This is my first tag! Yay!

I wasn’t officially tagged - I kinda stole it from True from A True Writer when she did it. (Thanks for leaving it open!) It was created by Savannah Grace, who is an awesome blogger!

 This is going to be great.

The rules are as follows:
- Link back to the person who created the tag.
- Thank the person who tagged you.
- Share the tag graphic.
- Tag eleven bloggers.

Okay, here we go!


(pen)Name: Nicole Dust. (It's a pen name.)

Nicknames: None, really. I’m just not a nickname person. and also none of my friends call me by my pen name or by any variations of it

Birthday: Uh, I’d rather not. I will tell you that it is sometime between January 1st and December 31st, though. ;)

Hair color and length: Blond, goes down just past my chin

Eye color: Blue, although I think it sometimes looks gray.

Braces/piercings/tattoos: Used to have braces. No piercings or tattoos.

Righty or lefty: Righty. I’ve tried to teach myself to write with my left hand, but it just doesn’t work.

Ethnicity: Caucasian, but my ancestry is ALL German.
First novel written: oh, gosh. Um, *blushes* in seventh grade, I decided to write a book for the first time, and I wrote a small book about money growing on trees. It was bad. Let’s not talk about that.

First novel completed: as in, technical novel? Last year, I wrote a really short novel, 43k words. (For some reason, I write really, really short books. *shrugs*) It was for my cousins. I guess they liked it, I don’t really know. . . .

Award for writing: I got an honorable mention in a pro-life essay contest. And hey, I got a free t-shirt out of the deal!

First publication: again, the pro-life essay contest published my essay online. I kind of self-published that first terrible novel, too.

Conference: none yet, but I really want to go to one!

Query/pitch: again, haven’t done it yet. (And to be honest, that sounds really terrifying at this point.)
Novel (that you wrote): my current one! I’ve been thinking about the plot and the character that sparked it all for almost a year now, but I just finished the rough draft this Saturday (and I am SO EXCITED).

Genre: Fantasy. Definitely fantasy. Anything can happen. You can build worlds, create awesome, magical characters . . . the list goes on and on.

Author: hmmm, favorite author? There are SO MANY. But if I had to pick, it would be a tie between J.R.R. Tolkien and Shannon Messenger.

Writing music: movie soundtracks. Or TV soundtracks. They’re both awesome. I especially love the Lord of the Rings and Narnia ones.

Time to write: the morning or the afternoon. A lot of writers seem to be night owls, but once I hit 9:00 PM I just can’t function anymore. (Although, ironically, the creative part of my mind goes haywire once I get in bed.)

Writing snack/drink: actually, none. I don’t really eat or drink when I write. Usually if I do, I get really distracted.

Movie: *rubs hands gleefully* All right, you know what I’m going to say here . . . THE LORD OF THE RINGS!!! Probably the last one, although I don’t watch it often because I cry so hard at the ending. . . .

Writing Memory: probably the time I wrote for four hours in the dark basement on a couch. (Now I’m not allowed to do that anymore, but I learned that writing in the dark is fun!)

Childhood book: Alvin's Secret Code. It was the first "real" book I ever read, and I ADORED it.
Reading: I’m rereading the Inheritance Cycle, and I literally just finished Starflower by Anne Elisabeth Stengl, which was amazing, of course.

Writing: I’ve started a sequel to the book I gave my cousins. (And because I just realized that I gave you absolutely no description whatsoever about it, I’ll just say: There's an alternate dimension! Super powers! Glowing people! Oncoming war! And mysterious pasts!)

Listening to: a whole bunch of soundtracks, and Mirror Girl by Abbiee.

Watching: well, we watched The Matrix this week (trigger warning, super violent - there’s a reason it’s rated R). I’m also rewatching Avatar: The Last Airbender, which is always awesome.

Learning: that silence can teach you things about yourself, and that nature is a great way to find God (especially the ocean).
Want to be Published: Yes! I’ve always wanted to publish my books, although I don’t think I’m quite ready yet. . . .

Indie or Traditional: Traditional would be a dream come true, but indie publishing is appealing to me more and more. For now, we’ll see.

Wildest Goal: Well, if you want wildest . . . to be a bestseller and to share book tours with my favorite authors.
Okay, I’m not entirely sure who's all done this tag, and I’m still finding blogs to follow, so I’m just going to tag you! Consider yourself tagged. I hope you have as much fun with this tag as I did.

I hope all your summers are going well. See you next Sunday and around the blogosphere!

-Nicole