The Liebster Blog Award is an award offered to upcoming bloggers. The german word Liebster is a word for favorite, dearest, beloved, sweetest, cutest, nicest, kind, and pleasant.

I think this is a lovely way to support and encourage each other as fellow bloggers.

Well, my nominator tells me that this award comes with some rules, which are:

Each nominated blogger must

1. post 11 things about yourself

2. answer the questions that the nominator has set for you and create 11 questions for the people you’ve tagged to answer

3. choose 5 people and link them in your post

4. Go to their blogs and tell them in a comment

REMEMBER, No tag backs!

1. I love coffee.  I love learning about it, tasting it, trying different varietals and, like wine, identifying where the beans are from.
2. I am NOT a morning person.  My best and most productive time is the middle of the night, after 10:00 P.M. (20:00).  It’s very easy for my body-clock to get thrown off if I stay up too late and, since I work a day job, I can’t afford that.  My dream is to one day live a lifestyle that allows me to stay up at night and sleep during the mornings.
3. I love to knit.  Knitting is applied magic.  By creating repetitive knots in yarn, I can create a fabric that will stay together.  I even started a blog dedicated to my knitting and other crafts called Knoontime Knitting, because I love to explore 2-D/3-D art.
4. I love to write.  I feel connected to the universe when I write.
5. I love to journal, as well as use a computer.  I get different results depending on whether I write by hand or by keyboard.
6. I realized I love to write essays.  One of my favorite classical authors is Michel Montaigne, and I didn’t realize that I like to do what he does, though I’m nowhere near his level of skill.
7. I love cats and dogs.  Some people say they’re a dog person, or a cat person; honestly, I like them both equally.  I live with 3 cats and a dog and they’re all very special to me.
8. I love to travel, but I believe in traveling where one lives.  So many times, people will say to me, “Oh, I’ve lived in Chicago for years but have never gone up in the Sears Tower.”  That’s silly!  We have so many riches around us, if we just open our eyes to it.
9. I love mustard and, mostly, hate ketchup.  (I occasionally get a taste for it, which always surprises me because I’ve not liked it since I was a child.)  I like spicier mustards better than bland yellow mustard; German styles are my favorite though I’m partial to Japanese ones as well.
10. I don’t “get” Twitter, but I manage many Twitter feeds.  I have my main one, @acatherinenoon, but I also started one for @knoontimeknit, and we have 2 for Evanston Writers Workshop, @evanstonwriters and @ewwconference.
11. My phone is smarter than I am.  I just got an HTC Rezound and it baffles me.

Answers to my nominator’s questions

1. Why did you start blogging?
   Good question.  I started this blog, “Explore the Worlds of A. Catherine Noon,” because I wanted a place to put my personal short stories and to play.  I’ve always loved doing newsletters and such and this allowed me a potentially unlimited audience.  It also let me create a website without knowing how to program HTML.  Now, I have many blogs and I enjoy them.
2. How has blogging affected your life?
   It’s brought me new friends and fans, but it’s also helped me trust that I have a voice and something to say.  I realized that I’m an essayist in addition to being a novelist, and that essays are like letters to a good friend in which we talk about things about which we are passionate.  As long as we trust that, we can create a blog that rocks.
3. Would you call yourself a ‘blog-addict’?
   Not really, but since I either manage or am part of over 15 blogs, then I suppose yes, I might be called one.
4. Which two words describe your personal style perfectly?
   Elegant and artistic.
5. What is your favorite time of the day and why?
   The middle of the night.  It’s quiet and I can get things done.
6. What is your inspiration in life?
   The novels I read as a child transported me to other worlds.  I have wanted to do that since I was nine years old.  I love writing and reading.
7. How do you plan to spend the next three years?
   I plan to write many more books, both in the Chicagoland Shifters universe and the Persis Cycle.  I also plan to release, with my coauthor Rachel Wilder, Bloodlines and our Psychic Detective series.  I want to buy a house with some land and raise alpacas.
8. What is your favorite time of the day? Why?
   Oops, I think this is the same as question 5.  I’ll answer, instead, my favorite meal.  I love breakfast!  Eggs, bacon, potatoes, and bagels are some of my favorites, as are hobo plates, grits, biscuits and gravy, Belgian waffles, and quiche.
9. Which blogger inspires you the most in the blogging world?
   Delilah Devlin.  She has a website jam-packed with interesting articles, fun content, books and other things that fans can enjoy.  She’s a bestselling author and I look up to her as a role model.
10. What is your favorite TV series?
    That’s easy – NCIS!

11. What is your favorite electronic gadget?
    I’m awfully partial to my computer, actually, and my internet router since it lets me see the amazing, wide world of blogging!

My Nominations

1. Passionate Fiction
2. The Puzzling Mind of Jason Runnels
3. Writer & Cat
4. Jean Marie Ward
5. Two Voices