About a year and a half ago, I did an email survey about me, my writing, and my blog. 16 people filled out the survey and it was super helpful to me as I was starting up this website/blog! I had one question on the survey that was just “Ask me anything about me/ my writing.” While this question helped give me ideas for my blog and email list, I found the list of questions the other day and realized many of them have not been answered! I’ll probably do another email list survey at some point, but for now, here are my long overdue answers to some of YOUR questions! (Thank you again to those who filled out my survey!)

In no particular order:

What’s your favorite food?
I like a lot of foods (and desserts!) but I love Thai food, steak, cheese, ice cream, and chocolate!

How’s life?
It’s great! I’m seriously living the dream right now!

How do you like being married?
I love it! My husband is the best and married life is so precious.

Have you published a book already?
I haven’t published anything yet, but I hope to someday.

What’s your favorite book?
Always a hard question, but I love The Giver Quartet by Lois Lowry, The Narnia Series by C.S. Lewis, and The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien.

What’s your favorite thing to write about?
It depends. My blog posts reflect what I feel like writing at a particular time, whether it’s about books I’m reading, my stories, things God is teaching me, or my life. I love to work on my stories, and I would really like to put aside more time for that, even in this busy stage of life.

What are the most important factors to creating a character?
Make him or her realistic. Characters should be based off of real people and real traits or they feel fake and flat. I talk about some of my characters in these two posts: Meet My Main Characters and Meet My Main Characters: Sisters.

What are the most important factors to create a story?
Make your story have a point, but don’t force your themes. And let your story take you where it will, even if it is not what you planned or expected. I talk a little bit about how I write a story in these two posts: How I Write a Story and How I Write a Story Part 2.

What are your dreams and goals in writing?
I would love to have 1,000 people on my email list and professionally publish the five books in my Twins Series: Twins, Sisters, Beloved, Daughter, and Friends. (I talk about this series more in this blog post). I have others novel ideas and rough drafts as well as a few nonfiction and children’s books too, but we’ll see what happens with those!

Who is your favorite fictional character?
Susan from Narnia and Eowyn from The Lord of the Rings.

What is your favorite genre to write?
I think most of what I write falls into Low Fantasy and Action-Adventure. My favorite part of a story is the characters and themes, so doing a lot of research for historical fiction, creating a whole world and magic system for high fantasy, or playing with science and politics for sci-fi or dystopian would be a lot harder and less enjoyable for me. Not to say I’d never give them a try though! I’ve also dabbled in writing romance, but I prefer to have a romance side plot to other stories.

How many stories have you written?
I think 9, though three of them I’ve never finished the first draft. I also have lots of ideas in my head, that haven’t been written yet. I’ve written a short story called the Witch’s Game (if you’re on my email list, you’ve received a copy of that), multiple drafts of Twins and Sisters (which you can find more about in this blog post or the my stories page!), a draft of their prequel Beloved, a draft of a Christian dystopian called The Other Side of the River, a allegory-fantasy-dystopian-romance called His Bride, a partial draft of a modernized Nativity Story, and two stories I started when I was younger that will likely never be finished but that did shape my writing journey: The Journey of the Wise Family about a family going on a Pilgrims Progress sort of journey, and The Pearl Brooch, a LOTR rip off about two sisters going to return the heart of earth. I’ve also written a draft of a nonfiction book about all the women of the Bible.
For the record, I have a document with 38 story/book ideas!

How is publishing going for Twins?
I haven’t made time to work on this much recently, but a few things need to happen before I can pursue publishing: I need to finish at least one more draft to make some more changes to the story, I need to gain more readers so my books will actually sell, and I need to get in contact with publishers, agents, and other writers, possibly at something like a writer’s conference. Who knew so much went into publishing a book?

Why do you use a pen name?
It’s hard for me to exactly answer this question, but with so much on the internet and everyone having access to everything, I wanted to keep my name and face a little more private and separate from what I write. Could people figure out my real name? Probably, but it puts one more boundary to protect me and my family.

What inspires you to write?
Everything! That’s a cliche answer, but I talk about inspiration a little bit in this blog post: What Inspires and Motivates Me. I find inspiration in a lot of things and my mind tends to wander, so any little thing can get me thinking of a story, scene, or blog post. But I am also inspired by using my writing to reach people and get them thinking about God and the world in a very real way.

What do you do when you have writer’s block?
To be honest, I’ve never had severe writer’s block. But there have been a few times where I’ve gotten pretty stuck on things and the best thing to do is write through it! Sometimes that means writing a scene or blog post even when you know it’s not going to be the best, and other times that means skipping something for now and coming back to it later. Sometimes it can be helpful to switch to a different project or part of a story for a little while too. Reading good books and going for walks in the woods are also great mind openers. 🙂

Do you ever want to travel outside the country again?
I’ve been outside of the country once and it was awesome! I’d love to again sometime! Exploring new places and trying new things is such a cool experience.

Are there things about being married that surprised you/didn’t surprise you?
Something that surprised me was how much I enjoy the little things, just being together right when we wake up and working on things in the same place, even if we are working on our own things. It is so nice!
Something that didn’t surprise me but maybe surprises other people is that my husband and I don’t fight. Some people think married people will always have arguments and disagreements, but we really don’t. The worst that happens is we get irritated because we’re tired.

Do you have a hero?
Well, Jesus. 🙂 But if we are talking human heroes, I find Amy Carmichael and Anne Judson to be very inspiring.

What are some of your interests?
I love reading and writing obviously, but I also love running, walking in nature, cooking, baking, singing, and playing piano.

What are your favorite genres of books to read?
I love fantasy (both low and high), allegory, historical fiction, some dystopian, some romance, writing style books, biographies, and Christian nonfiction.

What are some of your favorite movies?
It’s always hard to choose favorites, but I enjoy The Lord of the Rings, The Princess Bride, most of the older Marvel movies, The Hunger Games, and Beyond the Mask.

What is your favorite blog post you’ve written?
Since I write a few different kinds of posts, it’s hard to just pick one, but after skimming all my old posts, 3 of my favorites are: Love the Lord Your God, Wonderful Things About Being Married, and 6 Reasons to Become a Writer. I also loved getting to share Baby J’s Birth story.

Well there we go! I hope you enjoyed my answers to these questions! Do you have any other questions you’d like to ask? Go ahead and let me know in the comments!