A Thing That Dawna Had On Her Blog

(Dawna is Kayla's sister, if anybody's wondering.)

What's the speed limit of the street you live on?

Twenty...I think.

What condiments do you like on hamburgers?

Pickles, mustard, onions, and ketchup.

Have you ever taken skiing lessons?

Nope. It'd end in catastrophe. :P

What did you get your dad for his last birthday?

It was either a pie or a book. I don't remember. Maybe it was coupons to do things around the house, but that might've been Christmas.

How many trees are in your front yard?

One. We have a whole bunch more in the backyard.

Do any of your relatives live in another country?

I think some of Mom's family lives in Canada somewhere.

Are you claustrophobic?

Not really.

When grocery shopping, do you usually buy brand names or store brand?

Whichever one is cheaper.

Around what time do you usually eat dinner?

Whenever it's ready.

Do you have any clothing that you get dry cleaned?

I dunno. That's Mom's domain. :P

Do you like foods with coconut in it?

EW. No. Gross.

Have you ever been to an Ikea store?

Nope. I don't go in many stores. I'm allergic to them.

What is the last thing you accomplished?

Tidying my room.

Have you ever researched your family history?

Nope. Lizzie does, though.

Do you think ditzy people are more annoying, or more entertaining?

It depends on the context.

What colour are the cabinets in your kitchen?

Brown.

Have you ever had surgery that kept you in the hospital for over a day?

I've never had surgery. (I don't think.)

Do you like carrots more if they're raw, or cooked?

Raw.

Did you play with Legos as a kid?

Probably.

What restaurant did you last go out to dinner at with friends?

Probably a local pizza place with a couple people from church.

Do you keep a first aid kit in your car?

No.

Does your house/apartment have a patio?

Is that the concrete part outside the back door with the wooden gadget around it?

Does your refrigerator have an ice maker or do you use ice cube trays?

Ice cube trays.

What is your computer's desktop background?

A picture of a boat that Lizzie took at that place outside Boston where some president grew up. She took the picture right before the battery died.

Eve been horeback riding on the beach?

"I hate horses, and cows don't like me either." (Uncle Felix says that in Christmas in Connecticut). I normally slide off horses in some way, so combining that with water and sand would not be a good idea.

Which bothers you more...spelling mistakes or bad grammar? Spelling in writing and bad grammar in speaking.

What is your favourite kind of cereal?

Froot loops.

Have you ever hit an animal while driving?

Nope. I don't think anybody in our family has hit an already living animal. Running over road kill is different. (Once Dad even avoided hitting a big old turtle on a bridge.)

How long have you had your current cellphone?

I don't have one. :P

Do you have a BluRay player?

What's that?

How many cousins do you have?

A lot, and they expand like those washcloths that you put in water and they grow. Our cousins do that when they're all in one big herd.

Do you grow your fingernails out, or keep them cut short?

I bite them off.

Have you ever bought anything off of eBay?

Probably not.

Is there a food that you love the taste of, but makes you feel sick?

A whole bunch of foods. :P

Writing Reports

Here's a writing quiz.

Do you have a pen/pencil collection? How many of those are chewed?

Kinda...I really like the pens from our old church, but am running out of them. Noooo. My cat is the one who chews pencils.

Do you prefer handwriting or typing?

Typing. On the typewriter. My handwriting is waaaaaaaaaaaay to messy and it hurts my whole arm to handwrite for too long. (Sadly, that's the way I write on trips...)

How often do you get inspiration?

Depends on the day. I probably drive my friends crazy because they'll say something that gives me a good idea and I'll have to dash off to write it down.

Do you get inspiration more in the early morning or late at night?

At night. Which isn't good as I always have to go to bed.

Do certain movies/books/music inspire you?

Yes. The first time I watched "The Village," I was up three hours writing about it. And any time I go to see a movie, I get ideas. Same with books.

How do you incorporate God into your stories?

Depends on the book. In "Call of the Past," Ruth and I have to put in God because the climax is Rachel and Ian going back in time to the death of Christ.

Do you kill off your villains or make them repent?

I like killing them off in ways that are rather...interesting. Or just letting them be and having them die of old age or something.

Are the majority of your characters magical beings, humans, halflings, or something else?

Humans. Although, I'm starting to write a story where people are half-humans....Yeah...And I'm starting to wonder about Verity's sanity. (Notice the large stack of books that just flew past my head--that'd be her having a temper tantrum.)

What genre of writing are you most comfortable in? If you were to step out of your comfort zone, what would you write?

Fantasy, science fiction, and historical fiction are what I'm most comfortable in. Some are a mix...Like "Call of the Past," where the characters time travel from about 20 years in the future to main historical points. "The Iatar Mountains" is really fantasy-ish. Jack's parts in "Brontide: The Rumble of Distant Thunder" is slightly sci-fi because he works for NASA.

Do you work better alone or with someone else?

I like writing with other people--things actually get done that way. Haha. Sometimes I just need to write a whole slew of characters alone. Depends.

Are your characters mostly Renegades, Peacekeepers or a mish-mash?

Mostly renegades. One is a peacekeeper and several more are mish-mashes.

Are you a sucker for good grammar?

Yes. Sometimes. I can find minor mistakes in signs, but not in my stories.

How is your handwriting?

Messy, medium, and cramped. Few people can read it.

How evil are your villains?

Depends...In "The Iatar Mountains," the villains is just really the envormint that the characters are in. (After all, plants the size of a man who swallow you alive and you get dissolved from the acid in the plant, doesn't actually count as a human/halfling villain...does it?) In "Call of the Past," who knows what the villains are? (Rachel seems a bit like the villain...She's just mean to Ian, is why.)

Are you long-winded or succinct?

Depends on the story. I put in waaaaaaaay to much irrelevant stuff.

Do you have typical writer traits such as ink stains on your fingers or a pencil behind your ear?

Aha....Yes....Ink stains on my fingers (and sometimes on my face, too, and once on my toe). And I shed paper scraps. They show up wherever I've been. And sometimes I have dark shadows under my eyes. Pencils don't stay behind the ears because of glasses.

Would someone walking past you on the street consider you normal?

No. Not many people wear skirts any more, and I'm normally muttering under my breath or burst out laughing for no apparent reason. And at the library, I often walk around with a big armful of books for people older than 13.

Do you write mostly poetry, stories, novels or a mixture?

Short stories. I get the story over with before it's even a novella. Co-writing helps to make novels, and not novellas, too. I write a bit of poetry, but not much.

Do your characters vary in accents, appearance and attitude or are they mostly the same?

I have trouble making them all different. "In the Garret"--they were ALL THE SAME! *groan* Verity and Rachel are the two most different characters so far. (Rachel is a typical outlandish teenager, and Verity is a mix of conservative and barley-un-outlandish.) Dmitri is pretty different, too....More quiet and gets mad easily.

Do real people and/or places inspire your writing?

Oh yeah. I put a typewriter in "The Iatar Mountains," and have slightly changed other modern things so that they'd fit in the story. It's hard in sci-fi to invent real working objects for the technology.

What is your favorite character? Or do you choose to remain unbiased in case of a revolt?

OUCH! *gets hit by all of the characters, who are all asking to be the favorite* Ummm....I don't know.

Do you talk to your characters? Do they talk back?

Yes. They jabber endlessly, hence the constant music.

Are you more comfortable with female or male main characters?

I understand girls more, but am pretty fine with males...It depends. Some characters I've written in 1st person have told me that they were boys when I thought they were girls. It's very annoying when that happens.

Do you follow basic plot lines with new twists thrown in or do you depart from the norm all the time?

Ummm...A mix of both.

Do you feel God has called you to be a writer/poet? Will you grasp the power of the pen?

Yes to both.