Flight of Fantasy Award
So I got nominated by Sophie E. Talis (author of White Mountain) for her Flight of Fantasy Award!
The Rules of the Award are as follows:
- Display the award logo on your blog.
- Link back to the person who nominated you.
- State 11 things about yourself (it’s a Spinal Tap thing!), including why you love fantasy and your first or favourite fantasy book.
- Nominate 7 bloggers for this award and link to them. (If you want to link back to me as well, that would be lovely but isn’t required!)
- Notify those bloggers of the nomination and the award’s requirements.
1. Ten things about myself, hmm? Well I'm a fully qualified junior doctor, yet somehow still find the time and energy to write things. Even I'm not sure how, haha...
2. I started off writing with fan fiction, notably Sonic the Hedgehog and Teknoman (Tekkaman Blade), when I was 14. Thankfully those atrocities are now long gone, but no matter people's hatred for it, it will always hold respect from me as it was how I clocked up practice words.
3. The first original story idea I had was called 'Blind Eye' and was going to be a continuation of a short story I wrote for an exam. The original story followed two boys who discovered a time traveling device in school and were sent back to Edward Jenner's time. They had to stop the evil Duke of Manchester dismantling Edward's research, otherwise he would never invent the vaccination! I still have the outline for it and may well go back and finish it one day.
4. The first fantasy book I read was Sabriel by Garth Nix. This remains my all-time favourite book (though the same can't be said for its awful sequels). Before this I'd read tonnes of fiction in the form of The Hardy Boys, The Three Investigators, and some Sonic the Hedgehog novelisations, as well as of course Enid Blyton and a few others. This really steered me right into the YA fantasy category which remains my preferred genre today. Sabriel so affected me I think because it was just so creative and unique with its ideas, since I really dislike the high fantasy of Tolkein due to its stale, patriarchal and stereotypical presentation, which unfortunately every high fantasy has striven to emulate after it.
5. My favourite authors are Garth Nix, Julia Golding, Alison Croggon, Alison Goodman, Paul Stewart and Chris Riddel, Mark Robson, and Herbie Brennan. I enjoyed the Harry Potter books but don't consider myself a fanatic. I have not read Hunger Games as I'm not really into dystopia and on principle I will never read Twilight :P
6. I love video games! Unusual for a girl, I know. Currently I'm replaying The Last Story, perhaps one of the best JRPGs I've seen in a while. I also still enjoy Sonic the Hedgehog and some darker titles like Darksiders and Bayonetta. Genres I prefer are RPGs, platformers and adventure games.
7. I collect cuddly toys. I try to get realistic animals and have traveled all over the world to find some really rare specimens. My favourites are my emerald dragon from Canada and the stegosaurus I bought in Australia. I've had to curtail this hobby a little recently as I'm running out of space to display them!
8. My favourite mythical animal is the Pegasus, or any winged horse. This is the reason why, in my Zodiac Beast illustrations, Virgo is a pegasus (as I'm a Virgo!). Of course I'm partial to dragons and griffins too. On a side note, all of my Zodiac Beasts are based upon the traits of their star sign. See if you can figure out their characteristics...
9. I have traveled extensively. Countries I've visited so far include Scotland, Ireland, France, Germany, Norway, Greece, Tenerife, Egypt, Israel, Rhodes, Lesvos, Cyprus, Turkey, South Africa, India, UAE, Australia, Canada, USA. My goal is to have at least set foot on all 7 world continents (including Antarctica!) before I'm 40 years old. Only two to go now!
10. I'm an outline author. I much prefer to plot out every single detail first before writing it out. I use Notepad for this purpose. Of course such things are not set in stone and I'm very often changing things as I go along, but it's very good for consistencies and knowing where the story is going. Not for everyone, sure, although very helpful for me!
So now I'm supposed to tag 7 people...not sure I can manage that but we'll try:
1. Gregory Hart
3. Ross Kitson
5. ...
6. ...
7. ...
Well I tried!