10 Honest Things

A tag from Q.

Ten honest things about me:

1. I'm really good with fonts. Show me a font, and I can tell you what it is. This is one of those strange, weird, but surprisingly useful talents of mine.

2. I don't like writing formally. I can do it, and bear it sometimes, but I don't like sincerelys very much.

3. I think friends are royally amazing.

4. I apologize (even if it's meaningless) a lot. (Possible influence for book title?)

5. I love raw vegetables -- lettuce, green bell peppers, snap peas...I could go on for a long long time.

6. I am really slow at compiling the response for this tag.

7. Good books put me in a good mood. Usually, that good mood isn't broken at all until the next morning.

8. I personally find this layout to be super-attractive. As well as that post on bread. :)

9. I'm too critical of myself when I'm writing prose. I'll criticize every word and make sure it sounds okay. I've gotten better at it now, but I still do it way too much. That's probably why it takes me forever to write prose...but when I edit as I go along, I'm always happy with what I've written.

10. Over the last few months, I've become skilled in the art of chatting-with-more-than-one-person-simultaneously.

February Sunsets

The sky was rose and blue and golden-yellow, all at the same time, distinct colors in their individual stripes, when I opened the window and let the breeze flutter in. It was a little breezy, a little cold.

I didn’t mind the cold – I liked how it blew the strands of my brown hair around my face, brushed against my cheeks. The sunset was too pretty to miss, especially on a worry-free Friday. The weekend stretched ahead of me, short but promising, enough time to finish anything and everything for class, wander around town, find someone to talk to and spend my Sunday afternoon with. It was all there.

Figuring Out Where I Am

Today, the sun is bright, I'm writing and dancing to Taylor Swift's "Fifteen." Happy days...

The prose pages flipping by as fingers type out words and words. The pencils, the book with the blonde girl on the front.

The day has started out cold, sleepy, unhappy. The maps are lost -- we have nowhere to go but here. Trapped within walls, we trudge around the house, wandering, living our own separate paper lives.*

*The phrase "paper lives" is excerpted from Paper Towns, John Green.

Whatever

I stop to listen.

The wind rambles on and on

about

whatever.

When The Days Roll By

The stripes find their colors.

Happiness is Contagious

Spread the joy.

What's making me happy right now:

-all the gifts I've been given from God

-amazing friends -- or at least people who pretend to be my friends

-people who are willing to add me on Goodreads

-"alone time"

-music -- Maribeth, it's partly your fault, but I'm addicted to music anyway :)

-gorgeous sunrises and sunsets that I get to see and write about

My Story

It was late April, 2008. The sun was out, and four of us were standing in a studio. The window opposite us betrayed thin, nearly-bare trees. I leaned on a table and listened to the woman I regarded as my art teacher (and still do).

What do you want to do? she asked me, and I said, Write. That one word set the wheels in motion.

Why not publish? Live your dream.

I found gifts that day. The best being Katherine Grace Bond.

That day, I came home, and though I didn't know it, I was on a roller coaster ride that wasn't going to end.

On May 5th, Katherine showed up at our house. It was only uphill from there.

Revisions, revisions, more revisions, a publisher acceptance (and months) later, the manuscript for "Apologies to an Apple" was ready to go, complete with endorsements. In December, the manuscript was gone and we only had to wait.

February 7th, and I was holding hundreds of copies.