SHADOW OF THE STAIN

What has been your favorite fic you've written so far? This is actually a really hard question for me. I’m incredibly critical of my own work but I think it would have to be “The Question”; I really love the tone I managed to capture and the pairing continues to hold true for me. What can I say? I like the idea of Asher getting Richard off in the tub.

What is your favorite of the characters to write about? This is a really hard question, there are a lot of characters that I adore but I think the character I enjoy writing the most is Caleb, I see a lot of myself in him.

Should that worry me?

But yeah, I really love writing Caleb because he’s a vulgar shagging troll of a manwhore and a little boogey bastard to boot and I like that in a man. Richard is a close second though, I also see myself in him and we share a love of musicals. Honestly, I enjoy getting inside his head and seeing what makes him tick.

What attracted you to the ABVH series in the first place? Oh lordy, this is actually pretty embarrassing. I was first into the series because I read a Buffy/ABVH crossover and wanted to understand the other half of the characters. The story has since been taken down but it’s what got me into it. I think it was by Echo [www.spankerella.com], I can’t remember what it was called though.

The first of the books I read was Obsidian Butterfly and to this day it remains my favorite of the books. I think what kept me interested in the series was that Anita was this strong, pretty woman who knew what she wanted and could take care of herself.

At least she started out that way.

I know what inspired you to start writing abvh fanfic (smirk) but what inspired you to start writing? Just so we clear this up, yes, it was miss BeElleGee who made me write my first AB:VH fic. Blame her.

Writing in general? Jealousy. In kindergarten Ben wrote a story and got to read it in front of the whole class and I was mad jealous.

No, in all honesty I don’t remember a time when I didn’t write. It’s a compulsion for me, I couldn’t function in a world that didn’t let me write. I think the first time I remember ever really writing was in the third or fourth grade. I always had the stories in my head it just seemed like natural evolution to start putting them onto paper.

Your original fics are all wonderful. Where do you get your ideas from? All the coke I’m snorting? Actually I’m a shameless pilferer. I tend to pick up a character trait I like from one story and a plot twist I like from another and beat it into a mash until it’s unrecognizable and then I pretend like I’m some creative genius.

Do you write in any other fandoms? Yeah, actually. I started out in Buffy and Angel but my first real fandom was Newsies. That campy Disney musical introduced me to Princess Wolf, MSTs, Mary-Sues and Christian Bale. It will always have a place in my heart and I will always –secretly- carry the banner.

I’ve written Buffy and Angel, Band of Brothers, Newsies, CSI, Firefly and some Harry Potter but most of those fandoms I only dabbled it.

Oh and there is a Bond “fic” that Princess Wolf and I did which was fucking bad ass.

Take us through your fic writing process: from the just conceived idea to the finished piece. I have two very different styles actually.

Chaptered things tend to start with a vague spark of an idea that quickly becomes a good week of me writing copious pages of character information –given original fiction- and plot lines and relationship information. I frantically squirrel away all this information and pages and pages of useless junk that I end up not really following anyway.

I think it’s just how I formalize the idea in my head. At that point I start writing which always takes me a million years because in my world the first line has to be PERFECT before I can move on. My chaptered pieces are often very infrequent, what I mean to say is that I write a few chapters in a few days and then I wont touch it for a month but it plods along at a stilted pace for God knows how long until I finally just sit down and bang out the last few chapters in a weekend.

One shots though? They just kind of bubble out onto the paper in rapid fire. BeElleGee can tell you, from conceptualizing the idea as a brief spark to figuring out that one line that gives me thrills to posting it online can be less than an hour depending on the length of the piece. For me one shots are flash floods of creativity that leave me wide open and ready for more lengthy writing.

Are you still reading the books as they come out? Yes and no, I haven’t read DM yet although I do want to. I’ve heard some really bad things of course but I’d like to make my own choices and I love the people in fandom, I love the background characters. I’m not quite ready to give these books up yet.

You are, imho, the queen of one shots. How are you able to develop scenes and play out plotlines so thoroughly in such short fics? This is something I've never been able to do and am very impressed by your talent for it. My one shots are character pieces; they’re about a single moment in someone’s life that says something important about them. Even if that’s just that Claudia thinks Caleb is a little shit and hey, she kind of likes that ‘cause he’s her kind of bastard, I think it’s important.

In my mind, it’s much harder to create an enduring plotline with a beginning middle and end that will keep peoples interest.

I remember my own life in moments not as storyline so that’s how I think about my characters, even in my chapter pieces. I always imagine the moments that they look back at remember and those become my one shots.

I don’t think that helped at all but I can’t figure out a better way to say it.

RRV already asked about you most favorite characters but who is your least favorite character from the series to write about and why? Fucking Asher and Jean-Claude. Which is ridiculous because I adore them both in a really intense way.

I don’t think I do Asher justice; I miss his raw angry hurt and his distrust of affection, I miss his aggression but I keep writing him as such a love struck pussy. J

Jean-Claude? Well he’s so deliciously Machiavelli and I can’t capture that properly, I make him weak. I tend to turn him into “Anita’s boyfriend” instead of the Master of the City, instead of this man who has endured harships and loves and come out as this incredible guy with a wicked keen sense of strategy and self preservation.

Do you let inspiration drive you when you write or do you carefully plan out your stories? For my one shots it’s like a creative tsunami. It just comes up in this wave of inspiration and I either go with the flow or get the hell out of the way because it’s not slowing down for little ol’ me.

For my chaptered pieces it’s kind of the same really, but more complicated you know? I spend a good week writing extensive notes on damn everything about the story and get the plot finalized and stuff. Once I actually start writing though I let it evolve naturally as it will, I just use all of my notes as reference and to help keep me going in the –generally- right direction but it tends to meander where it will.

How much leeway do you give your characters when they insist that a story change or do they always behave for you? My characters rule me. I was once haunted by an original character for six consecutive nights until I agreed to put him into a story. I think because so much of my writing is character based, day in the life stuff my characters are that much more vital to the process and know it so they abuse that.

Are you currently working on something? If so, what? Yeah, a couple things actually. I’ve got Devil’s Daughter in the works, a story about Jean-Claude’s daughter figuring out who she is but I’m not really happy with it right now so it’s on the back burner. On my other account, MarySue, I have Tresspass Sweetly Urg’d in the works, it’s a love story between Asher and an English Major which is pretty cute. I’ve got a couple original pieces kicking around too, one in a “first draft needs desperate attention” state and one in an “I should get the first word on the page” state.

'Writer's Block' can be a problem for many beginners and for the more experienced as well. Do you have a methodology for tackling this problem? Freak out to Princess Wolf or RRV?

I try to chill right out. The more I push it the tighter I get stuck because I write myself into corners. I treat myself to a nice, smelly bath and some tea and then I sit down and see if anything comes out, if not I fuck around on the internet or go do something else for a couple days. I figure writer’s block is my minds way of telling me that I’m sapped.

I mope about it a lot and doubt myself, but don’t tell anyone.

Do you have any advice to give anyone who is interested in writing but doesn't know where to start? Just write. Where else can you start but that? Open your word document or put pen to paper and write even if it’s fucking crap on a stick just put it down, you can always fix it later. Throw out your inner editor and that voice that says you can’t do it and give it a try.

What’s the worst that could happen?

What would you change about ABVH world or Merry-land? I’d get the plot back. I’d develop existing relationships rather than making new ones and burying everything in sex. Don’t get me wrong, I like sex. A lot. I just don’t want the entire book to be porn punctuated by brief periods of plot.

What is your personal watermark of excellence for writers? I’d have to say characters. The book can be one big tacky cliché but if I love the characters or hate them –as people not as a flat character- or want to be them then I’m hooked. Dialogue is a big thing for me too, I love characters that speak like real people do, or at least how real people wish they were witty enough to speak.

You can tell I think an author is amazing when I put the book down and shiver or squee softly and clap happily. I’m a very reactive reader.

If you could live one scene or segment in the series, what would it be? Brutal question. I guess something homey, dim sum with the pard.

What would you like your legacy to be to the world of literature? and the world in general? I want someone to write fanfiction of my original works. If people wrote fanfiction about my characters I would die a happy woman.

The world in general? I want to be remembered as a good person, or at least someone who tried to be a good person.

What is the most painful thing for you to write? Angst, teenagers. Coralie running away in that chapter of Devil’s Daughter?

Filler.

Oh, it’s deffinately filler. I just can’t do it, I hate writing pointless scenes that I don’t care about because the plot needs it or because I need to get between scenes. God I hate filler.

To read? Badly written sex scenes or brutal dialogue. I also have a huge problem when people get character voice wrong, like just because the character is a vampire he or she says “tis” instead of “it is” even when they’ve never said it in cannon or nothing about their speech pattern indicates they wouldn’t have modernized their syntax.

What do you wish to leave your readers with? or what do you hope they take away with them? I hope they go away buzzing, I want them to pause and think about it and be like “damn, that girl knows how to string words up”.

What published author takes your breath away? Shakespeare, because no one puts words together like that man and Elizabeth Ashe because regardless of whether or not I like the plot I always love the characters and I love the dialogue. Kelly Armstrong is really good too, not breathtaking maybe but a lot of good clean fun to read and Garth Nix is always thrilling and everyone should read the Sabriel books.

What direction would you avoid in writing at all costs? Furry sex. Sci-Fi.

Do you chew gum? Actually, yes. I’m a chewer, I have a bit of an oral fixation you see. I’m chewing gum as I’m answering these questions. I go through a couple packs a week.

Do you prefer to write alone or with someone? Alone, I’m a lone wolf, lone ranger, the Shadow. Um, no, honestly I enjoy working alone because I’m so fickle and I only really trust one other person with my fiction. Princess Wolf and I can write together as in actually trading paragraphs but only because we mesh so well. She’s the other half of my literary soul. We get each other and we always know how to make it work together.

Do you set yourself personal challenges to stretch your talent? (Do you pick a subject that bores you/makes you uncomfortable and try to write about it? Or try to make a really unpleasant character come across as lovable? Or vice versa?) If so, do you find that you enjoy the challenges? Hell no, I try to make life as easy for myself as possible. I mean I do enjoy pushing myself to take a look at a character I don’t normally play with but I don’t actively seek out things I find difficult to write. If the thing I am writing is becoming too hard to write I just stop. I write to please myself and to get all the ideas eating at me out, I don’t need to force ideas out I already have enough.

Do you find it helps to discuss plot ideas? Always / sometimes / never? Yes, I find my problem is there are very few people I feel like I can discuss plot ideas with and get genuine feedback from. Princess Wolf is pretty much my best bet, there are definitely others I go to in a pinch but Wolf always knows me so well.

How did the idea for Eternity's Ending and Devil's daughter came to you? Well Eternity’s Ending came from someone on the forum asking about things that would make Jean-Claude end the Triumvirate and Devil’s Daughter spawned from that. I like the idea of Jean-Claude as a daddy.

I’d just like to note that Devil’s Daughter is NOT the sequal to Eternity’s Ending. They simply run with the same idea.

Your take on Original Characters? How do you create them? Do you have a set of rules for them, like background, personality traits, etc, which you wouldn't bend, even if doing so would make dealing with plot easier? I like original characters, maybe I shouldn’t but I do. They sort of create themselves, bubble up from a trait or sentence or something. A lot of times they’re inspired by people I see in my day to day life, a girl at my old job –for example- was the basis for Lizzie back in the day and Juliet came out of this picture of Bunny Suicide that I adored.

Posted: April 2, 2007