Monica Burns …at http://www.monicaburns.com/
Ten Things about Me
1. I often forget how old I am. Some days it feels like I’m still in high school, I’m crushing on a movie star or can’t wait to learn the most current slang words, (see how that dates me). I have to depend on my nephews and nieces for that. I’ve said it before that behaving immature tends convince the people around me that I can’t possibly be as old as I really am. Even my coworkers, that I have worked beside for the last five or six years, are surprised when I mention my age. (not telling)
2. I am the third child out of six. Two sisters and three brothers. My youngest brother died in a motorcycle accident when he was twenty-eight. He was a good friend to me. He made me laugh. I was nine years nine years older than him, but when he got his engineering degree he moved up where I was and we had some really great times. Our friends still talk about him and it’s been sixteen years since he died. I still smile at some of his pranks. All my family are funny people.
3. In my twenties I used to sing. One particular job was at a Dixie land Jazz club in Corpus Christie, Texas. Eons ago, when the beaches were white. One of my numbers was “A Good Man Is Hard To Find.” Still love that song. It’s one I can still sing decently.
4. I had ear surgery about five years ago and went completely deaf in my right ear. I used that in my book. After a lifetime of turning in the right direction of where a voice or noise is coming from, I now always turn to the left. For the first year or two at work they’d laugh when I did that. It is weird not to have some sense of which direction a sound it coming from.
5. My family helps me in so many ways. My brother Cliff is my web-mister and designer. He has a very dry sense of humor and when I posted a contest on my blog about naming a character based on the picture posted. My first suggestion was from him, Klyph, god of all men. He’s played more seven letter words in scrabble than any other player I’ve been up against.
My older sister is my go to girl when I want to bounce ideas; she’s one of those Mensa people who can take a test on anything and score high. My nieces help with ideas to. My older brother is a dear, and I can throw any animal question at him, he’s a veterinarian. And my younger sisters is a medical librarian, I bother her a lot with my day job antics. She’s one of those people who doesn’t read romance, but prefers self help books and non fiction. We a so very different from each other and yet we shared a bedroom for too many years.
6. My favorite meat is medium rare filet. My favorite seafood is lobster. My favorite deserts are New York style cheesecake and Boston Cream Pie…I guess I’m a fan of east coast food.
7. My first Star Trek convention was in 1979 in Houston Texas. I was working as a waitress at a hotel and I looked across the lobby and there was a man holding a chain that was wrapped around a planet of the ape’s guy. It was a blast. Since that time I’m only been to about 10, but I love fantasy, science fiction conventions. My last one was Dragon*Con two years ago.
8. I have found from personal experience that it is easier to be rejected my some one you believe you are in love with, than it is to reject someone who is love with you.
9. I tend to be a voyeur when I am with people I don’t know. I am bothered when a group is not inclusive. For instance when you get two are three people with a private joke, who don’t include you in the story behind it or tell you what it means. And truthfully, I don’t know whether that makes me the snob or them.
10. I had a son who was stillborn at full term. His father had his masters in Pottery, so I named him Samuel Clay. I used his name for the main character in my first books, a science fiction series that I may or may not go back to revise and rewrite. I used his first name as part of my pen name. He was my only child. Oddly, I don’t think about him when his birthday comes around, but I do every mother’s day.
