Excuses and the Liebster Award

I really should have posted again sooner.  But I do have excuses!  Half-way decent ones, even!  For one thing, I haven’t had very much Wi-Fi recently.  For a little while last week, I didn’t even have my computer!  What is a writer to do?  Well, I had my journal and author’s notebook for one thing, so I wasn’t completely estranged from my writing, just from typing and the internet.  That and there were plenty of things for me to do to keep busy.  So there’s excuse #1.

Excuse #2 is much more interesting, and hopefully pretty obvious: I’ve reconfigured my blog!  I’ve been wanting to do this for a good while now, and wanted to do that before I posted again.  So here it is!  The re-vamped Memoirs of a Tale Weaver!  Many thanks to my mom for helping me with it!  🙂

Now then.  Enough excuses.  It’s time to get to the real reason for this post:

You see, my readers, Katie-Grace has nominated me for the Liebster Award.  Thank you so much, Katie!  This should be fun!  😀

Here are the rules for the Liebster Award:

1.  Thank the person that nominated you and link back to their blog.

2.  Answer the questions given you by said person.

3.  Choose eleven questions of your own.

4.  Nominate eleven more people!

Here are Katie’s questions, and my answers to them:

1.  Why do you write?

How couldn’t I write?  I’ve been writing since kindergarten, when I wrote a fanfiction for Brian Davis’s Raising Dragons.  I don’t know what became of it.  I probably threw it out.  😛  But for a while, I didn’t really count that.  Then, one morning in the second grade, I woke up and decided that I wanted to write a book.  And I’ve been writing on and off ever since.  🙂

2.  If any fictional character could be your best friend, who would it be?

I think that I would have to say Samwise Gamgee.  He was always so loyal to Frodo, and such a good friend!  He’s one of my absolute favorite characters of all time.  That and he’s a very good gardener, so he might be able to give me a few tips every now and again.  😛

3.  What’s one really weird dream you’ve had?

Well, there was one dream that I had in which my sleeping mind sorted my youth group into a royal court (because I have a fantasy-geared mind even in my sleep).  My best friend was the queen, and one of two guys in the youth group was the king.  One of my other friends was some sort of page or squire.  I was a servant, and I had apparently broken something.  No one would believe me, even though I protested vehemently.

Then, my friend the queen, said, “Well, one way or another, you’ll have to go to him.”

For whatever reason, I felt a wash of dread when she said that.  I knew who he was.  He was the “handyman” of the court, and apparently rather mad.

But, like a dutiful servant, I went down the wood-paneled hallway towards the room where he resided.  But I didn’t have to go all the way, for he came barreling down the hallway towards me.  When he reached me, he proceeded to heave me against the wall and begin to choke me.

That was where the dream ended.

(Please please please please PLEASE note that this in no way represents the individuals in my youth group!  This was my sleeping mind making up strange, wild fancies!  No, I have no idea WHERE these things come from.  It’s my mind.  There really is no explanation.)

4.  If you found a portal that could transport you to any fictional world of your choice, where would you go?

Middle Earth, I think.  There’s just so much to see!  The Shire, Rivendell, Lothlorien, Rohan, Fangorn, Gondor….  So very many places to see!  And then I might settle down somewhere there.  Possibly Fangorn.

5.  Paperback or Kindle?  Why?

Paperback, definitely.  I love the feel of the book in my hand, the smell of it, the wonderful ability to turn the pages and look from above the book to see how far along in the book you are.  I do, of course, have a Kindle, and it’s very useful when it comes to traveling.  I don’t want my books to get messed up, after all!

6.  What’s one post that you’ve written that you’re most proud of?  Why?

To be honest, probably this one.  I like my others, but this is the first one that I’ve written with my redesigned blog, so it’s rather exciting.

7.  What’s an interesting quirk that you have?

Like I only have one?  XP  But, for the purposes of not making this post any longer than it need be, I will mention only my occasional tendency to refer to myself in the third person.

8.  Can you share a picture of your bookshelf?  (More commonly known as: a #shelfie.)

Sure!

My “Precious” Ones. Left to right: The Complete English Poems by John Donne, Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained, and Samson Agonistes by John Milton, Heartless, Heartless, (Veiled Rose is being lent to a friend) Moonblood, Starflower, Dragonwitch, Shadow Hand, Golden Daughter, Goddess Tithe, and another copy of Goddess Tithe by Anne Elisabeth Stengl, the Hobbit, the Fellowship of the Ring, the Two Towers, and the Return of the King by Tolkien, as well as a small volume of Tolkien’s renditions of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, the Pearl, and Sir Orfeo.

Listing all of these would take forever…

9.  What are three things on your bucket list?  Or do you even have a bucket list?

Erh…  Not really.  But some of the things that I would really like to do is get published (obviously), travel, probably to the Rockies and to the UK, and be able to grow lots of orchids successfully.

10.  How old were you when you started writing?

I already sort of answered that question earlier, but the age range was probably around five to six years old.

11.  Share the last sentence of your WIP with us!

“She balled her hands into fists and studies the floor at her feet, trying to hold her anger in.”

It’s a first draft.  If you could see the chapter that I pulled this from, you would stare with your mouth agape in horror and confusion.

There you have my answers to Katie’s questions!  Now it’s time for my questions for my nominees!

1.  Who is your favorite character from your WIP?  Why?

2.  Outside of writing, is there anything that you really, passionately love doing?

3.  What made you want to start your blog?

4.  What is one of your funniest childhood memories?

5.  Do you have any pets?  If so, what are they?

6.  Is there one particular trait that most of your characters have?  If so, what is that?

7.  If you could be any type of mythological creature, what would you be?

8.  You have been handed a blank check by a billionaire.  What do you do with it?

9.  If you could life absolutely anywhere in the world, where would it be?

10.  Plotter, pantser, or plantser?

11.  Do you keep a journal/notebook?  If so, what is it about?

Finally, my nominees are…

FaithSong, Schuyler, Ana, Sierra and Rebecca, Rosalie, Adriana, Tessie, Jessi,

Annika, Anna, and Caiti Marie.