Dear Memoirs,

Today, I have some news! I have been tagged by the wonderful blogger Kenzie for the Get to Know Me Tag!

Now, I was already tagged to do this tag in the past (hence why this is tape two), but talk about perfect timing-right before I start up this new blog!

So the way the rules of this tag are:

• link back to the blogger who created this tag . . . that would be Savannah!
• thank the wonderful blogger who tagged you . . . Kenzie! Thank you so much for tagging me! ❤
• share the tag graphic . . . That’s up there ^.
• tag eleven other bloggers . . . well maybe not eleven, but…

And that’s it! Now with the boring rules out of the way, let’s get right into the tag!

— STATS AND APPEARANCE —

NAME: Anna.

NICKNAME: IRL, I don’t have a nickname (not…really? I have a few silly ones my siblings call me either to annoy me or just…to be creative but…) but in the writerly world…I’m known as Cricket. Yeah.

BIRTHDAY: October 11.

HAIR COLOR/LENGTH: Here’s the thing: My hair is brown, but on the edges/tips (especially in the summer), the brown melts into really light brown, so it’s sort of a brown/light brown. And the length of my hair is always about five inches below the tops of my shoulders.

EYE COLOR: Blue.

BRACES/PIERCINGS/TATTOOS: Not at the moment. Although I did have braces once upon a time.

RIGHTY OR LEFTY: Lefty!

ETHNICITY: White. Caucasian. American. ¼ Scottish. Teensy French. Smidgen Native American. Is…is that enough?

— FIRSTS —

FIRST NOVEL WRITTEN: Hmmm… well, I’m assuming that means first story written, as in first writing project you remember writing that you didn’t finish, so I guess that would be…this story I wrote about a boy and his friend who time-traveled into the future (is that…even humanly possible? Like…that’s not even able to be done, even if time-traveling was a thing. My brain at that point in my life…it…yeah) and lands in Scotland. It was amateur, in short. 😛

FIRST NOVEL COMPLETED: The Road Divided 1. Also known as the first of only two novels I’ve completed. As some of you may know, the book follows the life of a girl who is fighting to survive against many foes in a world which has been drastically changed. She’s also, unbeknownst to her, trying to find the reason the world changed.

AWARD FOR WRITING: There has only been one of these, which I won about two/three years ago. I entered a short story in a Scholastics Art and Writing Awards’ writing categories and won a gold key for the Northeast region! I honestly do not understand why that story got anything at all, it was really bad. XD

FIRST PUBLICATION: I wish I had one of these, but sadly I don’t. But maybe this will change in a few years!

CONFERENCE: And since my last Get to Know You! tag, I haven’t done one of these, so this is still a no.

QUERY/PITCH: Again, I haven’t done one of these either. I probably should though.

— FAVORITES —

NOVEL (that you wrote): Definitely The Road Divided 2, Endings of Beginnings. Even though Book 1, Beginnings of Endings, is very near and dear to me because it’s the first longish story I’ve ever completed in my life, it has a lot of issues with it. And I mean a lot. In fact, I’m in the process of going through it (for what, the fourth time?) and completely rewriting it from the beginning to either the end or somewhere in the middle. So not only do I like the second book because the first book isn’t working out, but also because I like the plotline a lot better than the first one. There’s a lot more excitement, a lot more cohesion, and the plot really flows together well.

GENRE: Anything that is exciting, has a good plotline, and is entertaining. Oh yes—and doesn’t fall under the category of romance.

AUTHOR: Whenever I answer this, I feel a little guilty. XD I haven’t been acquainted with a whole lot of different authors, something which I should probably work on, so my favorite is still Conan Doyle. Conan Doyle will probably always be my favorite author no matter how many others I read, so maybe my lack of author knowledge isn’t such a bad thing after all.

WRITING MUSIC: This varies widely, depending on mood, what I’m writing about, where I’m writing in my story, and what emotion I want to be feeling while writing. But I would say usually I like listening to epic movie film scores (Interstellar, POTC, Inception…a lot of music Hans Zimmer/John Williams produces). I fluctuate a lot between dramatic/epic and really depressing and sad tear-jerking music tastes while I’m writing.

TIME TO WRITE: Early morningish and possibly late night. Really, anytime when the house is quiet and I can write with no distractions at all is ideal.

WRITING SNACK/DRINK: I actually try not to eat/drink anything while writing on my computer because of the mess and risk of spilling something and permanently damaging my computer. However, if I drink something, it’s usually juice with some seltzer, and maybe some chips like Doritos or tortilla chips (which completely make a mess of my hands and then I don’t want to touch my keyboard).

MOVIE: This is so tough…there’s a lot of good movies out there. Christopher Robin is the most recent movie I’ve watched that I really really liked. Maybe it’s because I grew up reading the Winnie the Pooh books and so I’ve always enjoyed them, but it was also just a really great family movie. Oh, another semi-recent movie I’ve watched that I enjoyed was the newest Mission Impossible movie.

WRITING MEMORY: There are quite a few of these. Writing in the summer up in our treehouse, sharing my first Camp Nano cabin with some of my best friends, trying (and quite promptly failing) to write a joint story with my sister and childhood best friend over email about these colonial American girls who got caught in an Indian attack…? Maybe? we didn’t actually get that far into the story but that’s where it looked like it was heading… But I think one of the most important memories was the time my older brother and I were driving home from a holiday party at our grandparents, and I started telling him about this new story idea I had (which later became the Road Divided), and together we just sort of hashed the whole story out in the car. He had some great advice for where to take the story (I was particularly struggling at that point with even how to write the story, like whether it should be a retelling of something that had happened in the MCs past as if it was some recounting she had written in her journal, or how to introduce certain characters, etc.), and really during that ride we practically made the Road Divided what it is today. Later on, I asked my sisters and mom (have you been able to tell yet how awesome my family is? They really made my life a lot easier and gave me lots of great help during this first draft process!) for some help with other major problems that came up, but it was really important and crucial to get the main structure of the story down right at the beginning, so I’m really thankful to my brother for that conversation we had that night and really treasure the memory!

CHILDHOOD BOOK: Favorite childhood book… there have been too many of these to pick a favorite.

— CURRENTLY —

WRITING: I’m actually not really writing anything right now. Which is probably a bad idea. However I will start up Camp April with trying to continue my…what…fourth? draft of Road Divided 1. And hopefully I might be able to also squeeze in some editing of my new short story, The Man in the Doorway (which I have become very disenchanted with lately).

LISTENING TO: Piano Guys… I haven’t really been listening to much lately.

WATCHING: …Nothing? I mean, we did go through this phase of watching Fixer Upper, which ended recently, and then also started watching this old TV show called Gomer Pyle, so I guess those could count, even though I’m not really currently watching either.

LEARNING: How to balance school with writing, friends, blogging, writing…and everything else that constitutes a life outside school which is…quite a thin slice of the pie. I’m also failing quite miserably at that balancing act, so the learning isn’t going so well right now. 😛

— FUTURE —

WANT TO BE PUBLISHED: Yes!! I’ve always cherished the dream of someday having a published book (or two!) of my very own to set on my bookshelf and thumb through.

INDIE OR TRADITIONAL: Probably traditional. Although who knows? I might just find that going indie is easier and do that!

WILDEST GOAL: To see Road Divided made into a movie sometime in the future would have to be my wildest, craziest goal. But getting published is a wild goal already, so I thiink one wild goal is enough for now.

And that’s it! Thank you again, Kenzie, for nominating me! Tags are always such fun to do, and this was a great way to start off my new blog!

Now for the tagging…:

Kinsey

Bunny

Anna (we share the same first name!)

Penny

Gracie

Cowboyman

Alright, that wraps it up! Until next time…!

loverofwriting2