Whoo!!! Survey!!!

Hello, girls! It's Monday!

Alexandra - **SPOILER** It doesn't matter what any of us come up with for my crafty challenge; Carlyn will beat us all. I watched her spend about fifteen minutes at a banquet folding napkins into different animals just to see if she could. We're all doomed. :) Hand-colored newspaper hats are fine!

Carlyn - See, it's not even the taking blood thing that bothers me. I'm absolutely fine with people taking my blood -- well, you know, to an extent. But I can give blood at the doctor's office without any trouble at all. No, it is legitimately the taking of blood via the neck that freaks me out. Part of the reason I was able to even get through Twilight at all was because when Bella did get bitten, she got bitten on the hand, and I was bizarrely fine with that. No, it's a very weirdly specific phobia and I'm not sure there's actually a name for it.

Casey - Keep your head up as much as you can! :)

Christina - So, Mothman is a no for a movie to watch for your punishment?

So! Onto surveys! My friends and I used to be huge into filling out every survey that passed through Facebook, so in order to find my survey of the week, I just went back through the notes I've been tagged in, and I found this one which is maybe slightly more interesting for you all to read. I'll warn you, though. I get very snarky as a side effect of filling out surveys.

Writing Survey

- What's the last thing you wrote?:
An email to the secretary of Horizon Youth Theatre.

- Was it any good?:
Well, it's not going to win a Pulitzer, but the phrasing was quite something, if I say so myself.

Okay, okay, fine, real answers, in terms of fiction: Written and finished - a fanfic about Draco Malfoy and Astoria Greengrass, and I'm actually very proud of it and the way it turned out.

- What's the first thing you ever wrote that you still have?:
A partially finished novel called The Two Princesses of Kastadale about sister princesses who hate being princesses and so subtly undermine their mother's wishes for them whenever possible until the elder runs away with the blacksmith and the younger learns in secret to be a magician because, oh yeah, she's actually got a secret special powerful magical talent that will eventually Save The Kingdom. It's based on an imagination game my cousin and I used to play, and I wrote it when I was thirteen.

- Was it any good?:
My stars, did you READ the above description?

- Write poetry?:
That is a decided no. I went through a poetry phase at the age of 12. I was determined to be a poet. Then I realized I was actually a really terrible poet and shouldn't make that a career choice.

- Angsty poetry?:
Actually, for how angsty a 12-year-old I was, my poetry back then was surprisingly not. A decent amount of it had to do with unicorns. And that's absolutely the last I'm going to say about it.

- Favorite genre of writing?:
Fantasy. To be even more sub-genre specific, fairy tale fantasy.

- Most fun character you ever wrote?:
Oh, gracious . . . probably Dori, my Dorothy character from my Wizard of Oz retelling. She was very no-nonsense and very snarky, and a combination of myself and my best friend Meghan. I had a lot of fun writing her.

- Most annoying character you ever wrote?:
A character named Aubrey from the same story listed above. She was the Witch of the West character, in the guise of a self-centered, self-entitled college freshman based on a girl I had run-ins with in the past.

- Best plot you ever wrote?:
I'm really proud of my Sleeping Beauty adaptation that I wrote for a class last year and the twists and turns that plot took. I took on a very complex idea and was able to manage it in exactly the way I wanted to.

- Coolest plot twist you ever wrote?:
I'm a fan of my Cinderella short story where, when the prince returns Cinderella's shoe and asks for her hand, she turns him down to marry the cobbler.

- How often do you get writer's block?:
All the time, though to be honest, a lot of it is just procrastination.

- How do you fix it?:
I shut myself in my room, put my writing music on, set myself a word limit, and don't let myself stop writing until I've met it. You've just got to power through it.

- Write fan fiction?:
Yes

- Of what?:
Harry Potter mostly, though I've dabbled in Heroes, West Wing, Howl's Moving Castle, Firefly, and Into the Woods.

- Is it better or worse than your other writing?:
It's an aspect of my writing. Some of it is better than some of my other writing, some of it is worse. But things aren't nearly so clear cut as this question would like them to be.

- Do you type or write by hand?:
Both. I usually use my computer, just to expedite, but if I'm really getting stuck, writing by hand really helps me get past whatever block is in my way.

- Do you save everything you write?:
Just about

- Do you ever go back to an old idea long after you abandoned it?:
All the time. Let's be honest; I'll probably go back to that crazy princesses story someday and actually make it into something worth reading.

- What's your favorite thing that you've written?:
Oooh, tough question. Probably my Sleeping Beauty novel. I've put the most of myself into that one.

- What's everyone else's favorite thing that you've written?:
Um . . . hard to say. More people have read the Wizard of Oz novel I wrote (because my older brother was on page 8 of Sleeping Beauty from December until just recently . . .), so I'll say that one.

- Do you even show people your work?

Yes, I do, if they're interested in reading it. More often, though, I just talk through it with people. I am not in any way a solitary writer.

- Who's your favorite constructive critic?:
Maggie. She is completely and entirely honest, and beyond that, willing to spend two hours on the phone reading two paragraphs out loud over and over and helping me fix them. Which is awesome.

- Do you have a website for your writings?:
For my fanfiction, yes. I'm on fanfiction.net under the penname Realmer06, but I won't put my original stuff on the Internet. Gets too sticky.

- Did you ever write a novel?:
I have finished two novels that are entirely my own, two novels that I co-wrote with a close friend of my in letter game format, and one novella-length short story.

- Was it for NaNoWriMo?:
One was, in addition to being for a class. The other was just for a class, and the two I wrote with my friend were, seriously, just for fun.

- Have you ever written fantasy, sci-fi, or horror?:
Fantasy is pretty much all I write.

- Ever written romance or teen angsty drama?:
Romance is worked into my stories, usually, but it's not the focus.

- What's your favorite setting for your characters?:
Any world that I make up myself because I'm in charge of it. I'm exceptionally bad at doing research on the real world; I'd much rather just make up my own history and religion, etc. Then I can't get it wrong.

- What's one genre you have never written, and probably never will?:
Horror. Western. Psychological Thriller. Romance.

- How many writing projects are you working on right now?:
Um . . . can I plead the fifth? It's a lot.

- Do you want to write for a living?:
I'd love to be able to, honestly, but I would go stark raving mad after a week. I want to be a published writer. I don't want it to be my only career. I could never give up my theatre kids, for one thing!

- Have you ever written something for a magazine or newspaper?:
Yes, I was the drama critic for the middle school paper in 7th grade, and the editor for the same paper in 8th grade, and then I started a paper at my high school that last for two years, so I wrote things for them.

- Have you ever won an award for your writing?:
Yes. I had one descriptive essay take first place in the Tri-County Writing Contest, two long short stories (800-1200 words) take first place in the same, one long short story take second, and one short story take first in the OSU-Mansfield Writing Contest. All of that was when I was in high school. In college, my This I Believe essay was one of the top two in the contest my Honors Program sponsored. If you search the Internet, you can find me reading it to camera or something.

- Ever written something in script or play format?:
Several. I teach performance-based theatre classes.

- What are your five favorite words?:
Hm. . .wow, that's a difficult choice . . . but I'm a fan of plethora, facetiously, verisimilitude, gesticulating, and etymologically, all for vastly different reasons.

- Do you ever parody?:
No, I'm not nearly clever enough.

- What's your favorite thing to parody?:
See above

- Do you actually like that thing, or are you spitefully making fun of it?:
I think you have to have respect for a thing if you want to successfully parody it. Otherwise, it just turns out mean.

- Do you ever write based on yourself?:
Many of my characters have several things in common with me, but I've only actually written myself into one novel, and it was a small part. Oh, and one short story, too.

- What character that you've written most resembles yourself?:
Well, Casey Morgan from my friend Meghan's birthday zombie apocalypse story WAS me, so . . .

- Where do you get ideas for your other characters?:
I'm of the writing philosophy that I actually have very little creative control over my characters. They kind of walk fully formed into my head and tell me what their story is. I'm just in charge of writing it down.

- Do you ever write based on your dreams?:
Occasionally, but not often.

- Do you favor happy endings, sad endings, or cliffhangers?:
Happy endings, but I write a lot of angst before we get there.

- Have you ever written based on an artwork you've seen?:
Nope

- Write me a really classy simile:
Writing a classy simile is like dressing up to go to a fancy ball. It's easy to look nice from far away, but it's when you get out to the dance floor that we really see what you're made of.

- Now write me a really dumb simile:
Writing a dumb simile is like playing a violin upside-down. It's possible, but not preferable, as it won't sound very good and just doesn't make a lot of sense.

- Are you concerned with spelling and grammar as you write?:
Hello, have we met? Yes, yes, yes, yes, and yes.

- Ever write something entirely in chat-speak? (How r u?):
No, and nothing is more likely to wake in me a desire to kill people.

- Entirely in L337?:
See above.

- Was that question completely appalling and un-writerlike?:
Yes.

- Does music help you write?:
Yes, but only instrumental.

- Do you have a weblog or livejournal?:
Hmmm . . . I dunno, girls. Do I have a weblog? :)

- Do you write your life as if it were one of those journal books?:
Nope. in fact, I can't stand journaling.

- Are people surprised and confused when they find out you write well?:
No, I think they just accept it as par for the course.

- Quote something you've written. The first thing to pop into your mind!:
"All stories have to start somewhere. Some start with a birth or a death. Some start with a christening or a funeral. Some start with Once Upon a Time or on a Dark and Stormy Night. My story started on a Tuesday."
 
And with that perfect segue, Alexandra, I will see you tomorrow!