Thanks to Jane Richardson for The Liebster Blog Award

Wow! I've been nominated by the lovely Jane Richardson for the Liebster Blog award! This is to encourage readership of small "lovable" blogs which have fewer than 200 followers. I understand from Jane that "In accepting the Liebster Blog Award, the recipient agrees to thank the person who gave them the award and link back to that person’s blog and must reveal five snippets about themselves that readers may not already know."

Delighted to do both, if I can work out how to link back to Jane's blog! OK, done. Here's the snippets:

1. In my teens I wore a baby poke bonnet so I could look like a Regency lady - but as it was only worn at target practice with a 303 rifle I think the effect might have been slightly ruined.

2. My first story was written at 10 - a fairytale where the hero had to rid the heroine's land of a plague of sea spiders.

3. Though born in England I grew up in Africa.

4. I only started writing seriously in my late thirties. Until then I'd been an actress.

5. My father entered my mainstream novel Fly the Wild Echoes into the Booker in 2005, and it was accepted into the list, much to my astonishment.

The Liebster Blog award also asks me to nominate five blogs myself. I'm going to save my nominations for later, but here's one I recommend and would like to award:

Gilli Allan's blog at http://gilliallan.blogspot.com/


Meanwhile, here's a nugget about writing from the inimitable PG Wodehouse: "Success comes to a writer, as a rule, so gradually that it is always something of a shock to him to look back and realise the heights to which he has climbed."

I think this is so true, inasmuch as whenever you do look back at earlier work, you realise how much you have learned since.