Michael Schmicker's Blog - Posts Tagged "beatles"
Mia Asks Me 9 Questions
Mia Darien of Boom Baby Reviews (boombabyreviews.com) had a bit of fun with me on the virtual book tour. In case you missed it, she asked me to answer nine questions about myself:
Q1: One Random Fact about You?
A: I refuse to try an Ouija board. All in the mind? Simply the power of suggestion? I’m not so sure.
Q2. Fictional Character You’d Really Like to Be?
A: The globe-trotting Indiana Jones. I love archeology, foreign languages, and ancient history; I spent three years in Southeast Asia as a freelance correspondent traveling by steam train and prop-driven, World War II DC-3 planes; and I'm fascinated with the Orient’s older gods and cultures.
Q3. Your Authorial Theme Song?
A: The Beatles’ “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.” There’s more to reality than what we see.
Q4. Favorite Part of Being a Writer?
A: Being a tiny part of that great, glorious, fraternity which includes Dickens and Twain, J.K. Rowling and Agatha Christie, David McCullough and Umberto Eco. True, I’m barely inside the door, but when people ask me “What do you do?” I can honestly answer "I’m a writer.”
Q5. Name of Your First Pet?
A: “Boot Dog” – he was part-Labrador, rescued from the local dog pound. I loved him fiercely. I’ve always had dogs.
Q.6: Music, Television, or Silence While Writing?
A: The sounds of silence. Nature. I live and write high on a mountaintop in Hawaii, overlooking Diamond Head. Outside in the garden, with the door open and the sun shining, I hear a slight breeze in the coconut palms, and an occasional dog bark in the distance.
Q7. Early Riser or Night Owl?
A: Night owl. When I need a break from writing, I walk outside and look at the stars –Orion in the winter, Scorpio in the summer. In The Witch of Napoli, my heroine Alessandra “pointed her finger at the luminous arc of galaxies that glittered above their heads, her finger tracing its majestic sweep across the zodiac.” I do that often.
Q.8. Favorite Season?
A:Fall – in New England. Hawaii is my home, and I will never move, but when I retire I want to spend my Octobers in Connecticut, where I lived during my grade-school years. I traveled one year to Jakarta on a newspaper assignment with a well-known Swiss photographer who had traveled the globe, from Tokyo to Rio, Paris to Deadhorse. He told me of all the places in the world he visited, he always preferred to spend his autumn in New England. The colors!
Q9: Did You Always Want to be a Writer?
A: From birth, haha. I read the newspaper daily as a kid trudging around the neighborhood pushing my bike, delivering the Danbury News-Times. I was writing limericks at seven, and published my first short story at thirteen. National Scholastic Writing Contest. I forget what the plot was about, and I’m sure I’d be embarrassed to read it today, but it put stars in my eyes. My mother still has the photograph -- I’m in the Principal’s office, St. Peter’s School, Danbury, Connecticut, nervous and excited, flanked by Father Hitchcock and beaming Sister Arlene in her starched nun’s coif. A guy is handing me a small gold key and a printed certificate. Mom, bless her soul, kept the clipping for years in a tin box, and surprised me with it when I scored my first op-ed byline in the Asia Wall Street Journal. Writers have always been my heroes.
Q1: One Random Fact about You?
A: I refuse to try an Ouija board. All in the mind? Simply the power of suggestion? I’m not so sure.
Q2. Fictional Character You’d Really Like to Be?
A: The globe-trotting Indiana Jones. I love archeology, foreign languages, and ancient history; I spent three years in Southeast Asia as a freelance correspondent traveling by steam train and prop-driven, World War II DC-3 planes; and I'm fascinated with the Orient’s older gods and cultures.
Q3. Your Authorial Theme Song?
A: The Beatles’ “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.” There’s more to reality than what we see.
Q4. Favorite Part of Being a Writer?
A: Being a tiny part of that great, glorious, fraternity which includes Dickens and Twain, J.K. Rowling and Agatha Christie, David McCullough and Umberto Eco. True, I’m barely inside the door, but when people ask me “What do you do?” I can honestly answer "I’m a writer.”
Q5. Name of Your First Pet?
A: “Boot Dog” – he was part-Labrador, rescued from the local dog pound. I loved him fiercely. I’ve always had dogs.
Q.6: Music, Television, or Silence While Writing?
A: The sounds of silence. Nature. I live and write high on a mountaintop in Hawaii, overlooking Diamond Head. Outside in the garden, with the door open and the sun shining, I hear a slight breeze in the coconut palms, and an occasional dog bark in the distance.
Q7. Early Riser or Night Owl?
A: Night owl. When I need a break from writing, I walk outside and look at the stars –Orion in the winter, Scorpio in the summer. In The Witch of Napoli, my heroine Alessandra “pointed her finger at the luminous arc of galaxies that glittered above their heads, her finger tracing its majestic sweep across the zodiac.” I do that often.
Q.8. Favorite Season?
A:Fall – in New England. Hawaii is my home, and I will never move, but when I retire I want to spend my Octobers in Connecticut, where I lived during my grade-school years. I traveled one year to Jakarta on a newspaper assignment with a well-known Swiss photographer who had traveled the globe, from Tokyo to Rio, Paris to Deadhorse. He told me of all the places in the world he visited, he always preferred to spend his autumn in New England. The colors!
Q9: Did You Always Want to be a Writer?
A: From birth, haha. I read the newspaper daily as a kid trudging around the neighborhood pushing my bike, delivering the Danbury News-Times. I was writing limericks at seven, and published my first short story at thirteen. National Scholastic Writing Contest. I forget what the plot was about, and I’m sure I’d be embarrassed to read it today, but it put stars in my eyes. My mother still has the photograph -- I’m in the Principal’s office, St. Peter’s School, Danbury, Connecticut, nervous and excited, flanked by Father Hitchcock and beaming Sister Arlene in her starched nun’s coif. A guy is handing me a small gold key and a printed certificate. Mom, bless her soul, kept the clipping for years in a tin box, and surprised me with it when I scored my first op-ed byline in the Asia Wall Street Journal. Writers have always been my heroes.
