The Very Inspiring Blogger Award

I've been tagged in a blog chain by the very lovely Rae Rivers, whose debut book Cat Got Your Tongue! will be released this year and will be going straight onto my To Read List. It's taken me ages to pick up the gauntlet because I've been fiddling with the partial sub of the WIP (more on that soon), so without further ado...

Rules for the award:

• Display the award logo on your blog
• Link back to the person who nominated you (thank you, Rae!)
• State 7 things about yourself
• Nominate and link to another blogger/bloggers and link to them.

And my 7 things:

1. I have a bit of an obsession with How-To books. It's a comfort thing, I think, the idea that if I follow a list of rules I can have the outcome I want. When I had my children I searched feverishly for the Holy Grail book that would tell me how to instantly have them sleeping through the night. (Incidentally, I recommend The Baby Whisperer by Tracy Hogg as the nearest I got to Holy Grail!)
Now that I'm writing, I have the same desire for a set of rules which, if followed, will give me a good and saleable ms. Of course there is no such set of rules any more than there was one for babies, but part of my brain doesn't seem able to accept that, and so I have a rising pile of theory books on writing. Of course they have helped, but there is no magic formula!

2. I am addicted to Candy Crush, the Facebook timesuck game. I am a terrible procrastinator and this is yet another distraction I don't need when I should be writing. I am currently stuck on level 42, sigh.

3. I had my milestone birthday this year. I thought I would mind being 40 but it turns out I minded turning 30 much more! I'm in a very happy place now with my family and with my writing.

4. I love American TV shows to the tragic point where I feel aggrieved if I have to go out in the evening, especially in the winter when it's cold out and cosy inside! I like nothing better than snuggling up on the sofa in my pyjamas watching my current favourite, The Following (creepy but excellent). I also love Dexter, Supernatural and Game of Thrones. The heroes in my last two books have been based on the stars of TV shows I watch weekly - the inspiration for my current WIP hero is Niall Matter from Primeval: New World (for a pic check out my Pinterest board by clicking on the button in the sidebar). Every Saturday I watch it and think how I can better describe Dan in my story!

5. My favourite childhood memory is watching The Incredible Hulk (the original TV show with Bill Bixby and Lou Ferrigno) while cuddled up with my Dad. I was about four. My mum and brother hated the show, so it really was our special thing. I always thought it was very sad that David Banner could never settle down anywhere because Jack McGee always turned up to flush him out.

6. I'm not well-travelled. I've only been out of Europe once, and all of my trips have been sunshine package holidays. I have a massive bucket list of places to visit and see with DH when the kids are off our hands.

7. I don't have a middle name and neither does my brother. For some reason my parents couldn't agree on one. As a kid I always felt very short-changed by this and I used to make up exotic ones to impress my friends like Saffron and Savannah!


Passing on the tag is hard, as so many of my writing  friends have already been hit and I've taken so long, so I'm tagging Libby, who is extremely creative and since she's recently redesigned this blog (she made my daisy header and buttons!) is definitely a very inspiring blogger to me!

Thanks for reading, and Happy Easter! x