my swankified abc's.

Listening To: We Rode in Trucks by Luke Bryan
Excited for: Star Trek this weekend! Have you seen it yet? Is it fabulous? 

Hey friends! How you been? Is your summer officially official?

Despite my occasional disappearing act on here, I do have some fun summer blog posts planned. Sometime in the Fall (most likely), I'll be sharing more fun stuff about the book. I can't wait to tell you more about my editor (she's a dream), some of the fun steps I've gone through to make my story book-shaped, and, most of all, about the characters who populate my funky little world.

Until then, and just as a way to check-in, I thought this might be fun.

I've seen a cute survey floating around on a few blogs and thought I'd give it a whirl. Really though ... I'm just giving it a whirl in hopes that you'll also play along in the comments. I call this exercise:

The ABC's of my Swankified Life

*clears throat*

Ambition: To come upon a Texaco sign burned out to spell the word Taco. 

Bad Habit: I chew on straws. And pens. 

Celebrity Crushes: Two warnings: 1.) I’m old. 2.) My friends often like to point out that there is absolutely no cohesiveness to my celeb crush list. Most recent addition: Jason Momoa. Mainstays: Paul Rudd (since Clueless!). Henry Cavill. Chris Thile. Taye Diggs. And John Schneider, the Original Bo Duke. 

Drink: Diet Dr. Pepper. And coffee. I don’t like water but I try to trick myself into believing I do. 

Education: Hogwarts, Class of 1999. In my dreams. But did you know The Battle of Hogwarts actually happened in 1998?

Food: Strawberries are my #1 favorite food. I like most sugary crap-food too (chocolate!), but strawberries, which seem too awesome to be healthy, have always been my fave.  

Guilty Pleasures: Good jeans (all denim is not created equal). Hardcover books. New books. Books, basically. Travel (which usually requires saving up for a decade, but it’s  always worth it). Peanut Butter M&M’s. Gilmore Girls reruns. Magazines (especially Southern Living, Marie Claire and Garden & Gun). Cute clothes. Sleeping in. But I don’t really feel guilty about any of that. Ah! Here’s a guilty pleasure: McDonalds french fries dipped in hot mustard sauce. That's probably gross isn't it? I can hear my arteries rusting even as I type.

Hometown: I grew up in a small town in East Tennessee. This song reminds me of my hometown (in a sweet way). (Don’t click through if you don’t like country music ;). I currently live "where the city in October looks like fire". My favorite city is London. It "swings like a pendulum do." 

Ice Cream: Bluebell’s Pistachio Almond. For now. But I’ve tried lots of ice cream in the last year for, ahem, “research”. And I haven't met an ice cream that I don't like. (Have I mentioned that there is some very ... interesting ice cream in A Snicker of Magic?). 

Jonesing for: A new novel from Jenny B. Jones. I check her website approximately every two days to see when the french toast she's going to announce a new book. I also email her like ten times a day ... but I try to refrain from asking about her new book at least eight of those times. 

Kryptonite: Love songs. 

Look-a-like: A park ranger in Colorado told me that I look the way she always imagined a fairy would look. She said, “You just need a little set of pink wings!” I think the altitude was getting to her. The cashier at Bi-Lo squints and says that I look like Emma Stone. My mom thinks I look like Julianne Moore. Ashley from Twitter recently told me that I look like Neyla Pekarek, of The Lumineers (Thanks, Ashley! :). A guy on a dark airplane once leaned over and said, “You look like the, uh, the one actress. You know? The one in The Moulin Rouge?” While he could have been referring to any of the Diamond Dogs, I like to think he meant Nicole Kidman. But my favorite look-a-like is when my mom posted this pic of my granny on Facebook: 

And someone said I look like her. Best. Compliment. Ever. Granny was a wildflower; smart and funny and feisty and beautiful. It was almost magical the way people would gravitate toward her. I would love to look like her, in every way. 

Movie: The last movie I saw was The Great Gatsby. I thought it was fab! I keep seeing so many negative reviews and tweets about it, but I thought it was fun.  

Nickname: I don’t have any fun nicknames. But if I were a mega-famous actress, checking into a hotel under an alias to avoid the hounding press, I’d probably go by Gloria Gilbert. 

Obsessions: Writing. Wandering. Music (I still fantasize about being a music journalist, thanks to the movie Almost Famous). Mountains. Forests. National Parks. City skylines. Old cemeteries. Old houses. Love stories. The Avett Brothers. (I’m obsessed with their music. I'm not obsessed with them.) Rainy days. Fall. Christmas. Clunky old trucks. Sweet guys who drive clunky old trucks. British History (I covet Lucy Worsley’s job). Old books with tea stains and/or writing inside them (I collect those). Biscuit: my wonderdog. 

Perfume: Lovestruck by Vera Wang

Quirk: If I’m in a bookstore and see a copy of Great Expectations, I pick it up and read my favorite scene. I don’t do that with any other book. (And Great Expectations isn’t even a favorite.) 

Regret: I wish I’d waited a bit longer before heading to a four year college. I wasn’t ready for it. I think British schools do it right with a gap year, don’t you? I know most people relish the freedom, but a four-year college probably wasn’t a leap I was ready to make at 18. I did fine, but I think I would have enjoyed it more if I'd waited a bit. 

Starbucks: is my mothership. Here’s a picture of me at the original Starbucks. Yes, I commemorated the experience with a photo. Don't judge. 

I usually order a Tall Caramel Macchiato. Not very exciting, I know, but I figure if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, etc. 

The Last Book You Read: Tess Callahan's April & Oliver. Absolutely lovely. (Mature read.)

Unique Feature: I have a freckle on my mouth (and approximately a million more on the rest of me). And I have two long, ferociously rad scars on both legs. Scars and freckles aren’t crazy unique, I suppose. But I was self-conscious about both when I was a kid, and I’ve come to love them. That makes them pretty special to me. 

Vacation: My all time favorite vacations were: 1.) A family trip to Prince Edward Island, Canada. And 2.) A trip to the Pacific Northwest with my brother. 

Wine: I think I have a glass of wine maybe once every six months or so. And it has a twist top; no cork. Thus, I don’t really feel qualified to talk about wine. 

X: ... Is this a free space? I don’t understand the ambiguous X.  I’ll just post a sweet picture of Biscuit: 

Years: This makes me think of an author I read about recently. She started writing her series (which is quite famous; worldwide bestseller, etc) in 1991. The second to last book in the series will be out this winter. If my faulty math skills are correct, that means the series has been going over 20 years. That's some stamina. I don't know if I could stick with one set of characters that long. 

Zen: Biscuit. I’m very calm and happy when my dog is around. I can't even begin to describe all the joy she brings to my life. She's the coolest. 

If you feel like answering any of these in the comments, I would love to read them. Happy Weekending to you!