Memefully
Impending doom of a ficathon due date = spending time with fandom = meme.

I do not think all sides of the equation are balanced!

Meme #1: Quote a bit of my writing at me? Find that one fic or post of minethat you really like, and find a sentence or a paragraph that pressesyour prose-buttons in the right way, and comment here with it? Don'tcare how long or short.

stultiloquentia tagged me for the next one!


What got you into fanfiction to begin with?

Catherine Marshall not spoon-feeding me Christy Huddleston/Neil MacNeill in fourth grade, trufax.

But it was the Bits of Ivory board at Republic of Pemberley that told me other people did it and sometimes they shared!

Then someone linked me to R.J. Anderson's Darkness and Light trilogy and I discovered ff.n and not only did other people do it, lots of them did it, and it was good and bad and porntastic and thoughtful, and it was called fanfic.

I see.

Do you? Do you really?

So what kind of fanfiction do you like to write?

I've written for these fandoms: Jane Austen, Wolverine/Rogue, Gilmore Girls, Sound of Music, Phantom of the Opera, Ever After, The Godfather, L.M. Montgomery, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Harry/Draco

Here are some kinds of fic I write:
1) Meta. These fics are usually dense both linguistically and idealistically. There usually isn't much plot, and if there is it's repeating things that happened in canon in some way or other, but expressing new thoughts on the subject.
2) The What If Question. I like to write AUs where one single thing is changed. These are usually long fics that play out the answer to the question using what from canon might come up or remain the same, and how those things might be different.
3) Character A and B finally get together. These are usually long fics taking place after a closed canon, getting the people I want to be together together.
4) Porn. Most of this stays in the closet. Not just because it's slash; I mean, I write both.

Two of my very favorite fics I've written don't fit into any of those categories. Hmm.

Do you find writing easy? Hard? What are the aspects of writing you struggle most with?

Sure it's easy. You click your fingers on some keys.

I have difficulty with my inferiority/superiority complex. I know everything I say has the capacity to impress the whole room. So then I spend way too long worrying about whether I'm being impressive enough.

Write a few sentences or so of your favorite pairing or character.

This is obviously a cheap trick to get me to write for you. Let's see. Instead I will pick something out from things not posted yet:

That Harry//Draco one for anelith:


They ended up getting sighted by the bevy of Healers having their coffee break in there.

“Save yourself!” Malfoy hissed. “Flee! Flee!”

Harry looked incredulously down at Malfoy, thoroughly convinced he was going to do something manically self destructive in that wheelchair of his.

“Heed my warning, Potter. And if I’m not back in five minutes, you better come right back and save me too!”

Malfoy wheeled up to the vertible platoon of nurses who’d stood up at the sight of them and started coming toward them. Then he proceeded to shamelessly flirt.

The nurses proceeded to try to take him back to the insanity ward.

“No, I’m not insane,” Malfoy told them earnestly. He spun in his wheelchair to Harry, who was watching said proceedings with a kind of morbid fascination. “Potter tell them! But what am I thinking?” Malfoy deflated. “You’re in no condition to testify to anyone’s sanity.”

Harry had to convince them Malfoy was on the ground floor, due to the overcrowding on the fourth. Then they wanted to know why Harry was there after visiting hours. “I’m Harry Potter,” he tried.

“I’m Helga Hardbeak,” the nurse at the head of the platoon said, unimpressed.

“I’m Martha Vetters,” another nurse volunteered. “I’m glad you like our shoes,” she said to Malfoy, and smiled sweetly.

Healer Hardbeak sent her a withering glance.

“They’re excellent shoes,” Malfoy said politely. “I’m Draco Malfoy, and this is my overnight guest.” He pointed at Harry. “The insane have needs, you see,” he said, and tried to look lascivious.

The group of nurses broke out in scandalized whispers and Harry broke out in a cold sweat of horror. “I’m not his overnight guest!” he protested.

“Just get back to where you’re supposed to be,” Helga Hardbeak said, after much deliberation. “Healer Vetters.”

Martha practically clicked her heels together. “Yes ma’am!”

“See that they do.”

“I’m Martha,” Martha reminded them, after she had seen Malfoy and Harry back to Malfoy’s appointed room. “You two can ask for me once I get off shift, you know. I’d love a sandwich.”

“Did she really just suggest what I think she did?” Harry asked no one in particular, after she had gone.

Malfoy moaned. “Potter, you were supposed to save me from those old birds!”

“The average age of your harem does appear to be remarkably high,” Harry said thoughtfully.

“That’s it. After tonight, no after hours exploring without your invisibilty cloak.”

Harry’s amusement faded. “Maybe that’s not such a good idea.”

Malfoy drew himself up. “Of course.” His voice was painstakingly polite.

“It’s just its valuable,” Harry said in a rush.

“Naturally,” Malfoy said blankly. “I wouldn’t presume.”

“No! I mean, I use it for important stuff. You know. Defeating Voldemort stuff.”

Malfoy scowled. “You never used it at school for anything frivilous or fun. And you would never, ever use it to play tricks on people.”

“Well, I’m sorry if you don’t believe me, but I didn’t,” Harry said. “I wouldn’t. I’m not like that.” Not like you, he’d been about to say, but didn’t want to make Malfoy even more angry than he already apparently was.

Malfoy didn’t seem angry any more though. He had a funny look on his face. “So,” he said. “Another mystery of my adolescence solved. That wasn’t you slinging mud at me that time outside the Shrieking Shack. How interesting.”

“Er.” Harry felt himself go red. He had to resist the urge to look down and shuffle his feet. “Well, yeah. That was me.”

“Ah.”

“Sorry?”

“Oh no. Then I shall have to apologize, and I really detest that.”

There was a silence which felt to Harry rather like every moment just before Malfoy had drawn his wand to toss a hex at him.

Instead Malfoy said, “Fancy a game of wizarding chess?” and the subject of the Invisibility Cloak was dropped.

Next time Harry brought the Cloak, and Malfoy didn’t say anything about it.



That Xander/Angel fic which hates me:


And when you thought about it, around every corner was another woman. A Slayer, a goddess, a vampire, a victim; you saved them, you slayed them, you failed them, you eventually lost them all, and then you moved on. Xander didn’t know whether to blame the blonde who’d spilled her stakes in front of him that first day, or the blonde who’d spilled his best friend’s blood that first night, but Xander kind of expected both around the corner here. Then she turned to face him, and Xander never expected this.

His first wild thought was that they’d never role-played this, and the Mrs. Connor MacLeod (or whenever) get-up must’ve cost even more than the French maid costume, so that she had to’ve gotten a discount, or it really couldn’t be her. “Anya,” he breathed, “where did you come from?”

Anya smiled, eager, mouth-eating smile and giddy, greedy eyes that sometimes meant she was going to swallow down his cock, but other times meant she really, really wanted the last of the Captain Crunch. “Right here.” Her voice and gesture at his chest had that duh, you enormous ass commentary about them. “You’re the only place I’ve ever been. Only place where I’ve been me.”


Are there any fanfiction clichés or trends you're sick of or just can't stand?

-Turning characters into vampires. It's alright in 'verses about vamps, because it may be necessary for character/plot, but honestly, I just don't find bloodsucking hot. I know it sounds hypocritical, considering my main fandom and everything.
-Weepy characters.
-Long stories that don't earn their unhappy endings.
-Badly handled infidelity.
-Most epilogue-faithful Harry/Draco fics.

Are you guilty of any fanfiction clichés you hate? Or any other ones?

Not of any I hate. Because then I don't think I'd write them. I like to write Spike as more sensitive than I think he might be, Angel as less sensitive than I think he might be. My Harry is far more fucked up than perhaps he should be and my Draco is more dynamic than canon.

Name your OTPs or most frequently written pairings/characters and explain what it is about them that you love to write.

So I like these pairings because I have this innocence/jaded kink, where the innocent in the pair can teach the jaded one that there's stuff to live for because life can be loved even after you know how bad it is, and the jaded--well, obvious what he teaches. And these do tend to be het, with the girl as the innocent. Why is that? : Marianne Dashwood/Colonel Brandon, Rogue/Wolverine, Maria/Capt VonTrapp, Jane Eyre/Rochester, Buffy/Angel.

However lately I have this great big ole yen for something slightly different, but kinda the same in the end. They tend to be slash, and the characters involved usually hate each other or something. One guy is a Hero because he's always considering The Good Of The World and making huge sacrifices, but he sucks at operating on a smaller scale. The other rocks at the smaller scale, caring for people he loves, and rarely gives two shits for anything else. Points for people who can name these pairings.

What would you call your writing style?

Variable.

Do you read other people's fanfic? If so, what do you find yourself reading the most?

1) People on my flist. I try to keep up.
2) Premises that hit my kinks. This is kinda difficult because I think most my kinks, despite my List Of 101 Kinks, are actually thematic. For instance:
a. time travel. I love it, but as much as I do, you can't just randomly stick it in a fic and have it work for me. The older!character has to learn something about his younger!self, or vice versa, that kind of thing.
b. don't-know-who-you-are fics. So like amnesia, or that one where they meet on the internet and don't use each others' real names, or there're letters, or one's wearing a mask, or one's an animagus or is transfigured. Those have to be about judgment, about the difference between who someone is and what you think they are, and stuff.
c. hurt/comfort. It makes me drool, basically, but if the strong one is doing all the work I get so bored. What I like to see is the hurt one being the SooperSekritStrong one, teaching the "strong" one how to go on. Prostitution, slavery, Draco-is-a-janitor, Spike-is-a-pet, whatever. Harry the hero and Angel the--well, hero--think they know so much about how to get on in the world, and they look at this broken thing, and see that in some ways the life they've lived is less than this imperfect mirror. Oh man oh man.
Hey so obviously #2 should've been, "fics in which people learn stuff!"
3) Meta. Both meta that's not fic but is about characters, 'ships and stuff, and fic that really manages to be about, "Hey look, this is my idea of this character; what do you think?"
4) Porn. I really really really like dirtytalk and I don't understand why there isn't more of it out there. The worst thing of all is when character A won't get something unless B begs for exactly whatever it is, and B just says "oh please oh please" and maybe something about cocksucking, and all is well. Let's not pull JKRs out our asses; ALL IS NOT WELL until there's graphic verbal description, people. Get with it.

Name one thing you'd LOVE to write, but have been too afraid or shy to do.

I'm not too afraid or shy to write porn, but some is just personal wank matter, you know, so it feels too private to post.

I guess I'm kinda intimidated by Harry/Draco. I have less a handle on the characters and how they go together, and most difficult of all I don't know why I like them or like them together, so I never know when I start writing them whether it's actually something even I will like. So I wish I could finish all the fics I've started about them, but for the most part I'm overcome by my own worry about whether they're "right" (less for canon than for me). For the rest of the part I'm just lazy and shiftless and have other things to do.

Do you have trouble taking criticism? Or worse yet, do you have the dreaded bloated ego?

No. However, if I did have an oversized ego, would I say so? I'd probably say my ego was perfectly sized.

I've never had a beta who hurt my feelings. That's probably because the betas I've had are awesomesauce. Sometimes I do flinch a little if someone says something a little negative in the comments, but usually I agree with them. Then I'm a little disappointed in myself, not because I can't do better but because I knew that problem was there and just was too lazy to take the time. If I don't agree with them, I try to see what they mean, and keep such considerations in mind for next time. If I can't see what they mean, I don't feel hurt so much as I feel like that person's an idiot who's interrogating the text from the wrong perspective, which isn't the most beneficial reaction. But I do very honestly try to see where people are coming from, and I feel like I almost always do.

When you write, is there anything that helps? Music? Quiet room?

Having a deadline hanging over my head. That's pretty much all I need.

What inspires you?

Knowing I can post something and see what people say about it. Good betas. Bad published writing--I know I can do better, so I ask myself why I'm not, which makes me get to it. Bad fanfic that has a premise that floats my boat--because I'm stuck reading it, saying the whole time I could do better; see previous point. Good writing, esp of fanfic; lots of times good published writing makes me feel hopeless or a failure. Movies, tv, songs, narrative in any form. Everyday sounds, the way people act when they think you are not watching, love, God--not the one that exists, if he does, but the one that people believe in, friends, horniness, you.

Tag some friends because they'll hate you for it.

chrisleeoctaves
a2zmom
essie007
seraphcelene