Witty Title TBD - Jeannette!

First up in my "Awesome Friends Who Agree to Answer my Silly Questions" Series is....

Jeannette, my AMAZING CP who read ASTRAL as I was writing it!

She asked me all the right questions, and without her input I would've had a super rough time revising.  But, thankfully, my first round of revisions (back in the day!) for this book were amazingly pain-free, and I attribute ALL OF THIS TO JEANNETTE.

Hereeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee's my interview with her :)  

What do you want the world (or the 5 people who read my blog) to know about you?
I'm a mom of two, a 5 year old superhero who has a heart too big for his little chest and a 3 year old who loves anything small and squirmy (worms are her favorite - I'm proud to say she gets that from me).  I'm happily married and have been with my partner for almost 14(!) years.  I love university and refuse to leave... even though I graduated a long time ago I still take classes.  Right now I'm in a Restoration of Natural Systems program, so I'm learning how to clean up messes and make the world beautiful again after we screw it up.  I'm most at home exploring a tide pool or walking through the forest.  Oh, and I'm totally awkward in "real life".  If I ever meet any of you I apologize in advance.  

What’s the first thing you wrote for fun? (that you can remember!)
Haha!  You asked for it!  My grandmother unearthed a relic for me from the dank depths of her basement, and I think it's absolutely hilarious.  I was trying to knock down gender stereotypes even as an 8 year old!  This is unedited and unabridged:

My Adveture (pretty sure I meant "Adventure", but who knows) With George the Snowman:
One day I was building a snowman, he looked like this, his hat was a ladies hat with fruits and vegetables. (My comma issues started early) He has a body with three balls, (mind outta that gutter!) a clown nose, a mouth of rocks and eyes of buttons.  My snowman has ballet shoes (Yeah George!) he has hands of twigs, feet of paper rolls and a jacket of mink (woops - my apologies to mink everywhere).  I painted my snowman pink cheeks and I painted eye lashes on him also I put red flowers on his body.  My snowman is holding a teddy bear close to my body that has lipstick (I don't even know).  He has a pet fish called Homer (wow, that's random, and also PLOT HOLE!  How did he get the fish?  Logistically, how can a fish even survive outside with him?).  My snowman is called George.  (Finally)

The next morning when I got up on a Monday I put my clothes on and went outside to play.  I called my friends over to see the snowman.  One of my friends called Jenny, said he would be a good pupil if we played school with him (because he was the strong, silent type maybe? or am I implying he's uneducated and needs some learnin'?).  So me and my friends played school with him.  And if you can imagine that we were giving George so much attention that he came alive right in front of my eyes.  (Wow!  This calls for at least an exclamation mark!) We played with george all day long.  When it was time to go to sleep I wanted him to sleep with me but he said he would melt (I'm a harlot, but at least he's a gentleman).  

In the morning I said let's go and play.  Sure George said let's play catch so we played catch for half an hour.  (Apparently I wrote the rest of the story in a state of near-starvation, judging by the food references that take over)  After that our mother called us in for breakfast.  We had eggs and bacon and apple juice.  After we ate we wated two hours and after that time we went to the pizza store to have lunch.  I ordered pizza so did George.  Some time after we ate George and I went to the barber shop and the barber cut off so much snow that he was so skinny he couldn't talk anymore.  After that the barber blow dryed his hair and the wind was so hot that he melted.  (I'm so hungry I just want the story done.  Poor George though, right?  How did little-me feel about his demise?  Let's explore those feelings instead of throwing the reader off a cliff!)
April 24, 1987:

Give us a little insight into your writing journey so far.
Writing has always been my creative outlet, but I only discovered a love for penning novels a couple of years ago.  Since then, a day without putting words down is a tragedy in my world.

My first novel features a unicorn, fairies, and giants, and is an unmitigated disaster (it starts with a dream sequence - gah!)  My second book is much better.  :)  In it, my unreliable narrator has been abandoned by everyone and everything, and has to navigate through semi-madness while trying to avoid getting eaten.  I wrote a sequel to that one because the characters wouldn't leave me alone (though it needs some serious editing!)  My current WiP is a foray into sci-fi... mad scientists and neuroscience and chemistry, oh my!

Star Wars, Star Trek, or…Firefly?
After Alex's bang-on recommendation of Fringe, I decided to give Firefly a try.  And yeah... no.  Definitely not feeling the Malcolm Reynolds love.  I did have a kitten named Picard as a girl, but if I was stranded forever with only one of these three series, I'd definitely have to go with Star Wars.

What song’s been stuck in your head lately?
On Top of the World by Imagine Dragons.  It must be the happiest song in the world.  Totally on my WiP playlist and SO CATCHY.  Here's a link so you can have it stuck in your head too!  http://youtu.be/wCVrC7Dg2qo

Why do you write/read/lurve YA?
Because of the emotion!  It's raw and uncut.  I remember my teen years well... everything is apocalyptic (and I say this with reverence, not condescension).  It appeals to me as a reader because I can tap back into that wild abandon.  It appeals to me as a writer because I can tap back into that wild abandon.  :)

Do you have a favorite place/time of day to write?
Early, early morning before the house wakes up and the chaos begins.  My computer sits right in front of a window that overlooks our backyard and the field behind it, so at 5:30 when it's still dark and quiet it feels like it's just me and the Douglas-firs in the whole entire world.  Perfection.

If you could only pick one book to read for the rest of your life, what would it be?
Hmm.  Wild Seed by Octavia Butler is one of my favorites.  But the classic I come back to every few years is Great Expectations.  I don't know why I love it so much, but my copy is well-worn and reassuring.  Why would you make me think about a world without heaps of books?  That's just cruel.

What was your favorite book of 2012?
Technically from late 2011 - A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness.  But again, this is a cruel question.  I read so many good books last year!

Is there a 2013 book you’re looking forward to?
Through the Ever Night by Veronica Rossi.  And about a hundred others, but that's the main one.  It's already been released, but I want to reread Under the Never Sky first and get immersed in that world again... it's loaded onto my playbook all ready to read and it KILLS ME not to open it.  I heart Perry.

And, since I won an award for culturally under-represented authors: If you could pick a culture that you might not be totally familiar with to research and write a story about, which culture would it be?  And why?
Oh, this is a good question.  I can't narrow it down to one!  I'd love to research Japanese culture, mostly because of the "research" I would have to undertake about the food.  :)  I'm constantly inspired by the coastal First Nations culture around me and would love to immerse myself in that world more.  Inuit culture fascinates me, and I think it would be especially relevant to learn how climate change is affecting their way of life today.  One more, then I'll stop... Ever since I saw the documentary "Babies" I've wanted to learn more about Mongolia.  Something about how they showed the little guys upbringing there resonated with me.

Anything else I might have missed?
I love my CPs!!!