![liebster_award[1]](http://www.melanierobertson-king.com/wp02/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/liebster_award1-300x114.jpg)
Woo hoo! I’ve been nominated for yet another Liebster Blog Award. This time fellow YA and Famous Five Plus author, Suzy Turner, bestowed the honour upon me.
The idea behind the Liebster Blog Award is to recognize blogs with fewer than 200 followers that deserve a little extra attention. In keeping with the tradition of the award, I have to:
List 11 random facts about me
Answer the 11 questions Suzy has set me
Come up with 11 questions to ask other authors
And perhaps the most difficult, tag 11 authors who deserve to bask in the Liebster glow.
Here goes:
11 random facts about me:
1. I’m allergic to cat hair but not dog hair.
2. In my pre-school years, I grew up in a winterized cottage along the shore of the St. Lawrence River, about 6-7 miles east of where I currently live.
3. I’ve schmoozed with Royalty. I met Princess Anne in Scotland in 1999.
4. After a concert here in town, my cousin, her friend and I sneaked backstage and met the members of the band (we were about 14).
5. I don’t eat a lot of desserts but love cherry cheesecake.
6. I learned to play the guitar when I was 14.
7. I don’t play, but I love to watch curling on the telly.
8. I learned highland dancing when I was young and won a silver medal in the sword dance at the 1000 Islands Highland Games in 1969.
9. When I first met my husband, I didn’t like him. Hmmm… something changed, we’ll be celebrating our 38th wedding anniversary this year.
10. I love to wander through cemeteries – the older the better.
11. I’ve been to Paris.
Phew! That was tough. My poor wee brain hurts.
Now to answer Suzy’s questions:
Suzy: I always wished I had a middle name but I’m just plain old Suzanne (Suzy) Turner. Do you have a middle name? If so, what is it?
I have two middle names – Heather Ann.
Suzy: When I write my books, I usually have a rough idea of the general plot but I usually go off on a tangent and change it dramatically halfway through. What about you? Are you a plotter or a pantster?
I like to think of myself as a plantster. Some is plotted some is as it comes to me. As long as I know the ending, I can make the rest of it work.
Suzy: I was always a ‘pink’ girl until I had all my hair chopped off and then for some reason, I changed my favourite colour to blue. What’s your favourite colour and why?
I used to be ‘pink’, too, when I was younger then I moved on to blue. I’m not sure why I gravitated to blue, maybe because it looked better on me – and anything to get the boys to take notice, right? I love royal blue but any shade will do.
Suzy: I always loved the name Sheharazade. If you were to re-name yourself what would it be? (he he he… no I probably wouldn’t be brave enough to go for the aforementioned name!)
Rename myself… hmm… you’ve got me stumped. Maybe something that combines my middle name with where I live? Something like Heather Brock? Heather Park? Heather Scotland? No I don’t live there but read further down and you’ll see where this might come into being. The aforementioned names would make fab pseudonyms, too.
Suzy: I used to have the most amazing dreams where I was flying. Is there a recurring dream you remember having as a child?
It was more of a nightmare, actually. We’d be driving out in the country and when we got to his one place, the road disappeared… vanished behind a hill and around a bend. Not sure at the time why it terrified me so much, but it did. This disappearing road actually does exist (maybe as a child the family had driven down it – I don’t remember) and I’ve since been on it many times and it’s not as frightening as it was in my childhood dreams.
Suzy: My favourite TV shows at the moment are Castle, Scandal, Bones, Lost Girl, Haven, Call the Midwife, Downton Abbey, Game of Thrones. What are some of yours?
Like you, I love Bones and Downton Abbey. In addition to those I love Criminal Minds and CSI (never thought Ted Danson could pull that role off but he’s doing a fine job of it).
Suzy: If my life was ever made into a movie, I’d want Sandra Bullock to play me. Who would play you?
I think Diane Keaton could do an excellent job. Somehow, though, I don’t expect to get that famous that my life would be made into a movie.
Suzy: In an ideal world, I’d have enough money and resources to spend half the year in England and the rest in Canada or the US. If you could live anywhere in the world, where would you choose?
This is a no-brainer. I’d be on the first plane to Scotland.
Suzy: I’d change my feet if I could. If you could change anything about your appearance, what would it be?
Feet? I don’t like mine either but that’s what shoes are for – keep them covered. I’d get rid of the middle-age spread… the belly and the butt (keep the boobs – took me too long to get them) and go back to being slim and fit looking.
Suzy: The Time Spirit series by Melissa Pearl, The Marchwood Vampire series by Shalini Boland, Scarlet Vamporium by Poppet are just a few of my fave indie books. Name two or three of your all time favourite indie books.
Harry Leslie Smith’s memoirs – 1923: A Memoir, Hamburg 1947. When I’m looking for something fun, I love Juliette Sobanet’s Paris books – Sleeping with Paris, Kissed in Paris and she has more coming out – yay!
Suzy: I can speak Portuguese but it’s getting a bit rusty. Can you speak any other languages?
French but not well. Took it in school but haven’t used it a lot in years so it’s beyond “a bit” rusty. I can also rattle off a few words/phrases in German.
Now for the 11 questions for my victims… oops, nominees:
1. When you’re not writing/blogging, what do you like to do?
2. What’s the furthest you’ve travelled on a vacation?
3. What’s your favourite beverage (can be alcoholic or non – up to you)?
4. Did you have pets as a child and do you have pets now? If so, what type?
5. Do you have a favourite food?
6. As you saw in my random facts, I like to wander through cemeteries. Do you have a favourite place you like to walk?
7. Do you have a favourite author?
8. Salty or sweet? And what’s your favourite food in that category?
9. If money were no object, what would be your ultimate travel destination?
10. Can you share your most embarrassing moment? Or at least a moment that left you red in the face, at a loss for words.
11. If you were to win the big prize in the lottery, what would you do with your winnings?
And now to nominate 11 bloggers:
1. Pauline Barclay
2. Maggie Jagger
3. Dorothy Bush
4. Vivian Zabel
5. Joe Mossman
6. Christopher D. Hanna
7. Patricia Capitain
8. Rosemary Gemmell
9. Maureen Fisher
10. Nikki Bywater
11. Jontybabe JB Johnston
Follow the series of gripping events that culminated in ‘The Red Effect’, in the first installment of Harvey Black’s Cold War trilogy.
Nineteen-year-old Sarah Shand finds herself thrust back into the past. There she struggles to keep her real identity from a society that finds her comments and ideas strange and her speech and actions forward, unlike Victorian women. When Sarah verbally confronts confining social practices, including arranged marriages; powerful enemies commit her to a lunatic asylum. After falling in love with the handsome Laird of Weetshill, Robert Robertson, she must decide whether to find her way back to her own time or to remain in the past with him.