Blog Award Time!

I am delighted to report that I have received my first ever blogging award! Thank you so much to Millie Thom for nominating me for this Blogger Recognition Award! I feel especially honored and flattered to be recognized after only 82 days of blogging—I definitely never expected that.

If you haven’t seen Millie’s blog yet, I highly recommend it. I first met her through her flash fiction challenge stories, which are lovely to read, especially when she adds extra fascinating information about the topic after the story. She also does the most amazingly detailed and knowledgeable posts about history. If you like my stories, you will love her posts on medieval castles!

This particular blogging award originated at Edge of Night, who argue that there can never be too many gestures in which one blogger appreciates and encourages another. Three cheers for that! I’m copying the rules for the award from their page:

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If you are nominated…

1. Select 15 other blogs you want to give the award to. Do some digging if you must! Find those blogs. You cannot nominate yourself or the person who has nominated you.

2. Write a post to show off your award! Give a brief story of how your blog got started, and give a piece or two of advice to new bloggers. Thank whoever nominated you, and provide a link to their blog. List who you’ve nominated in the post.

3. Make sure to also attach the award itself! (You can do this by right-clicking, saving, and uploading the image above).

4. Comment on each blog and let them know you’ve nominated them. Provide a link to the award post you created.

5. Provide a link to the original post on Edge of Night. That way, anyone can find the original guidelines and post if needed, and we can keep it from mutating and becoming confusing! (It happens LOL).

Note: You can decline the award if you don’t feel up to doing the above, but remember—you have to earn it by doing the work! 🙂

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The story of how my blog got started is already available in my About the Author page, although that version is not at all brief! (I completely revised it this week, so if you saw it earlier, you might like to see the new one.) The brief version is: I had a fictional world in my head—Eneana—and wanted to get it out of my head and share it. I started writing stories that were set in that world, but after a while I thought it would be nice if more than a few people in my writers’ critique group saw them. So, here they are. And more than a few people are seeing them. Mission accomplished!

My first piece of advice to new bloggers is to be flexible. Accept that you’re going to change things about your blog in the first weeks and months. Look around to see what other blogs are doing that you like, and see what you can apply to yours. Take a class like WordPress’s Blogging 101 (even if you’ve been blogging for a while, it could be useful). Devote time to searching the support forum pages to figure out new tricks. Experiment!

Second piece of advice: go read other people’s blogs, like their posts, comment, follow their blogs — “meet” them. There are tons of great communities here, but they won’t know you’re here unless you come out and play.

Of course, the most important thing about blogging is actually writing something to post. I swear by the technique of walking away from my computer. Literally. On my morning walks, I walk alone without headphones. I think through what I’m going to write, working out the tricky bits and the ordering of bits in my head. By the time I get home, the hardest part is done. See if you can find more thinking time in your day to create your stories or articles—turn off the music or talk radio while you’re running or washing dishes or waiting to pick up your kids, and write in your head.

Finally, if you can find people to give you detailed, constructive criticism, cherish those people. I don’t mean the nice comments people post about what they liked. I mean someone willing to give you potentially negative feedback on stories or articles before they’re posted, so you can fix them up first. Nobody will give you suggestions for improving something that’s already published. It’s done, there’s no point. But ahead of time? Priceless.

Well, that’s more than a few pieces of advice, but I’ll throw them all at the wall and maybe a couple will stick.

I am thrilled to nominate the following people/blogs for the Blogger Recognition Award. Some of them are old hats at this and should get credit where it’s due, and others are newbies like myself, who I think are doing a great job so far and am happy encourage in turn! I encourage all my readers to check out their sites!

1. Rochelle at Addicted to Purple – and her wonderful Friday Fictioneers writing prompts!
2. Joy at Priceless Joy  – and her wonderful Flash Fiction for Aspiring Writers prompts!
3. Crispina at crimsonprose 
4. Eric at Momus News
5. Maremma at Tales of Fantasy and Adventure
6. Damyanti at Daily (W)rite
7. David at The Green-Walled Tower
8. Louise at The Storyteller’s Abode
9. Michael at Hypothetically Writing
10. Ali at draliman on life
11. Megan at Invisible World
12. Björn at Björn Rudberg’s Writings
13. Dale at A Delectable Life
14. Dave at ParkInkSpot 
15. Nonnaci at Snapshot Vignettes

Thanks for all you bring to the blogging world, and to my world in particular. Happy blogging, everyone!

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