One Lovely Blog Award

I was nominated by Simoa. She is a dear friend who has encouraged me time and time again over the years. She’s been a strong presence in my life since the moment we met online. She’s had a great hand in helping me become more confident in myself. Honestly, I’m still imperfect because of all of the baggage, but without a few people in my life such as her, I don’t think I’d have reached the place where I want to stop pretending I’m okay and just be me. GO VISIT HER BLOG BECAUSE SHE IS A TREASURE.

So here are 7 unusual things about a girl who hasn’t done much with or in her life (last chance to turn back – unless you stop reading halfway of course):

i.
According to Ancestry (and other genealogies that have been done) – so take this with a grain of salt obviously – I am a direct descendant of Pocahontas. Although I know there are a lot of horrific things in history that has allowed me to be one of her great-granddaughters, it’s still something about my heritage that I’m grateful to have an idea about.

ii.
I’m working on a handful of books that span a couple of genres. Aside: However, I’m timid of ever publishing even under my pen name (which would still be J.M. Anne) because then I would run the risk of being discovered by my family – especially given the nature of a few of these books. I know for a fact that I have two choices if I were to ever publish: Either publish Christian fiction and keep everything else to myself or finally part ways from my parents, and potentially my sibling.

iii.
I am not a well-traveled person, but I want to be. So much so that the past year I’ve saved up money to begin taking weekend trips to other cities and states – as well as funds for either traveling or moving overseas! – as a start. I realized how I’ve barely seen much or done much in my own state and I just decided I can’t be that person anymore. So beginning next month I am going to start doing things! Just in time for my favorite season of the year  🙂

iv.
I have been to Washington D.C. once in my life, however. That was a really neat thing. So neat I could never do it justice in words. I wish I would have been a little older when we went and I wish we’d had more time, but I got to go to the Smithsonian Air and Space museum which was what I really really wanted to do.

v.
An odd, and slightly embarrassing one, but one I’d like to get off my chest… I have a fake persona elsewhere online. Only one friend in real life knows of it because she’s long been my enabler; she’s the one who helped me come up with it. This persona has always been for the purpose of publishing fanfiction without fear of it being linked back to any online presence my mother was aware of. It started years ago when fanfiction wasn’t allowed in my house – for reading or writing. But you see being the rebellious thing I was, I wrote it anyhow for my friends at school. And from there it spiraled into this ridiculous thing where my friend even has a fake persona she has maintained to help keep the trail from ever leading back to me (and to a lesser extent herself; her family was never as strict).

It’s… really neurotic when I stop and think hard about it and it shows just how much secrecy ends up being fostered in strict homes (when you fear ever little move being judged or punished, or every single thing being banned/taken away from you, you figure out ways around it; I’m not even surprised when things come out about people well known in Christian circles). And, you know, it’s not that I ever harm anyone with this persona – something I feel very inclined to point out – and have ever set out to mislead people rather just misdirect. But it’s still just, weird. Not to mention a boldfaced lie, compiled of other vague lies, I’ve told over the years. And even weirder that no matter how strange – and perhaps even skeevy – I know it is logically, even at my age I still feel inclined to use that persona and not just, I don’t know, out myself or break off from it (although this is a goal I’ve set for myself as a part of my journey). Then again I’ve written quite a few ‘popular’ enough fanfics over the years, and amassed readers I enjoy interacting with and connected with other fanfic writers, so I feel that it’s probably such a tangled web at this point that people would think I’m crazy no matter my justification of it and I’d lose that ‘safe place’ I’ve created – either if I tell or walk away completely. I feel like even owning to it here is risky enough! But it is in keeping with the theme of this blog so there’s a confessional fact about me for you.

vi.
According to family members, I sang before I could talk. In the sense that I vocalized along to music/singing. And much of my vocabulary is owed to songs because I learned new words, how to pronounce them by singing along as soon as I could start actually talking.

vii.
Piggybacking off of that… While writing is something I enjoy, singing is my passion. I have performed in various ways. I was in choir, accepted into – but unable to be part of – a prestigious children’s choir, have performed solo, have performed with others, was the youth worship leader at my previous church, have been offered to demo (at a price parents couldn’t afford), have been involved in music workshops, have performed a few anthems, and a few other things involving music in my life. The kicker? I can’t play an instrument to save my life – and believe me I have tried time and time again to learn various instruments and it just doesn’t take.

And there you have a weird little bit about me.

Part of the rules was to post the rules for the award and then nominate other blogs. I’m still new here and haven’t had the ability to connect with many yet so I’ve been given a reprieve on this rule thankfully! But I love doing blanket nominations with these kinds of things – as in, if you want to do this please! Spread the love!

As always, there are rules for these awards:

1. Write a blog post accepting your nomination.
2. Show the blogger who nominated you how much you love them by thanking them in the post and linking to their blog.
3. Tell us seven things about yourself.
4. Nominate other blogs that you think are totally rad.
5. Let the bloggers you’ve nominated know about they’ve received an award.
6. Post the rules again to let those bloggers know how it works.