Hey guys! Happy New Year’s Eve! Today, I present to you another tag because I want to get them all done before the end of the year and bec...

Tag: A Writer’s Thoughts

Alexa Mintah

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Hey guys! Happy New Year’s Eve! Today, I present to you another tag because I want to get them all done before the end of the year and because I have no time to come up with anything else to post.

Anyways.

I was tagged for this by the lovely Zielle from Writer’s Library! Thanks so much, Zielle!

Ze Rules

1. Tag 1 or more bloggers to do the tag.

2. Post a comment on their blog telling them you’ve tagged them or send them a message.

3. Copy these rules into your tag post.

4. Tag back to Zielle (she doesn’t obligate you to, but I do, so there)

5. Include the above picture in your post.

How long have you been writing? Why did you start writing?

Settle back, dear readers. It’s...

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I want you to relax, take a deep breath, and let your mind drift way... way back to the far-off year of 2004, when I was but a wee child of six. My mother gave me my very first set of paper dolls, and I kept them in a little shoebox house and played with them all the time. I gave them names and I gave them stories, and those three little dolls, with their cute paper faces and the stupid little tabs on the clothes that never ever worked, were some of my very best friends.

A short time after, I took the story I made up for them, wrote it down, and worked on it off and on for a whopping five or six years. Now just to be clear, this doesn’t mean that I sat down and I worked on it every single day from the time I was six till I was eleven or twelve. No, what I did was work on it relentlessly for a few weeks, then forget it existed for months, randomly remember, and run back to it, editing the story line, tweaking bits here and there, building on the story until I imagined it was publishable (yeah, I was cute). I also got into Star Wars fanfiction around the age of 10, because I'd just seen the prequels and I hated the fact that there was exactly one main female character. So obviously, the only thing to do was to add a few of my own.

Extra fun facts: I am still (sort of) working on the Star Wars fanfic, and, though I don’t intend to use the paper doll story for anything, the plot is actually very similar to my novel, Low Expectations. So I guess some stories just stay with you. ;)

Anyways, for the TL; DR people: I’ve been writing off and on since I was about 6. And I started writing because, for as long as I remember, characters, whether mine or someone else’s, have always been important to me

What is your strategy? How do you write your story and form your characters?

Haha, strategy? What is this “strategy”? My only strategy is write like a madwoman, fake it till I make it, and to later edit the story till I have reached the very edge of my sanity. In fact, I have actually started stories with nothing but two sentences of an idea and just wung it from there. So yeah. I hardly know what this “strategy” thing is.

Have you ever had your novel/story/poem published?

I had a poem published in Creative Communications’, A Celebration of Poets - Spring 2014. But besides that, nope.

How would you describe yourself in one or two words? Why?

Ooh, making me think, are you? Hmm... I think I’ll go for the words “beautiful paradox,” and this isn’t me being conceited. Without getting into too much detail, it’s taken a long time for me to be able to accept myself for who I am and not try to be someone else (in fact, I’m still working on it). So yeah, describing myself as a beautiful paradox is a way of accepting that yes, I am unfathomable and unpredictable and insane and complicated and I stand on both sides of almost every contradiction, but that is my personality and it’s still beautiful. :)

Why do you write?

Because I need it to survive.

Haha, that might not be exactly true, but I write because... I don’t know, because I love it. It’s this deep desire that’s always been hidden inside my soul. Even when I was chasing a million other professions, I’ve always loved writing, and I’ve always come back to it. I write because... because I am a writer, and I do believe I was born that way.

What inspires you?

Everything.

Seriously, everything. For me, inspiration can be found literally anywhere, from the random rabbit trails my brain runs down to something a sibling says to a scene in a movie or a random sign on the side of the street. Inspiration is literally all around us.

If you could, would you read 5 books in a day, or 10? Oooohhh….Or more?

Um... is this even a real question? OF COURSE I WOULD. WOULDN’T EVERY HARDCORE BOOKWORM???

What do you suggest to other budding writers?

Write. Write like crazy. Don’t worry about what others will think or if it’s any good or do your characters suck or ohmygosh is that a plothole or a sinkhole swallowing the entire story? Just write, write like no is watching, and deal with the rest later. I promise you, editing exists, and besides, you don’t have to let anyone see your writing if you don’t want to. Your story is yours, and you’re the only one who can write it. So put a pen to paper (or fingers to the keyboard) and get started. :)

What kind of genres do you prefer?

I can enjoy almost every genre under the sun, but my favorites are generally fantasy and sci-fi: anything that’s a little (or extremely) weird or a little (or extremely) out of this world.

***

And that’s the tag! Thank you so much, Zielle, for tagging me!

For my part, I tag Koko, Bailey, and Tori. Don’t feel obligated to do it, but if you want to, here it is. :)

So what genres do you enjoy? You staying up till 12 tonight? What’s the highest number of books you’ve ever read in a day? I think for me... two. *sighs* I really need to just take an entire day to read and see how far I can get. Anyways, please answer one of my questions or one of the ones in the tag, and I will see you (next year) in the comment section! :D

PS: I almost forgot to tell you guys, but my blogoversary is next week!!! *insert cheers and confetti and chocolate and cake and chocolate cake* One of the things I’ll be doing is a Q and A, so if you have any questions for me (anything from “what’s your story about?” to “how many siblings do you have?” to “do you have a favorite dinosaur, and if you could take a ride on it to another century, when would you go?”), put them in the comments, and I will do my best to answer them. :) Ciao!

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