The Get to Know Me Tag

I already love this tag. It is so fun and unique, and the questions are all fantastic! You get a little bit of everything - from personal tidbits to some of my favorites to writing/publishing questions - and I'm so excited to share that I'm just gonna cut this intro short and segue right into the theme song!

Tall guy, beard, twins, purple hoser! Dude Perfect's in Overtime. Tall guy -

*record screeches*

Wait. That's, um...wrong theme song, folks. Let's, uh... *shuffles around* Let's try this...

Broccoli! Celery! Gotta be...Veggietales!

*music stops*

Nope. Not that one either...

Send me love everyday, and send me on my way. Deliver me, just deliver me...

*jerks film*

We're, uh, experiencing some technical difficulties. We'll be right back after a message from our sponsors...

*commercial jingle plays*

Next up on Veggie shopping network: pants.

Welcome viewers, what comes next? A pair of pants with stripes or checks? Dig in your wallet, dump out your purse. Who'll be the one to buy the first?

*record smashes* *film rips* *music crescendos*

I DON'T KNOW WHAT'S GOING ON HERE, BUT YOU'RE ALL FIRED!

*coughs*

Just start the show.

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the rules

• Link back to the person who created the tag. (Savannah Grace)

• Thank the person who tagged you. (Thank you, E.G. Bella!)

• Share the tag graphic.

• Tag eleven bloggers.

(And don't steal other people's theme songs...*levels a glare at her studio assistant*)

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the questions

Vital Stats and Appearance

(pen)Name: Grace A. Johnson (Real name, baby! And y’all are more than welcome to guess what the A stands for in the comments!)

Nicknames: Gracie, Graciegirl, Granny Fanny Farkles (don’t ask)

Birthday: August 9th

Hair color and length: It’s, for the most part, a generic caramel brown, but when the sun hits it just right, glimmers of sienna, vermilion, and vanilla appear. And it actually goes past my waistline to my hips!

Eye color: Brown. No glimmers or anything. Just hazelnut brown.

Braces/piercings/tattoos: Never had braces. No piercing. No tattoos ever. I do, however, wear glasses and have since I was nine years old. I’m severely nearsighted, so I have to wear my glasses to drive, and my vision is about 20/45, I think. I tried wearing contacts once, but it was just too much hassle.

Righty or lefty: Righty. End of story. *winks*

Ethnicity: Basically Caucasian, but that’s boring, so let’s dig deep, shall we? I’m predominantly Scottish on all sides of my family, with a generous dose of Irish and other Northern European in there. But, I also have some Spanish, Egyptian, and Portuguese/Sephardi Jewish in there too! My fourth-great-grandmother was a direct descendant of Dr. Samuel Nunez, one of the most prominent Jewish immigrants in America during the 17th-18th centuries! He was friends with John Wesley, and he helped establish the colony of Georgia alongside James Oglethorpe! (Pst! He even has a Wikipedia page here!)

Firsts:

First novel written: Um. I guess the first would be Secret Agents Girls...but I only got two chapters into that. So the first novel I really felt like I committed to would be Finding Love on Horseback, a western romance, which I wrote about seven chapters of!

First novel completed: Beyond the Inner Storm. A Christian historical romance set in 1850s Michigan, approximately 45k words long. I even got thiiis close to finishing the sequel!

Award for writing: None. I’ve won some essay contests and short stories contests here and there, but no awards...YET!

First publication: Held Captive! Which y’all can learn more about here, of course! Or read about as you continue to follow the words in this sentence… HC was published in March of 2019, approximately 75k words, when I was thirteen years old! It took me about six months to write, and the next three months were spent editing and...well, querying! (Which I’ll talk more about in a moment!) It’s the first novel in the Daughters of the Seven Seas series, and even though I plan on rewriting it at some point in the not-so-distant future, it’s my book baby and I love it.

Conference: None. But I do hope to attend the ACFW conference soon! (Maybe next year...Lord—and my parents—willing!)

Query/Pitch: Held Captive to Whitefire Publishing! The query went over well—in fact, Mrs. White asked for my proposal...but that, my dears, was the deal-breaker. I had put together THE WORST proposal in HISTORY. I am ashamed of myself. Suffice to say, I never heard back. Never queried again (not out of hurt or fear of rejection, though), and I ended up self-publishing! All thanks be to God for directing my path!

Favorites:

Novel (that you wrote): I’ve only written four full-length novels, and my favorite would definitely be Bound and Determined! It’s a very intense and edgy book, but it needed to be written, and I believe it needs to be read! God has just blessed me and this story so much through the writing process, and I hope it’ll be a blessing to others!

Genre: ANYTHING romance. As long as it’s Christian, of course! Especially historical and fantasy! Although I love a well-done contemporary or mystery...those are just harder to come by, in my opinion!

Author: I can’t. I’m done with this question.

Writing Music: Honestly...pretty much anything. That I enjoy, that is. From 80s pop to 40s swing to 2000s rock, if I like the sound and the story in the lyrics (and the lyrics are clean and preferably Christian, of course), then I’ll listen to it as I write! I’m not really an instrumental girl, and I’m more of a vague mood listener, so I can’t really pick anything specific.

Time To Write: Night. I would love to write during the day (especially the morning), but I am (1) busy, (2) not a morning person at all, and (3) so easily distracted. Night just works best—even if I get no sleep!

Writing Snack/Drink: Tea. Chilled, iced, hot, creamy—doesn’t matter to me unless it has sugar in it! I’m also a huge eggnog fan...and orange juice lover...and cream-and-sugar-with-a-splash-of-coffee kinda person...so really anything I can sip on, I will drink. But I typically end up with a glass of old-fashioned Southern sweet tea!

As for snacks...I don’t like to eat anything messy...but I also love food. So I will legit it anything you put in front of my face, even while writing. (Except mac and cheese.)

Movie: Pirates of the Caribbean; Rocky; Signed, Sealed, Delivered; Iron Man; Indiana Jones; Pride and Prejudice (2005); Gone with the Wind; Casablanca; The Last Samurai; The Patriot...honestly, anything historical, romantic, suspenseful, action-packed, and full of great dialogue and character dynamics and VIBES. Preferably all in one movie.

Writing Memory: Um. Yeesh. I’ve been writing for about seven years (give or take), so…that’s a lot of memories to go through. Uh…well, I guess this is more of a feeling rather than a vivid memory, but my favorite feeling/memory/moment in writing is when the Holy Spirit takes over for me, and I literally have no idea what I’m writing—He just does it for me, and the words flow, and I read back over them, and my heart is full, and I’m just like wow.

That’s my favorite.

Childhood Book: Book? As in singular? As in only one? Well, there’s Tell Me The Christmas Story, which was the first book I ever learned to read. Sign of the Beaver, which was the first book I reread (of many, many books). The Golden Braid by Melanie Dickerson, which inspired me to write. And the Left Behind kids series. And Nancy Drew. And Junie B. Jones. There are…just…so…many…

Currently:

Reading: Calligraphy Guild by R.M. Archer! (Make that cramming…my review is due in just a few days! Yikes!)

Writing: The Girl in the Pages—a Regency romance short story for Sisters Three’s Heard in Silence anthology!

Listening to: Rain. Literally. *coughs* Music-wise, I’ve been listening to a lot of Owl City, SafetySuit, and NEEDTOBREATHE lately! (All their old stuff, of course!)

Watching: The Amazing Spider-Man 1 & 2! We just finished watching all of the Signed, Sealed, Delivered movies/episodes, so we spent the weekend finally watching TASM! We’d heard some negative things about Andrew Garfield’s Spidey movies (and we’re huge Tobey Maguire fans over here), so we’d never bothered to watch them…but we needed a movie Friday night and TASM 1 was on Netflix, so we gave it a shot. AND IT WAS ACTUALLY GOOD. I mean, not Maguire good (better in some ways, worse in others), but still much better than we’d expected! So, of course, we rented TASM 2 Saturday night—and it wasn’t as good as the first one, and Harry/Norman/the fact that they didn’t make a third one were all disappointing, but it was enjoyable!

Learning: How not to write book reviews. Apparently you’re not supposed to rant…or express negative opinions…or write them at midnight. *groans*

Future:

Want To Be Published: DONE! And done, and done, and done! *winks*

Indie or Traditional: Right now (and for the foreseeable future), it’s self-publishing! I hope to start working with some small indie presses soon, and then, Lord willing, move on to traditional publishing for a few select projects…but I will probably always be self-publishing something!

Wildest Goal: Be published by Enclave, Revell, and Bethany House. That about sums it up, but there are a ton of other smaller (but still huge) goals entwined with these! And, of course, I would LOVE to have a book/series turned into a movie/film series/TV series! Which begs the question…who would I cast as my characters???

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tags

• Kristina Hall

• Vanessa Hall

• Issabelle Perry

• Kristianne Hassman

• Emily Charlotte

• Ryan Elizabeth

• Jenna Terese

• Joy Caroline

• Allyson Jamison

• Joelle Stone

• Saraina Whitney

And for those of y’all in the comments…what are you currently reading? What are your favorite movies? What’s your wildest writing goal? Who would you cast as Rina, Xavier, Elliot, Keaton, etc.? (I already have Eleanor Tomlinson for Crimson, by the way!) Let me know down below!

yours in spirit and script,

Grace

#gettoknowme #aboutme #abouttheblogger #abouttheauthor #reading #writing #blogtag #funfacts