Profile
Because we're all at least a little narcissistic inside. Okay, some of us more than others.
Biography
It feels pretty odd to write one's own profile: you feel both totally self-absorbed and also quite embarrassed at the same time. Do I just go ahead and write it in first person even though I have no idea how to start? Do I pretend I'm some honorary third party and make this all factual? Yeah, sure. Why don't I just announced how awkward this all is up front and then get on it with it.
I was born in October the year Leonard Nimoy decided that a movie called Three Men And a Baby would be awesome to direct. Growing up in rural Oregon does not lend oneself to much of a social life, so I started pursuing creative arts pretty early on to pass the time. I started writing my first "novel" at the age of 4 - some glitzy story about my grandmother and a unicorn - all written down on pieces of printing paper that had been cut in half to mimic a real book. My favorite time in elementary school was always when we were forced to sit down after recess and work on our "journals" and share them out loud if we wanted to. Some people kept a diary of sorts, and some of us wrote stories. I enjoyed sharing my stories, but writing long-hand was quite tiresome. It wasn't until my family received its first computer (and Acer, omg) in fifth grade that I learned how to type super-duper-fast and actually get all my ideas out as they came to me.
I started out with the usual, fan-fiction and lots of it. Afterwards I began to develop my own characters and my own original plots, which lead to the first draft of Nagnomei: The Key of Nixey when I was 13 years old. I continued writing throughout high school, even becoming editor of the school newspaper my senior year, before meeting with my first ever editor who gave me the best advice for that novel ever: start over, girl. So I did, and everything is much better now.~
I attended college at Willamette University in Salem, Oregon, and majored in Japanese Studies while minoring in Religious Studies. During my freshman year I had the dream that would inevitably lead to the beginning of the CROSS// series while also first being introduced to National Novel Writing Month, which I have participated in and completed ever since. A couple years later I went on to found the campus "Willamette Writers" circle, where members were welcome to weekly meetings to discuss writing and share their work if they desired. Upon graduating, however, I found myself in that wonderful economical downturn and have since accepted a job as an English teacher in Japan for the time being. To pass the time until that happened, however, I volunteered to be the Oregon South Coast municipal liaison for NaNoWriMo in 2010.
Aside from writing, I like to hold and cart around cats like they're the latest accessory (see picture), play copious amounts of video games, and waste all my time on the Internet. My ears belong to Asian pop music and European symphonic metal, my tongue to chocolate and instant ramen, my eyes to the color orange, and my nose to roses and musk, but my heart forever belongs to whatever mischief I'm currently in - usually writing. I don't read as much as I used to, but I mostly enjoy fantasy (of all flavors) and science fiction. I also have a healthy collection of religious essays and anthologies on my shelf. I'm actually not a huge fan of Joseph Campbell, and yet he's up there about five times. I don't have a favorite author, but if my personal book collection is any indication, I've been a fan of Anne McCaffrey, Amy Tan, Philip Pullman, and other assorted author-characters over the years. Recently Haruki Murakami and Jacqueline Carey have made their way on there, although the jury is still out on how I really feel about them~.
Ah, gee, look, I talked about myself to great length once more. I should have just done it in third person after all.