Saturday, May 24, 2008

Tag, you're it

I feel about memes about the same as I feel about chain letters. I try not to pass them on. But I was memmed by my friend, author, Jana McBurney-Lin, author of My Half of the Sky, which is about to come out in paperback. This is a great book club read, so get your copy. You can read the answers to her questions at her blog: http://www.myhalfofthesky.blogspot.com/

Why not? It's a way to get to know people a little bit better. Here we go:

What were you doing ten years ago?
I was taking classes to figure out what to do with my life. I’d recently moved to CA and was ready for a change. In the class, we were instructed to cut out pictures from magazines and collage our fantasy life. How very Californian, I thought. Mine was all about a quilt shop I would open. Plenty of fabric, fab teachers, cute displays. But then, waaayyy down in the corner, in the teeniest, tiniest spot was the cover of a mystery novel I’d written. This was a bit of a surprise to me. I’d thought I’d laid that particular dream to rest in the late eighties. As I was making the collage, I knew I didn’t want to open a quilt shop at all. The teacher said that might happen, that you might find out what you don’t want to do. It took me a few more years of looking at that tiny cover to get up the courage to begin to write Wild Goose Chase, but that was the seed.

What are five things on your to-do list today ?
Blog at Inkspot, the Midnight Ink Author site http://midnightwriters.blogspot.com/
Send out ARCs of Stamped Out.
Experiment with blueprint fabric to use as a clue
Write a new scene for Ocean Waves, the next in the Quilting Mystery series
Clean up sewing room

What snacks do you enjoy?
Eat between meals? MOI? I don’t think so. Actually, all my meals are between meals. I’m particularly fond of Starbucks lattes, and the occasional original coffee cake.

What would you do if you were a billionaire?
Travel. Build a huge quilting studio and fly all my friends in to sew when I get back from the traveling. Feed people who don’t have enough. Endow a scholarship for people who want to write and sew.

What are three of your bad habits?
Biting my nails
Reading instead of writing
Not entering in my check register when I use the ATM card, so at the end of the month, I have to force the balance, and own up that I spent $234 more than I thought. Every month!

Who have you tagged?

I’m tagging the rest of my Killer Hobbies team:
Play if you want to!

7 comments:

Camille Minichino said...

Oh no, now I've been tagged In Public, so how can I ignore it as I usually do. Thanks a lot, Terri.

On the other hand, this gives me an excuse to talk about myself by pretending to be forced to ...
AND it gives me a blog topic for Tuesday.

Or is that cheating? Where are the rules for tag??

Kathryn Lilley said...

Hah! I'll subject everyone to my answers here and now:

* Doing ten years ago?
I was on a photo safari in Africa. It was the best trip I ever took. I loved every second of it.

* Five things on today's to-do list?
1) Finish scene for MAKEOVERS CAN BE MURDER, the third book in the Fat City Mystery series.
2) Pay some bills. Sigh.
3) Walk along the ocean, my favorite activity.
4) Finish organizing the paper stack that's been piling up on the end chair, far enough away so that I can usually ignore it. Who knows what lurks in there? Money? Doubtful.
5) Do 200 sit-ups. (This is a daily to-do that I invariably fail to actually do).

* Fave snacks?
1) Frozen yogurt, Snickers flavor, low-fat (of course)!
2) See's candy, which I only allow myself to sample when I happen to be in the mall, which means frequently.

* What would I do as billionaire?
1) Help my family more. I would buy my mother a beautiful house, and hire full-time, live-in help for her.
2) Donate big-time to the research into curing leukemia.
3) Donate big-time to the ASPCA
4) Become an unapologetic "cat lady," and say 'f**k you' to anyone who dares to criticize me for it.

* Three bad habits?
1) Picking up a conversation minutes after it ended, and jumping back in with a comment as if it hadn't. This tends to startle and confuse people, until they remember what we were talking about.
2) Mis-hearing words and assuming people have said something strange, and then I try to formulate a reasonable reply to something they didn't say, causing more confusion.
3) Joking too much. People don't know when I'm actually saying something serious.

I shall now tag all my friends from Wellesley who are not planning to show up for our class reunion, where my book is being featured. Fickle Friends, you know who you are. Bw-a-a-ha-ha!

Anonymous said...

Terri, I never heard the collage story. That's so great. And how long have we "typed" together, and I never knew you chewed your nails!

Um, but shouldn't that huge quilting studio be a quilting/WRITING studio? :)

Linda O. Johnston said...

Okay, I'll do it:

What were you doing ten years ago?
I'd already left my full-time in-house law job. Yikes, it's been that long already! That means, I was writing paranormal romances and doing individual law projects for my former employer. My kids weren't adults then, so I also played mom to them. And of course I had a couple of Cavalier King Charles Spaniels to mother, too.

What are five things on your to-do list today?
1. Write! I've spent a lot of time on related things to writing (like this) but haven't gotten around to working on my current project, a Silhouette Nocturne about a woman with Valkyrie powers.
2. Write!
3. Write!
4. Read a non-fiction book I've been meaning to get to for a week.
5. Shop for something to wear at my future d-i-l's bridal shower.

What snacks do you enjoy?
Anything chocolate, especially Trader Joe's Cats cookies, and ice cream.

What would you do if you were a billionaire?
Probably not a lot different from what I'm doing now, but give more to the charities and others I'm helping than I already do. Not that I'm really an altruist. But I write because I love it, and work because it's fun (sometimes), and already travel probably more than I should.

What are three of your bad habits?
Nothing I'd admit to here!!!

But I still don't understand what meem means!

--Linda

Kathryn Lilley said...

After spending a supremely unproductive day yesterday, I need to add one more thing to my list of bad habits: spending way too much time online watching goofy videos, like "Techno Kitties" that I found on Yahoo/YouTube:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=B_ish4Kf2T4

countrygarden said...

i love the collage exercise, have done one myself, but it was mostly for design purposes and color blending. very fun. ten years ago i was in the middle of getting an art degree and raising two little ones! I haven't any read quilting mysteries yet, anxious to check them out.

Jaye said...

I bite my nails as well. It isn't really biting - just a little nibble to get the ripping started. Sigh!