The Awesome Blogger Award! ft. weird childhood aspirations, absolutely crazy summer goals and random people knocking on my door (it's okay they're friendly)

*jumps into view* HEY GUYS! *waves enthusiastically*

How are you all? Enjoying your summer, I hope. Or winter. Or whatever.

It's so hot where I live right now, oh my God?? I mean, it's actually quite nice today, the temperatures have dropped quite a lot, but they've been super high all last week and they're going to go back up again a couple of days from now... I DON'T LIKE HOT WEATHER, OKAY. It makes me feel sleepy and sweaty and like I don't have energy to do anything and just URGH. You can't even really go outside and do anything like I was planning to do this summer because it's just wayy too hot. 

I mean in a way this is sort of good? It means I have a load of free time to work on my WIP... when I feel like I have enough energy to do anything, of course. I actually should be working on it right now, but yesterday I worked on it a LOT and then I started stressing out over it because what if it's terrible, I've worked so hard on it and what if no-one likes it because it's awful, I'm a terrible author, I'm a fraud, etc. etc. You know how it goes. I know how it goes, and I know that if I force myself to write I'm only going to make things worse. So I'm writing this instead! Hi.

Anyway, I got tagged with The Awesome Blogger Award!! Thank you so much to the amazing Lanie @ From the Desk of a Dragon for tagging me! You should definitely check out her blog if you haven't already, it's awesome!

The rules...

1. Thank the person who nominated you.

2. Tag it under #AwesomeBloggerAward in the reader.

(That must be a WordPress thing? *Shrugs*)

3. Answer the questions that the person who nominated you asked.

4. Nominate at least five bloggers.

5. Give your nominees 10 new questions.

Okay then! Let's move on to... THE QUESTIONS!! *cheers*

1. Who's your favorite YouTuber?

Ehhhh.... Ahahahah. 

I don't... really.... watch YouTube? I just... don't? I know I must be the only teenager who doesn't... I just don't like watching videos that much? I prefer to read blogs...

I do have two IRL friends who have YouTube channels (I haven't watched their videos in a while though, I'm a bad friend), I gave them both a shoutout here if you'd like to check them out!

2. Do you like storms? Why or why not? 

I LOVE STORMS. THEY'RE LIKE MY FAVOURITE THING. 

We don't really get them very often where I live, so I guess that's why they're pretty exciting for me. They're so beautiful and powerful and dangerous and inspiring.... I guess they make me feel inspired. You know how some writers look out over green fields and mountains and nature and they feel inspired? I get the same from thunderstorms. (There are two kinds of writers, apparently.)

3. What is your favorite song at the moment?

Umm... I don't really have one? I know, I know, that's sad... I haven't been listening to a lot of music lately... Well, on the journey back home from my holidays (read all about my holidays here if you haven't already!) I did listen to "Only Love Can Hurt Like This" by Paloma Faith, and I did have it stuck in my head for a while, so I guess you could say that's my favourite song of the moment? IDK.

4. Are you very crafty? 

Hmm, not really? When I was younger, yeah, but I'm not really into that sort of thing anymore... IDK, it's kind of sad but I guess I've grown out of it.

5. When you were little, what was your dream job?

Okay, okay. Here it is:

When I was little and people asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I answered:

A MERMAID.

*facepalms*

I... I don't know?? I don't know why I said that?? I... I was obsessed with mermaids when I was small, I think I honestly believed that they were real, and I wanted to be one of them? I guess something about being able to spend all day in the sea (I loved the beach and anything to do with water like nothing else) and not having to go to school or do boring ordinary things was really appealing to me? I don't know. I WAS A WEIRD CHILD, OKAY. WEIRD.

I mean this was just when I was about four or five, later on I wanted to be a teacher, then a ballerina, then a doctor, then a ballerina again, then a writer (yes I had very diverse career choices throughout by childhood, deal with it), and I've sort of stuck with that since then.

6. If someone knocked on your door right now, who would you want it to be?

Umm....:

- The postman, coming to give me a surprise parcel from someone I care about

- A literary agent, coming to tell me that they've heard that I am an awesome writer and that they're going to help me get published despite them not having actually read any of my writing

-  One of my made-up characters coming to spend some time with me and chat about their life, I'd love to meet one of my characters (actually, that would probably end up backfiring the way it did in my interview with a made-up character (which you should totally check out) so maybe better not) (is it bad that I sometimes read through that post to make myself laugh? My humour was so on point in that oh my god, not to brag but it's the funniest thing I've ever written and will probably ever write)

- Some girl my age I've never seen before, coming to tell me she's my One True Love and she's come from the other side of the galaxy in a different dimension to track me down and tell me this and LOOK LITERALLY NO-ONE SAID THE ANSWER TO THIS QUESTION HAD TO BE REALISTIC?! I'm a hopeless romantic with way too much imagination, fite me. 

7. Do you keep a journal?

Nope! But I do have this blog, which in some ways is kind of a journal, since I do life update posts that are basically a log of stuff I've been doing and thinking, so....

8. Have you ever stood in the rain for no reason other than getting wet?

When I was younger? DEFINITELY. I mean I don't remember it, but remember what I said about me loving water when I was little? I definitely went out in the rain to get soaked through.

9. Can you dance? (any style)

I did ballet since I was eight until earlier this year, so yeah, I can dance... I sort of miss dancing now, I don't want to go back to ballet but I really want to start street or jazz or contemporary lessons at some point, maybe in September or next year (I have a lot coming up at the end of this year what with starting school and everything (yikes) so I might wait until the new year to start). 

10. What's something on your summer bucket list?

Well, there's something very big on my summer bucket list, it's pretty much the only thing on there, it's a super crazy goal that I don't think I'm going to be able to achieve but I'm sure as hell going to try.

Basically:

I want to finish my WIP before the end of August.

*badum-cssshhh*

... Sorry, I thought that needed a bit of added sound effects to convey how dramatic this is.

So basically, yeah. I want to finish my WIP this summer. And considering I started working on it about eight months ago now and I'm not even in the middle of the story?? That's pretty damn insane. But up until now I've only been able to write in spare half-hours in the evenings when I didn't have anything else on, plus I took a lot of breaks, either because of writers' block or me going through periods where I hated my WIP and everything about it or because of exams (I pretty much abandoned my WIP for two months while I was studying for exams). And now I literally have hours to write, if I want to. I'm thinking I can easily write 1,000 words per day if I really put my mind to it, which would mean I can write 31,000 words in July, and another 31,000 in August, which added together is 62,000 words. Add that to the 40,000 words I already have written and that takes us to over 100,000 words, and I honestly don't think my novel is going to be much longer than that (I hope not?!). So! The end is in sight!! But that would mean I have to commit to write at least 1,000 words every single day, and if I happen to fall into one of my "this is terrible why am I even writing this" moods like the one I'm in right now, that's honestly just not going to happen. Realistically, I doubt I'm going to reach my 60,000 word goal by the end of August, or the end of my WIP. But I still want to really put in a LOT of work on my writing, and even if I don't finish it, I'll have advanced the story a lot.

So!  CHEER ME ON. WISH ME LUCK. I'm going to need so much of it. I'm not even religious but holy crap PRAY FOR ME. This is such a crazy goal I'm gonna need all the help I can get.

(Also, I lied: there's something else on my summer bucket list: to attempt to finally get my shit together and tell the people around me I'm gay ahahahah I mean I don't know why it's taking me this long but SOS SOS SOS HELP ME)

Anyway, that's the end of the questions!! Now it's my turn to ask the questions. *rubs hands gleefully*

1. What's your favourite ice cream flavour?
2. Cats or dogs?
3. If you could live anywhere in the world, where would it be?
4. What's the best book you've read lately, and why?
5. What do you think your life is going to be like in ten years' time?
6. Is there a particular rule or motto that you live by?
7. What's your least favourite colour?
8. What's one thing that most people don't know about you? (It doesn't have to be anything too deep or personal, just something random.)
9. Do you prefer summer or winter?
10. If you could become any animal for a day, which animal would you choose and why?


So now it's my favourite time!! TAGGING TIME!!

I tag:

Nabila @ Hot Town Cool Girl
Ann @ #LoveEnglish
Gray Marie @ Writing Is Life
Gracie @ A Light In The Darkness
Emily @ The Island of Me

Plus anyone else who wants to do it! Seriously, if you'd like to do it, go right ahead, I'd love to read your answers to my questions!

Before I go, I just wanted to say that I don't know why the first page of my blog only has one post on it (maybe two after I post this), the setting is set to ten posts per page? So I'm a bit confused as to why there's only one? And the second page has five posts and the third has seven posts. BLOGGER WHAT ARE YOU DOING PLS. Is this happening to anyone else, and more importantly, does anyone know how to fix it? Can anyone help me out? Tank choooo

Okay, now it's your turn: opinions on storms? Favourite song of the moment? What was your dream job when you were little? Who would you like to have knock on your door right now? (you can be as imaginative as you like) And do you have any crazy summer goals? TELL ME ALL THE THINGS MY FRIENDS

Gotta run, love you guys,

Stay awesome,


> > > A n d r e a < < <


*disappears into the shadows*