My sister in Luminosity, Maestra of Pilates, and Mother of Dragons, Emily June Street, tagged me to write this post. Although I’m not sure what the Liebster award is, I’m happy to play.
Here are the rules:
List eleven random facts about yourself.
Answer eleven questions posed by the tagger.
Devise eleven questions for the people you tag.
And so:
My eleven random facts:
1. Pizza is my favorite food.
2. I started keeping a diary in second grade. The entries are hilarious.
3. I first drank wine at my bat mitzvah. After singing the Kiddush, I threw back the wine, expecting it to taste like grape juice. Manischewitz does not taste like grape juice. I grimaced and said “Ewww.” Everyone laughed. So much for gravitas.
4. Fall is my favorite season. Spring second. I like the chaos of the changes.
5. I once got drunk with Judi Dench’s daughter.
6. Baby birds give me the creeps, but snakes and spiders fascinate me.
7. I prefer towns and villages to big cities. (But I hate the suburbs.)
8. I love thunder storms.
9. I have an Oscars speech ready just in case.
10. The music of the eighties makes me happy.
11. I like grammar.
And on to Emily’s questions:
1. What was your dream career when you were a kid?
Ballerina and manager of the Pittsburgh Pirates. I planned to wear a yellow and black tutu and yellow and black pointe shoes during games. That only lasted for a few months (after the Pirates won the World Series). Then I just wanted to be a ballerina.
2. What is one physical activity you want to do before you die?
I would like to ride a horse at a fierce gallop.
3. What is your favorite trip or vacation that you’ve ever done and why?
It’s a tie: hiking the Southwest Coastal Path in Cornwall in October of 1997 by myself and a two week trip to Tahiti in December of 2005 with my husband, Dave.
Cornwall: This was my first solo vacation. I wasn’t sure how I’d do with that much alone time, but it turns out I really like alone time. I spent every day hiking by the sea, encountering very few people along the way. I also made only one hotel reservation in St. Ives for the first two days of the trip. After that, I planned to wing it. I’m not a winger of things, but it worked out–except for a terrifying moment in a tiny village called Zennor where the hostel had closed for the season. Luckily, there were a few people in the village who let rooms to wandering travelers, so I didn’t have to sleep outside. During that trip I discovered the joys of an afternoon cream tea and that when left to my own devices, I do very well. Two good things to learn in my late twenties.
Tahiti: Pure gorgeous luxury with my favorite person on the planet.
4. Do you dance?
Every day. Usually in my kitchen.
5. Editing or drafting?
Editing. Dear God, editing. I love shaping stories, finding the perfect word, moving sentences around, fleshing out bits that seem thin–all that. The drafting. Oy. That’s a necessary evil to get me to the fun part.
6. Your favorite myth or fairy-tale and why?
The Arthurian legends. I’m having a hard time articulating why. There’s something about ancient, stony, misty, green England that appeals to me, although it is on a visceral rather than an intellectual level.
7. Where (and when) did you grow up and how do you think it shaped you?
I grew up in Evansville, Indiana in the 1970s and 1980s. We lived in a solidly middle class neighborhood near the school I attended for nine years from kindergarten to eighth grade. Farmland surrounded us–mostly corn and soybeans. Today it’s almost all gone, built over into strip malls, car dealerships, and subdivisions. I miss the huge stretches of green.
I think I have an earnestness that one might ascribe to being a Midwesterner. I’m also fascinated with mountains and the ocean since they did not form the landscape of my childhood; Southern Indiana is flat and landlocked. We had lakes and rivers, but those have visible boundaries. And don’t smell of salt.
As for growing up in the 1970s and 1980s: I remember the heart-pounding anxiety of calling a boy and hoping his mother didn’t answer the phone. I miss receiving letters, but I don’t miss busy signals. Technology still throws me a little for a loop, although that could just be part of my personality. I’m torn between appreciating the convenience of cell phones and being bothered by always being reachable. I harbor nostalgia for a simpler time, but who doesn’t?
8. You have $100 that you must spend on yourself by the end of the day. What do you buy?
A really fancy lunch and some books.
9. Pick any three objects or people to be stranded with you in a lost spaceship.
Dave, Ralphie, and a fully loaded Kindle. (Dave would also have a fully loaded Kindle and its charger in his pockets.)
10. What’s your favorite piece of music and why?
Beethoven’s Third Symphony. I love Beethoven, especially the boomy symphonies. My dad introduced me to the third symphony and we used to pretend to conduct it together. That’s a fond memory.
11. Pantser or plotter?
Pantser all the way. I never know where a story is going until I’m several drafts in.
And here are my questions for Jessica Grey, baseball aficionada and author of modern day fairy tales; Kristen Falso Capaldi, singer, songwriter, screenwriter, and all around cool lady; and Callie Armstrong, writer of hauntingly beautiful stories and bad ass Mama:
1. What was your favorite game when you were a child?
2. What is your favorite game now?
3. List five fantasy professions (besides full-time writer).
4. What is your perfect day like?
5. What is the first thing you ever wrote? Did you share it with anyone?
6. What name would you choose for yourself if you needed a new identity?
7. Where is the farthest place you have been from your home?
8. Where do you write?
9. Are you a morning person or a night owl?
10. If you could live anywhere in the world, where would that be and why?
11. Spike or Angel? (alternate question: Mr. Knightley or Captain Wentworth?) Feel free to answer both!
bethdeitchman 