Blogger Undercover: FNC---First Novel Club (Blogger Interview)

Hey guys! Here is the second Blogger Undercover for the day! This time, it's a quadruple feature because there are four people in FNC (First Novels Club). Go check their blog out! It's super cool!

What inspired you to become a blogger?
The four members of our writing critique group attended an SCBWI conference in April 2009, our first all together. After toasting each other with cheap wine on Friday night at the conference, we decided to blog about our group’s journey writing our first novels. To borrow from our first post, our blog “is intended for aspiring writers at any stage of the game. We'll keep you updated on our writing progress; any conferences we attend; authors, editors, and agents we meet; books we're obsessed with (or "with which we're obsessed," for the grammatically-inclined); and anything else that strikes our fancy.” In less than two months, it began to evolve, and we now include both reader- and writer-friendly features, such as author interviews, co-reviews of new books, and guest blogs.

* The rest of this post, besides the last question, will be answered by each of us. To learn more about us, check out our bios!

What is one thing that not many people know about you?
Donna - I believe that everything in life relates to an episode of Friends.
Janine - For the longest time, I wanted to be an astronaut.
Sara - I hate socks!
Frankie - I once sprained my ankle sneaking into the boy's locker room...in 7th grade. It started off as a game and ended with a chase that had me sliding across the girl's locker room on my stomach, then hopping on one foot to the nurse's office. It was the most interesting day of gym class ever.

What is your favorite drink?
D - Unsweetened iced tea with extra lemon!
J - A spicy red wine. Water with a slice of lemon.
S - That's a tough one--I'm a big fan of a lot of different drinks--sodas, teas, milkshakes, smoothies... My favorite drinks to have when I'm writing are either a hazelnut latte, or a glass of white wine :)
F - Ok I have two favorites. One is healthy, one is not. My healthy drink is a green smoothie. I drink them like water. My not so healthy drink...soy vanilla lattes. I can't walk into a book store or coffee shop without ordering one- as a result I know every barista within twenty miles of my house...and they all know me.

Apart from being the awesome blogger that you are, what else do you like to do?
D - I work full time as an office manager at a newspaper, and I freelance as a proofreader, copyeditor, and writer for various companies. In any free time I have, I read voraciously, work on my YA novel, travel, get addicted to TV shows, cook, spend as much time outside as possible, and talk to strangers.
J - I like to read, hike, take pictures, cook/bake, scuba dive, knit, ski, and be with the people I love.
S - I'm a first grade teacher, and I also coach 9-12 year olds on a USA swim team. I also love to bake--I'm always on the lookout for unique cookie recipes, like ginger lime cookies and pomegranate chocolate cookies!
F - I feel like I'm blogging in all of my free time lately. But outside I'm currently revising my first YA novel, I'm addicted to books and I also like to belly dance (and yeah somehow they all go together).

Who is your favorite author?
D - There is no singular answer for that! Sense of humor: Stephen King, Meg Cabot, Frank McCourt, and Christopher Moore. Romance: Nicholas Sparks, Jane Austen, and Richelle Mead. Imagination: JK Rowling and Neil Gaiman. Friendship: Anne Brashares and SE Hinton. Emotional heart: Harper Lee and Lois Lowry.
J - As far as picture books go, I love Patricia Polacco, David Wiesner, and Chris van Allsburg. Otherwise and undoubtedly, C.S. Lewis and JRR Tolkien.
S - Oh no, what a hard question! My favorite younger children's author is Mo Willems, author of the Pigeon picture books and an awesome beginning reader series Piggie and Elephant. For YA, it would have to be Tamora Pierce. It always seems like she gets everything right--action, humor, romance, world-building, everything! For adult fiction, Willa Cather. I've read The Professor's House four times and I still love it.
F - At the moment it's Richelle Mead since I'm absolutely ADDICTED to both her Vampire Academy series and Georgina Kincaid books.

What are your five, most favorite things?
D - In no particular order: sunshine, cheese, novels, traveling, and smiling (it sounds cheesy, but I smile ALL THE TIME. To quote Buddy the Elf “I love smiling, smiling’s my favorite.”)
J - Leather-bound hardback books; popcorn cooked in olive oil in a pot on the stove; Pennsylvania in the spring (and the fall, for that matter); the sunrise; and tote bags.
S - My cats, the cold side of the pillow, flip-flops, and the way books smell.
F - 1) Mangos, 2) Listening to books on my iPod, 3) Vanilla Body Scrub, 4) Receiving ARCs in the mail, 5) Movie Trailers -best part of the theater experience!

If you had to meet an author (dead or alive), who would it be?
D – Such a cliché answer, but Jane Austen. There’s just something about her writing that’s so timeless, I can’t resist.
J - Probably Lucy Maud Montgomery. As a child, I imagined I lived in the world she created in her books.
S - Probably Willa Cather. She was quite secretive about her private life, and did not often comment on her own novels--I'd like to pick her brain.
F - Please sign me up to talk with Tolkein, I'd love to sit for an hour and listen to him talk, in English, Middle English or Finnish, so long as he is talkin. I'd even drink tea (and I hate tea).

If you could have one wish, what would it be?
D - My Zen answer: to have everything in life turn out as it is meant to. My practical answer: to publish my YA novel (which I’m almost finished writing!).
J - To be a mermaid for a day. Or a bird.
S - More hours in the day to have to myself.
F - Right now my only wish is to get through my revision and still feel completely in love with my story at the end. Signing a major book deal and having other people fall in love with it would be cool too. A robot who folded my laundry would be cool too!

What are your features on your blog? Can you describe them?
Well, First Novels Club, or FNC as we call it, features author interviews (questions focus mostly on writing and publishing questions, and we try to highlight new authors); reviews and co-reviews of novels we love; guest blogs from book review bloggers and authors; writerly topics that we come across in our novel-writing process; our adventures meeting editors and agents; and our many author-stalking excursions! Whew!

Coolio! Thanks guys! What wonderful people! I hope these guys get to publish their novels! They're great bloggers, and I have no doubt they'll be great authors as well!!!

Reggie (My signature has disappeared for now)