This was originally posted here by blogger inspiredbyabook, and she encouraged everyone to partake so I shall in addition to paying the encouragement forward.  Please feel free to use and/or reblog 🙂

1. Do you get sick while reading in the car?
Thankfully, no, but it’s been a long time since I’ve had the opportunity to read in the car. I’m either usually driving or not going far enough to immerse myself into words. I read more in cars before I could drive and used to read profusely when I regularly took public transportation many, many years ago.

2. Which author’s writing style is completely unique to you and why?
My favorite author right now is the amazing George R R Martin. I love the incongruence between his lush, gorgeous style and the often horrors and gore he pens. I’m a lover of irony and try to mimic such a paradigm in my own writing. There’s also of course the indomitable Anne Rice who manages to perfectly display the nature of humanity using non-human characters. I’ve heard critiques about her being an elitist, and not only do I not care if she is, I revel in it. I love how seemingly over dramatic her characters can be, how they feel everything so intensely. She’s been a favorite of mine since the long gone days of high school. The accusations of her over descriptiveness is also something I can relate to.

3. Harry Potter Series or the Twilight Saga? Give 3 points to defend your answer.
Oh my God, there’s not even a contest: Harry Potter. I could go off on a diatribe about why I would never pick Twilight even if my life or the world depended on it, but Laci Green does such a fantastic job of it, that I’ll just leave this here.

Now that that unpleasantness is out of the way, here are my three defending points not that I really think I need them after the above. I’m going to attempt to keep my Twilight hate to a minimum and focus on lauding Harry Potter as opposed to tearing down the other.
1. Harry Potter is a series about friendship and love triumphing over death. If that’s not a lesson you think is important, then we have very different values.

2. HP has one of the best female characters in literature, Hermione Granger, who showed a generation of girls and young women that it is okay to be smart and outspoken. Bleeding into real life we have the wonderful Emma Watson who does things like this.

3. JK Rowling is a bad ass with a witty twitter presence and no fear of calling out bullshit.

4.Do you carry a book bag?
Not since college.

5. Do you smell your books?
There are people who don’t do this?  There’s actually a reason they smell so good, explained here.

6. Books with or without little illustrations?
I kind of like an illustration at the beginning of a chapter, but that seems to be something only done with YA books like His Dark Materials.  I attempted to do something with my Northern Lights (which I know keep shamelessly plugging, but what else is a blog for, guys :)).  I can deal with no illustrations though since I do have a pretty good imaginations, but it’s nice to get a visual for what the author was thinking or rather how their thoughts were interpreted by the illustrator if they are not one and the same.

7. What book did you love while reading but discovered later it wasn’t quality writing?
When I was in high school I read this book called Felidae, which is about a cat detective and eugenics (yup, you read that right).  The big bad was the equivalent of a cat Hitler (Kitler!)

When I went back to read it as an adult though, I found the writing to be so clunky and inelegant I was shocked I’d been able to get through it in the first place. However, it appears that as writing styles evolve so do our tastes in reading. I have to consider that it might be a translation issue as the author is German and the story was written in his native tongue.

8. Do you have any funny stories involving books from your childhood? Please share!
Besides the fact that I used to sneak books up to my room to read when I should be sleeping, but what bibliophile can’t lay claim to that?

9. What is the thinnest book on your shelf?
My graphic novel of The Hobbit.

If we’re going with a book book though it would be The Book of Angels.

10. What is the thickest book on your shelf?
The Land of Painted Caves by Jean M Auel

For a book I actually finished from a series I still enjoy that would be A Dance with Dragons by George R R Martin.

11. Do you write as well as read? Do you see yourself in the future as being an author?
Dear god I hope so. I do have one short story published, but as it’s in a very obscure international journal it really doesn’t bear mentioning here. I hope to be a legitimate author some day, and while I think I’m fairly decent, I have serious confidence issues that have been compounded by numerous rejections. Once upon a time I wrote a full length novel and attempted to find an agent. That attempt ended in dust, the Narcissist fell into a deep depression spiral that didn’t (partially) lift until after she’d gained a shit ton of weight (which let me tell you, didn’t help the depression). This is why I decided to go back to my semi-roots of writing fanfiction since there aren’t really any gatekeepers to that particular art. Anyway, enough of my life story. I hope to be an author some day. It’ll validate my life. We’ll leave it at that.

12. When did you get into reading?
I started reading at the age of three and never stopped.

13. What is your favorite classic book?
I haven’t read it yet, but I have to say John Milton’s Paradise Lost.

It has such a momentous effect on the zeitgeist that it’s impossible to ignore. It’s also very easy to use its symbolism and paradigms without even realizing you’re doing so because they’re so pervasive. Essentially, it’s a fanfiction of the Bible. Think about it. If you still disagree with my terminology than read this.

14. In school was your best subject Language Arts/English?
Yes and no. I was one of those really intelligent kids who didn’t always do well. I loved to read/write, but I wanted to do it on my own terms. If I had to write something I had no passion for, it was very difficult for me to garner enough interest to make a convincing argument, and I would just skim assigned books I found boring if I bothered to glance at them at all.

15. If you were given a book as a present that you had read before and hated…what would you do?
This is why god created the concept of re-gifting or library donation.

16. What is a lesser known series that you know of that is similar to Harry Potter or the Hunger Games?
What a weird/random question lol. Maybe Prospero’s Children?

That has the whole idea about special powers, but that’s really the only similarity between it and Harry Potter. It’s also not YA. It’s a fantastic series though that I highly recommend.

17. What is a bad habit you always do (besides rambling) while filming?
Well I don’t film so this question is N/A for me 🙂

18. What is your favorite word?
Ooooh what a phenomenal question. There are quite a few, and I have a Pinterest Board dedicated to this. There’s vade mecum, which is more of a concept than a word.

Sehnsuct is another one that’s more concept.

But if I had to pick an actual word…I can’t pick just one. There’s juxtaposition, susurrous, incongruent, soliloquy to just name a few. I was trying to access my favorites on my dictionary app, but alas they are no longer there.

19. Are you a nerd, dork, or dweeb? Or all of the above?
I am both a nerd and a dork, though I try to keep it hidden.  I am rarely successful.

20. Vampires or Fairies? Why?
Vampires. Beautiful and dangerous is how I like to play although fairies fit that bill in truth, as well. It’s only fairly recently that they were relegated to fluttering nitwits. Real fairies were far more magnificent.

21. Shapeshifters or Angels? Why?
Wow, easiest answer ever. Angels without a doubt. I am obsessed with angels and have been since the age of five. I’ve been studying them for about that long and have read numerous books on their background and manifestation. If you think angels are like Precious Moments

you do not know anything about angels. I haven’t watched Supernatural (yet), but Castiel pretty much nails the nature of angels on the head, nor do I think he’d remotely entertain that question about how many could fit on the head of a pin.

Dean: I thought angels were supposed to be guardians. Fluffy wings, halos — You know, Michael Landon. Not dicks.
Castiel: Read the Bible. Angels are warriors of God. I’m a soldier.

Speaking of angels being soldiers…yeah, so my favorite “angel” may be from pop culture, may just have one wing, may have worse mommy issues than I do, may be the stand in for Lucifer/Satan, but goddamn is he beautiful, and the underlying layers to his name and nature make me want to throw SquareSoft a party…if they hadn’t been co-opted by fucking Squeenix.

22. Spirits or Werewolves? Why?
Spirits because you “can’t stop the spirits when they need you. This life is more than just a read through.” No but seriously I’m not a huge fan of werewolves. I’m sure I’d be better inclined towards them if I read Anne Rice’s The Wolf Gift because I love Anne Rice, but Twilight (again) leaves a sour taste in my mouth. With vampires I have Anne Rice again to fall back on, but my other werewolf example is Laurell K Hamilton’s Anita Blake Series and Richard, and he was such a goddamn goody two shoes. Spirits on the other hand could really be anything so I’ll take that variety over something I’m just sort of meh on.

23. Zombies or Vampires?
Vampires of course! I’ll take a hot “corpse” over a rotting one any day of the week, and I could argue that vampires aren’t corpses. In most of the lore they still have a beating heart, and as long as they aren’t of the Nosferatu clan they tend to be gorgeous. Yeah, I just had a little geek leak. I used to play Vampire: The Masquerade many, many moons ago.

24. Love Triangle or Forbidden Love?
Forbidding love hands down. All of my paranormal romances have “forbidden” love at least in the mind of one of the participants who’s generally being broody and over-dramatic. It’s the guy by the way, not that I really had to tell you that hehe. I rarely ever hear women described as “broody.”

25. AND FINALLY: Full on romance books or action-packed with a few love scenes mixed in?
Can’t it be both? Full on romance with action? That’s what I generally like, but if I had to choose I’d take the romance angle. I’m a fan of the Rescue Romance. All of mine are. Hey, I love and write fairytales/fantasy. Doesn’t mean I believe they’re real.

Have at it!