My Daughter Wants to be Scrooge McDuck

That's not just a clever title. It's the honest truth. And to be fair this bothers me not at all. XD

Anyway I thought, just as a change of pace from the 30-day-meme I've been doing about my writing, I'd start the TWC2 Chapter Notes. I haven't done any chapter notes in a LONG time. First I guess I should check and make sure I haven't already started these...

Okay, checks out. Let's go!

References:
-Title: it's a line from the Beatles song "Yellow Submarine": "Sky of blue/and sea of green/in our yellow/submarine". I was on a HUGE Beatles kick during most of high school and this was written in the height of it.
-Obligatory callback to "Night of the Living Spud" with the Lyceum Nycanthropus.

I began this first scene about a year before I actually started writing the full fic. I think I started the fanfic in the second half of 2010, but I had the opening sequence done, I think, in late 2009. If not then, then in like early 2010 or so. I was trying to get back into writing after a really long hiatus during my second pregnancy and my son's first few months.

Laelia is in fact an orchid; I went looking for plant names for things like orchids that could be rare but work as actual names.

The conversation between Beth and LP initially got away from me and they started talking about how he knew Gizmoduck personally and all this stuff and it was like "STOP FLIRTING AND STAY ON SUBJECT!" They *always* do that. I had to send it to Amanda and have her tell me exactly where to snip it. ;)

I'm not really sure of the pacing of this scene or - well, the circumstances; and I'm not sure how much sense it makes for Beth to be so into Drake. I just kind of have to go with it. I have to be honest; I don't remember what it's like to have a crush on someone. ^^;

The inventory - when I wrote this the first time, I had the same thing in here, despite not ever having had a retail job. It was just vague and mainly involved me having Beth stay late to "do the inventory" which meant counting hte stock, since that's the textbook definition. However it's now slightly augmented by real-life experiences with retail - the late night and the counting turned out to be true, I ignored the fact that no retail store would have only *one* person do the retail, but I added stuff with paperwork. The paperwork is killer.

That's about it for chapter 1...

30 Days Meme day 12

Day 12 – Have you ever attempted an “adaptation” story of a favorite book or movie but set in a different fandom?

...noo... not REALLY but that doesn't mean I won't ever. And a few times I thought about doing it, I just never actually started. I cowrote half of an unfinished "Ranma 1/2" adaptation of "The Princess Bride" that broke the 4th wall a lot, and after I was in "Jesus Christ, Superstar" one summer I really wanted to do a DWD fanfic that vaguely followed the same storyline only it would be DW being sort of "discovered" and becoming verrrry popular, eventually lauded as the "Savior" of St. Canard, until the people turned on him. No, he wouldn't be crucified. XD

I actually had a badass "death/rebirth" scene in my head set to the title song, though. OMG. It's so badass. ...In my head. :P

One fic I thought for a long, long time I was going to do was a Reboot/DWD adaptation where they all get sucked into a computer wtih Megavolt as the villain. Various corresponding roles would be filled the various ways (DW as Bob, Megavolt as Megabyte, Gosalyn as Enzo, etc. I think I had Beth as Phong, lol) and they would encounter an internal virus, Hexaducksimal, hahahaha. It's too dated now though even though Reboot IS AWESOME STILL.

Two others I still might do: a story inspired by the Urusei Yatsura second movie, "Beautiful Dreamer", which I won't give any details on 'cause it would spoil the story, and a full-on series called "Quacktron Leap" which is a parody of "Quantum Leap" but instead of going through time, DW goes through dimensions with Sara Bellum as his guide and each dimension is an alternate of his own based on a fanfic. XD I still think that idea is awesome.

30 Days Meme day 11

Day 11 – Genre – do you prefer certain genres of fic when you’re writing? What kind do you tend to write most?

Ummm, nearly everything I write has to have some element of humour in it. I don't think I write humour as a genre the best (I think I do best as a "blend" and I just call my stuff "gen" most of the time), but I can't really write without a certain amount of humour. That's probably because I prefer comedies for the most part, so not having any humour would be entirely out of line.

I also tend to put some element of romance into a lot of my fics, but it's nearly always unresolved romance, unrequited or just general unresolved tension. I *definitely* would not call myself a romance writer.

And finally I guess... well, I *like* to have actiony plots. I'm not especially good at them as they take a lot of planning and effort to pace on my part, but I really prefer to have them when I can. I used to just write plots in order to have an excuse to write a fic about other things, but the actual plot/stories became important to me as I got older, and I generally feel like I'm cheating if I have a plotless story now. Which is too bad, because I *definitely* have an easier time writing purely dialogue or introspection fics. (I can write drabbles without a plot and be guilt-free, but that's because they're only like a couple hundred words.)

None of these are really precisely a genre though. I think of genre as being purely, or at least *almost* purely, one thing. My fics really are mostly a bunch of stuff stuck together. ^^;

30 Days Meme day 10

Day 10 – Pairings – Have you ever gone outside your comfort zone and written a pairing you liked, but found you couldn’t write, or a pairing you didn’t like, and found you could?

So, woohoo! I actually did this ten days in a row!

I've written outside my comfort zone in "Xena" before; I've actually written some minor slash in that fandom, which is out of my comfort zone mostly b/c I don't actually see most of the characters as slashable within XWP canon. (I should explain, I usually won't slash characters who aren't gay, unless there's some REALLY good chemistry between them) So, in a challenge to write slash, I picked Joxer's brother Jett and Ares. It was actually, in my opinion, a pretty good story. :) But since I don't see either character as gay it was a little hard to do easily. (However I could more easily see Jett as being gay than I could see Joxer, and I can actually believe that the gods in Xena would have sex with either gender if they felt like it, so it wasn't TOO far off the beaten path for me.)

Otherwise, well... I dun think so, honestly. I actually hate the way I write romance and so unless I have a very particular pairing I want to see (like Joxer/Gabrielle), I won't usually write any shipping fic at all.

...So I'm just gonna throw this out here, I'm starting to feel uncomfortable and pretentious for my last couple of posts, particularly the one about OCs. I think I'm just going to expand on what I said there a little and clarify one thing: the only OC of mine that I don't feel is really a Mary Sue is Beth. The others, yeah, I just have to admit they are. That's a big part though of why I don't actually write them. The "Ranma 1/2" spinoff is inside my head for my own enjoyment and won't be written out. I know I've been a little weird about that, talking about the fandom as if I do write for it or do plan on writing my wishfulfillment spinoff... I totally don't, just to clarify. ;)

(So don't hate me!! ^^;)

30 Days Meme day 9

Day 9 – Pairings – For each of the fandoms from day two, what are your three favorite pairings to write?

Now I need to go back and open day 2 :D
Okay, for a lot of them I don't have any, b/c I don't write ship fic for them. (Since most of them were drabbles, that's largely why)

FMA, Inuyasha, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer I had no fave pairings to write. I wrote a couple of vaguely Buffy/Spike fics but that was just playing with the theme as canon, not actually writing the pairing.

Of the other drabbles, I kinda had pairings, but didn't explore them and there wasn't more than one:
Princess Tutu: Fakir/Ahiru (even though she was a duck - it wasn't like that XD)
Revolutionary Girl Utena: Utena/Anthy (that's what my drabble was about, in fact)
Fruits Basket: I did not write this, actually, but I hearted me some Kyo/Kagura. It's pretty much the only type of fic I read, even though I never wrote it at all.

Nothing really in TTA.

Real Ghostbusters, I didn't write any pairings, but if I had it woudl've been Egon/Janine. There were hints of that in the fic I did anyway.

Now the three main fandoms:

Ranma 1/2: Actually Ranma and Akane was the big one. If I had done my spinoff, even though it was really a sort of parody, they were intended to end up together (in a kind of subtle almost-offscreen way. And in the final episode they break up but they get back togehter in the last few minutes; it's background, but important). I LOVE Ranma/Akane. It's the only pairing in the show that I really, really feel. Other pairings would've played with Shampoo/Mousse, and I guess if I was writing in general I'd have done Ryouga/Akari since I totally ship them. But Akari didn't exist in my spinoff 'cause I cheat. ;D ...I hate Ryouga/Ukyou. Not because I'm jealous but because it's a made-up pairing. :P The anime kind of sort of pushed it, because it never got to the parts of the manga that started bringing in alternate relationship options for the rival characters. So Akari never existed and they put in hints of Ryouga/Ukyou instead and BLEAH. I don't really like Ukyou that much to be honest.

XWP: Joxer/Gabrielle and that's about it. That's really the whole purpose I had in writing the fanfics, was to write decent Joxer/Gab fic. I did write a few fics that addressed Xena/Gabrielle subtext but it always broke them up and usually paired Gab with Joxer instead. It's really because I just felt that the Xena/Gabrielle pairing was portrayed so unhealthily, it never seemed romantic to me - just obsessive. I could've handled a polyamourous relationship with Joxer included, but Xena/Gab alone was too heavy.

Darkwing Duck: Darkwing/Morgana, Beth/Launchpad (I'm sorry, I always feel bad confessing that my OC/canon ship is so close to my heart, but it's not as if I pretend otherwise), and that's about it. I don't honestly write many pairings. *shrug*

30 Days Meme day 8

Day 8 – Do you write OCs? And if so, what do you do to make certain they’re not Mary Sues, and if not, explain your thoughts on OCs.

Finally a question that really really relates to me instead of me going "Not really", lol!

Ahem. Yes, yes I do. ;)

Well, I don't honestly know how successful I am in making my OCs not Mary Sues. I've had enough feedback about Beth over the years from many people who have said she's not one, so although that doesn't mean that there aren't people who DO think she is one and they're just not telling me, it at least means that there are enough people who think she's NOT and tell me so. :)

Other than Beth, my OCs are primarily either secondary characters (like Henny, Beth's family, etc) or else they're borderline Mary Sues. I never had any OCs at all for "Xena", but I mentioned that my X-Men character was a pretty blatant Sue for years and years. And even now, I've tweaked the heck out of her, but she's really still pretty borderline. (I don't actually write fic with her though so she doesn't precisely count.) The other borderline Sue is my "Ranma 1/2" persona, and she's really as I said, a persona. That's what makes her borderline - her name is Rebecca and she has a lot of my characteristics, exaggerated for comedy.

So. My methods of not making Sues is to give the characters as many reasonable flaws as I can. Then I cross my fingers and hope that I've made them into believable characters, with enough bad points to cross out the good points but not so many that they are hard to like... For instance:

-"Rebecca" the Ranma 1/2 persona is based on me, has my name, bears a physical resemblance to me, and is paired with Ryouga Hibiki. However, to counter all this I set the tone of the series (it's a "spin-off", remember) as very farcical, in the same vein as "Ranma" or even more so, as Rumiko Takahashi's earlier series "Urusei Yatsura". Rebecca is cheerful and exuberant and a lot of people like her, but that's partly because they only see the cheerful and exuberant part of her; in fact she's also very pushy, has a bad temper, and is really selfish. In a comical way, that's the thing that's hard to explain. She's very childlike; she loves other people and being with her friends, but she expects things to be a certain way, and when they are not, she can get indignant or even angry. The only person to see this most of the time is Ryouga, who consequently spends most of the series trying to get away from her. But she's in love with him, and decided after meeting him that they're going to be married, so dammit, THEY ARE GOING TO BE MARRIED. XD And becausee everyone likes Rebecca so much, he feels like he'll get the blame if he actually dumps her, so he puts up with her being around in the hopes that eventually she'll get sick of him and leave. XD

-Aquaflame, of the X-Men: she's got a lot of superpowers and initially (when I created her at age 10) she was one of those Mary Sues who I understand is somewhat rarer than the others, who gets injured a lot to get attention. (I had NO CONTACT with any other fans at the time so it amused me to find out that this is actually A Thing. XD) She's developed a lot in the past 20+ years. In efforts to make her a deeper character I gave her anger issues. XD She's very emotionally shut off and expresses a lot of her negative emotions through anger. I actually dont' think I've been successful in making her not a Sue, but I have tried. But yeah I don't use her anyway, so. ;)

With Beth - that's where I've put the most effort. In addition to making her neurotic (lovably so, I hope) and totally normal other than her intellect, I've made HUGE efforts to keep the tone of the series and the characterization of the canons as close as I could to the show. I think that's hard, because to me it involves getting inside their heads, and to do THAT you have to fill in a lot of blanks to make them more rounded as characters. But when I do that, I try to do it in a way that follows what we've seen in the show, rather than revealing secrets or making things darker or just making up stuff that seems like it would be cool. I also try to do it in a way that matches the depth I give to Beth - all the characters should feel like real people, but also like cartoon characters at the same time. I want them all to feel equally believable and equally at home in the same series, and I especially want Beth to fit the tone of "Darkwing Duck" and be someone that you could technically see being in an episode (albeit, a bit simplified).

I think that last goal is a bit lofty and I don't think I quite make it, but it's hard for ANY fanfic to accomplish that with an OC that becomes an addition to the main cast. Honestly I feel successful just if I have characters that people like to read about, whether it feels like an ep or not. :)

30 Days Meme day 7

Day 7 – Have you ever had a story change your opinion of a character?

I'm going to assume this means while writing and not while reading.

Ummm, not really, no. I guess, actually, there have been a couple of times that I've written a particular character and enjoyed it so much that I've become really fond of the character, but to be honest, I can't think of any particular examples. I sort of want to say Honker but I've liked him for ages, so I don't think that's right.

The only time I can recall that really happening in the recent past is with one of my own characters (Candy, Beth's older sister) and I'm not sure that counts. What happened was just that her character developed through the writing, and she developed into something different from what I thought she was. That's all. :)

30 Days Meme day 6

To be completely honest I'm shocked that I've stayed with this for so many days in a row now o_O

Day 6 – When you write, do you prefer writing male or female characters?

I don't really truly have a preference. I'll admit that I'm more confident with female characters in general, because I am one. A female character. Yes. :P No, but seriously, I do try to be in the head of the characters I write but if I'm in unexplored territory I feel a little more confident writing women if only because I can fall back on my own expectations in a situation like that.

I'll be a tiny bit less vague: sometimes when writing romance (and I don't mean just DWD stuff, this goes back to "Xena" and before), I'm not entirely sure that I'm writing a *male* perspective and not a female-as-male perspective. I try to differentiate because men and women approach romance differently, and even though of course it's going to depend on the specific character, there *are* gender differences. So I want to be sure that I'm approaching a character's feelings in a way that *makes sense* and not just a way that seems appealing to me, as a woman. It's hard; I try, I can't swear that it works but I do try.

Other than that though, no, I really have no preference between men and women. When it comes to writing I mean. *G*

30 Days Meme day 5

Day 5 – If you have ever had a character try to push their way into a story, whether your “muse” or not, what did you do about it?

Welp, this will be a shorty. For real this time. :D

Basically, if it makes sense to have the character there and if I can think of a way for it to enhance the story, then I write it. If not then I do an alternate scenario in my head and don't write it out. XD

It's infrequent enough that I don't have to deal with it much anyway.

I will say that I've got something like five or six unofficial fic plots in my head - what I call "fanfic of my own fanfic" - with various badfic contrivances to get LP and Beth together. My standards for my fanfic fanfic are way lower than my actual fic canon. ;D That's basically my way of shutting Launchpad up. "OKAY LOOK I won't write this but I will make up an entire new plot so that you can get the girl. OKAY? Now LEAVE ME ALONE."

30 Days Meme day 4

Day 4 – Do you have a “muse” character, that speaks to you more than others, or that tries to push their way in, even when the story isn’t about them? Who are they, and why did that character became your muse?

Well, here we go. This one should be easy: No, not really. :)

I will elaborate slightly, but not by much. If you define a "muse" character as being a favourite character to write (and thus the one I get ideas for), then Joxer might've been it. But I never felt like I was channeling him or like he was taking over. So I don't think it counts.

In terms of characters who push their way in or take over a scene, a little bit yes with DWD. Actually with Launchpad. Though, infrequently. :) It actually happens mainly with Launchpad and Beth; every time I try to write a couple of lines of dialogue between them it turns into a full conversation and a lot of the time they change topic and wander off course into something completely different. I often end up having just say the heck with it, write out a scene then once I've steered it to end where I want it to, I have to read through the whole thing and cut portions of it. (I did that a lot in the second chapter of TWC4, as mentioned in a previous post.) In the Christmas fic I did, also, there was going to be a brief scene in one chapter where Beth went shopping by herself, and as I wrote it Launchpad invited himself along and the "quick scene" took up the entire chapter. He also took over a pivotal scene in "High, Dry and Flooded" and said one single thing that changed the completely course of the remainder of the fic. And I couldn't stop him from doing it. (I mean, obviously I could have, but as I was writing I realized that it made the most sense to go that way. However I'd been planning the scene for YEARS already and never, ever planned on taking the scene - or the fic, or the series - in that direction.)

And finally in terms of character I like to talk to, I don't have one now but for quite some time it was Ryouga Hibiki. I used to use hiim to do MST3K stuff with. It was a lot of fun b/c it was all verbal sparring, and he was OOC (tremendously so - very surly and sarcastic, which I don't believe Ryouga is smart enouh to be) but OOOOH so fun. XD

30 Days Meme day 3

Day 3 – For each of the fandoms from day two, what were your favorite characters to write?

Wow, three days in a row, how bout dat.

Well, let's see if I can knock this one out quickly:

Ranma 1/2: Ryouga. Even though I don't write him IC in my spinoff (which is the only "writing" I've done).
Xena: Warrior Princess: Joxer, and Aphrodite. Yeah I was and am a Joxer fan. The show was actually very, very frustrating because every time they'd start to give some development to Joxer they'd take it back later and sometimes make him even more 1-dimensional. :P Aphrodite though, she was just fun. :)

Most of the fandoms I did drabbles for that I mentioned yesterday, well, I've written so little (and mainly on-demand) that I don't have a favourite. No fave for Fruits Basket or FMA, or Buffy or Princess Tutu. I liked writing Utena in the "Revolutionary Girl Utena" fic I did and I loved writing Sesshomaru in the second (unarchived) Inuyasha drabble. But that was really just a joke fic. :D I also don't have a favourite in Tiny Toons.

I do have a favourite in the Real Ghostbusters, and that's Peter Venkman, even though I wrote him terribly. He was SO MUCH FUN. I wanted to write the fic b/c I wanted to write for Janine, and she was fun to write for, but Peter was the runaway star once I started. Not of the fic, just of every scene he was in, the egotistical scene-grabber. :D

You'll notice perhaps that I left DWD for last; that's cause it's the longest answer. :D I think at this point I've finally become comfortable with writing Launchpad, so in terms of good guys, he's probably my favourite to write. I actually get really nervous writing Drake since I'm not often very good at keeping him IC; I *love* writing Darkwing when he's being melodramatic during an action scene, but I don't have a lot of action scenes, so other than that, I find him challenging. LP has gotten somewhat easier for me since I decided to go ahead and develop his inner monologue somewhat. I think he's still more or less in character but I love writing him being just... kind of easily confused, kind of dim but really well-meaning and trying to keep up. :D

In terms of villains, thus far I'd have to say Megavolt. He's so random, it's easier for me to write his craziness than it was with Quackerjack. I really enjoyed it. I hear Megs's voice in my head more easily than I do with Quacky, too. :)

So there's your answer, fishbulb!

30 Days Meme day 2

Well, two days in a row! That's promising. Or well, actually meaningless. XD

Day 2 – Name the fandoms you’ve written in, and how much you’ve written in that fandom, and if you still write in it.


Well, let's see. If we don't count the X-Men, which never officially had anything written for it, then:

Darkwing Duck
Ranma 1/2 **
Xena: Warrior Princess

And other than these, a few drabbles in "Fullmetal Alchemist", "Inuyasha", "Fruits Basket", "Revolutionary Girl Utena" and "Princess Tutu". Oh hell, I keep forgetting, I've done three drabbles for "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" too.

I think that's it... oh, no, untrue. I've also written, very early on, for "The Real Ghostbusters" (one terrible, terrible fic that I think is lost to Geocities) and "Tiny Toon Adventures". Geez, I have a much longer list than I thought.

The two biggest ones are absolutely "Darkwing Duck" which obviously I still write for, and "Xena: Warrior Princess" which I guess I don't. I haven't written for it in a long time, anyway. I haven't officially quit it or anything, in fact I've always kind of wanted to go back to it, but the more time passes the less likely that is to happen. My interest in that series is in the toilet, and even though I like the sort of kind of AU I ended up writing in, I've been out of it so long that I dont' have a handle on how I wrote the characters anymore, and I wouldn't have a readership. no biggie, I'm not missing anything for writing them.

The others were mainly one-shots, I think they fall as follows:

FMA: 2 drabbles, only one posted on FF.net. (The one that wasn't posted was better but I can't find it now.)
Inuyasha: 2 drabbles, only one posted, the unposted was better.
Fruits Basket: 2 drabbles, both surprisingly popular, including the one I don't like and only wrote because a friend challenged me to do it :D
Buffy the Vampire Slayer: 3 drabbles, only one on FF.net, another one is exactly 100 words and can be found via Google if I look hard enough. The third was only read by one person and was crappy.
Utena: One-shot drabble about Anthy giving Utena chocolate on Valentine's Day. Still totally popular which makes me happy :D
Tutu: One-shot drabble about Ahiru and Fakir living as man and duck, I guess. Also still popular, also makes me happy; I thought it was a pretty good fic.

RGB: Pretty awful semi-Mary Sue fic, though I swear at the time I thought I was only making up OCs in order to be able to center a fic around Janine, which was my real intent. Looking back that might've been the excuse, but it didn't hinge that way. sigh.
TTA: I wrote one stand-alone fic by myself about, of all things, Elmyra and Montana Max, and then I co-wrote two group fics. My contributions were tiny but I'm still credited on both. :D

I am not active in ANY of those fandoms now, but then again, I was never technically "active" in any of them. I just wrote the drabbles because I was challenged to while bored. :) I'd like to go back to RGB actually, if I had any ideas, which I do not.



** Ranma 1/2 was the next fandom I was interested in after DWD, and I read a ton of fanfic for it, but I never officially wrote for it. I did, however, create a sort of spinoff/parody universe based around Ryouga and me; initially based off of RPs that had Ryouga tossed in because I love him, and then the persona developed. It's never actually been fully written out and never will because it's shamelessly self-insert/wish fulfillment, but I have written out one and a half "episode" scripts and have a full "series" plotted in my head, and I stay with it because I honestly feel it's intelligent and funny, and a bit ironic. But it's absolutely 100% Mary Sue at the same time. :D Anyway, I've not only written out those scripts, I've also written two drabble-esque fanfics for it and half of a longer fanfic, and a friend of mine has also written fic for it. So it exists and people have seen it, thus I include it here. Sort of.

30 Days Meme, day 1

So here's the first question. I haven't thought this out in advance (I don't even remember what the question is) so get ready for some ramblin'...

Day 1 – How did you first get into writing fanfic, and what was the first fandom you wrote for? What do you think it was about that fandom that pulled you in?

Mmkay... Well, I started doing fanfic in my head, I think, when I was about 10 years old. I didn't write any of it down, I just had a Mary Sue character for old "X-Men" issues from the late 1970s up to about 1980. :D I think some of it stemmed from being kind of lonely and unpopular; you know, as many of us are. ;) Of course I had no idea of even the concept of fanfiction, back then, I just liked telling myself stories. I eventually let a friend of mine in on it, and she thought it was cool, and between the two of us we wrote I think two and a half actual "fics" which were really just scenes. And I wrote one looooong "novel" that took up an entire spiral notebook that was pretty godawful. But that's as far as that ever went.

In terms of actual first fandom I really *wrote* for, it was Darkwing Duck, straight up. In 1991 I was 13 and in 8th grade. I wrote one fanfic (again, not having any idea it was called that, or that other people wrote it), which was in narrative form, and it was after trying and failing to write a script for an episode that would've been centered around Bushroot trying to save the rainforest and DW not believing he was on the "good" side - I guess it would've been kind of ecoterrorism if I wrote it now but at the time it was just a half-assed idea that went nowhere. :) Plus shortly after I gave up on the idea, the episode "A Star is Scorned" aired, and that included a scene with Bushroot saving the rainforest, lol. So I was like "NEVER MIND THEN D:" So since I wasn't able to do that, I wrote a single fic instead, and it sat on my hard drive for three years before I discovered the Internet.

In between that time I invented Beth (somewhere around 1992), who again existed purely in my head until summer or so of 1994. This was when I got onto AOL and discovered such a thing as Fandom, and I posted my DWD fic and wrote a really, really, really awful "DuckTales" fic that I hope does not currently still exist on the net. (It will never be rereleased. The DWD fic was actually not that bad considering, and is on my site somewhere.) Having put the DuckTales fic up and gotten some positive response I decided to forge onwards and write down the Beth stories I'd thought out, and thus began The Webfoot Chronicles. Yep - in 1994. :)

As for what it was about that fandom that drew me in: well, a combination of my love for DWD, my feeling that I could actually "get" the tone of hte series (arguable when I first started writing), and the people I met on AOL. Kim McFarland/Negaduck9 was among them and she was TREMENDOUSLY supportive. She had a lot to do with it, as did a few other people I met during that time period (Kevin, Mike, RRQuest, and others). And the Internet was a brave new world and it was exciting to be posting and getting feedback. The DWD fandom wasn't really tremendously active at the time but it was at least moderately, so I got a lot of readers and a lot of friends back then. :)

There we go, that was kinda painless!

30 Days of Rain

No not really. Was thinking of "28 Days of rain, flash floods in February" - that's the opening line from a Tears for Fears song. I needed something that goes with 30 days, which is how many days this meme goes on for. What meme you ask?

The fic one that I was inspired to do by Cheezey. The one that has these questions:

Day 1 – How did you first get into writing fanfic, and what was the first fandom you wrote for? What do you think it was about that fandom that pulled you in?

Day 2 – Name the fandoms you’ve written in, and how much you’ve written in that fandom, and if you still write in it.

Day 3 – For each of the fandoms from day two, what were your favorite characters to write?

Day 4 – Do you have a “muse” character, that speaks to you more than others, or that tries to push their way in, even when the story isn’t about them? Who are they, and why did that character became your muse?

Day 5 – If you have ever had a character try to push their way into a story, whether your “muse” or not, what did you do about it?

Day 6 – When you write, do you prefer writing male or female characters?

Day 7 – Have you ever had a story change your opinion of a character?

Day 8 – Do you write OCs? And if so, what do you do to make certain they’re not Mary Sues, and if not, explain your thoughts on OCs.

Day 9 – Pairings – For each of the fandoms from day two, what are your three favorite pairings to write?

Day 10 – Pairings – Have you ever gone outside your comfort zone and written a pairing you liked, but found you couldn’t write, or a pairing you didn’t like, and found you could?

Day 11 – Genre – do you prefer certain genres of fic when you’re writing? What kind do you tend to write most?

Day 12 – Have you ever attempted an “adaptation” story of a favorite book or movie but set in a different fandom?

Day 13 – Do you prefer canon or fanon when you write? Has writing fanfic for a fandom changed the way you see some or even all of the original source material?

Day 14 – Ratings – how high are you comfortable with going? Have you ever written higher? If you’re comfortable with NC-17, have you ever been shocked by finding that the story you’re writing is G-rated instead?

Day 15 – Warnings – What do you feel it most important to warn for, and what’s the strangest thing you’ve warned for in a story?

Day 16 – Summaries – Do you like them or hate them? How do you come up with them, if you use them?

Day 17 – Titles – Are they the bane of your existence, or the easiest part of the story? Also, if you do chaptered story, do you give each chapter a title, or not?

Day 18 – Where do you get the most inspiration for your stories (aka “bunnies”) from?

Day 19 – When you have bunnies ideas, do you sit down and start writing right away, or do you write down the idea for further use?

Day 20 – Do you ever get bunnied inspired from other people’s stories or art in the same fandom?

Day 21 – Sequels – Have you ever written a sequel to a story you wrote, and if so, why, and if not, how do you feel about sequels?

Day 22 – Have you ever participated in a fest or a Big Bang? If so, write about your favorite experience in relation to one. If not, are there any you’ve thought about doing? And if not, why not?

Day 23 – When you post, where do you post to? Just your journal? Just an archive? Your own personal site?

Day 24 – Betaing – How many betas do you like to use to make sure there aren’t any major flaws in your story? Do you have a Beta horror story or dream story?

Day 25 – Music – Do you listen to music while you write? Do you make playlists to get into a certain “mood” to write your story? Do you need noise in general? Or do you need it completely quiet?

Day 26 – What is the oddest (or funnest) thing you’ve had to research for a story?

Day 27 – Where is your favorite place to write, and do you write by hand or on the computer?

Day 28 – Have you ever collaborated with anyone else, whether writing together, or having an artist work on a piece about your story?

Day 29 – What is your current project or projects?

Day 30 – Do you have a favorite story you’ve written? What makes it your favorite?

We'll see how long I can go... :D