Champagne and chocolates

This post is for my blogger friends Isabelle, Muriel, Jennifer O, Kenya and Emily.

Blogging is all about making connections, and sometimes it may seem as if I lose sight of that, so intent am I on creating my own little world here. All of these five have given me awards in the past few weeks, and received not a word in return on these pages - though I hasten to add, I did thank them elsewhere.

This blog began very simply: it was a way of updating my website without involving my site manager, Judy. She made the link to the blog and I was going to post odd bits of news about my new novel – “Here’s the cover design!”, “Three weeks to publication!”, that kind of thing.

But it very quickly became something else. When I thought about the book blogs I enjoyed reading, they weren’t just about one book, or one person. The best are generous and outgoing; they feature the work of other writers, art, style, and life in general. So I looked and learned, and began to see how I could pull all those elements together.

Over the months since I started blogging last December, I’ve gradually built up an archive of posts that are relevant to my writing. Usually, I give the reference in a short extract from my book, but sometimes I just write about perfume, or a place, or other books that chime with an aspect of The Lantern.

So, yes, my blog is a marketing tool for the book, but I hope it’s a site that has broad appeal too. I’ve deliberately kept it very clean of all the add-ons (the stats, awards, link badges and other bits of fun most bloggers have) because I’m hoping it will work on two levels: one, to introduce potential readers to the setting in Provence and, with any luck, entice them to consider reading the book; and two, to stand retrospective reading as a source of visual background information after The Lantern is published, should anyone be interested to come and find it.

Excuses and explanations over, back to the business of the Kreative Blogger Award. Here’s where you can find my friends and their fine blogs, if you don’t already know them:

Isabelle is an actress with a wicked turn of phrase and some wonderful insider tales at As the Actress said to the Bishop. Click here.

Muriel is MuMuGB, a French wife, yummy mummy and enthusiastic - though occasionally bemused - inhabitant of London at 40blogSpot. Click here.

Jennifer O is a serious literature-lover, whose opinions are always a joy to read at Literary Endeavors. Click here.

Kenya is another actress, also a novelist and scriptwriter, who doesn’t sleep much. She’s based in Los Angeles and blogs at Sleep Deprivation and Me: A Love Story.  Click here.

Emily’s blog The French Hutch is full of gorgeous pictures and general joie de vivre. Click here.

I’m going to pass on the Kreativ Blogger Award to the following five bloggers I really enjoy reading. There’s something rather special about each one of them, whether verbally, visually, or a combination of the two to give a certain je ne sais quoi… Cheers!

Joanny at Live Dream Love. Click here.

Cathy Kozak at While the Dervish Dances… Click here.

Sarah at Snippets…of Thyme. Click here.

Olga at Artful Nuance. Click here. 

Charley Appenzellar at 365 Things That I Love about France.  Click here.