Blog Love.

Time and time again I'm surprised at how supportive and genuinely kind our blogger-writer community is.

As an example of blog love: last week, the witty and wonderful Margo Lerwill of Urban Psychopomp passed on the Liebster Blog award to me with the much-appreciated words:

'K.C. Woolf at The Woman Condition has an interesting blog. Though many of her posts don’t directly address writing, they often address it in an indirect (and compelling) way.' (1)

Needless to say I was happy, even more so because it felt like she 'got' my blog. Underneath the variety of topics runs my writing. Nearly everything I touch on in my blog plays a part in my novel, be it as inspiration, setting, writing tool or one of the tiny details that make a story more lively and real.

Like most awards, this one comes with a few rules guidelines:

1. Thank the giver and link back to the blogger who gave it to you.
2. Reveal your top 5 picks (blogs with under 200 followers) and let them know by leaving a comment on their blog.
3. Copy and paste the award on your blog.
4. Have faith that your followers will spread the love to other bloggers.
5. And most of all - have bloggity-blog fun!

As befits a good girl, here we go:

1. A sincere thank you to writer Margo Lerwill of Urban Psychopomp. Go check out her blog if you haven't already!

2. My top 5 picks:

• Bards and Prophets by L.G. Smith. She is smart, funny and interesting. A true writer. Her blog seems to attract like-minded people, and I've met a lot of great fellow writers there.
• Girl Wizard Suze. Suze has a knack for describing everyday life with an eye for those details that turn the ordinary into an adventure.
• Munk Davis, who is ... different, in a very good way. He makes me laugh, think and wonder, and the opening lines he so generously shares are brilliant.
• Blue Skies Sunny Days. I only met Linda recently, and I'm gradually reading through her blog. I'm intrigued by her open-minded outlook on life – sometimes gentle and understanding, sometimes sharp and uncompromising. On top of that: she's an INTP (like my husband and several of my friends).
• An Endless Fascination with Stories by Toby Neal. I love Toby. She's got tons of personality, is incredibly supportive of her writer friends, and she's about to embark on the next stage of her writing adventure. She lives in Hawaii and often posts great pictures that make me want to move.

3. Done.

4. I do.

5. Okay!

♥ Bookmark or share this post ♥

Lucky 13: Women Writers about Friendship.

"There is nothing I would not do for those who are really my friends. I have no notion of loving people by halves, it is not my nature."
-- Jane Austen (Northanger Abbey)

"If all the world hated you and believed you wicked, while your own conscience approved of you and absolved you from guilt, you would not be without friends."
-- Charlotte Brontë (Jane Eyre)

"the world is not a pleasant place to be without someone to hold and be held by."
-- Nikki Giovanni

"Sometimes being a friend means mastering the art of timing. There is a time for silence. A time to let go and allow people to hurl themselves into their own destiny. And a time to prepare to pick up the pieces when it's all over."
-- Gloria Naylor

"Constant use had not worn ragged the fabric of their friendship."
-- Dorothy Parker

"He was the strangest of strangers in that he was also her oldest friend."
-- Ann Brashares

"Like so many plain cups on the shelves. You can reach for them, use them without thinking. Most of them don't matter. Sometimes you lose your grip on one of them and it falls and smashes to piece, and you shrug and say to yourself, what a pity. Then you reach for the cup that you use every day, one that you love and use so often that as you stretch out your hand it is already making the shape that fits its curve. You are certain that yesterday it was in its proper place, but now there is nothing. Just air. You have lost something that was so familiar, so much a part of your life that you were not even looking for it. Just expecting it to be there, as always."
-- Rosie Thomas (Iris and Ruby)

"I am treating you as my friend, asking you to share my present minuses in the hope that I can ask you to share my future plusses."
-- Katherine Mansfield

"This is what I miss, Cordelia: not something that’s gone, but something that will never happen. Two old women giggling over their tea."
-- Margaret Atwood (Cat's Eye)

"My mind is a neighborhood I try not to go into alone."
-- Anne Lamott

"It takes much bravery to stand up to our enemies but we need as much bravery to stand up to our friends."              
-- J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone)

"The friend who holds your hand and says the wrong thing is made of dearer stuff than the one who stays away."
-- Barbara Kingsolver

"Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born."
-- Anaïs Nin

(to my friends)

--------
Photo 'friends' by Ferenc Pohly, available under a creative commons license. © 2006, Ferenc Pohly.

♥ Bookmark or share this post ♥

Perspective.

For a large part of my life, I considered 'money' a dirty word.

I was an ideas person. Something as mundane and tangible as money or earthly possessions didn't seem worthy of my interest.

In the meantime I've come to understand that this attitude could only sprout and thrive in soil that was a) there and b) fertile. In other words: I grew up in the privileged situation where I could afford to deprecate money.

I come from an average, middle-class background. We were never rich by any stretch of the imagination, but our basic and important needs were met and my siblings and I got a good education. That alone puts me in the top quartile of richest people in the world – a gift I never acknowledged.

These last few years, through research my husband is doing, I've come to look at money in a different way: as a representation and carrier of human energy. Money, like energy, is a means to an end, neither good nor bad until it's put to a purpose.

Once I got past my aversion to the world of banking, finance and global economics, new and exciting layers of understanding opened up. This has given me a new perspective on history, human interaction and, above all, on personal responsibility.

Underneath all this, my inner hippie is still very much alive; often enough she rears her wild-haired head. But her job description has evolved. She still gets to rule my dreams, fuel my writing and inspire my choices. However, in the other realms I dwell in, I listen to my other advisers.

Tied in with the topic of this post and in honour of my inner hippie, I wanted to share this:

When thinking about a concept as vast as money, it's easy to lose perspective. The 'Global Rich List' is one of those tools that helps me keep it.

Give it a try. It only takes a few seconds and you might be surprised!


--------
Image: design by: whatshername13 @ deviantart. Text by: unknown.

♥ Bookmark or share this post ♥

Inspired.

I've spent the last few weeks travelling through England and part of Scotland. Now back home, I feel different, refreshed and above all ... inspired.

What had been intended as a final research trip for my Cotswolds-based novel, has become much more. Travelling tends to do that: you start off with an idea of where you want to go and what you'd like to do, and somewhere along the way the real journey takes shape.

We hadn't had much time to prepare in advance, but at least the bare essentials were sorted: a base of operations in my oh-so-beloved Cotswolds, a schedule half filled with meetings with friends and family, and a long list of things to do and places to see. We could wing it from there.

During those weeks we explored many Cotswolds towns and villages; we drove up to the North of England, the Scottish Lothians and the Kingdom of Fife; we spent time with family in Lancashire and Yorkshire, then drove south again to Wiltshire where we visited Stonehenge and Avebury, impressive prehistoric tombs and (more recent) hill figures.

Back in the Cotswolds, a day trip to the Forest of Dean lead us into Puzzlewood, which is said to have inspired Tolkien's Forest of Fangorn.

Inspiration is everywhere, all the time, but it seems more apparent when we're travelling. Whether that's due to a vacation mindset, to having more time, to being more relaxed and aware or to the fact that we're in an unfamiliar environment, the fact remains: away from home our senses feast on details we would normally overlook.

Holidays are the perfect time to say 'yes' to opportunities as they arise. I'm glad we let others decide part of our agenda or we wouldn't have discovered the fascinating historic sites around the famous Wiltshire stone circles – or enjoyed a delicious Thai banquet in the old Roman city of Cirencester.

If we hadn't accepted a lift from a friendly driver on our walk to Woodchester Mansion, we wouldn't have met Jim, the passionate archaeologist, who drove us through the mud and up the hill to show what he was working on and explain it to us with verve and vigour.

Inspiration truly is everywhere – for the eyes to see, for the heart to touch and for the mind to explore.

Over the next few weeks, I will share plenty of stories and photographs of the places we've visited (and maybe throw in a few clues about how some of them tie into my novel), but I want to start off by pointing out a few sites and sights that have inspired other writers (and film makers) in the past:

1. Puzzlewood

Puzzlewood is a 14 acre woodland in the Forest of Dean near Ross-on-Wye, Gloucestershire. It is one of the remaining ancient woodlands in England, and said to have been an inspiration for J. R. R. Tolkien's forests of Middle-earth.

It has also been used as a setting in the BBC series 'Merlin' and 'Doctor Who'.

2. Gloucester Cathedral

Gloucester Cathedral is an architectural masterpiece that has been used in several Harry Potter films. Parts of the historic cloisters, for instance, served as Hogwarts' corridors.

It has also featured in the 2008 Doctor Who Christmas special, and I have no doubt the building has inspired countless of other visitors in their creative endeavours.

3. Woodcarving in Ripon Cathedral

While his father was a canon at the cathedral in Ripon, Yorkshire, Charles Dodgson (better known under the name of Lewis Carroll) might have been familiar with the intricate woodcarvings in the cathedral's 15th century misericords.

One of them depicts a rabbit caught by a griffin while another rabbit disappears – you guessed – down the rabbit hole.

4. Rosslyn Chapel

The Midlothian village of Roslin in Scotland is home to one of the most impressive and inspiring buildings I have ever seen: Rosslyn Chapel.

It was already mentioned in Sir Walter Scott's early 19th century poem 'Rosabelle' (here's a reading on YouTube), but has probably become most famous because of Dan Brown's 'Da Vinci Code' and the 2005 film.

Which sights, sites, trips or tidbits have inspired you?

♥ Bookmark or share this post ♥

Enjoy the Silence ...

My wonderful friends, it is time to take a short summer break on the blog, disappear from everyday reality and dive into the world of my novel.

I will be back at the end of July, refreshed and full of new blogging and writing ideas.

Enjoy the silence ...

And of course, the original: 

♥ Bookmark or share this post ♥