Bells
22
Graduated
Dog-Walker, Wannabe Copyeditor
Hire me?
I like books. And I love reading them. Since I was a small fetus swimming in my mother's womb, I've loved books. That sounds like an exaggeration, but I kept my mom in labor for 48 hours--so my family jokes that I was in there trying to finish my last chapter. When I emerged, my mom could easily place me in a playpen with a pile of books and I would stay quiet for hours looking simply at the pictures. As my age has increased, my passion for the written word has followed suit. I lost my faith for a bit, floundering in the hands of an oppressive high school English teacher only to soar in the hands of the next one. I am now a UC San Diego alumni with a degree in Psychology and a minor in Literature/Writing, as well as a UCSD Extension certified copyeditor, who is spending some time hanging out with my family, traveling, and figuring out my next step.
And it's because of this,my stumbling my way through the real world, that I'm pursuing literature more than ever. After taking a playwriting class for GE and comparing it to the boring straight-laced midterm-final classes of my major (not that psych is boring because I am totally and completely fascinated by psychology, but the way it's taught is just not what I wanted out of my education), I finally understood I needed to throw caution to the wind and chase what I really wanted. I started taking copyediting classes through our on-campus extension program in hopes to get a job after I graduated (hasn't happened yet); I began writing pro bono for our school's newspaper, the Guardian; and just finding my way back to what I really love and trying not to scare myself silly in the attempt.
1. Do you have any bookish quirks?*
When I have a series, I like them to all be the same... Like all in harback or in paperback, or if there are different covers (Jessica Darling series) I have the series in all the same style. Most of the time, I can easily make that work, but sometimes I just can't. But the series I love and care about more than any other books (Harry Potter, Twilight, etc.) must 100% be the same.
2. What is your dream bookish job?
I would love to copyedit. I think that's an entry level position, but I think it's absolutely fascinating. I would love to write my own books as well. I hope I can find a job that allows me to do that on the side. I have so many stories in my head, they do need to get out there at some point. I would love to work for Hyperion. My whole family has an obsession with Disney and as much as I'd love to work at Disneyland as simply a cast member, if I could work for the Disney publishing company... that would be... (oh shoot, I can't believe I'm actually going to write this) the best of both worlds.
3. Favorite place to shop for books?
Thrift stores and garage sales. I would say at least 85% of my entire book collection are from them. I'm obsessed with finding books there. I always go to the book section first and if there's nothing I want, I'm pretty much over the store. My mom has to remind me that there are other cool things at thrift stores. I recently found out that my hometown library has a pretty awesome used book store, so I frequent there much more often.
2. What is your dream bookish job?
I would love to copyedit. I think that's an entry level position, but I think it's absolutely fascinating. I would love to write my own books as well. I hope I can find a job that allows me to do that on the side. I have so many stories in my head, they do need to get out there at some point. I would love to work for Hyperion. My whole family has an obsession with Disney and as much as I'd love to work at Disneyland as simply a cast member, if I could work for the Disney publishing company... that would be... (oh shoot, I can't believe I'm actually going to write this) the best of both worlds.
3. Favorite place to shop for books?
Thrift stores and garage sales. I would say at least 85% of my entire book collection are from them. I'm obsessed with finding books there. I always go to the book section first and if there's nothing I want, I'm pretty much over the store. My mom has to remind me that there are other cool things at thrift stores. I recently found out that my hometown library has a pretty awesome used book store, so I frequent there much more often.
4. What do your bookshelves look like and how do you organize them?
My family just moved into a house that actually fits our family and I got the master bedroom. So naturally I have four bookshelves in there. Plus my second closet shelf is filled with books to the ceiling. Basically, I have my leather-bound books, vintage children books, Harry Potter collection, Twilight collection in one. My favorite/want-to-read fiction, non-fiction, coffee table books, and children's books in my main bookshelf. A bookshelf near my desk entirely devoted to writing, grammar, and editing books. And a fourth bookshelf I just moved in that I'm filling with all the new books I'm buying. Yeah...
5. Five random facts.
- I'm sort of, kinda obsessed with dinosaurs. I love them. I have a Little Foot (from The Land Before Time movie series) since I was seven years old and he's been absolutely everywhere with me--the average sleepover to the East Coast to Mexico to Hawaii. From there, dinosaurs just sort of became a theme in my life.
- My nickname is Hannibal. It comes from The A-Team, the movie-not the show. My three best friends/flatmates from college and I went to go see it the last night we were together after finishing our second year of college, but before we did we all picked a character. One picked Face because he was played by Bradley Cooper and she loves him. One picked B.A. because she really believes deep down in her miniscule Asian body she is a strong black man. I picked Hannibal because I love Liam Neeson and I've always enjoyed Silence Of The Lambs. And the other got Murdock because she wasn't quick enough to pick another one and he was the only one left. Turns out, our characters were picked perfectly for our personalities and that's why I am who I am.
- Now you're probably wondering where Bells comes from and I'll explain that too. My best friend, Rosalie, and I like to give each other nicknames from our favorite fictional characters. It started with Bella (me) and Rosalie (her) from Twilight. Then it became Belle (me) and Aurora (her) from Disney. And then we're also Bellatrix (me) and Narcissa (her) from Harry Potter. All of my favorite fictional names deal with "bell" somewhere in there, so I became Bells.
- I love making faces at myself and I can fake a Duchenne smile.
- I love dreaming. I get a lot of my story ideas from dreams. My subconscious creates such amazing vivid stories that I try to write them down as much as possible. There's a novel idea I got from my dream that I'll take my whole life to try to get published if I have to because it's such a cool story. I've gotten a lot of my homework assignment stories for my writing classes from dreams. I especially like dreams that aren't that great story-wise, but I can pinpoint exactly what happened in my dream to what's recently been going on in my life... like a random mentioning of James Franco which turned into a full saga of having an engagement party with him at a ranch in the middle of the desert and being saved from all the creepy animals outside by Ian Somerhalder who was the man I really love. Go figure.
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