Vital Stats And Appearance
Name: Jessica Penrose
Nicknames: Not all that many these days. I mean, my pen name is J.A.Penrose, most people call me Jess, a fair few call me The Jess, and some call me Legolas. Nicknames don’t tend to stick to me.
Birthday: A well guarded secret. But sure, whatever. 16th of November
Hair colour and length: Brown, and 4-5 inches past my shoulders.
Eye colour: Brown
Braces/piercings/tattoos: None.
Righty or lefty: Righty. But my handwriting is equally appalling with either hand, so, take your pick! (typically right though)
Ethnicity: I am an Aussie. Somewhere back in the family tree there’s some Scottish and Cornish, but I can tell you the entire history of the Penrose family in relation to the properties in the area and at what point we owned what and which great great ancestors sold to who.
Firsts
First novel written: Ashes. No, that was not the book’s name, but that’s what it is now. Twas actually a collaborative thing, but it kept on deteriorating and blegh. Then again, it never reached 50K, but I suppose it was the first one I tried.
First novel completed: Uhm… *goes to check* Ahhh, yes. Sweep, the first book of the now being fixed and replanned Survivor Trilogy. Gotta love some nice sci-fi time travel stuff.
Award for writing: I have a habit of winning the writing section in the local Gunnedah Show, and getting good marks in class? :P I’ve made a profit of around $50 all up of my winnings. *nods wisely* Very good at this. But I haven’t really entered that many writing competitions, so, no.
First publication: Erm, I’ve had musical compositions published in anthologies before, and I’ve published some things online, but not actually fully published, no.
Conference: I live in Australia. We are very short on these. But I really want to go to one! *sobs dramatically* Particularly when all of the writerly people I know in U.S are going to Realm Makers.
Query/Pitch: Hoooopefully once I get out of school I’ll be more available to get around to doing this. Or at least once the workload has dropped a bit.
Favourites
Novel (that you wrote): Favourite?? That’s just mean. I love them all. Ugh. Sorry. Pick between Chosen by Fire (fantasy with some really fun world building and magic and ideas) or Flightless. (fantasy that was amazing to write) (and I plan to edit and tear apart this year. Ack!) Chosen by Fire needs to be re-written, cos it didn’t turn out too well, but I love it all the same.Genre: Speculative Fiction. Mainly sitting in Fantasy and Dystopian. (or both)
Author: But…I LOVE ALL OF YOU GUYS. Agh. Nadine Brandes is amaaaaazing, but so is Jill Williamson, Jaye.L.Knight, Brandon Sanderson… UGH.
The one that I can say I ‘know’ the best would be Nadine Brandes though. *flails*
Writing Music: Sooooo, every story I write has a different playlist, but they are mostly made up of songs by Antti Martikainen, or are from the Kaladin soundtrack. Pandora’s music is epic too.
Time To Write: Heh. Whenever I get the chance. Typically though, due to school, I write whenever the sun isn’t around. Either early in the morning, or in the evening. On Saturdays I tend to churn out words fairly consistently.
Writing Snack/Drink: *sips chai tea* Chai, everyday. NaNo months tend to result in the boxes running out…
Movie: Soooo, I have a little thing: I don’t actually watch many movies? Most quoted one would most likely be Prince Caspian though. *nods* We’ll go with that.
Writing Memory: Hmmm…I think probably back when I was around five, my siblings and I built this huge tree fort. We dragged dead trees to make walls and generally make it really good. Like, walls that were 3 meters high, areas to shoot our bows from, traps, working doors, a sparring area, etc. Only issue was that I was five. And my brother was about twelve, and my sister fourteen. Soooo, I had a major disadvantage. Thankfully though, I became the scribe. I wrote down all of our adventures in a little notebook, including misspelling some crazy words that turned up. Gotta love it when you, ‘Were thron in the dunjeons.’ (Thrown in the dungeons.) But yes. That was fun to write. Many adventures of our crazy family.
Childhood Book: Adventure books were my thing. Famous Five by Enid Blyton and Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome were some big time favorites. But also, there were fun fantasy adventures like the Gorgie Tanner books by Justyn Walker. All of those were good.
Currently
Reading: Sacred Rhythms, by Ruth Hayley Barton, and The Enclave by Karen Hancock.
Writing: At the moment, I’m kinda rewriting parts of Flightless to make them more consistent and fill in the worst of the plot holes and fix as many spelling errors as I can before moving into properly editing it. Mostly, I’m actually plotting for my next NaNo Novel, Stormwielder, which I plan to say some more about at a later date.
Listening to: My playlist for Stormwielder. (Yes, I have made a playlist and haven’t finished plotting yet. Go me!)
Watching: Nothing. Although, when I’m distracted, I tend to watch birds fly past. Very dramatic little things. *happily stares out of the window*
Learning: A lot. I mean, mostly about people, and how stubbornly they can stick to beliefs that they know are wrong. (Amazing how many straight-A students get to exam week and are certain that they are going to fail. But there is no logical reason… *taps chin thoughtfully*)
Future
Want To Be Published: Yessss. Very muchly so. One day. Ideally before I’m in my 50s. Or 40s. Or 30s…
Indie or Traditional: Traditional. Most of my audience is overseas, and Indie Publishing is a pain when it comes to that.
Wildest Goal: Oh my word. Uhm… Probably to hear from someone that my writing has changed their lives. I know that so many books have helped me, and I really want to be able to do the same for others.
Tag over?? What? Hopefully I answered those questions sufficiently. Anyone who want to do this tag who hasn't already, feel free to! It was lots of fun.
What's your favourite writing memory? Do nicknames stick to you?
Ha! I've been nicknamed Pippen, Waspsbane, Evvie, and Love-a-lyn before. :) Legolas though? How did that come about?? xD
ReplyDeleteOh dear. Should I fear for the wasps?
DeleteLegolas came about when I had a knee injury and was on crutches and vaguely explained to my little cousin that they couldn't hang off my legs because I was, 'legless'. Later on in our Camp NaNo Cabin, people were trying to work out nicknames, so my older cousin suggested, 'Legless'. I also happen to speak Quenya, (an eleven language) and so, it became 'Legolas'. Fun times! :P
I loved this so much!
ReplyDeleteWhen I get asked to speak at a conference, we'll have to go over together and we can both just go around the whole country. It'll be great. :P
YAS! That will be awesome! *nodnod* Sorted.
DeleteHey, you used American spelling when you said what your favorite book is. Was that a typo, or did you do it on purpose to see if I'd catch it? :P
ReplyDeleteI have a ton of nicknames, mostly because when there is an untold number people with the same name in your church and five of them are in the same small room together every Wednesday night, nicknames become rather necessary. :P Most are variations of my real name, but then there's the weird ones my friends give me like "the Ringwraith." xD
P.S. Are there good apples over there? Because yesterday I made the discovery that chai tastes amazing with apple crisp ;)
*wise nodding while fixing my two typos* Yes. My errors were definitely to test you. *coughs* Did you doubt me? xP
DeleteHaha, noice!
I tend to eat an apple for lunch most days, so yes, we have apples. And oooooh, I shall try this...what's apple crisp?
Nah, I just figured you wanted to make sure the editor in me didn't drop dead after the guild war. :P
DeleteApple crisp...its basically just peeled and sliced apples with a crumble made of oats, butter, brown sugar, and spices on top. Then it's baked until the apples are soft. It's a pretty common fall desert around here since its easy to get local apples. That and hot apple cider when you've been hiking in the cold all day is amazing. Oh the memories of tromping through the woods on crispy fall days...
I can send you a recipe, if you want.
Haha, cool.
DeleteOH. I KNOW THAT STUFF. *nodnod* We call it 'Apple crumble'.
So, no, don't bother sending a recipe. Can you send me a wood to go tromping in instead? :P
OOOOH, you did a tag!!! I LOVED YOUR ANSWERS. Your one for what are you currently watching was awesome. XD YES FOR PRINCE CASPIAN. <333 And I shall have to remember your nickname of Legolas...;-D
ReplyDeleteEeeek thank you!!!
DeleteHaha, yeah, don't watch much aside from stuff around me.
YAS PRINCE CASPIAN WAS STELLAR!
Oh man, weren't you there for that Camp NaNo conversation? (Heads up, if people started asking 'Legolas' questions, then that was me. XD)
I had so much fun reading this and I really want to write a monster long comment. Hang on...
ReplyDeleteOkay, so first of all, I totally understand what you mean. Australia is slack when it comes to writing conferences and we're a long way from anything else...especially Realm Makers.
GEORGIE TANNER??? Have you read those? I've never come across anyone else who has, so that's very exciting. I think I've adored those books since I was about eight and I've read them to all my siblings as well :D
And Prince Caspian is my favourite movie at the moment (I think I've watched it five times in the last five or so days, and I hardly ever watch movies). Never mind that it isn't anything like the book. I like it anyway.
I have Scottish and English heritage as well, but we haven't lived in our particular area for very long, so I wouldn't be able to give you a list of who sold what to who etc etc. :P
Oh yay! Glad you enjoyed it!
DeleteYes, I did an entire assessment task in writing opportunities in rural Australia and oh man we are terrible. One day we'll have to all go over to Realm Makers as a group and totally overwhelm them with Aussies. :P
AH YAS THERE IS ANOTHER ONE! Hawks see far when the sun is bright...?
Haha, yup. I can quote almost any scene that Caspian speaks in...and then all of Edmund's lines. (Jane and I watched it a heap so that she could learn the Spanish accent) And yeah, not the book, but still so cool.
Ay lassie. Us Scots are all through this wee little country.
And don't worry, the history of our property is something us Penroses seem to pride ourselves on.
Thanks for commenting!