Nominated by the ineffably stunning and lovely @meixime.
1 - I used to be a prolific author and have written in the region of seven-eight novels (I can't remember if I bothered finishing one or two of those), but thanks to my utter lack of patience with finished projects and general laziness and apathy when it comes to marketing, promotions, and suchlike, only four ever saw any form of publishing, one is out of print, and two are under a dead name, so will not be spoken of further (The one I'm not as yet ashamed of is here, if curious).
2 - While I fully accept there are better fantasy authors out there, I remain a J R R Tolkien nut. Anyway, they all owe their genre to him (and he's so much less rapey than George R R Martin).
3 - And on that note, I also have huge amounts of time for Tolkien's buddy C S Lewis, whose religious essays helped me feel a whole lot better about not being an atheist (having been raised in a household where spirituality in all forms was not looked upon kindly). In fact, I do still count myself a (very unorthodox) Christian as well as a witch, mainly because at one of my lowest points - back when I was still in the closet about being trans - I encountered an academic text (this one) with a chapter focused on how the gender non-conformity of Jesus was a solace and inspiration to P B Shelley (who was, quite possibly, gender dysphoric to some extent). It felt like the universe sending me a little "I've got your back."
4 - I used to be utterly obsessed with "Phantom of the Opera" - the musical especially, though I also devoured various movie versions and it's one of the few French novels I took the trouble to read in the original (though with a parallel text, as I'm not great at languages). In fact, my remaining novel is a pretty shameless attempt to do something similar with a female protagonist, the closest I can ever get to portraying that role myself (Alas, I'm also not great at singing).
5 - Although...
Gosh, I miss burlesque. :(
Nominating, for anyone who feels like giving it a go - @ksew @trilla @babu @gnomi @geminisky @loligaia @brujaja @melissalalucy @misshunter xxx
