The lovely Charlotte tagged me with this meme. My first thought was that I’m not sure if I can come up with five strengths. I’m so much more comfortable being self-deprecating than enumerating my strong points, and I’m sure a therapist could make a whole lot of money trying to help me figure out why! But here goes anyway:

1. I write clear, natural-sounding sentences. The sentence-level aspect of writing is the easiest for me. I don’t make very many grammatical or spelling errors, so clarity of sentences is a strong point. I might not have a clear or coherent plot, but I can write the heck out of a sentence.

2. I’m a quick study. I’m quite good at taking in a lot of material and then spitting out the relevant information (this is where grad school was actually useful for me!). This makes incorporating historical information into my novel-in-progress fairly easy. This skill is useful in my freelance work as well, when — for example — I’m writing an article on equine aromatherapy and need to drop in some of the relevant vocabulary.

3. I know how to use strong, evocative language to create images. My favorite thing in writing is to come up with rich, sensory images. I think I have a pretty good sense of when this sort of language is necessary, when the reader needs to be anchored to the story via an appeal to the senses.

4. I can see the big picture. In my current novel-in-progress, I have a solid idea of the overarching themes, of what it all means. While I don’t want my characters simply to be an expression of ideas, it’s helpful to have these thematic threads to help weave the story together.

5. I am funny. I mean, I’m not being funny right now. But I can be funny when I need to be. Well, at least, I think I’m funny. Don’t you?

I simply have to tag Gartenfische and Lisa — anyone else, feel free to jump in!