Irresistibly Sweet Blog Award

I love this award! It gives me an insane craving for meringue, but hey what else is new?

It was given to me by the fantastic Miss Cole. Her blog is great, by the way. Definitely one to check out.

The rules say that I need to share ten random facts about myself. I'm not sure if I've mentioned some of them before, if I have I apologise.

1: I didn't drink much coffee until March of this year. Now, myself and my husband spend so much on ground coffee that it doesn't bear thinking about. I actually avoid thinking about it.

2: I was an only child until I was fourteen. Ten years later I'm the eldest of seven. I got the benefits of being an only child when I was growing up, and now I have the benefits of being part of a large, close family.

3:  My husband is a journalist and editor. He edits my fiction to catch my grammatical errors. We have geeky conversations about the many roles of commas.

4: When I was a teenager I went on a school trip to Belarus. The hostel we stayed in was in the middle of a forest with Chechen rebel soldiers surrounding it. Luckily, they didn't bother us.

5: I prefer the world in my imagination to reality.

6: Winter is my favourite season, and I like the rain.

7: My grandad worked in the Guinness brewery.

8: My favourite musician is Bjork. I saw her play in Belfast three years ago, and she was amazing.

9: My dream house would be beside the sea. Still in Dublin, but beside the sea.

10: I started writing seriously a few days after my fibromyalgia diagnosis in 2009.

I said last week that I'd hold a contest to celebrate reaching the 150 follower mark. I'm now at 174, thanks to the campaign. I'll pick some books this week and hopefully announce it on Friday.

Liebster Love

I was the lucky recipient of the Liebster Blog award a few days ago, and now I find out that I've been given it by three more people! How great is that?

What makes it even better is that the three people who gave it to me have brilliant blogs, so the fact that they even pop on by here occasionally is amazing in itself. You should definitely check them out.

Julie Fedderson is a physician, blogger and romance writer. Her blog is laugh out loud funny, and definitely one of my favourites. When I grow up I want to be Julie.

Caitlin Vincent is a nanny and novelist. Her blog deals with the technical aspect of writing, and she explores language and new words regularly.

Krista M is a prolific writer who blogs about writing, life, and her pending move to New Zealand. Well worth stopping by.

Have a happy Thursday everyone! :)

Liebster Award!

The fabulous Catherine Stine has given me the lovely Liebster Blog Award! Thanks Catherine! I encourage as many people as possible to check out Catherine's blog, she's an author, artist and teacher who is never too busy to give newbie authors some advice and encouragement.


 The aim of the award is to spotlight up and coming bloggers who currently have less than 200 followers. The rules of the award are thus:

1. Thank the giver and link back to the blogger who awarded you.

2. Reveal your top 5 picks & let them know by leaving a comment on their blog.

3. Copy & paste the award on your blog. (see award image above!)

4. Have faith that your followers will spread the love to other bloggers.

5. And most of all—have bloggity-blog fun!

My Five Picks Are:

1. Aspiring YA novelist and all round entertaining person Juliana L. Brandt

2. Alicia Gregoire has one of the most entertaining blogs around, it's laugh out loud funny.

3. Alleged Author is an aspiring MG and YA writer with a unique take on the world of writing. 

4. Agent intern and astrophysicist Brit Hvide blog is very informative and illustrated with lots of Microsoft Paint diagrams. Reminds me of a publishing centric  Hyperbole and a half.

5. Chelsey Blair is a sharp and witty aspiring author and her blog always makes me smile. Definitely worth checking her out.

Hope you're all enjoying the weekend!

Another Award!

Wow, I was having one of those awful days today. You know the type. I spent the majority of the day waiting for a delivery person who never arrived, seething inwardly at myself for being one of those people who always seemed to get shoved to the bottom of the queue. I've had a blinding headache since yesterday which means that I'm behind in my edits. So, all in all, not a good day. But then, my day turned around when the fabulous Kate Larkindale gave me this lovely shiny award right here, and my day started looking up! Thanks Kate!

Ok, so this award comes with some rules, which are thus:

1. Thank and link to the person who nominated you.
2. Share seven random facts about yourself.
3. Pass the award along to 5 new-found blogging buddies.
4. Contact the winners to congratulate them.

So here are seven things you may not know about me:

1: I'm trained as a social historian, and my main research interest is public health legislation in the British Isles during the Victorian and early Edwardian era.

2: My name is Christine, and my parents deny that they named me after the female lead in Phantom of The Opera despite the fact it came out the year I was born and they played the album all the time. When I was a kid and I heard the characters sing about 'Christine' I thought that there was somebody in our house calling me, and would run off to find them. My parents found this so funny that they played the album over and over again just to see me search.

3: I was an only child until age fourteen, but am now the eldest of seven. I'm the only biological child my parents have. Three of my siblings are adopted, two from Romania and one from China, and the other three are foster siblings. 

4: The first writing award I ever won was a national poetry competition I entered when I was ten. My poem was about a unicorn.

5: When I was in Transylvania with two of my brothers I got two mosquito bites on my neck about an inch and a half apart. At least I think they were mosquito bites...

6: My first pet was a rabbit called Bunny that I had when I was two. My granny told me that it died because I hugged it to death. I carried a whole lot of guilt around with me about that until a couple of years ago when my mother told me that in actual fact it died from anaphylactic shock after being stung by a bee. Though why my granny told me that I'd killed it is still a mystery...

7: I love archaeology, and worked on an excavation of a Cistercian nunnery in Belgium. The site was so close to the Luxembourg border that we would walk across the border in the pitch black every night to go to the nearest pub.

Ok, so the people I am passing this award onto are:

1: Caitlin Vincent

2: Krista M

3: Dwight Okita

4: Heather

5: Julia

Hope everyone is having a great day :)

Goals and Awards

Ok, so my goals for the month of May are:

1: Finish Storms in Teacups edit, write synopsis, write cover letter and query letter.
2: Finish application for PhD programme.
3: Get If Life Gives You Lemons to 70,000 words in time for BuNoWriMo (Check it out here)
4: Stay on top of journalism work.

Now, one of things about the award I got yesterday is that it gets passed forward. So, the five blogs I think deserve the award are:

1: Allison M Simon. Not only does her blog talk about interesting things about writing, there's also some good stuff about movies and abstract topics like the Peter Principle. This is a really intelligent blog.

2: Laura at Chick Lit Love. She really works hard at making her content interesting and different from a lot of chick lit blogs out there, it's a really cheery site.

3. Princess of Procrastination. I love this blog, it's hilarious. If you're looking for a laugh (and to learn more about Taffs) then it's worth heading over here.

4: Alison DeLuca. Alison is going down the self-publishing route, and her posts on writing in general and being an indy author in particular are really interesting.

5: Kate Larkindale. Kate is a YA writer who works in the film industry, and who is refreshingly down to earth about life and writing. She also has some great tips.

Today is bank holiday Monday in Ireland. And it's sunny! Life is good.

Magic Month of May

Ok, I wimped out of finishing the A-Z challenge, I didn't do Y and Z before the end of April. I was going to finish it on the last day of April, but I forgot until yesterday that there was only thirty days in that month. I can only ever remember by using the rhyme. Still, the challenge did what I wanted it to do, it got me writing in my blog regularly so I'm pretty thrilled with that.

May is promising to be a busy month with a lot of introspection. Do you remember my angst about whether or not to go further with my education? Well, my potential PhD supervisor got back to me and said she'd support my application. She agreed to do it last year, but I couldn't proceed because I was too ill. I always wanted to do a history doctorate, and doing it would be an achievement that I didn't let my fibromyalgia stop me from achieving my dreams. But I have another dream - to be a published writer - and I only have so many spoons. If I do a PhD then I will have less time to write, but if I don't do a PhD and I don't become a published writer then I've lost two dreams. It's hard to decide. You're probably thinking 'But Christine, you can't even remember how many days are in April, are you sure that going back to University is the right thing for you to do?' This is a valid point, but I'm actually quite a good student. It's real life that leaves me baffled.

I'm also editing Storms in Teacups for an early June submission to a number of agents. How scary is that? Oh, and hopefully by the end of this month I will be halfway through the first draft of If Life Gives You Lemons. So a busy month ahoy.

And in totally awesome news, the fabulous Caitlin Vincent gave me an award! How cool is that? I'm fairly new (yet addicted) to the blogosphere, and it made me tear up a little to think that someone would give me an award like this. It literally made my day, thank you so much Caitlin!

Hope everyone had a lovely weekend :)