Questions Meme

[keilexandra]

1. Leave me a casual comment of no particular significance, like a lyric to your current favorite song, or your favorite kind of sandwich, maybe your favorite game. Any remark, meaningless or not.
2. I will respond by asking you five personal questions so I can get to know you better.
3. Update your LJ with the answers to the questions.
4. Include this explanation and offer to ask someone else in your own post.
5. When others respond with a desultory comment, you will ask them five questions.

I would like to add that if you aren't on my friends list, please comment with a link to your post once you do the meme.

Questions from yhlee:

1. What is your favorite historical novel?
In purely historical, I'd say Empress Orchid by Anchee Min. If historical fantasy counts, then Lord of Emperors by Guy Gavriel Kay (also my favorite book ever).

2. What is one of the best things about Achaea?
The people! Seriously, I love how I can meet people from all over the world who I'd never have known otherwise, from Australia to nearby Pennsylvania. The social aspect is what keeps me playing.

3. Zoo or aquarium?
Er, neither? XD Not into animals much. If I have to answer though, I'd say zoo because they have pandas.

4. What is the neatest thing about Chinese?
Assuming you mean Mandarin: the verbs. No conjugation, and tenses are ridiculously easy.

5. Best food on a summer evening?
Watermelon!

Comments

[yhlee.livejournal.com]

Coolness! (I couldn't remember which form of Chinese you spoke. :-D)

Empress Orchid is indeed of the awesome.

Interview me, if you like!

[keilexandra]

1. When did you start playing the viola?

2. What was your first short story sale?

3. Why did you decide to attend Cornell?

4. What is your favorite fantasy novel?

5. How cute is the lizard, in your humble opinion? ;)

[sarahbrand.livejournal.com]

My favorite kind of sandwich is the Pepperblue Steak sandwich that Panera doesn't carry anymore. T_T But a ham and cheese sandwich warmed up in the oven is very nice, too.

[keilexandra]

1. How did you originally find out about Alpha?

2. When did you decide to start seriously writing, i.e. toward eventual publication?

3. What's the best part of living in Tennessee?

4. What is your favorite short story (by other people, published or unpublished)?

5. In one paragraph, what is your current working novel about?

[diatryma.livejournal.com]

I do these to distract myself from actual work and its attendant anxiety.

[keilexandra]

1. How did you name your cat?

2. Have you sent out any stories since August 2nd?

3. What was your first published short story about, and what made it unique?

4. What made you decide to pursue a biology degree?

5. Have you ever met in real life a (non-Alphan) person who you originally met through the Internet, and if so, details?

[lordubiquitous.livejournal.com]

My mind is so blank, I cannot even think up a quirky thing to say. Therefore... erm... I like cashews, and shinys.

[keilexandra]

1. How many countries in the world have you set foot in, and what are they?

2. Who is your favorite character from STRANGER THAN FICTION? [Mine is the crazy author.]

3. How did you think of the handle 'lordubiquitous'?

4. Are you returning to Alpha next year/sometime in the future?

5. How much do you love your dear sister?

[remarknj.livejournal.com]

My favorite panera meal is half a chicken salad sandwich and half a chicken cesar salad just because it's a tongue-twister.

[keilexandra]

I've never been to Panera. Pity, that. Their food sounds good.

1. What is your favorite city/location/place in the United States?

2. What, metaphorically, is your muse?

3. What is your favorite book ever?

4. How many (first) cousins do you have?

5. How did you find out about Alpha? [repeat question, I know, but my imagination is failing me]

[fairfeather.livejournal.com]

"And we woke at dawn
and watched the sun glide over the hill" (A Light on a Hill).

[keilexandra]

1. What is your favorite poem?

2. What is your favorite non-speculative novel?

3. What species of bird is in your icon?

4. Have you ever cosplayed a spunky red-haired heroine? [:D]

5. How do you come up with story ideas, in general (or give a specific example)?

[cachinna.livejournal.com]

"Too many roads were open... I took... By far, the simplest of them all. I decided to be, in every matter, always, admirable!" ~Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rostand (translated into English, I forget by whom)
"When you obtain a talisman of great worth, you should exchange it quickly for a bag of beans. Protection is nothing like as valuable as climbing to the sky." ~Tough Guide to Fantasyland by Diana Wynne Jones
"And in that moment, I swear we were infinite." ~The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky

[keilexandra]

1. What specific worlds (if any) do you build and use in your writing?

2. What entry of the Tough Guide do you violate the most?

3. If you lived in Regency England, would you be a wallflower?

4. What is your favorite fruit?

5. What fictional character do you most admire?

[diatryma.livejournal.com]

1) Patina is named Patina because the animal shelter here has a website, on which they name all the available animals. I stalked cats via that website well before I was allowed to have one. Patina was one of the first ones I noticed, though not when I went there the first time-- she hadn't gotten out of the cage and into the free-range kitty room at that point. I couldn't think of a better thing to call her once I had her, and I'd been thinking of her as Patina for months already, so Patina she is. However, it is Patina to rhyme with Mackinac, not Christina-- so really, I did change her name. I'm one of very few people to use that pronunciation, and have in fact been corrected or asked if I knew that 'patina' meant the coating on metals.
Furnace Butt was the first of her many nicknames, because she sleeps against my pillow and radiates heat like it's her job. Squeaktoy and Squawker describe her tendency to talk and make noises when she jumps. The Catina is her title, because I like the sound of it and 'the cat' is not exactly right for her.

2) No, dammit.

3) Okay. When I was ten or so, American Girl Magazine started up. Because I adored the books, I had a subscription. Early on, they had a fiction contest. The winner was a ghost story about a creek or other flowing water with a blonde, drowned ghost; the main character, a dark-haired girl, tried to pull her out and was pulled in instead, and the beginning was restated with a brunette ghost instead.
So. "Undine", published in Realms of Fantasy in May of 2006-- I turned 22, had Senior Walk, graduated, and found copies of my first story all in the same indescribably awesome week, and only a little after my research honors defense and other coolness-- is my response to that. It has a water girl who pulls others in to replace herself. It also has an unhappy replacement and a girl who wants nothing more than to be part of the water. I would say its uniqueness is that it is a story written during college (and late high school) that is directly related to something I read when I was ten or eleven.
A lot of my stories are like that, actually. I steal like an idea-stealing thing.

4) There was a Disney TV show called Gargoyles that aired in syndication just at the right time for breakfast during... sixth grade? Fifth and sixth, let's say. Besides being recognizably SFF, though at that point I hadn't solidified by name, it had a plotline in which humans could be turned into gargoyle-esque creatures. Wings, tails, claws, fangs, cat eyes, the works. I decided I wanted to be able to do that, and in fact would have said well into college that I was going into genetics because I wanted to learn to regrow limbs and develop new ones.
I want wings.
In addition, biology was and is a science I don't have to work for. The relationships have not been quantified as much as in other disciplines. It's a lot of etymology, if you like that sort of thing, and you get to play with animals (and dissect them). Pipetting is relaxing under the right circumstances. My classes were almost universally of a type I can do very, very well-- attend, take a lot of notes, periodically repeat them onto your own paper. I can do that. That is my academic niche, it seems.
Still. Wings.

5) You know Alpha's sort of a continuation of an Internet meet-up?
That's how I know Diane. She moderated a writer's board for years, we got all close, and then a guy decided to come over from Wales, and there was meetment. I didn't come to that one. I'd already met Diane at the 2001 Worldcon in Philadelphia, along with other Inkspotters.
If you don't count things Diane is involved in, it's still yes. Livejournal is a major aspect of my social life. People talk about books. People write books. If you follow an author's journal, sometimes you find out they're coming to a con near you. Then you go, and you meet them, and it is awesome or not. Cherie Priest is a wonderful person (look in my journal around Memorial Day 2006 for evidence, if hers isn't enough). Catherynne Valente is astonishingly cool. I don't think it's possible to be active online and in fandom and *not* meet people you previously knew only through the wires.
And if that's not enough, we have Diane.

[diatryma.livejournal.com]

also: I posted here because I think I've babbled on about some of this, but can't remember when.

[lady-puck9999.livejournal.com]

i need an email! I never was able to gather the alphan emails in one spot.

[diatryma.livejournal.com]

Did you get Julie's email with the spreadsheet and everything?

[keilexandra]

It's this same username at gmail.