Quick Fire Questions. This Week, Bonnie Burton

This week we have a very special guest on our quick fire questions. None other than Bonnie Burton. 

Bonnie hosts the GeekDIY craft show on Stan Lee's World Of Heroes Youtube channel, appears on VaginalFantasy Book Club Show and is a frequent contributor to StarWars.com. Her latest showing saw Bonnie hitting the streets of San Francisco, where she asked the public how they would be celebrating May the 4th.

Bonnie is also an author, and has written numerous books including the most excellent The Star Wars Craft Book.

Lets kick off the questions.
You're stuck in a swamp on Dagobah. What one movie, TV show, album and book would you take?
My favorite movie is a tie between Star Wars and Blade Runner. So I'm bringing both! My favorite TV
show changes depending on my mood, but I think I could watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer and never get bored. It has humor, mystery, horror and romance all in one. Preferred music choices change daily, but The Fragile CD from Nine Inch Nails will always be one of my favorites. As for favorite book, I imagine if I'm stuck in a swamp on Dagobah I'd need something to distract me from sinking… perhaps The Greywalker series by Kat Richardson or Harry Potter!

If you could invite any three people (alive or not, fictitious or not) to a dinner party, who would they be?
The Dinner Party question is always difficult to answer because if I chose all my heroes I would be too nervous to eat! Not to mention the fact that I don't think I could ever eat a rack of ribs in front of the likes of Benedict Cumberbatch or Trent Reznor. The three people I would invite to a dinner party (but could also actually eat in front of) would be comedian Amy Poehler, director Edgar Wright and actor Simon Pegg. The three people I would invite and just stare at in awe would be David Bowie, Benedict Cumberbatch and Tina Fey. As for fictional folks -- I would love to go to dinner with Spike, Sherlock Holmes and Jessica Fletcher -- but given that lineup it's a given someone would be murdered.

What is your favourite John Williams soundtrack?
Too many to choose from! How about my Top 6?

Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, Indiana Jones, Schindler's List, Revenge of the Sith, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban! 

If you were invisible for a day what would be the first thing you would do?
Stay out of traffic! Knowing me, I'd get accidentally hit by a bus! I would love to go to a museum and hang out in the archives where the public aren't allowed. Or maybe follow Benedict Cumberbatch around – is that too creepy?

When was the last time you cried?
I cry all the time -- at pet food commericals, in front of beautiful art, chopping onions. I think the last time I cried was when I rewatched the season finale of Sherlock staring Benedict Cumberbatch, and Watson was giving a rather sad monologue in the cemetery. I don't want to say too much about it in case your readers haven't seen Sherlock yet. Okay, I need to stop mentioning Cumberbatch in every answer…

What is your biggest fear?
Aside from being torn apart by zombies, or falling into a shark tank -- I suppose my biggest fear is being boring. I never want to be considered dull. I imagine that's why I always try to say something funny at dinner parties, job interviews and first dates. You can only make one first impression, so it better be interesting.

What was the most embarrassing moment of your life?
Too many!!! One of them that I still shudder to think about is when I accidentally got my dental braces stuck in my friend's living room carpet during a slumber party when I was 13. Their mom had to cut the carpet out around my teeth. I was mortified and got a pretty horrible nickname I'd rather not repeat that lasted most my middle school years.

Excluding search engines, what three website would you choose if no other websites were available?
io9.com is my go-to news blog for the latest in sci-fi/horror/fantasy and weird science news. Annalee and Charlie Jane do such a great job of making me want to learn more about fiction as well as the real-life bizarre events around us.

Boingboing.com has great news and commentary about science, tech and politics. I've been a fan of theirs since they were a zine and I know I'll always go to their site to be informed and entertained.

Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Youtube and Pinterest: I'm a social media addict so I'm lumping all of these into one category. I get a lot of my breaking news from Twitter, as well as all my networking contacts -- I've made so many great friends and work connections on Twitter that I can't imagine it not being around. Facebook and; Instagram I use to keep up with my friends and what they're up to. Pinterest I use as an inspiration board for my writing and my hobbies. G+ and Youtube are useful to me to promote my web shows and create them -- that's how I ended up doing the Geek DIY craft show for Stan Lee's Youtube Channel, as well as the paranormal romance book club show "Vaginal Fantasy" with Felicia Day, Veronica Belmont and Kiala Kazebee for the Geek and Sundry Youtube Channel.

Do you have any guilty pleasures?
I watch a LOT of TV. I use it as background noise when I write; I use it to procrastinate when I SHOULD be writing; and it's useful for knowing a little bit of everything in pop culture. I love comedies, dramas, police procedurals, game shows, you name it. I do a lot of series rewatches thanks to Netflix streaming -- and I'll often write drinking games to go with them, or live tweet my viewings to entertain my followers. My favorites to rewatch include "Murder She Wrote," "Magnum PI," "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and "Twin Peaks." Here's my "Murder She Wrote" drinking game if you want to follow along: http://bonniegrrl.livejournal.com/805942.html

What are you looking forward to the most in the next six months?
I'm writing a few new books that I can't talk about yet, as well as writing and starring in a new web series. But I have to say in the next 6 months, I really want to buckle down and create some fun/entertaining content for myself and anyone who likes my books, comics and web shows. I feel like we all have the potential to be creative and do something fun with our lives. It's just a matter of being more of a participant than an observer. You have to get off the couch and make something. Stop surfing the web and zoning out in front of the TV and do something OTHER people will be talking about. Life is so short that you really have to hustle to make your mark.

What is your most treasured possession?
One of my most treasured possessions is the Darth Vader Toaster I helped to create for Lucasfilm. We used to have brainstorming meetings when I was at Lucasfilm and Star Wars Shop was still around. I came up with the idea to make a toaster that would burn the image of Darth Vader's helmet into the toast so I could have a geeky breakfast every morning. Everyone thought I was a nut job for suggesting it, but I persisted and years after I suggested it, the toaster finally became a reality as one of the most successful talked about products from Lucasfilm in the last few years. It even got on the cover of the Skymall Catalog on every airline. Sadly, my other idea of the Chewbacca Chia Head never was produced, but I'll gladly talk the Darth Vader Toaster as part of my long legacy at Lucasfilm.

What is your biggest regret?
My biggest regret is ongoing -- I always wish I could do more. I feel like I could be writing and creating more books, art, comics, crafts, web shows, etc. So I suppose I regret it whenever I slack off and don't get as much done as I want to in a day. I also regret not appreciating life as it is now. I'm always striving to do more and accomplish so much that I don't take a moment and really enjoy the journey. When I worked at Lucasfilm as the Senior Editor and Social Media Strategist for StarWars.com for almost a decade, I was so concerned about doing so much for the franchise and for the fans that I never took a moment to really let it sink in where I was working. Star Wars had been such a big part of my childhood and such an inspiration to me to become a writer in the first place that I don’t think I appreciated it enough.

What are you most proud of?
I'm most proud of the books I've written that inspire people to be creative -- whether it's my Star Wars drawing books teaching kids to draw the Millennium Falcon for the first time, or my craft books teaching people to transform a milk carton into a yawning Wookiee bird house, I love seeing people create things. I'm also proud of my anti-bullying book for young girls called "Girls Against Girls." I wrote it as a labor of love and it's really become one of my favorite things I've ever written. I was bullied as a kid, and even as an adult by insecure co-workers, so I feel like this book can help both teens and adults who have to deal with manipulation and mind games from girls and women alike. My book shows how to deal with mean girls and how not to become them when fighting them. It's not an easy topic to handle, and I've gotten a really positive response from readers that it helped.

On a lighter note, I'm also really proud of co-creating the Vandal Eyes movement with my friend Anne Wheaton. Basically, we've been encouraging people to put googly eyes on everything from Stop signs to condiment bottles for years and it's suddenly taking on a popularity that I never expected. We even convinced Arhcie McPhee toy store to make Emergency Googly Eye kits, giant googly eyes, glow-in-the-dark googly eyes and more! 

I'm also very proud of my "Geek DIY" craft show I did for Stan Lee's Youtube Channel. I made crafts with my favorite geek celebs like Wil Wheaton, Grant Imahara, Clare Kramer, Team Unicorn and many more! I'm also proud of my paranormal romance book club show "Vaginal Fantasy" I do with Felicia Day, Veronica Belmont and Kiala Kazebee for the Geek and Sundry Youtube Channel - We have a lot of fun talking about weird romance books over cocktails.

What is your favourite Spielberg movie?
I've always been a huge Indiana Jones fan. I think I wore a replica of Indy's hat in one of my school pictures in the yearbook! But there's so many other movies that Spielberg did that really transformed me! E.T. made me believe in non-threatening aliens; Jaws made me afraid to go into the ocean for years; Jurassic Park made me want to learn more about dinosaurs; and A.I. sparked my interest in robotics.

Where can people keep in touch or follow you?
I'm impossible not to find online. My web site Grrl.com is going through a redesign right now which hopefully will be updated soon with my latest web projects and books -- but for now everyone can find me daily if not hourly on my social media channels here:
https://twitter.com/bonniegrrl
http://bonniegrrl.tumblr.com/
http://pinterest.com/bonniegrrl/
http://about.me/bonnieburton
http://youtube.com/bonniegrrl
http://www.facebook.com/bonniegrrl
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm4674232/
http://www.amazon.com/Bonnie-Burton/e/B001IGNLF6/

Thanks Bonnie for answering our questions especially knowing how busy you are. Make sure to follow Bonnie on Twitter and her other channels. Lets all get behind the #vandaleyes campaign. I'm off to London Film Comic Con in July, so #vandaleyes will be at the ready.

Next week we have singer for Savage Garden and now solo artist, Darren Hayes.

Rob
@welshslider