For the get to know your author meme! 4, 11, 23, and 24 because I’m indecisive

Tumblr just ate all my answers, so I’ll try to recreate them all here, but also wahhh.

4) favorite character you’ve written Don’t make me chose between my babies!! No seriously, right now I’m having a tin of fun with my various versions of bamf!Q surprising the hell out of Bond, but I am always in love with my characters… otherwise, I couldn’t let them in my head so long. And since I initiated each “break up” by ending their stories, they are all basically old lovers that I had great relationships with, who were all important to me and helped shape me, so I really can’t choose. Edward and Carlisle changed the most over the arc of their stories, so part of me wants to say them, but really, if that were true, wouldn’t I still be writing them? So no. Can’t choose. Sorry.

11) what aspect of your writing do you think has most improved since you started writing?

I’ve been writing mysteries for 00q, and it’s forced me to plot more before I start. I’ve always been one to know major inflection points in stories, but for the most part just let the characters lead me around. But with mysteries, I really need to know what is happening so I can plant the clues early. I need to know the details of what happens, even if the characters and readers don’t. I still like to let some details emerge organically as I write, but I’ve had to get a bit tighter with my outlines.

23) any obscure life experiences that you feel have helped your writing?

Well, places I’ve been often creep into my stories. A Bleary, Hopeful Universe was completely informed by my experiences as a parent of a young infant and someone who’s worked through issues in a marriage, but neither of those experiences is particularly obscure.

This may be tmi, I will say that I’ve seen a lot of criticism online lately about women not being able to write gay sex realistically and I would just like to remind those critics that men are not the only ones who can write anal sex from a place of experience. That is all.

24) have you ever become an expert on something you previously knew nothing about, in order to better a scene or a story?

I’ve answered this one already, but here it is again, with a few additions:

OMG so many times. My first long fic, as I’ve said in another answer, was for Twilight, and featured Carlisle and Edward circa 1918 through about 1930 (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/6254265/1/Prelude-in-C). Edward is a pianist, and I love piano music, but the music basically became another character in the story, charting Edward’s progress as a character, his emotions, his ability to think beyond his own needs… it was all shown through the music. I became a complete expert on Chopin, Debussy, Rachmaninoff, Litz, the jazz of the 20s and 30s. Back when I was posting, I had a playlist for readers to enjoy, but that’s all long defunct. If I were ever to drag it over to AO3, it would be in part to link all that music and some historic photos I used as inspiration, since the archive deals with that so much better than ffnet ever did.

More recently, for the last 00qRBB, I wrote Stained Glass, which involved researching stained glass windows all over the world and making them part of the set of the story. That was good fun, and at least a few readers chased the links and saw the windows along with Bond.

Thanks so much for the asks @solarmorrigan !!

For the author meme: 9, 10, 12/13, 20, 21 :)??

9) what, if anything, do you do for inspiration?

I tend to get inspired by visuals. I’m more likely to fill an art prompt or picture prompt than a word prompt, though I think I’m getting better. I also enjoy filling in the spaces so often left in canon… how did this character get that way, what happened during these missing weeks between scenes, etc. I occasionally write short aus, but I’m much more tempted with tweaking the canon.

10) write in silence or with background noise? with people or alone?

Generally alone, sometimes in silence, but often music can help me set the moot, especially if the characters are in particularly emotional places.

12) your weaknesses as an author I think it’s hard to know one’s own weaknesses, but I can think of a few. I don’t think I’m particularly good at (or at least have sort of gotten away from) describing scenes and creating moods. I think it’s easy to assume in fanfic that the reader already knows a place, so there’s no need to describe it, but that’s not always the case, and while we should avoid describing the canon and boring our readers, sometimes it’s nice to remind them or show them what’s different in this version. I fear that if I ever write anything original, where this is actually important, I’ll have forgotten how to do it.

13) your strengths as an author

I think I generally do a good job with dialogue, though it often takes a few times through (i.e., first I just write the back and forth, then I go back and add in looks, pauses, characters doing something in the environment to help show their headspace, which makes dialogue much more bearable to read and allows you to get rid of a bunch of tags and adverbs.

As an aside, I once wrote an entire story in texts, and it was really hard NOT to have those character movements. I had to rely on “…” to show a character struggling for words or otherwise being delayed in responding… those ellipses had to do so much work.

24) have you ever become an expert on something you previously knew nothing about, in order to better a scene or a story?

Thanks so much for the asks @platypushko!

25

25) copy/paste a few sentences or a short paragraph that you’re particularly proud of

Well, you know this bit, but it was still the first thing that came to mind that won’t give away an ending to a fic (slightly abridged:

“How are you feeling, 007?” She takes his chart from the end of the bed and looks it over.

“I’m still stiff and sore, but nothing that requires constant medical attention, I think. I’d really apprecia—”

“Dr. Hasanain agrees,” the nurse interrupts, replacing the chart and folding her arms across her chest.

“She… she does?” An incredulous hope starts to build in his chest.

“Yes. You’re to be released, but only into someone’s care. You’re still too close to your concussion to be completely alone.” And the hope sinks, bitterly. Alec is back out on mission, and Bond has a reputation of being an insufferable patient. Well earned, at that.

As resignation sets in, the door opens again to reveal Q pushing a wheelchair, the athletic bag from James’ locker draped across his shoulder.

“Pip pip, Bond. Let’s beat the traffic, shall we?”

“You’re releasing me?” he asks as Q dumps the bag on his lap.

“I had to beat off the other volunteers with a stick,” Q claims.

“Really?”

“No.”

The nurse looks wickedly amused, but Bond doesn’t even care. “I’ll go get his medications, Quartermaster,” she says. “And I’d keep that stick around, just in case.”

Thanks for the ask @midrashic !

For the author asks – 1, 5, 21

1) is there a story you’re holding off on writing for some reason?

I have roughly 30k words written for the ending of Home (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/5071703/1/Home), a fantastic spirk story that was abandoned before it was finished. It’s so good, it really deserves an ending, and I probably have 3 scenes left to finish it, and have even found a beta to help me… but I keep putting off finishing and posting it. I tell myself it’s because I’m working on other projects, but I suspect I’m also nervous about trying to end someone else’s beloved fic, even if they seem long gone and disinterested.

5) character you were most surprised to end up writing

Frankly, Pinto. I’m not generally a fan of RPF and to this day have never been tempted by any other rp pairing. Now that I’m not in its throes, I sort of tilt my head at it. Then I see an old interview of the two of them and I’m all “oh right…now I remember.”

21) what do you think when you read over your older work?

My first long fanfic (back in 2010?) was for Twilight and featured Carlisle and Edward circa 1918. It was 1) in first person (because the source material was) and 2) much more descriptive and flowery in its language, because both characters seemed to demand it, both of which feel strange now. When I look back on it now, some of it feels sort of stilted, but I also wonder if I’ve lost something in dedicating myself to characters who seem to prefer snarky dialogue to long introspective paragraphs. Maybe I’ll find more balance at some point.

Thanks for the asks @captainkatieb !

Would you ever write…a Pinto AU? Like where one or both of them aren’t actors.

Well, I’m not going to say “no”, but I’m having a hard time imagining what form that would take. I rarely even read AUs. If you have to say “Zach is a *** and Chris is a ***” I’m generally less interested. The notable exception is just about anything by @suedescripture and a few older fics (e.g., “wand of light” tickles me for some reason).

That said, I am writing a sort of AU for another fandom, in which the characters are basically as they appear/act/are employed in canon, but there’s something additional happening with one of them. But I don’t really feel that sort of pull with Pinto. I tend to meet them more or less where I think they are now and send them off in new directions. So I could perhaps write something where one of them has some sort of crisis that stops them from acting and go from there… but I’m not sure that counts as an AU per se… more than anything else where we’re mashing their faces together, anyway.

I’m not sure if it’s lack of imagination on my part, or just still not being done telling these stories about two actors/friends. On the other hand, I do follow my muse, so if there were a plot bunny that ambushed me in the middle of the night involving some AU, I’d definitely follow it down whatever rabbit hole it led through. And now you’ve got me wondering what might spark that. I’ve been thinking about it, and nothing really comes to mind, but I’m not against the idea…I just don’t think my muse works that way.

So I won’t say never, but it doesn’t seem terribly likely based on the sorts of stories that get lodged in my brain and require exorcism via writing. Feel free to make suggestions, though… maybe something will stick.

X, O for the fic ask thing! :)

kisses to you too!

X – A trope which you are almost certain to love in any fandom. I think I’ve done this one, but here it is again: First time! First Kiss! Friends to lovers! All of that mixed together. Le sigh!

O – Choose a song at random. Which ship or character does it remind you of?

And iTunes says: Come Down in Time, so that’s pretty random. “Come down in time and I’ll meet you half way” Pronouns aside (and I doubt Sir Elton really meant “her”) I think I have to go with Johnlock…this sounds like one of them pining. Maybe because Elton’s British…

D, T, X (if you are still doing the shipping meme?)

D – A pairing you wish you liked but just can’t. Kirk/Bones, Spock/Bones, Kirk/Spock/Bones. People are writing it, and I just really can’t go there. I’m just a Spirk girl all the way.

T – Do you have any hard and fast headcanons that you will die defending? Nothing terribly specific. I like playing with possibilities. In 00q, James definitely comes back after Spectre, because he had less chemistry while having sex with that blonde than he did sassing Q at their first meeting. But I don’t have just one way for it to happen. In Spirk, I have similarly different ways that they could come together at any of several points in the story. So no, I enjoy creating headcanons, but for me it’s all multiverse. They’re all true. Even the ones that contradict each other.

X – A trope which you are almost certain to love in any fandom. First time. First kiss. Friends to lovers. All of that mixed together. Angsty pining in the beginning and some hot smut at the end.

L, U, V

luv you too, sweets!

L – Say something genuinely nice about a character who isn’t one
of your faves. (Characters you’re neutral about are fair game, as are
characters you merely dislike. Characters that you absolutely loathe
with the fire of ten thousand suns are exempt, as there is no point in
giving yourself an aneurysm over a character that you hate.)

I’m trying to think of a character that I dislike in fandom that I love. I guess I’ll go with Sherlock fandom and use Mycroft. He’s too arrogant to really like. But even in his heavy handedness, he does care abut Sherlock. And he’s often right. Though when he’s wrong, he screws up EVERYTHING.

U – Three favorite characters from three different fandoms, and why they’re your favorites.

I did this one here. 🙂

V – Which character do you relate to most?

In my current fandoms of Pinto, 00q, Johnlock, and Spirk, probably John. I know that feeling of being pretty smart, but surrounding myself with people who are even smarter and feeling a little frustrated and awestruck. I’m also pretty pragmatic and have a fairly consistent moral center. Unfortunately, however, I am not a crack shot, and get woozy around open wounds. So the similarities only go so far.

For the writer’s ask thing, if you’re still doing it: 15, 16, 22, 23, 24, & 25. :-)

Wow, I might have to do these in stages…

15) why did you start writing? Well, I’ve always told stories. When I was growing up my brother and I played “Star Wars Legos” before there was such a thing, and I was always making up stories (and extra female characters) for that play. I have involved stories involving Remus Lupin and various characters that held me over while I waited for books to come out, but I never wrote any of it down until I was reading Midnight Sun (basically author-written fan fic) and it just stopped. And I went to search for when we might expect more, and I discovered fanfiction, and I never looked back. My first stories were in that fandom, filling horribly holey backstories and basically avoiding Bella. But that got me in, and now I read in 6 or so fandoms and write in 3. Maybe 4 soon.

16) are there any characters who haunt you? Whoever I’m writing is who’s haunting me. So for a long time it was Carlisle Cullen, and then Kirk and Spock (and still them sometimes), and then Pinto. I literally write to calm the voices of the characters in my head and exorcise them. When they stop talking to me is when the writing slows down.

22) are there any subjects that make you uncomfortable to write? Anything where there is dubious consent, including big age gaps. Not that I’ve never written either one, I have. In the event of the rape, it was basically canon and I made a point of making it horrific and not exciting at all. But I have a hard time even reading teacher/student sorts of dynamics. It really squicks me out. But I suspect that’s because I’m old. It can be well done, it’s just not my think. And I definitely think that fanfic is and should be a safe place to explore and fantasize. I don’t fault anyone else for writing or enjoying them; I just don’t. I have my own kinks that aren’t for everyone. I did write someone else’s kink once in Desperate Times (as a gift), and that was a fun challenge…to take something that I didn’t inherently find sexy and make it sexy (or try). It was fun exploration.

23) any obscure life experiences that you feel have helped your writing? Well, I draw on life experiences all the time in writing, but I wouldn’t say any of them are obscure… kinkyish sex, having and raising kids, fighting with and making up with a partner…it’s all pretty mundane but hopefully lends some intimacy and authenticity when I write on those topics.

24) have you ever become an expert on something you previously knew nothing about, in order to better a scene or a story? I wrote a prequel to Twilight that spanned from 1918 to the early 30′s, and music was a big part of it. I referenced different music that Edward was either learning to pay or going to see almost every chapter, and it reflected his mood at that point of the story. I learned a LOT of piano music for that story, and still listen to Chopin regularly as a result. I discovered at least 10 composers I didn’t know, and I also learned all about the early jazz scenes in Chicago and NYC It was a blast.

25) copy/paste a few sentences or a short paragraph that you’re particularly proud of. Well, this is a pretty hard task. I’m in a solemn mood, so rather than some quirky dialog I’ll select something introspective from Compromised.

He hesitates for only a moment before activating the terminal and retrieving the long-range sensor scans he had recorded as the Enterprise
had sped toward Earth. Toward Earth and away from the darkness. He
watches as the black shrinks, not just from the growing distance. And
then, abruptly, a gold-tinged light appears where there had been
nothing.

Spock aches.

It is an illusion, of course. He has
not witnessed the rebirth of his planet. The ship merely moved faster
than light, and beyond the distance which the light from the planet’s
destruction had traveled. But his mother was still alive when this light
reflected from the planet’s surface. He makes calculations, just as he
had when he first recorded it. This light is from when she ran for her
life. This light is from when she meditated in the katra ark.
This light is from earlier in the day, when she would have tended her
small garden. This light… he does not know what she had done the day
before. He did not communicate as faithfully as he promised, busy with
obligations at the academy. He does not know what this light meant in
the life of his mother.

Bleary, 2, 8, 14

ato-the-bean:

Hey Suede! I’m going to do these one at a time because I’m starting on my phone while waiting for my kids, but will probably want a real keyboard for the last one.

2. I pretty much wrote Bleary in order for the first two thirds, and then skipped around a bit as I was finishing it up. So the first scene I wrote was that 3 a.m. phone conversation in chapter 1… Which turned out to be the first of many 3 a.m. conversations, as well as the first of many times Chris says “Fuck” while stumbling around half asleep. Even now, if I need to get my head back into those characters, I start with that conversation.

Here’s the rest:

8. Did any real people or events inspire any part of it?

Well, a LOT of Zach’s reactions are things I felt when I had my first daughter. That sense of being completely overwhelmed, not knowing how you’re even going to manage to have a shower, that everyone’s going to starve because you’ll never get to the store…and I had a partner. So a lot of those reactions and “things that happen to infants” come from experience.

But the reason I’m SO happy you asked this one is the OUT edition. I’m sure that you recognized that several of the couples mentioned are real, but the apparent original characters of Dave and John on the cover are actual friends of my family, and I was honored to finally attend their wedding a few years ago (the summer after it became legal). They attended mine 16 years ago. They’d been together more than 30, and had battled cancer (and continue to do so). So I put them on the cover, and put pinto deep inside the issue, because Dave and John are who they aspire to be in Bleary. Minus the cancer, of course.

14. Is there anything you wanted readers to learn from reading this fic?

Well, I didn’t set out to do that, but I think one thing is the way a person changes when they become a parent… and a partner, for that matter. How you end up not focusing on yourself or the ways people have wronged you and instead look at this helpless child and try not to wrong him. There’s nothing that makes you so compassionate about your parents’ mistakes as getting a few of your own under your belt. I’m not nearly as upset about the therapy I needed from my childhood as the therapy I hope my children don’t need because of my stupid mistakes.

Also, I guess that in partnerships, different people can have different traits, and ideally those complement each other. It doesn’t make one better or stronger than the other. When Nathan get’s sick, Chris is really good in that crisis, basically by not allowing himself to feel any of the potential negative outcomes. It makes him look string (to readers, anyway), but it could also be argued that he was emotionally distant. Zach let himself feel what he might lose, and savor every second of the trauma. When the trauma is over, Zach can move on in relief almost immediately, but Chris falls apart now that it’s safe to do so. Neither is stronger or weaker…they just react differently. I’m a Chris, for the record. I almost fainted when the doctor told me my baby did not have a head injury after falling onto tile from a chair and getting a hell of a shiner. I had to be brought water before I could be trusted to walk out of the office. I was so fucking relieved I had a physiological response. Geek Boy Professor (hubby) had been more panicked during the crisis, but then bounced back as soon as she was deemed well. We are better together than either of us would be alone, and I tried to make the same the same true of Chris and Zach.