A game for bookish folks

My friend Amy Wallace has dragged me out of lurkdom by tagging me to play this little game. I'm not going to tag anybody, but if you feel like playing along, please tell us where to find your answers. You can read responses from Amy and some of her friends at her blog.

Here are the questions and my answers:

1. What's the one book or writing project you haven't yet written but still hope to?

I would love to write a story set in a fictional version of the town where I grew up, in the wine country of California's Central Coast. (Nope, not Napa. Farther south than that.) I don't have a plot yet. Just some very interesting characters who want to get out of my head someday.

2. If you had one entire day in which to do nothing but read, what book would you start with?

If we're talking about this week, it would be the Spring 2007 version of Relief Journal, which I still haven't had time to finish reading. Okay, so it's not exactly a book, but it's good stuff.

3. What was your first writing "instrument" (besides pen and paper)?

A very old computer that some friends lent me because they knew I had started writing, using only pen and paper. I didn't even know how to turn on a computer, and I was terribly afraid I would break the thing. I churned out my first and worst novel on that clunky computer. (That's one book that will never see the light of day.)

4. What's your best guess as to how many books you read in a month?

Depends on the month. Some months, I walk out of the library with a stack of books and read 'em all in a week. This month, I've hardly read anything because my muse has gone into overdrive and I have to keep up with her. (Or him. I've never figured out if my muse is a guy or a girl.)

5. What's your favorite writing "machine" you've ever owned?

So far, that would be the VAIO laptop that I'm typing on right now.

6. Think historical fiction: what's your favorite time period in which to read?

Anything from around 1900 all the way into the thirties and forties.

7. What's the one book you remember most clearly from your youth (childhood or teens)?

Probably To Kill a Mockingbird. I had never been outside of California, but that story transported me to the South. Years later, living in Alabama and Georgia, I felt as if I had already met the people and the land. I still re-read it once in a while.

Okay, there you have it. Thanks for inviting me to play, Amy!