Belated introduction

[Songstress]

Greetings all... As you can see from my join date, I'm not new to DM, but I realized recently that I never posted an intro thread, and since I've recently become much more active on the forums, I thought I'd do a little introduction for those who care to know. I lurked around here for almost a year, posting mostly in the general WoT discussion, but the last few months I decided I missed forum sig making (from my World of Warcraft days), then started contributing to the Fiddlesticks spam... and now I'm hooked on mafia, so I guess you guys are stuck with me.

 

I also have forum accounts under the same name on two other fantasy lit sites, so if you see posts from Songstress on Westeros.org or 17th Shard, that would be me as well.

 

Now entering Life Story mode!

 

I've been a voracious reader since I was a kid, often coming home from the library with 10-15 books at a time. I read a bit of fantasy in my teens and twenties (I'm a bit beyond that now... but it's not polite to ask a woman her age, and suffice it to say I don't look OR act my age )... Of course I read Lord of the Rings, was a huge fan of the Narnia Chronicles as well as Madeleine L'Engle's Time Quartet, devoured Terry Brooks' Shannara series, and dabbled a bit in sci fi, but eventually began leaning more toward mystery, suspense, thrillers, and some horror (Stephen King, John Saul, Dean Koontz, etc.). Eventually I came back to fantasy in a roundabout way.

 

Eleven years ago I married a gamer geek, who had been playing a text MUD since college. I watched over his shoulder while he played for about 3 years before I finally caved in and rolled my own character on TorilMUD - a half-elf bard who was MADE OF WIN. After I got her to max level, I started trying to level a grey elf invoker, but found it a little more difficult because suddenly all of my hubby's friends who were my leveling helpers disappeared into the void that was known as (dun dun dun...) World of Warcraft. Eventually hubby was sucked in to WoW as well, and I tried to resist, but it only took 3 months of watching him play before I succumbed.

 

We played WoW pretty casually for the most part, until I quit my full time job and had enough free time to devote myself to a semi-serious raiding guild. And then 3-1/2 years ago, my hubby suddenly passed away (aortic dissection at the age of 31), and in a fog of grief and depression, I spent even more time playing WoW, and every spare minute reading. Not being a Blizzard fangirl before I was dragged kicking and screaming into World of Warcraft, I found myself curious about the Warcraft backstory, and began picking up the Warcraft novels at the recommendation of one of my guildies.

 

When I'd devoured all the available Warcraft books, I asked a few fantasy-lit enthusiasts in my guild for recommendations of what to read next. George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire was the immediate consensus, so I picked up books 1-4 and barely came up for air long enough to get a full time job again.

 

You'd think these fantasy-lit friends were the ones who recommended WoT to me too, but they actually didn't -- I was giving a nutshell of the Game of Thrones plot to my massage therapist, and she was fascinated with the Stark children/direwolves connection and began to relate a bit of the Perrin storyline from the Eye of the World to me. Having gone as far as I could with ASoIaF, I tracked down a copy of EotW and decided to check it out. Before I'd finished that one, I knew I was hooked, so I started snagging copies of the rest, including The Gathering Storm. And right after I finished TGS, I bought a hardback copy of Towers of Midnight because I could not fathom waiting for the paperback (even though I'm OCD enough that I can't stand collecting a book series mixed between paperbacks and hardbacks).

 

(As a side note, about the time GRRM's A Dance with Dragons was released, I decided to convert to e-books because of my extremely limited bookshelf space. With all the books I want to collect and re-read over and over, I just can't keep buying paperbacks, much less hardbacks.)

 

When TOM was done, I sat there for about 10 minutes before deciding I must check out some of Brandon Sanderson's own work, and have become quite a fan of his (hence joining 17th Shard). I've been checking out recommendations for other fantasy series now that I'm hooked on the genre again.

 

Oh yeah. And after 5 years of World of Warcraft, I canceled my subscription in January of last year due to lack of time to play and a tight budget. Sometimes I still miss my moonkin.

 

</life story mode>

 

Let's see... Other bits and pieces about me. I go by Songstress because I love to sing, and have at times in my life been a fairly prolific writer of songs and poetry. Like many here on the forum, I also harbor an inkling of a desire to write fiction (although I really can't see myself writing fantasy - however much I like to read it). I'll probably venture into the ACW guild forum now and then. I am, unfortunately, really, really good at procrastinating, so I've never really finished anything of consequence. It's one of my talents. ;)

 

I currently work full time as a customer service rep at a mail order pharmacy call center... I play keyboard at my church... I have no children but two adorable kitties that act like toddlers most of the time... And I'm currently paving the road to hell with good intentions of losing weight, de-cluttering my packratted condo, and spending more time writing.

 

So. Now that you all know MUCH MORE about me than you expected to... Anyone who's still paying attention have any questions?

[michellem]

Hi and welcome :) You seem like my kind of person, I like you. I that your cat?

 

I have sworn to myself never to try WoW. I am a person that gets easily addicted, and I am honestly worried about what effect it would have on my life, so I stick to computer games you can actually finish.

 

Oh, and yeah: Have you ever read any Dragonlance? Wich person in WoT would you most like to meet?

[Songstress]

Hi Misheru! :)

 

Yes, that's one of my two... they're both black, though. At one time I had 3 black cats. Every time I turned around they were crossing my path, good thing I'm not superstitious ;)

 

Haven't read any Dragonlance yet but I believe I have one of them sitting in my larger "to be read" stack... I think. It's quite a large stack, and I haven't sorted through it completely. My smaller TBR pile has the ones I intend on finishing first, and it has 7 books that I haven't touched yet.

 

Hmmm... Which person in WoT would I most like to meet? I think I'd pick Min, just because she seems like she'd be easy to become friends with. Or Thom, because he'd be terrifically entertaining to be around.

[michellem]

I'd so pick Nynaeve, just to see how fast I could make her reach for her braid, haha ^^

 

I have two cats two, tigerstriped. Used to foster a black little ninja cat, our aparment was very full then.

 

What else is in your to-be-read-piles?

[Songstress]

The current short stack:

 

Gardens of the Moon by Steven Erickson (currently reading)

Furies of Calderon by Jim Butcher

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card

Dune by Frank Herbert (yeah, never saw the movie either)

The Privilege of the Sword by Ellen Kushner

Sunshine by Robin McKinley

The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell

 

The last 3 on this list were put there when I tried to join an off-season reading club in the Television Without Pity Game of Thrones discussion forum... I fell hopelessly behind on the reading list when I got into a Brandon Sanderson obsession, so I stopped trying to acquire the books on their list.

 

My larger pile in the other room has a few more fantasy but mostly mystery/suspense/thriller types, and I believe contains around 25 books I haven't read.

 

I also have a handful of Kindle books I haven't read yet but I prefer to get through my paperback stack first, so I limit myself to reading on the e-reader while on the treadmill right now. Most of my Kindle collection right now is stuff I want to keep permanently to re-read but don't have room any longer to store the dead tree version.

[Sakaea]

Dear god...you sound like you could be my twin, or like my older sister. Seriously. Wow. you already!

 

Dragon Tattoo and Ender's Game are really good. Are you a console gamer also?

[Songstress]

Never committed to a console system. My hubby always talked about getting one but he was as bad about procrastinating as I am... plus I have enough time wasting addictions without letting myself get sucked into that, lol!

[Tamrylin rand al'thor]

I would meet LAN Mandragoran just so I could see his BAMF blademaster skills

[Tamrylin rand al'thor]

I would meet LAN Mandragoran just so I could see his BAMF blademaster skills