All about me

Name: Janna

Age: 17

sex: female

Location: Somewhere in the GVRD, Canada. (Greater Vancouver Regional District anyone? Any stalkers will have to search through 23 cities!)

DeviantART profile: http://mockingbirdflyaway.deviantart.com/

Fictionpress profile: http://www.fictionpress.com/~mockingbirdflyaway

My state of mind: Crazy, with a touch of subtle humour and a dash of sarcasm.

Ancestry: 1/4 Dutch, 1/4 scottish, 1/4 german, and 1/4 those people who herd reindeers up in northern Scandinavia and wear the really bright colours...Sami.

Beta readers: Alec (www.fanfiction.net/~realmwalker) and Sam (www.fanfiction.net/~aevum) ...These two derive enjoyment from ripping my work apart at the seams, lol. They're the best friends a girl can have.

Appearance: I have reddish hair, glasses, blue-green eyes and I'm one of those people who's neither tall nor short at the grand old height of 5'6". I tend to favour jeans and turtlenecks in cold weather and pretty skirts in warm weather.

Personality: Generally, I'm very outspoken and loud around people I'm familiar with, but I tend to clam up around people I don't know very well or when I don't know what's going on. I'm quite shy, but I usually don't seem like it, because I've developed the ability to talk myself out of most of my fears and have a well-honed BS-ing ability, courtesy of Mandarin class (Where the philosophy is 'If you don't know something, just pretend you do!'). I've been told that I'm smart (I'm inclined to agree with this sentiment) and I'm always fascinated with strange things, like people's accents, little babies (so cute!) and maps. I'm also told that I fit the stereotype of a moody writer quite well.

Languages: I speak English and French fluently (Although writing in french is another matter entirely). I've been taking Mandarin Chinese for nearly four years and as a result I know enough to impress people who don't speak the language, but not enough to maintain a decent conversation with someone who does. Same goes for Russian, which I've been learning for about a year.

Pet peeves: People who walk slowly in front of me, morons, racists, badly dubbed Anime shows and people who don't format properly and have bad spelling.

Influences (in short, the people who's books I read when I have writer's block)

Farley Mowat - 'Lost in the barrens' was one of the first "real" novels I read in Grade 3. Ever since, I've loved Farley Mowat's style of story telling.
Rumiko Takahashi -Inuyasha, Ranma 1/2, Maison Ikkoku,One-Pound Gospel...Takahashi's brilliance when it comes to characterization and creativity just blows me away. That, and I think Inuyasha's ears are the cutest thing on the planet (Or off it, it seems, in Takahashi's universe)...
JK Rowling - I don't know where to start. Rowling's brilliance matches Takahashi's, except that Rowling writes in English instead of japanese and she can't draw quite as well.
Eoin Colfer - Eoin Colfer is probably my favourite writer in terms of style. His books are hilarious and his writing is very direct and dialogue-centric, which I like. His characters are also very fun to torment in fanfictions.
KA Applegate - Animorphs was my obsession all the way through elementary school and I'd still be reading them, had the series not ended.
Dan Brown - Besides the fact that I also stayed up all night to read the Da Vinci code, I loved the fact that I learned a whole bunch of stuff from that book.
Robert de Berneiers - Captain Corelli's mandolin is my most favourite book ever.
Robert Fulgham - I love reading what this guy thinks about.
JC Jaquez (Not a published author, per say, but she is one of the most talented authors on Fictionpress.com!) - And I sure can't wait until she publishes Firebird, Circle and North Star.
Gordan Korman - I have never been sucessfully able to read any of his books cover to cover with out being in stiches by the end of it.
Mary Hoffman - Time travel, Alternate dimensions, Hot italian guys and magic. Enough said.
Peter David - Best Star Trek writer out there! Yes. I am a shameless Trekkie...
James Herriot
Roald Dahl
Frank McCourt

Favourites

Foods: Pizza, spagetti and chinese food.

TV shows: Inuyasha, Fruits Basket,Witch Hunter Robin, Star Trek: Voyager, Star Trek: Enterprise, Stargate SG1, House M.D., CSI: Las Vegas, 24,Gundam Seed, Crossing Jordan. I also like watching stuff on TLC and Discovery channel.

Movies: Princess Mononoke, Nausicaa of the Valley of wind, Porco Rosso, Castle in the Sky (Yes, I AM a huge Hayao Miyazaki fan), Swords of an Honourable ruler, Just Like Heaven, Mulan, All the Disney/Pixar films, The Italian job, Ten things I hate about you, Star Wars(All but the most recent), Overboard, Insurrection, The Voyage home, First Contact, Miss Congeniality, Blackadder ... basically anything that makes me laugh.

Colours: Blue, green, silver, violet, red

Singers/musicians/bands: Great Big Sea, The Cheiftains, Reel Big Fish, Johnny Clegg and Savuka, Glenn Miller orchestra, BWitched, Greenday, Natalie MacMaster, Shania Twain, Nelly Furtado, Vanessa Carlton, Avril Lavigne, Christina Aguilera, Shaye, Kelly Clarkson, Jann Arden, Cannonball Adderley,Coleman Hawkins, Herbie Hancock, Duke Ellington and our own Wolf Thomson, listed above under the nifty little guise of my beta reader, Realmwalker :P teh jazz men rox my sox :laughs:

Person to tease: My best friend Alec

Hobbies: Writing, drawing, playing the alto sax, spending far too much time online talking to friends.

Season: Spring

Writing is like marriage - You shouldn't commit yourself until you can't believe your luck.

A man's gotto take a lot of punishment to write a really funny book -E.Hemingway

If you want to be seen, stand up. If you want to be heard, speak up. If you want to be appreciated, shut up!

People who claim that they never let the little things bother them have obviously never spent a night in a room with a single mosquito.

Not all those who wander are lost -JRR Tolkien

Abstract is just a nice way of saying it's weird -Kelly

There are no weapons stronger than words, they hit faster than a speeding bullet, with more force than a battering ram. Never failing to pierce the heart - Alec

Some people are like slinkies - not really good for anything but you can't help smiling when you see one tumble down the stairs.

"I'll block your pop-up, buddy!" - Hilary. (She was cursing the annoying internet popups. But my mind is, ahem, a gutter. So you can see what fun I had with this. )

Reality is something for people who can't handle science fiction.

The power of accurate observation is often called cynicism by those who do not have it.

Well behaved women rarely make history

Amateurs practise until they get it right. Professionals practise until they can't get it wrong.

"There is only one satisfying way to boot a computer!"

Men may just exist to antagonize the poetry out of women.

Never frown, for you never know who could be falling in love with your smile.

"I still like the idea that there are all those little people in my TV who are there for my own personal pleasure" -Ms. Thomson

"All this time we thought you were a brilliant strategist, but really you're just a lucky fool." - Kurama

"I would rather spend the rest of my life with someone who has seen the darkness in my soul and stood by my side despite it, than someone who has fallen for brightness of my smile."

He who trains his tongue to quoth the learned sages will be known far and wide as a smartass.