Liebster Award!

This is a really, really long time coming since I’ve been nominated for this award, not once, not twice, but THREE TIMES, and I’ve just kind of been putting it off for forever. First I was nominated by Li at Flash Fiction, then Chrys Fey at Write with Fey, and finally, Nikki at Travels with Pen and Paper. Well, I’m finally doing it, and thanks so much to the three awesome ladies who nominated me. 

The Rules: 

1. Post 11 random facts about yourself.
2. Answer the 11 questions provided by the person who nominated you.
3. Nominate 11 more bloggers who have less than 200 followers and let them know they’ve been nominated.
4. Provide 11 questions for those bloggers to answer. 

I’ll be honest, the hardest part is coming up with 11 people to nominate, since most of the blogs I follow either have over 200 followers or they already have the award. But! I figured I could cheat, and since Nikki’s post also said to nominate “up to 11 bloggers,” I was totally on board with that. So, here we go!

11 Facts About Me

1. I’m horribly near-sighted, hence the glasses. I wear them for pretty much everything except reading.
2. My favorite color is gray.
3. My least favorite emotion is probably embarrassment. I hate it so much that I can’t even stand watching or hearing about other people being embarrassed.
4. I haven’t cut my hair in 3 years, not even a trim.
5. I can’t drink anything with carbonation because the fizz hurts my tongue. I haven’t had more than a couple sips of soda in my entire life, I’ve never even tried beer, and I don’t plan on drinking any champagne at my own wedding.
6. I own way more cardigan sweaters than any normal person should.
7. I’m really good at identifying celebrity voices in commercials and cartoons.
8. Most of the time you’ll find me in jeans and a t-shirt, but at heart, I’m a girly girl. Dresses, high heels, etc. I just rarely have a reason to dress up.
9. When I was three months old I had to have surgery to reduce fluid buildup in my brain (caused by hydrocephalus and Dandy Walker syndrome). I have a cerebral shunt in my head that’s basically a tube that drains the fluid. It’s possible that the symptoms no longer exist, but it’s not really worth it to have the shunt removed if it’s not needed. I can actually feel the tube through the side of my neck and I have a scar on my stomach from having it lengthened when I was four.  
10. I can’t do things like ride a bike or ice skate (probably due to poor balance). You can imagine how horrible my seventh grade field trip to the ice skating rink was.
11. I pretty much never listen to the radio, so I'm never up to date with current music. 

The Questions!

Ok, I’m also cheating on this part. Well, since I’ve been nominated three times, I’ve been given three sets of questions to answer! I didn’t want to bog this post down with 33 questions, so I decided to pick and choose my favorite questions (or maybe just the ones I knew how to answer) from each of the people who nominated me. The first four are from Nikki, the next four are from Chrys, and the last three are from Li.

1. What was your worst job? 

When I was 16 I sold makeup through mark.—a sort of younger division of Avon. The job itself wasn’t terrible, but teenage girls don’t have all that much money, so I didn’t sell all that much and ended up buying too much stuff for myself with the discount.

2. What was your favorite childhood toy? 

Not one in particular, but I was CRAZY about stuffed animals. I don’t know the exact number, but it’s over 300. I still have them all, but they’re in my storage unit.

3. What's your favorite vegetable? 

I’m a picky eater, so I could probably count the vegetables I like on one hand, but I’m gonna have to go with green beans. Except I’m really weird—I eat them with steak sauce. My sister does it, too. At some point in our childhood we were having steak and green beans and the sauce accidentally got on them and we realized how good it tasted.

4. Would you rather have a live in chef or live in maid? 

I’d have to go with maid since I love to cook but I’m very messy about it. It would be nice to have someone else clean it up for me. Actually, can I choose a live in hairdresser/makeup artist/personal shopper? Those exist, right?

5. On a Friday night, what are you most likely to do? 

My fiancé and I like to stay at home, have a few drinks (usually Malibu rum and some kind of juice), and order some scrumptious take out or I’ll make something like tacos. Then we’ll probably watch a movie or binge watch a TV show on Netflix. We’re practically hermits so it’s a lot of fun.

6. What is your biggest dream? 

You mean besides being a bestselling author? I secretly really really want my book Uneven Lines to be made into a movie (but only if I get to write the screenplay, obviously). I’m actually already convinced that the universe has sent me a sign that it will happen. No, I will not tell you what it was, since I’m also convinced I will jinx it. Yes, I know I’m delusional.

7. If your house were burning down, what would you take and why? 

After making sure my fiancé and cat were getting out ok, I’d grab my flash drive since it has all of my writing on it, my engagement ring (besides the obvious reason, it also belonged to my mom), and my Playbill binder (which has the Playbills to every play & musical I’ve ever been to).

8. If you were not in your current line of work, what would you be doing instead? 

I’ve always kind of wanted to have a bakery, or maybe just a cookie shop. I like coming up with new ideas for recipes. Ooo but I’d totally have to make cupcakes, too.

9. Have you ever witnessed a truly heroic act by someone else? 

The closest thing I can think of is when my dad jumped into our pool fully clothed to pull out my little cousin, who was probably about to drown. I think we look at it as more amusing than heroic at this point.

10. You've just had a novel published and the fanfiction community is going wild.  How do you feel about it?  Are you flattered, angry, resigned? 

Well, if it’s UL, I’m terrified, because I’m sure you’re all sick perverts…but I’m totally gonna read all of it. Hey! It doesn’t count as slash if the characters are already gay! Unless you paired up other characters…no! Do not do that! Stop it! Stop it right now! How dare you even give me those ideas??

11. You can choose any location in the world to pursue your writing, but you must remain there for the rest of your life.  Where would it be?

I absolutely love New York City, so I would want to move there. This may have less to do with my writing and more to do with my love of Broadway musicals… 

My Nominees!

I tried to find as many as I could but it's difficult! So I only have four. Go check out their awesome blogs!

S.E. Dee at Blue Bic Blog

Crystal R. Martin at The Write Life

Debra McKellan at The Write Mage

and Brian S Creek 

And finally:

11 Questions for my Nominees to Answer

1. If you could dress up as anyone/anything for Halloween, what would it be?
2. If you could only write one genre of books for the rest of your life, what would it be?
3. Where were you when you were struck with the idea for your current WIP? Did something trigger the idea or did you pull it out of thin air?
4. Who is your celebrity crush?
5. What literary character would you want to be best friends with? BONUS: Which one of YOUR characters would you want to be best friends with? Describe him or her.
6. You have to pull off a huge heist (such as robbing a casino like in Ocean's Eleven). Who do you want on your team? You can pick people you know, celebrities, or any fictional characters (but no magical powers!). 
7. What is your least favorite household chore?
8. Has there ever been a book/movie/TV show that made you sob uncontrollably?
9. Has one of your favorite books ever been made into a movie and you hated it? If not, did you love it? Why?
10. How do you take your coffee? Do you like flavored coffee? (Or what is your favorite tea if you’re a tea person?)
11. What would your demise be that gets you kicked out of Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory? (You can pick one from the book/movies or come up with your own!)

Not gonna lie, I had a lot of fun coming up with these. I hope they're not too obscure or too involved to answer!