The Blogger Recognition Award is given from blogger to blogger to encourage and acknowledge the hard work and effort that goes into creating amazing online spaces.

Well, what a lovely surprise. Thankyou so much to superwifeandmummy for nominating me for this blogger award. Totally unexpected but completely deserved (modesty will get me nowhere if I’m hoping to hit the giddying heights of 25 followers). Superwifeandmummy was one of my first followers and after having a delve into her world, I soon reciprocated. Insightful, thought provoking but always with a lot of heart and a wry sense of humour. And her poems will leave you feeling like you’ve had a little hug.

When I started The Lockwood Echo, I never thought I could, let alone would, involve myself with the ‘community’. I’m a ‘very small but close circle of friends’ kind of person. And I’m no social butterfly. Much preferring chrysalis status! But I accepted that I would have to reach out and let myself be reached, otherwise this is no different to writing stuff on a pad of paper and hiding it under the bed.

I don’t have a grand plan. The Lockwood Echo materialised from desperately needing a focus and a reason to crawl back up a slippery slope I was descending down. That plus the fact that I’m incredibly funny 😉 So I put my big girl pants on and chose this as the way to throw my stuff out there and hopefully make people smile. And the community that I never thought I’d engage with has been key in keeping my confidence up enough to continue.

If you want to take a look at who I am GO HERE. All the good stuff is HOT OF THE PRESS and lurking in the SECTIONS menu (can’t do a link for that, you’re just gonna have to find it yourself). MADAME CHARLATAN will give you an introduction to my style and ‘HOME’ shows my sensitive side. Shameless plug over!

My advice to new bloggers pretty much echoes what my nominator has said;

Write/create something that YOU love. It doesn’t matter if no-one ‘gets it’. (My focus is humour, very subjective, not everyone laughs, but I’m okay with that).

Be brave. Engage with others. As an introvert I found that aspect so hard. Especially as I’m doing this ‘cold turkey’, i.e. so far, most of my family and friends no nothing of this. I wanted it to grow its own life without emotionally obligating people to say ‘Hey, that’s great. You’re SO funny’. It’s the blogging equivalent of ‘cold-canvassing’! But I tiptoed around a couple of other sites and when I found one that I identified with, I also had a peek at who they liked. A really good way of finding some very interesting peeps. Everyone is so supportive, so be brave and touch someone. In a legal, appropriate manner. Don’t want to be responsible for anyone getting arrested 😉

As it’s early days, I’m still finding others to follow, so I will nominate a handful of people who have created something that’s either made me proper laugh out loud or has really touched me or resonated with me in some way. In fairest alphabetical order;

Bone & Silver

Everyday Strange

Honest K

INFJoe Cartoons

Little Fears

Mary J Melange

Non-Euclidean Sofa

Town Mouse

If nominees wish to participate then here are the guidelines;

• Thank the blogger who nominated you and provide a link to their blog.
• Give a brief story of how your blog started.
• Give two pieces of advice to new bloggers.
• Select 10 other bloggers you want to give this award to.
• Comment on each blog and let them know you have nominated them and provide the link to the post you created.

If that’s not your thing I, more than anyone get and respect that. But it’s still a big thankyou from me for providing me with whatever kick/giggle/insight that put you on my list of ‘Following whether you like it or not!’ 😉