The Get to Know Me Tag!

Hello! 

Yes, it’s not Thursday, my usual posting day, but this is just a fun extra post that I’m doing because I was tagged! 

Hannah@Ink Blots and Coffee Stains tagged me in the Get to Know Me tag! 

I’m not going to answer ALL the questions because there are about 25976103, but here goes….

Vital Stats

Name: Olivia Nash

Nicknames: Livie, Liv, Liver, Chopped Liver (don’t ask) 

Place of Birth: Nashville, Tennessee. I’m southern, y’all! 

Star sign: Gemini 

Firsts 

Best friend: Hard to say because I grew up with a lot of kids my age, who were my parent’s friends kids, but the first friend that I made on my own is named Caroline and she’s great! Also can’t forget Abigail, who is my bestie ’til the end.

Award: I won a spelling bee when I was ten? I think that’s the first actual award I got that my mom didn’t make for me. Because those kinds of things don’t really count. 

Sport: Aha. Hahaha. No. 

Real holiday: The beach when I was one and a half. I wore a hat and ate sand. 

Concert: I’m not exactly sure what qualifies as an actual concert. I went to a Blues Clues Live! thing when I was five or so, but the first BIG concert that I actually found myself and went to was TobyMac at Bridgestone Arena. It was awesome. (Blues Clues was the bomb as well in case you were wondering) 

Favorites

Film: Runaway Jury. Now You See Me. And I can always watch the 2005 version of Pride and Prejudice. Mr. Darcy never goes out of style. 

TV Show: So…hard…. my life goal is to watch ALL THE SHOWS but a few of my favorites are The Mentalist, Sherlock, The Closer, The Middle, Agent Carter, and Downton Abbey. Not sure why half of them start with the. 

Color: Blue! 

Song: Okay no. I play the piano and guitar and I’ve sang in choirs since I was six so there is no one answer to this question. To even start to really answer this I’d have to break everything into sections (Instrumental, Soundtrack, Musical, Pop, ‘70s,...) okay it’s not that bad but… Bluebird by Sara Bareilles, or anything from her, Pretty Funny from Dogfight, Samson by Regina Spektor, anything ABBA, The Cave by Mumford and Sons. I’m currently obsessed with the Matilda the Musical Album because I just saw the show and it’s A-MAzing.  I didn't even start to talk about my favorite writing music here because then I would really get off track, but there's going to be a post coming up about that soon! *grins*

Restaurant: Maggiano’s, an Italian restaurant in Nashville. Pasta. Bread with olive oil and mozzarella for dipping. Tiramisu. Enough said. 

Books: I’m a writer. This is hard. Pride and Prejudice, Meet the Austins by Madeleine L’Engle, A Year Down Yonder by Richard Peck, Dangerous by Shannon Hale, The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart, Chasing Vermeer by Blue Balliett, Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli, I could go on and on…

Currently

Feeling: Slightly exhausted, but excited for future things in general. 

Single or taken: Single and ready for a Pringle, baby. 

Eating: Nothing? But now that you mention it, I am hungry…where did I put those Reese’s? 

Watching: Bones! In about five minutes. 

Wearing: Pajamas. And I’m not ashamed at all. 

Future

Want Children: Yes. 

Want to be married: If the right person comes along, yes. 

Careers in mind: I’m planning on getting a degree in Social Work, but ultimately I’d like to be a full time (published) writer. Although that doesn’t necessarily guarantee that I’ll be making any money. *sigh* 

Where you want to live: I love Tennessee, but I’ve always thought it’d be fun to live in a big city like New York or Chicago. I’ve visited both of them and absolutely loved both places. So I think it would be fun to live in a big city for a little while as a younger human bean. Probably not permanently. 

Do You Believe In

God: Yes. 

Miracles: Yes. 

Love at first sight: No. Lust at first sight? Yes. Love is an action, an everyday, no matter what, hard decision that you make to put the other person first no matter the circumstance. 

Ghosts: eeehhhhh not really? 

Aliens: The typical 21st century alien description, no. 

Soul Mates: No. I think that there is more than one person out there for everyone. 

Heaven: Yes. 

Hell: Yes. 

Kissing on the first Date: Depends on how long you knew each other before the first date = ) 

Yourself: I mean, I think so. Wouldn’t this all be a neat trick if I really didn’t exist though! But - if this question isn't a trick and means having confidence in myself- then yes, I do believe in myself! 

OK, that's it!

Thanks for tagging me, Hannah! You guys be sure to go and check out her blog, it’s really great! 

I tag anyone who is reading this and wants to to do this tag. 

You get tagged, you get tagged, EVERYBODY GETS TAAAAGGGEEEDDDDD! 

Okay, let’s end with an Oprah quote.  

Hope you enjoyed getting to know me a little better! 

Let me know in the comments if you are doing the tag (so I can come check it out), or answer one of the questions above. I'd love to get to know you! 

Why Not Writing Can Be Just as Important as Writing

As a writer, you've probably heard these two pieces of advice hundreds of times:

 Read a lot.

    and

 Write a lot.

Authors give this advice on the FAQ's page of their site a lot when people ask how to become a writer.

And it's true. 

To be a good writer, you have to read a lot, and you have to write a lot.

But that's not all you have to do.

To be a writer, you also have to live a lot. 

I realized this when I was writing in a WIP about how life changes us and tweaks us, no matter how hard we try to resist it. By simply living, we are changed, even if we don't realize it. It was meant to be comforting to my MC, but after I wrote it, I read it and was shocked by just how true it felt.

Every time we meet someone new, or go to a new city, or see a new movie or read a new book, we take in sights and thoughts and feelings. We can't shut ourselves away from these things, unless we just stopped living completely.

All these things that we experience, they change us. When you go to bed at night, you're not the same person you were when you got up that morning.

It might not be a big, noticeable change, but it will be a change. Some days it might be something huge that you learned about a friend that maybe you wish you didn't know, or maybe you just heard a new song that inspired you.

As a writer, the idea that we need to stay inside all day and pound away at our keyboards so that we can meet our daily quota of words is drilled into us.

Sometimes we forget that if we haven't lived, we won't have anything to write about.

Ideas don't come out of nowhere. You have to be inspired first.

So go outside. Visit a museum, or an entirely new city. Listen to a song you've never heard before, or to an old one that you've heard hundreds of times. Meet new people and try new things and read new books and old ones too. But most importantly, live.

The most exciting ideas often come to me when I'm on vacation. The influx of new experiences and facts and places and people is just too much for my brain to handle, and it explodes in a bunch of new story and character ideas.

Embrace the fact that you might have to stop writing to be inspired.

Step away from the computer, go outside, and take a walk. Watch a movie. Start a new TV Show. Cook a recipe you've never tried.

Live, so you can write.

What do you do to get inspired to write? Share your favorite ways to be inspired in the comments below. See you there!

Let's Get Real....

Hi guys! 

So...it's been a while. 

I kind of dropped off the face of the world there for a little bit. Okay, it wasn't kind of, I did disappear from the blogosphere. 

Sorry about that. 

2015 was a long and hard year. The highlights of my writing during 2015 were a very inspiring and encouraging trip to the Southern Festival of Books, and two good story ideas, complete with characters and plots. 

The low point of the year was the first six months, when I hardly wrote at all. 

It was hard. I felt run down, and like I had nothing left to give to my writing. Everything I tried to write seemed to be horrible. 

But then something clicked. I was focusing too much on the publishing side of writing, and not on the creative side. I had gotten bogged down reading articles and tweets about querying and revising. Everything I wrote, I thought of whether it would sell to a publishing house. 

I was trying to write something instantly publishable. 

That isn't possible, and it's certainly not enjoyable. 

So while I'm still reading about queries and literary agents and publishing, I'm realizing that using that knowledge might be a long way away. Years even. 

I'm writing again, several thousand words a day. And while they're not fantastic words, they're words that weren't there before. Shannon Hale once said, "I'm writing a first draft and reminding myself that I'm simply shoveling sand into a box so that later I can build castles." I love that quote, because it reminds me that first drafts aren't meant to be perfect. 

First drafts are gaping plot holes and flat characters. 

First drafts are weirdly phrased sentences. 

First drafts are leaving a chapter hanging because you don't know how to write the next scene. 

So, for 2016, let's raise a glass to imperfections. 

Because you can't paint a masterpiece without first messing up the canvas. 

I'm going to try to get back into blogging. And this time, I'm serious. I'm going to schedule posts and try to interact with my readers more. I really enjoyed blogging last time, before I fell into my black hole of writing doubt. 

Thanks for sticking with me. 

I've got lots of exciting things planned!