The Honestea Tag

Skye @ Ink Castles kindly tagged me for the Honestea Tag back in *cough* April of last year (but guys, I'm ALMOST done with my tag backlog! I promise! XD) And besides the fact that I want to be caught up enough on tags to stop having to say that I was tagged almost a year ago, it's March. A good time to drink tea. (Or, well, this tag is about "spilling tea", as the kids say. But hey. Close enough.)

Praecepta:

no lies allowed. if an answer is too shameful to expose you may substitute the answer with a gif/image of someone drinking tea.

e. g. → 

there are optional bonus additions to questions but these are not for the faint of heart. 

if you complete the tag having answered every question + the bonus additions (no gifs used), you are dubbed a certified tea chugger, and you deserve a badge to show the world that you are not afraid of a steaming hot cup of TRUTH. (The badge is available on the tag creator's blog)

tag at least one other person (a tea party with just one is not very fun. trust me.) 

untagged persons are more than welcome to fill it out as well (nothing cooler than crashing a tea party). 

what is a 'bad' (generally disliked) movie that you actually love?
I have a soft spot for 90s and early 2000s romances. 
Think While You Were Sleeping, 13 Going On 30, 12 Dates of Christmas, Date Night, Legally Blonde.
Stuff that has, like 6/10 stars on IMDb. 
I guess that's not terrible? But still, I think they're not what people would consider Great Movies. And I can see that, but I really Do Not Care. They make me happy. They're good comfort movies. 
(I'm also not a critical movie watcher AT ALL as opposed to my attitude towards books, so as long as something isn't an actual garbage fire, I'm pretty happy.)

what is your most shocking reading habit?
I don't know exactly, because I shock different people with different things, so lemme just list off most of them:
-I hate taking notes in the margins, even when I'm supposed to for class, so I just don't
-I dog-ear library books, even ones that are over a hundred years old
-I've read in the goat shed and let goats eat parts of my books (including library books, but that was only one time, okay?)
-I've taken a library book to another state on multiple occasions, one of which involved mailing it back to the original state for my family to return it. I have no regrets about this.
-I read while I eat CONSTANTLY (have gotten hot chocolate on books before, also grease, and various vegetable stains)
-I don't care about breaking a book's spine. I don't do it on purpose, but I don't try not to. Putting books face-down doesn't bother me.
-To follow up on the above, I never used bookmarks as a child--I would just put the book face-down (or bookmark with any random object I found around, e.g. pillow, tissue, &c)
-I throw books in my backpack with zero care for how they bounce around in there. They usually end up a tad worse for the wear
Is all that bad enough for you?

tell us the number one lie you write in your posts.
I don't usually lie to you guys? At most, I will:
-change names of my friends that I'm talking about (to protect the innocent and the guilty)
-obfuscate certain relationships (yes, that was purposely ambiguous)
-not mention the fact that the post was written up to three months in advance (this isn't true for all my posts, but some of them. Fun game for you: guess which ones!)

tell us the worst character name you've ever thought up. {bonus: share a character name you find ridiculous in a book/movie}
I think it was something along the lines of Alyss Evanlyn Green. (Stealing shamelessly from Ranger's Apprentice, because apparently her parents were also named after literary characters, and it was a Family Tradition or something.) I don't think I have that notebook any more, though, so I don't have a way to fact check that. (This was in middle school, for the record.)
I think this is the same name that Skye said for a ridiculous name in a book/movie, but Peeta. I mean, seriously? That was the best you could come up with?

what is the real reason you procrastinate writing your work in progress?
I don't know what's going to happen next.
Or I'm too busy.
Or I don't feel like it.
Or I feel like I'm a terrible writer.
Or any combination of the above.

what is a genre of music you secretly love?
Classical. I didn't used to love it, but I'm coming around. Largely due to Holst's Jupiter, tbh. 
I know that's not that embarrassing, but it's the only one I could think of that I don't think you guys know about yet. 
Also, I love Gregorian chant and polyphony. (This, this, and this are three of my current favorite pieces of polyphony. Please enjoy.) (Those three are Palestrina's "Sicut Cervus", Martini's "In Monte Oliveti", and Tallis's "If Ye Love Me" respectively. The last one is one that we got to sing at Mass on Sunday, and it was stuck in my head for AGES.)

if you're a plotter, what do you really think of pansters? and if you're a panster, what do you really think of plotters?
I'm a pantser who wishes she was a plotter. So, basically, what I think of plotters is 'you're better than I am, and I wish I was you'. Because I'm SO ORGANIZED in EVERY OTHER AREA OF MY LIFE that I JUST WANT AN OUTLINE but apparently creativity (or at least, my creativity) doesn't fit in a plotted box? Probably that's good for my sanity, tbh. 

share at least three lines of dialogue from one of your first writing projects {bonus: give us the good stuff. your most gruesome butchering of the English language)
As someone who has the utmost respect for the English language, I don't think I ever truly butchered it. (At least, not grammatically.) But this is one of the worst examples just in terms of capitalization and punctuation.

It's from my very embarrassing first 'finished' writing project that I thought was the pinnacle of achievement at the time. I read the first few pages to find this snippet (believe me, it doesn't get better), and all I have to say is thank God I've improved at least a little since then. XD (Also, there was some comic sans involved. Please don't ask.) 

“So we do share PE and lunch.” I said to Susanna
“Well, that’s Ok, but I’m still nervous.” Said Susanna.
“I’ll show you your classroom route now” I told Susanna, then looked at the principal, daring him to tell me no.
But he replied, “Absolutely. And you know that I’m not that mean. I gave you the same PE and lunch.” He was trying to be jovial, but it sorta fell flat. 

It sorta fell flat. *dies*

WHERE is the period at the end of the first sentence? WHERE is the comma before the dialogue tag? (Where is actually any punctuation before the dialogue tag in the third line?) What is with the capitalization of "Ok", let alone the spelling? How many times can I say 'Susanna' in one paragraph? Why is my MC being so defiant? Answers which may never be known. And the vanilla-ness of the whole thing is off the charts. (Seriously, this whole 'manuscript' was WAY more embarrassing than I remembered.)

tell us the title & artist of the last song you listened to. 
"Dancing in the Minefields" by Andrew Peterson (as of when I'm writing this post)

which beloved book/movie character do you dislike & why?
Oh, gosh. My mind has gone Absolutely Blank, possibly because I'm a generally agreeable person who doesn't take weird dislikes to characters.
However. I'm not a huge fan of Wanda Maximoff, aka Scarlet Witch. 
I don't hate her. I could just take her or leave her, and I'd generally rather leave her. She's kind of melodramatic, and I didn't really like WandaVision. The ending was creepy. 
That's the best I can think of right now. XD

tell us the title & topic of a post you have left in draft. 
Is this something that we've decided never to post, or something that's coming up? (I'm going to go with decided never to post.) I don't remember the exact title, but early in my blogging career, I wrote a post about how lefties are never represented in fiction, and then made a list of ways my life is weird/kooky/interesting because of being a leftie, but I decided that the post was a) boring and b) egotistical, so I scrapped it. (Also, how important is leftie representation in fiction? Probably not very.)

what is a book you pretend you've read/would like to read but know you never will? {bonus: share a time when claiming you've read a classic/well known book didn't end well}
Probably any classic Western. Sorry Sarah! I just don't find the genre appealing, in general. They seem...kind of boring? But also overdramatic? And I just don't really care enough? (But then again, I have been known to change my mind on these things, if and when people can convince me to actually give them a shot.) 
I don't think I've ever pretended to have read a book that I haven't read. I may have given that impression by nodding and smiling, but I've never actually *claimed* to have read something I've never read. 

tell us the title & topic of the most embarrassing post you've ever written. {bonus: include. the. link.} 
(My embarrassing posts are generally not that bad, so this shouldn't be horrible?)
I'm a bit embarrassed by my Musings On Art post (yes, I did include the link, look at that) mostly because I feel like I didn't think things all the way through and come up with a coherent system of framing for my thoughts before I actually posted it, which a friend kindly pointed out in the comments. I did a follow up a little less than a year later which I think represents my ideas much better. That's here. 

Annnnnnd as for tagging people, I tag Sarah @ Sarah Seele, as an apology for hating on Westerns. *sings* What can I say except...you're welcome!

So. What's a post you've written but never posted? Do you like Westerns, or do you understand my reasons for not wanting to read them? If you're a plotter, how do you feel about my blatant longing to be one of you?