Q&A Part 2--Answers!

You guys asked questions and now it's time for me to fork over some answers! Are you scared yet?  You should be because I'm going to get deep.  Like blow yo' mind deep.  :P  Enjoy!

Jess asked: Please share an embarrassing incident from your high school days :)


Oh boy.  Actually, there weren't too many embarrassing moments in high school.  Middle school was a nightmare, on the other hand.  However, there is one moment I can dredge up for you.  In my riddly-dink school in podunksville, we get two proms--a junior and a senior prom.  They're actually combined, but we got to have two of them.  Well, for my first prom, I went all out on the dress and pretty much broke the bank.  So when the senior prom rolled around, I decided I'd save some money by making my own prom dress.  It was actually gorgeous, but it came with some problems.  Big problems.  (Oh!  Memories are coming forth!  There's another tale to tell, but I'll finish with this one first!)  So, the night was going all right and the dress was getting some compliments, but when my date and I hit the dance floor, wardrobe malfunctions occurred.  Essentially, my dress was falling apart and there was nothing I could do about it. All the buttons on the back popped out left and right and my date had to hold it together for me so that I didn't flash everyone.  Luckily, no one but the small group I was with noticed, so it wasn't too bad.


Other tale!  Same night, but different story.  Yeah, so senior prom was kind of a nightmare.  At dinner, we were given these sheets to pick our king and queen from.  Every senior's name was on it...except mine.  I noticed this and informed my date in a joking type way.  Well, when the teacher in charge of the festivities came by to pick up our sheets, he told her.  She then went to the microphone and issued an apology to me and informed everyone of the mistake.  Let's not be naive here, dear readers... I was not going to win if my name HAD been on the ballot.  Everyone laughed.  I turned a bright shade of red and glared at my date for his stupidity when I told him not to bring it up.  


Long story, but traumatizing events.


Aspiring_x had a few questions:  which do you think came first? the chicken or the egg?
what is your fave YA book? sci fi? fantasy? (i think we all know the last one...)
bottle blonde?

Well, of course the chicken came first!  Who would have been there to sit on the egg if not for the chicken?  :)

My favorite YA book changes all the time.  Right now, it's HUSH, HUSH, by Becca Fitzpatrick.  I'm reading it for the third time right now.  I just love me some Patch Cipriano!

Favorite sci-fi book would have to be ENDER'S GAME, by Orson Scott Card.  Though I didn't care for his sequels, this book is pretty spectacular.

My favorite fantasy would have to be THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA, by C.S. Lewis.  All of them.  I have a lot of respect for Lewis and what he did with the genre.  I really hope that I can come within sight of being as talented as he was.

Carol Riggs wanted to know: Do you have a dream agent? a dream publisher? (ok just to say yes if you don't want to say specifically who LOL)

How much of Hansel & Gretel have you written? Are you working on that novel, or Morcah? (and when are you going to write your summary on that blog tab?) Is your NaNo novel going to be Morcah, or some other completely diff idea/project?
Howzat?

I did have a dream agent, but it didn't really pan out the way I wanted it to.  :(  I was sad for a while because of it (one of the reasons for fluffy and I spending some quality time together), but I've been doing more research on agents and I've found a few I'm really excited about.  

I have about a third of H&G written.  I found that I'm really not a speedy person when it comes to first drafts--at least, not like I'd hoped to be.  That's probably bad considering I'm attempting NaNo.  I have a hard time not going back to edit.  

I'm actually working on BOTH H&G and MORCAH.  Well, at least I will be come next week.  I think it will work for me because if I can't get into one in the morning, I'll work on the other and switch at night.  It will definitely keep my mind busy.

Ha!  I really do need to write that summary.  The problem is, there's a paranormal in MORCAH that I'm kind of keeping hidden for the time being.  At this point, I've never seen anyone describe the paranormal the way I'm doing her, so I don't want to give too much out.  I know, I'm paranoid.  And since, she's the MC and who she is is pivotal to the plot, I couldn't write the summary without giving it away.  I'm definitely not shy about sharing with you guys, but any old joe-shmoe can come by and see it and I'd like to avoid that.

MORCAH is my NaNo project!  I'm really excited about it!  I'm going to write it in a different style from what I'm used to, so we'll see how it goes.

The Golden Eagle: When did you really start to think yourself a writer?  What was one of the best moments of your life?

Ooh!  Deep questions!  To tell you the truth, I still go through days where I don't think I'm a real writer and I'm terrified everyone will realize I'm a hack.  But then there are days, when I think the opposite.  It just depends on my mood.  I'd have to say, though, that I really settled into writing when I was about twenty.  I'd done a few things before this, but twenty is when I started it and stuck with it.

Wow.  I've had a LOT of great moments, but the most powerful and most memorable would have to be when I saw my fiance (at the time) for the first time in months while deployed in Iraq.  We were intentionally separated when we deployed because he was a SGT and I was a SPC, so it was hard.  I was also having some problems with my 1SG at the time and going through some really hard stuff, so seeing him again, even if only for a few minutes, was one of the things that helped me get through the abuse I was going through.  I still remember how ecstatic I was when we laid eyes on each other again.  It was especially wonderful because we weren't even allowed to say goodbye to each other when we were initially separated (he was in one camp, I was in another).

Well!  That's it!  Thanks for all the great questions, everyone!  This was a lot of fun!