This World Bites Blog Tour Winners

Whooboy! I still haven’t caught up with everything I need to do, even after my blog tour ended. But during the tour, people had a couple of opportunities to win a free e-book of This World Bites if they guessed correctly when I lied.

First was at Melissa Maygrove’s:

1. After graduating high school, I planned on moving to New York to pursue theater. After looking at the statistics (less than 2% of the people who go into the field actually make it) and analyzing my personality, I knew I wouldn’t be successful in that field and switched to studying computer science instead.

2. EverQuest 2 was the only computer game my husband convinced me to play, after which, we played together for five years before our daughter was born. I was a top-level warlock named Risu (Japanese for Squirrel), who I have since turned into a character in an unfinished Cera Chronicle.

3. I hero-worshiped Sailor Moon while growing up, and spent hours in the bathtub pretending I had my own magical powers and could summon water to do my bidding. It was the magical-girl concept that inspired me to write my stories in the first place (and one of the reasons why Cera has the ability to manipulate water).

The lie is… #2!

I spent most of my early years with my husband playing World of Warcraft with him and our friends. My character’s name was indeed Risu, and I was even raid master for our guild before I quit. Truthfully, I was never much of a gamer, though my husband tested many games on me. When it came down to how I wanted to spend my time, I’d rather be writing.

I did actually intend to pursue theater just out of high school. I’d been in all of the high school plays, and I enjoyed presenting characters on a stage. But my logical (and frugal) side got the better of me. Though I miss immersing myself in that culture, I do enjoy bossing computers around more.

Sailor Moon was a huge part of my development while growing up. I sewed my own sailor skirts, flung water around in the pools and bath tubs, and pretended I had my own magical talking pet. The intelligent Ami (Sailor Mercury) with blue hair and water power was my favorite, and I knew my female character would be based in water. It inspired me so much, I ran with the idea of boy-loves-girl, boy-dies-protecting-girl, girl-uses-magic-to-send-boy-to-another world.

The winner chosen by random number generation is… Cherie Reich!

The second set of truth and lies, I told to Crystal Collier:

1. I’ve dyed my hair every color from midnight blue to Tostito yellow to fire-engine red. I saved purple for last because I held the opinion only old ladies had purple hair. Occasionally, I change my hair color just to match my outfit for the day. It currently has silver, pink, and blue highlights.

2. My two favorite cassettes growing up were New Kids on the Block and The Ninja Turtles’ soundtrack (the latter, I stole from my brother). You could find me singing “Hangin’ Tough” and “Turtle Power” at the top of my lungs in my bedroom.

3. I have an uncanny sense of direction. It really saved the day when my car’s oil pump went out and the engine seized. I had to walk 3 miles along the freeway to get to the closest off-ramp and gas station, and then deliver directions over the pay phone to my dad.

The lie was… #3!

I have a terrible sense of direction. Even now, I can’t tell east from west, unless I’m looking at a map and think Never Eat Soggy Waffles while rotating my finger clockwise.

I have dyed my hair every color that I can think of. Tostito yellow did NOT look good on me.

My current personal Facebook profile picture is an instance of me dying my hair to match my outfit.

And yes, I did hold the opinion only old ladies had purple hair and saved purple for last. When I was in high school, there was a fad going on where all the older ladies would dye their hair a weird plum color. I decided that when I dyed my hair purple, I’d be acknowledging my age. I went purple late last year. My favorite has always been blue though, which earned me the nickname Azul when I worked in an orphanage in the Dominican Republic back in 2001. Plus Sailor Mercury had blue hair…

The music probably isn’t tough to believe, considering the rest of my personality.

The winner of the second e-book is… Jenni Enzor!

Congrats to both winners!

And now I leave you with this:

TURTLE POWER!