And I’m very excited about it!

Because, well, awards! Who doesn’t like them?!

On a more serious note, I’m flattered to have been nominated for a Liebster Award by another writer and blogger, Dawn Claflin. She selected me for my focus on writing, specifically essays, flash fiction and book reviews.

Aw, shucks. (*Blushes and toes the ground.*) Thanks! 🙂

What is a Liebster? It’s an award for bloggers, from bloggers. Bloggers are eligible for this one if they have fewer than 1000 followers. Accepting the award is pretty simple: Yes, thank you! (Award accepted!) Then there are some questions to answer from the nominator (usually ten or eleven, depending on the rules they used), some love to share (nominate five bloggers for the award) and some questions to craft (a fresh ten or eleven). After some poking around, I found a meme (several, actually) with the rules:

Yes, it’s a bit chain-letter-ish. But I look at it like this: Another blogger likes my blog enough to want to send it a little extra love in the blogosphere. That’s an act of kindness in my book.

Now it’s my turn to share the love. I have eleven questions to answer from my nominator, five bloggers to nominate and eleven new questions to ask them. Here goes!

1. How did you choose the topic of your blog? I left full-time work as a physician assistant to be a stay-at-home-mom and I have found myself busier now than I ever was working outside the home. I’m now an educator, small business owner/operator, writer, artist (with kiddos), musician (with kiddos), photographer (of kiddos), schedule coordinator, chef, personal assistant, house keeper… and I wanted dip a toe into the waters of blogging about the good, the bad and the crazy of this new life “running” everything, all the time. Plus sometimes for exercise. 😉 The blog has focused itself over time. It’s still about being a mom and the things I “run,” but now the main themes are “running” my fledgling writing career, a book review and snapshots of balancing all this as a SAHM.
2. Who are your favorite authors? Oh, my…so many to choose from. Tess Gerritsen, Daniel Kalla, Darcie Chan, Andy Weir, Emily Giffin to name a few. Now that I run a weekly book review, I’m always on the lookout for a new author to pique my interest!
3. What is one piece of advice for new authors? Writing is an art but being an author is business. Take the time to research and learn the business, no matter how you want to be published. Plan to make an investment in yourself and your product (your book).
4. What kinds of things do you like to write? Depends on the day and which muse is the loudest! Thanks to several writing challenges and one weird dream, I have three plot threads (two dystopian, one sci-fi) on top of my next women’s lit WIP rattling around in my head…
5. What does your writing schedule look like? Sit down, fire up laptop. Shoot, baby’s awake. Let baby play on floor and try to write. Nope, baby is chewing on my magazines. Feed baby, play with baby, tire baby out, get baby to nap. Phew! Time to write. Oops, gotta make calls and return emails for my business first…You get the picture. Ideally, I write for about an hour in the morning and sometimes get another hour in the afternoon or evening (if I ignore hubby). Some days it’s harder than others. I find I have to craft outlines and dictate while I drive to keep the creativity flowing and the ideas alive.
6. Where has your writing been published? Please check back soon…
7. Why do you write? So many reasons! I started writing as a child because it was an outlet. I actually won a contest for the Washington Post with an essay in elementary school. (No, I don’t still have it or even remember the year. My dad brought it up a few years back when I started writing my first book.) I fell out of the habit in high school. In the last semester of prerequisite work for my masters degree, I picked up a creative writing class and my first book was born. The rest, as they say, is history. Now I can’t imagine my life without writing. 
8. How do you deal with writer’s block? Often I try to power through or switch to a short writing challenge. If all else fails, I run, sing, play with my kids, do some other type of creative work (like finger painting) to take my mind off of it. 🙂
9. What’s your writing process? See #5. In terms of story development, I love to dictate. It helps me flesh out a story and characters, and gain traction on an idea. When I do get to sit down at the computer, the story often flows much more naturally.
10. Do you draft on paper or on a computer? Why? Both! On a computer when composing a draft. On paper when I’m plotting out overarching story lines, character sketches and big picture details. Gotta love having rolls of table paper for kids crafts!
11. Tell the truth…had you heard of the Liebster Award before? Sort of. I had heard of the Liebster, in that I saw a badge on someone’s wall. Other than that, I knew very little. Now I’m very appreciative to be familiar with (and awarded) it!

And my five NOMINEES for the Liebster Award are:

1. Interpreter of Inspiration: A delightful mix of personal posts and writing by Shanan Winters. Her writing is sharp and her blog posts are full of humor like mine.
2. Newshound to Novelist: I discovered Donna-Louise Bishop from reading her flash fiction story during the NYC Midnight 2015 Flash Fiction challenge. Her blog focuses on her writing and the craft. Also, her tag is AWESOME.
3. Chris’s Blog: I stumbled into a blog party and found this fantastic blog from Chris Robinson. He’s a British ex-pat in Germany (mostly) and writes about his travels and explorations around Europe. He recently found a
4. The Casey Chronicle: Another stay-at-home-writer-mom like me. This blog follows Casey’s mom on her adventures into stay-at-home-mommy-hood (which is no joke, trust me)!
5. Young Adult Lit Reviews: One of my favorite new blogs! Here you’ll find reviews of YA books – new, old, classics and one-day-will-be-classics. The reviews are thorough and there are even suggestions for teachers who incorporate the book into their coursework.

Questions for my nominees:

1. How did you stumble into the blogosphere?
2. You’re stranded on a deserted island. What one book would you like to have with you, and why?
3. What is your pet peeve?
4. What are your blogging (or writing) goals?
5. Does your family follow your blog?
6. What’s the most valuable advice you’ve ever gotten from another writer or blogger?
7. What’s the most useless advice you’ve ever gotten from another writer or blogger?
8. What’s your routine for drafting your blogs (or writing)? (Do you have a “spot” or a “drink” you prefer when you write?)
9. Do you listen to music when you write? (If so, what?)
10. If you could do anything – have any talent, perform any feat, fulfill any dream – what would it be?
11. We all have fears. I’m not crazy about heights, for example, so I did rope rescue training when I was involved with the fire department. What fear have you faced? How do you feel about it now?

Thanks again, readers and Dawn. Happy trails!

Now isn’t that nice? 🙂