felt different.

I imagine Ian Rankin walks around Edinburgh to find a car park to stuff a body.  Kind of like the Easter Bunny.

Margaret Atwood 24/08/13

Our second day there, everyone abandoned me for their sessions.  I grabbed an ice cream and a deck chair, sat down with my manuscript.  Next to me gathered a multi-generational family.  A set of middle-aged grandparents, several thirty-something parents. 

Sometimes people are undone by success.

Stephen Grosz 24/08/13

The grandfather carried a baby, talked to it, explained what the rest of the family were doing.  Nothing significant about this bunch until the other children returned. 

The true inspiration for the writer is the bank manager.

Andrew Grieg 24/08/13

Kids young enough to speed across the square with their picture books were greeted like lionesses who’d returned with food for the pride.  Adults squatted to hear the stories even if the child went through the book backwards. 

I love challenge.  At least I say that to myself before it’s started.  Halfway through, I say, this is the most terrible challenge!

                                    Antonia Fraser 25/08/13

And when the excitement calmed down, ice cream for everyone.  My kind of family, I can tell you.  They know what it takes to raise a kid.  Ice cream and books.

I feel this is an audience full of women laughing and men, not.

Naomi Alderman 25/08/13

El Punko later tweeted, Can we live here?  That’s how I felt, as though I’d found the lost tribe of my native people.  Nothing tangibly different on the outside, but on the inside – if we could do DNA tests on the soul, you’d find something a bit peculiar.

If you want a virtual reality experience that takes you out of reality, read a novel.

                                    Valerie Martin 25/08/13

Between sessions, we sat in deck chairs and read or wrote.  Some of us fell asleep.  We ran into old friends, met new ones, shared writing opportunities, lusted over book after book after book.  Bought way too many.  Ate some of the best cake I’ve ever had.

Zombies are not good on skates.

                                    Margaret Atwood 25/08/13

Sometimes I felt overwhelmed by the intelligence on the panel, both writers and moderators.  Sometimes I felt I’d underachieved.  Sometimes I felt enthused about my craft, couldn’t wait to get back to the deck chair and write write write.  After some ice cream, of course.

Burke and Hare had their good side.

                                    Ian Rankin 26/08/13

At one of Margaret Atwood’s sessions, a man asked her what to do with all the stories in your head, if you weren’t a writer.  She said something close to: Anybody who can write things down is a writer.  Then it’s up to you to become a better writer.  (Take that, all you people who belittle writers who aren’t yet Margaret Atwood.)  

My feeling about her is she’s the perfect corporate wife.  (Lady MacBeth) 

                                    Margaret Atwood 26/08/13

Which is who El Punko wants to be when he grows up.  At first I was surprised he didn’t want to be Neil Gaiman, but then I realised Neil Gaiman hasn’t grown up yet, which is really quite lovely.  I think becoming Margaret Atwood is an admirable goal, even without the writing bit.

A book can be as many books as it can be.

                                    Valerie Martin 26/08/13

My experience of the festival, though obviously limited, was that it lacked the usual hierarchy.  This is a craft and everyone there loved it; some of us in the creation but all of us in the appreciation of it.  So while there was a yurt where the writers could hide, they also sat with their families in deck chairs, stood in line for talks, bought ice cream from the stand without being mobbed. 

Adults have no attention span.  They give up and go away long before you’re finished.  (Having stories read to you.)

                                    Neil Gaiman 26/08/13

That ethos, perhaps, of egalitarianism, reinforced in me the need for writers (and all creatives) to support each other in an honest but positive fashion.  That includes supporting yourself as well, despite people who don’t believe you have something to say.  If Ian Rankin and Mary Talbot and Val MacDermid don’t mind walking among the rest of us, then feck the begrudgers and walk here as well.

We were just talking about Jane Austen’s underwear.

                                    Margaret Atwood 24/08/13

*All writer quotes are as close to what was said as possible.