The Pink Liebster Award

The very kind and talented lady Cindy Vaskova has nominated me for The Pink Liebster Award.

Cindy, congratulations on your own award, I enjoy your writing very much, and it is very well deserved, and thank you so much for thinking of me when you were composing your own list of favourite writers. It is always heartening to know that I am amongst someone's favourites, thank you.

I would also like to mention that just recently Cindy has been the winner of not one, but TWO writing competitions, absolutely awesome Cindy, Bravo.


Now, there are a few rules to accepting the award :-

1) Link back to the person who nominated you.
2) Answer the 10 questions they gave you.
3) Pick some favourite bloggers of your own to nominate.
4) Pose 10 questions of your own for them to answer.
5) Make sure that the people you nominated know about it.
And have fun.

Here are the questions that Cindy set for her nominees to answer.


1) Who's your hero?
I have had many fictional heroes over my life, and there are just so many to choose from, but probably Ripley from the Aliens movies is one of my all-time favourites.

2) What gave the beginning of your writing experience?
I really got into short story/flash fiction writing by an unusual sequence of events, if anyone would like to read about it they can find it here:- The birth of The Twisted Quill.

About three months after starting my blog I was encouraged to post my stories on the Fridayflash site by two lovely lady writers Rebecca Emin and Maria Protopapadaki-Smith.
The first story I posted was entitled “A Zombie's tale” and the heartening comments it received gave me the confidence to continue writing and posting.
Thank you Rebecca and Maria, three and a half years later, and I'm still here.

3) How do you engage on a story? Do you outline or are you a more of a discovery writer?
Most of my writing is done “On the fly” so to speak. I have an idea rattling around in my head, I chew it over for a bit, then sit down at the keyboard and type away. Or sometimes I will do a bit of free thinking, playing with words and catch-phrases until something pops up. Most of my stories are posted more or less as they are first written, with very little or no editing. There have been stories that I have chopped severely, or filled out too, but these are among the minority of my posts.
I tend to produce in the 100 – 500 word area mostly, but my longest post at 3,000 words was a three -parter entitled “More than dreams”, and the shortest at only 28 words was “From the stars”.
If I ever decide to write anything of any length then I may find it necessary to outline first, but I only write short fiction, and up to now haven't felt the need to.

4) In what genre/s do you write, and why?
I don't stick to any particular genre, and have probably covered most genres at one time or another, and written pieces ranging from silly to serious, comical to heart-wrenching, and mild to gory. Although I tend to write more darker pieces than lighter ones I generally try to blend humour in with them too, although sometimes it may be a rather dark humour.

5) What's the one line you're really proud of?
That's a really difficult question to answer, but one line I quite like from the story “Zweetmeat” pops to mind.
“Trudging along, glass from shattered store fronts crunched beneath his shoes, the fragments shining like rubies in the mixture of coagulating blood, bits of flesh, and body fluids.”

6) You get to bring to life one character for 24 hours, which one is that, and why?
If you mean one of my own characters, it would probably be the shopkeeper Mister Godfrey from the story “Slice of life”
We could really do with people like him on the planet, even if it is for such a short while.

7) Do you regret reading a book? Which, and why?
I have read countless books in my life, and don't feel as though I regret reading any of them really, if I'm not enjoying a book I will just stop reading it and start another.

8) Pick a childhood favourite book, which is it?
I first started reading books when I was about nine or ten years old, and my first book was an Enid Blyton book, one of the Famous Five ones, I don't recall which particular one, but it hooked me on the reading bug, and before long I had read all of them, and so I would say they are my favourite childhood books.

9) How many books do you plan to read in 2014?
I don't read as many books these days as I used to, and tend to read a few chapters on whatever current book I am reading on my kindle each night before going to sleep. Also during the warm weather I go fishing, and take along a book to enjoy in the sunshine while I'm busy not catching anything, so I will probably read somewhere in the range of 10 – 20 books over the course of the year.

10) You have been given a one-way ticket offering to any fictional destination, which one would you choose?
I would love to go to Pandora, the planet in the film Avatar, if I could come back in another life I want to be one of the Na'vi.

* * * * * * * * * *

And now for the difficult part, nominating other writers for the award, there are so many good writers to choose from, and it is difficult to choose one over another, and so I have decided that I am going to nominate just two writers, both of them relative newcomers to the #fridayflash community, who have posted stories on there that I have read and enjoyed.

Claudia. H. Blanton.

And

Casey Douglass.


Instead of posing 10 questions for Claudia and Casey I am going bend the rules a bit, and ask them to post 10 random or unusual facts about themselves.


Have fun people, and thanks again for thinking of me Cindy.