Ten Things You Don't Know About Me

I was mulling over what to write about in today’s post, when I remembered those “notes” people used to create on Facebook called “25 Things You Don’t Know About Me.” I thought it might be fun to create my own list here and share a little about myself. In the interest of time and an attempt to not bore anyone to death, I’ll keep my list to ten things. Here we go!

1. I’m pretty much blind, with little hope that Lasik could ever give me perfect vision. For those of you who wear contact lenses, my powers are -10 in the right eye and – 8.5 in the left eye.

2. I was born on an Army base in Louisiana called Fort Polk, but only lived in that state for the first year of my life.

3. I moved around a LOT as a child with my mother and step-father, and neither one of them were in the military. By the time I was in seventh grade, I had attended a new school each year and lived in multiple homes all over the state of Texas. I moved to North Carolina when I was twelve. The book The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls really resonated with me.

4. I wasn’t sure I would ever make a good mom, but now my kids (ages 11 and 8) are my world. I love them dearly and can’t imagine life without them.

5. I am painfully, painfully shy, especially with people I don’t know very well. Walking into writing conferences is very difficult for me, and I probably appear very standoffish at first. But put me in a group of about four or five people with common interests, and I’ll talk your ear off.

6. Even though I consider myself an introvert, I won statewide awards for dramatic interpretation by acting out scenes from The Crucible and Medea and other famous plays all through high school. I guess I’m okay as long as I’m pretending to be someone else?

7. Journalism has always been my calling, and I like to joke that I simply don’t know how to do anything else. I was the co-editor of my high school yearbook and worked on my college newspaper as both a features and news editor.

8. I met my husband at my first professional job right out of college. I was working as an administrative assistant at an advertising agency and he was an account executive. The fax machine was right beside my desk and I swear he found something to fax almost every hour.

9. I’m allergic to cats, which makes my son very, very sad.

10. My favorite television shows are The Big Bang Theory and Criminal Minds. I also like old episodes of Cold Case and Without a Trace. Unfortunately, these are shows that are in syndication and I record them obsessively, which hinders my writing productivity way more than I'd like to admit.

That’s me in a nutshell. What is something that most people don’t know about you?

Renee Roberson is an award-winning writer and editor who also works as a blog tour manager with WOW! Women on Writing. She still has a few openings left in the tour for author and journalist Lorraine Ash's memoir Self and Soul: On Creating a Meaningful Life, which starts in August. She can be reached at renee@wow-womenonwriting.com.