Tag! I'm it!

Voidwalker tagged me with 26 questions last week, which I will now answer! And at the end of this post, I'll tag two more people, RANDOMLY CHOSEN from the list of blogs I'm following. (Which, by the way, is over 300 now, so don't feel bad if I don't pick you. Keeping up with my internet social groups is just brutal.) And if I pick you, but you don't have time to answer, that's totally cool. Or, you can answer, but not pass it along. Whatever suits you.

TWENTY-SIX QUESTIONS

1. What's the last thing you wrote? What's the first thing you wrote that you still have?

Last completed work: Birthday (flash fiction).

First thing: I dunno, go ask my parents. We keep everything. I would have been super-young. The first thing I wrote that I remember other people being impressed by was a short poem about a donkey that I wrote in elementary school, that was inspired by Juan Ramón Jiménez's book, Platero and I. (Hey, turns out it was the 1956 Nobel Prize Winner for Literature! I had no idea.)

2. Write poetry?

See #1. Not in a very long while. But yes. The last poem I wrote was probably written in the mid-to-late 1990s.

3. Angsty poetry?

"Angsty" sounds a little judgmental to me. Let's say that it ranged from the lyrical to the emotional.

4. Favorite genre of writing?

To read or to write? I apparently have written a kind of lit-fic-chick-lit hybrid for my first novel, and I read just about anything, but there's a noticeably large amount of sci fi/fantasy/horror on our shelves.

5. Most annoying character you've ever created?

I'm working on one now, and I just don't think the fictionalized version of this woman will EVER be as annoying as the real thing. Ah, well.

6. Best plot you've ever created?

Character is plot. I think Dani Kobayashi is pretty darn awesome.

7. Coolest plot twist you've ever created?

Oh, no. Forget it. No spoilers.

Wait, now people are going to expect some kind of amazing Usual Suspects /Sixth Sense thing to happen in my book. I don't write thrillers, so I don't write "plot twists" like other authors might. But some things happen that surprise my characters, and I want them to surprise the reader, too.

8. How often do you get writer's block?

Writer's block is too glamorous a title: I get stuck a lot. A LOT. I'm working on it.

9. Write fan fiction?

Nah. I've never had the urge to use other people's characters.

10. Do you type or write by hand?

Mostly type. I think I've done some of my best work by hand, but the muscles tire easily. I should probably write longhand more, to build up my strength...

11. Do you save everything you write?

Again, see #1. Yes. I don't know where it all is, but unless it was on a corrupted disk or a crashed hard drive, I still have it somewhere.

12. Do you ever go back to an idea after you've abandoned it?

I never officially abandon ideas, I simply set them aside until they're ready. So, yes.

13. What's your favorite thing you've ever written?

I'm pretty chuffed about having written a novel.

14. What's everyone else's favorite story that you've written?

You know, I never asked. Very few people get to read more than one thing, anyway; my crit partners have tended to be for one project (or one class) at a time. Ask me again in a few years.

15. Ever written romance or angsty teen drama?

No. Well, maybe I did some angsty teen writing when I was an angsty teen, but it wouldn't have been intentional.

16. What's your favorite setting for your characters?

Places in which I have lived or traveled. I don't like to make up settings.

17. How many writing projects are you working on right now?

Two. No, wait, three. Yes, three.

18. Have you ever won an award for your writing?

I think I won some stuff in high school/college. Nothing noteworthy.

19. What are your five favorite words?

Floccinaucinihilipilification.

Eleemosynary.

Proleptic.

Rasbliutto.

[Redacted.]

You can easily look up the first 3 yourselves online, but the fourth one is harder to find. It's "the feeling you have for someone you used to be in love with, but aren't anymore."

20. What character have you created that is most like yourself?

All my characters are me... and none of them are me. Dani and I would hit it off, for sure.

21. Where do you get ideas for your characters?

Life. Plenty of my characters are composites of real people. The only person I've ever tried to fictionalize in her entirety is that really annoying one mentioned in #5, and it's not working, so I obviously need to mix it up a little, get some other personalities in there as well.

22. Do you ever write based on your dreams?

No. Well, maybe imagery makes it in, but not plot.

23. Do you favor [books with] happy endings?

(Yes, I changed the question to sound less pornographic.) I like a satisfying ending. "Happy" is relative.

24. Are you concerned with spelling and grammar as you write?

Yes. YES. Spelling and grammar matter. Punctuation matters. Including during the first draft. I think I may have missed my calling as a copyeditor...

25. Does music help you write?

No, I usually find it distracting.

26. Quote something you've written. Whatever pops into your head.

Okay, here's the first sentence (first paragraph, as well) of that recently-finished flash fiction piece I mentioned in the answer to question #1:

The day Zoe was born, her parents forgot about her.

That's it! And, the random tagees are:

Tara at The Bloodcrossed Writer

Melissa at Grosvenor Square