So a little while ago, I wrote this piece called I do #askthewriter and am social and as promised here are my answers to your questions! But first, I just want to thank all of you who asked me questions for reaching out! :)

Okay, here we go!

@palindrome
1) Do you watch Marvel movies? 
    I was practically raised on them, so yes. I love Guardians of the Galaxy (volumes 1&2), Antman, Antman and the Wasp, and the original Avengers movie the most.
2) Have you read Harry Potter? 
    Yup! I've also watched all the movies. I've managed to collect all of the books from free book carts from my local library. 
3) Do you prefer reading or movies? 
    Depends on the genre. I can't watch horror, but I can read it. I love animated movies more than the comic book/manga forms. Whenever there's a book-to-movie adaptation, I'll try and see it. I try and...

"Seven o’clock on a Monday morning, five hundred years after the end of the world, and goblins had been at the cellar again. . . "  Don't tell the Norse gods that. Why? Because they've disappeared without a trace. The world is now controlled by a group known as the Order, who does not tolerate imaginative storytelling, anything pertaining to the old histories of the Nine Realms, or dreams. Especially not the kinds of dreams that become realized and turned into a book based off of old Norse mythology.

Runemarks by Joanne Harris, published in 2007, is a Norse mythology fantasy targeted at young adults. I personally read Runemarks when I was seven or eight, having encountered it in the public library system. And over the past seven years of my life, I have checked out Runemarks at least six other times. When I moved, and couldn't find the book on the new library's shelves, I was prompted to learn...

If I were to give name to the song
singing inside my bones,
it would be
                                                                                                                       An ode to the wingless night,
                                                                                                                             the kind I have rewritten
                       ...

So I'm always pretty active on WtW, and I've noticed the #askthewriter trend going around. It seems really interesting, and it got me thinking: I've actually posted nothing about myself on WtW. Sure, some works based on my experiences, but nothing personal. Thinking about that made me a little sad.... because I love WtW! And I really like all the writers I've encountered on this site. I'm just way too shy to actually communicate with you guys. So I decided to do something about it! 

But I'm wary of bandwagons, so that's why it's taken me two weeks to actually pen this thing.

WHAT'S GOING ON: A few fun facts about myself, but also #askthewriter. Basically, if you want to ask me random stuff, please do so! But I'll just put some stuff about myself on here anyway so I feel like I'm getting somewhere socially.

FACTS:
1) I knit. Actually, I knit hats for donation drives.
2) I'm really really...

"Seven o’clock on a Monday morning, five hundred years after the end of the world, and goblins had been at the cellar again. . . "  Don't tell the Norse gods that. Why? Because they've disappeared without a trace. The world is now controlled by a group known as the Order, who does not tolerate dreams, imaginative storytelling, or anything pertaining to the old histories of the Nine Realms. 

Enter Maddy Smith, a young girl in a small village in the middle of seemingly nowhere, born with a strange "ruinmark" on her palm. With this mark comes a host of unnatural powers, including the ability to magically exorcise goblins from local cellars. The entire village, convinced that Maddy is a witch, shuns and isolates her. Maddy's only friend is the strange Outlander known as "One-Eye" who also bears a "ruinmark" (his is reversed, however), and sees Maddy as an opportunity and an apprentice.

Soon Maddy, at One-Eye's request,...

WRITER: I have a book I'm writing, the kind that's a thousand times retold in my mind in the hours between sleep and morning. The characters in it are raw, and beautiful, and I have put off their tale for far too long. So now, this year, I have decided to complete their story and shout it from the highest mountain peaks.

CRAFT:To publish an actual normal-form story on WTW. I keep going on poem splurges. Or whatever the heck "It turns out Saturn is beautiful after all" is.

Shh-shhhhhh-rat-tat-shhhhhh-ratatatatarat-kkksss------ksss---
Thunk. 

A long exhale. "Ash, help me set up the telescope."

Rustling, crunch, crunch, shhhh-shh--ratatata-shhhhh-------------------shhhh-------shh----- 

Rusty bolts protesting against adjustment ---REEEEEEEEEEEEEEECH-----

"Evan, where's the socket wrench?"

Clink-clank-clatter
The sound of metal smacking against a palm.
REEECH, shh-ratat-shhhhh-------ratat-------------------shh---------------shh
The sound of an owl in the distance

"Hey, the viewfinder's actually right for once."

grooooaaaan, hhh-haaaa--hhhh-haaaa
Shuffling, crunch-crunch, ratatatata-shhh----shh------ratatatataratatatata-----------shhhhhhh----------------------------

"......Is that Saturn?"

"...Move over, lemme see, Ash."

Shuffle, crunch-crunch-shhhhhhhhh

"Wow, yeah."

Shhhhhh---------------------------shhhhhhh-------------------
The wind fades into the distance.

Walls and clouds
All hail the dreamer, who once stood
upon a stretch of land
and saw nothing to obstruct an equal view
For now we see nothing; the nightmares
have built a wall
separating us from the dreamland
we so desperately tried to create
All hail the dreamer, who once, 
so overcome by the possibilities,
cried
to see a new world
Would that our tears could be
joyful
not residue from the pouring rain
All hail the dreamer,
for they beheld no clouds
when they looked upon this land

Bridges and sunlight
I tend the garden after the storm while the soil is still wet
marveling at how the world seems greener and brighter
after such a solemn moment
And it is just me
and the garden
as I stitch the world into something even more beautiful
a bridge between the darkness and the new light
After the rain comes the new day:
after the clouds comes the sun

Saturn by Sleeping At Last
                "You taught me the courage of stars before you left"
                             Let's face it, Garen, it's you.
The Scientist by Coldplay
                "Questions of science, science and progress"
                            You know where this ends, don't you, Aiela?
Blood Red Roses by C21 FX
                "The depths, they wouldn't claim her"
                            Cardinal. Honestly. This is your angst song.
Clocks by Coldplay
                "Tides that I tried to swim against / have brought me down upon my knees"
                            Galithan. Oh, Galithan.
The Sound of Silence by Simon & Garfunkel
                "But my words like silent raindrops fell"
                            Arthur. 
I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For by U2
                "But yes, I'm still running"
                            Sage, this is you in 4 minutes and 37 seconds.
Here I Am by the Boxer Rebellion
                "I follow blindly, however unlikely"
   ...

December - month of first snows, cold days, and of change. Not always fast ones; they can be compared to the movements of a glacier. But change nonetheless, sweeping through my world in a flurry of snow and shouted wishes for good holidays out of car windows. 

This year has found me struggling with a great change: a new school. Not that I moved, but that the school was renovated to become a monolith of glass, sheetrock, and clean modern white walls. For me, change from routine is hard enough when it's simple things like a new schedule or a new after-school activity I signed up for. An entirely new learning space, even if it is filled with all the same people it always has had, threw me for a loop. My fellow classmates, whenever I expressed this panicked feeling growing inside of me, looked at me funnily. After all, the school is larger, better equipped for all of...

December - month of first snows, cold days, and of change. Not always fast ones; they can be compared to the movements of a glacier. But change nonetheless, sweeping through my world in a flurry of snow and shouted wishes for good holidays out of car windows. 

This year has found me struggling with a great change: a new school. Not that I moved, but that the school was renovated to become a monolith of glass, sheetrock, and clean modern white walls. For me, change from routine is hard enough when it's simple things like a new schedule or a new after-school activity I signed up for. An entirely new learning space, even if it is filled with all the same people it always has had, threw me for a loop. My fellow classmates, whenever I expressed this panicked feeling growing inside of me, looked at me funnily. After all, the school is larger, better equipped for all of...

Frigid winter wind
gusting
among pillars of ice and snow
Constant, and yet quiet

Silence is King here,
Malice is Queen
[Although he has admitted
to liking Beauty better--
Everything likes her,
so he is forgiven]

A long way North
of Somewhere
East of Nowhere
in between thought and reality
They are there, but in solitude

For Winter is demanding
and scepter of ice
melts in the warm air
Cape of ermine fades;
the throne should disappear
but Malice and Silence would remain

No, no,
much better to be alone --
forever frozen in the cold
than to meet those
who rule this haunted place

Frigid winter wind
gusting
among pillars of ice and snow
A kingdom within a kingdom-
in a place all its own

Polaris Terra Dolosus had never truly liked her uncle, even before she had entered the Court of the Stars. He was a seedy man, with a long willowy frame and two sharp black eyes. On his hands sat ten spindled fingers that had the habit of tapping against anything he could find. And, as if to prove a point, the crown he wore upon his head was ill-suited for such a skull as his. It looked stranded on the long black mane that made up his hair. It looked as if did not belong.
That crown, Polaris knew, could have been her father's, had he survived to fight for the throne.
Her uncle's voice was cold as the void of space, cutting through everything in its way. If there was ever any emotion in him besides that of the ice, Polaris had never seen it. It was fitting, and some would say poetic, that such a cold man would have...

There is so much to say, and so little time to speak it all: if I were to begin at the beginning of my heart and unravel every core rule I believe in, it would never end. Because I am always learning. And while I hold that belief dear to me, there are still other ones to speak of, to whisper into the cover of night like they are but mere phantoms that will blow away in the light of day. 

This is what I believe in: the me that lives and breathes came here through a series of choices - not all of them mine, not all of them good. But they are the past, and we live not in the fourth dimension but the third. There is no anti-time; there is no moving back to change that which has worked its ways on us already. I accept who I am - I accept what I see in the...

The sky stretching overhead
becomes a canopy of hand-painted wonder
and the trees live and breathe,
rustling about the latest breeze and sighing out a whisper

The corn shakes itself just a few 
blinks of peaceful over the way
and somewhere there is a deer stip-stepping,
leading their herd on a search for a sliver of the fading dusk

There is an owl, 
beginning to sing
Perhaps it's on the roof
perhaps the sky

A shooting star arcs across the darkness,
leaving behind it a trail of secrets
and stardust and fire and wishes
and it winks before heading on its way

The grass murmurs quietly
and the crickets inside begin to sing their soft soli
to the fireflies overhead,
who flicker to the beat of night

 

World hangs heavy over the roof;
gravity stretching up to grasp at ankles scuffing the ground
World-weariness - gifted, not asked for - ringing in ears too tired to listen

Oh, but that we could close our eyes,
push ourselves back into the world of imagination
That these mortal temporal issues could fade away
like sugar on a waiting tongue
and not bother us for a day, a year, a century

But the sky presses down on our dreams,
mocking us, saying, "I'm the limit; this is all you could ever be."
And you know you could but shove upward
and the sky would bow to your wishes and rise up
but there seems to be no point.
What goes up must come down: this is a basic law of the universe,
the type you've forced into your head in a desperate attempt for knowledge

World hangs low over our heads,
whispering of things made of monochrome;
of things left...

Green carpet spread out beneath the sunshine,
swaying in the breeze -
the scent of cut grass lingering as blades flop defeated
on the hot asphalt

crossing the driveway without shoes, feet still wet
from the garden hose, listening to
birds chittering at the empty feeder

Sky overhead is blue-blue-blue like a robin's egg,
commandeered by cumulus clouds towering above

there is the smell of hostas blooming,
and the sharp scent of tomato, too;
my stomach rumbles and I sneak a raspberry
from the patch in the backyard, savoring
its tart sweetness while it lasts


 

She is bitter acerbic rain,
a whirlwind of cataclysmic sorrow encroaching on the horizon;
She is the sound of laughing quietly to herself
when nobody else is around
(If nobody else is around,
does her laughter make a sound?)

She is a cacophony,
the dramatic crescendo sweeping the piece up for the finale,
a chord echoing through the heartbeat of a thousand people;
she is the tumble of words spilling out onto paper,
mindful of their order and intent yet still untamable

She is black to the sun's gold,
rain to the clear sky

She is their antithesis,
and yet they can't walk away

Laughter, breaths spent whispering in my ear. Late-night conversations, banter, inside jokes. Forgiveness and trust. Your home was my second home. You’d catch me when I'd stumble and I'd catch you.

When we parted, you were still stubbornly with me, saying “We’re in this together.”
 

Listen closely. There once was a girl with no past, and she turned into a monster. Nobody knows how, but there are rumors - they whisper of a man with coal eyes and a smile of ice and daggers.

They say she lost herself on the night of the Red Dawn. Wouldn’t be surprising if that's true. If that was the moment when she turned from human to monster.

Do you know where she is? No? I can tell you. She hides in the shadows, the floors, the walls. She might be listening right now.

Be careful what you do, or she might come for you, too.

.....

It’s been a thousand years - a day. No - it’s been a moment between breaths, one where a microcosmic universe is created and destroyed. Yet, at the same time, it has been forever. Because it isn’t possible for such a moment to be so small. It shouldn’t be so easy.

She’ll...