Flamedancer77 by Author Interviews
Summary: Interview with Flamedancer77.
Categories: Author Interviews Characters: None
Genres: General
Tags: None
Warnings: None
Challenges:
Series: None
Chapters: 1 Completed: Yes Word count: 3557 Read: 1703 Published: 09/06/2005 Updated: 09/06/2005

1. Chapter 1 by Author Interviews

Chapter 1 by Author Interviews
Who is FlameDancer77?
I am a person of vast importance and you shall worship me… just kidding. But really, that is quite an existential type question. “Who am I?” Well, as many of you have probably noticed from feedback and non-fic-related posts, my name is Jenni (spelled that way to stand out at least a little from the millions of other Jennifer’s). I’m single, the oldest of five children (the younger three of them male), the youngest of who is 15 years younger than me and just started Junior High (he’s also the one I’m closest to as I helped a great deal when he was young, my mother bedridden much of the time). I rent a room in the “basement” of my family home, my mom, step-dad and two of my brothers live upstairs. I share this with you because my family has shaped a great deal of who I am. I was a nanny for several years until my last job when I got too attached to the kids and realized I didn’t want to go through that again. I’ve been working in an office for five years now, the assistant of a consultant to radio stations across the US and Canada. It’s an interesting job and allows me to write, which is one of its biggest draws. Some of the things I love include listening to music, swimming in the ocean, animals of every kind, talking with friends, and stories (whether watching, reading or writing them). Aside from writing, my creative hobbies include miniature painting, drawing (very amateurishly), making things out of clay, and cross stitch. Because of the wide range of my activities and a general lack of time, I mostly dabble in everything, though writing has always been a priority among the other activities. I’m one of those people who has conversations with themselves whether in their own room or the grocery store, and my moods can be mercurial enough that I sometimes think I may be borderline schizophrenic. But I wouldn’t change who I am for anything, because I don’t think I’d be able to write without it.


How did you get involved in writing fan fiction and why did you choose the pen name FlameDancer77?
My ‘writing’ started before I ever put pen to paper. As a child (as most do, I’m sure) I used to create worlds in my head and populate them with all manner of people and creatures. Inevitably, some of them would have powers and abilities beyond that of mortal men, and the established worlds of fantasy, sci-fi and of superheroes and villains eventually drew me like the proverbial moth. The first time I actually wrote a story was in fifth grade, and I haven’t stopped since. I’ve actually won awards at the local county fair several times for short stories (original of course) and once for a poem. As for fan fiction, like I assume many people do, I often imagined ‘what next?’ or ‘what if this had happened differently?’ when watching movies or TV shows, books being a bit more ‘sacred’ for some reason I don’t fully understand myself. Still, it was actually only several years ago that I dared to start writing a piece of fan fiction when I became obsessed with the TV show Witchblade. That story grew into a monstrous, multi-fandom saga which I am still working on. I read plenty of fan fiction online whenever I got the chance, though it was only about a year and a half ago that I found fanfiction.net and decided to try my hand at actually letting people read what I had written. There I befriended Jenn (harimad-corlath) after reading and reviewing a WR story of hers. She told me about WRFA and the wrbeta mailing list (for which I will be eternally grateful), which I absolutely loved from day one. It wasn’t long until I tried writing a WR story, and I’ve been doing so ever since.

The pen name FlameDancer77 comes from an original character from the aforementioned saga: Mara, who has the title Flame Dancer among the Dragons. She was one of my first OCs, and remains one of my favorites. And the ‘77’ is from the year I was born, 1977. It was actually my pen name on FFN first and I figured I should just keep one name for all my online writing, but that account on FFN was closed and I’m now LadyV77 there. But I figured I was ‘established’ here as FlameDancer77 already, so I made no attempt to change it.


What is your favorite part of writing? Your least favorite?
My favorite part would have to be starting a new story, giving life to a brand new tiny world. My least favorite is when the world rebels against its creator and refuses to obey my dictates… in other words when I get stuck or something changes in the story that changes ALL of the story.


What attracted you to the Logan & Rogue characters? What was it about them that made you want to write for them?
I used to worship the X-Men cartoon of the early 90s. My two favorite characters were (in order) Rogue and Wolverine. Admittedly, I never thought of Rogue and Wolvie as a couple back then, but I thought they made a good team. Rogue was from the South (like my maternal grandmother) and had spunk and what I thought was one of the coolest powers ever. That she permanently had super-strength and flight in addition to being able to copy others’ powers elevated her above any other hero, the fact that she had once been a ‘bad guy’ only made her more intriguing. Wolverine was feral and had knives in his hands… perfection. A modern day ‘lone knight’ type of character with animalistic tendencies and his own code of honor. When I first saw the movie, I was a bit disappointed that Rogue was so different from the character I knew and loved, but the chemistry and deep friendship between she and Wolverine more than made up for it in the end. In my opinion the connection between them was more believable than the main characters in most romance movies nowadays. Then X2 came around and the idiots who made the movie didn’t play with that as much, which of course made me seek out fan fiction that did. I thoroughly enjoyed reading other people’s views on the pairing, and decided why not try it out. Once I started, I fell in love all over again with the many facets of both characters’ personalities and was irrevocably hooked.


How much of your inspiration comes from random every day events that have nothing to do with the fandom, per se? Would you say a little, or a lot?
That’s actually a tough question. I suppose I’d have to say both. Most of my ideas just suddenly pop into my head for no apparent reason, but on some level I store little things that happen all the time to use later. And one story, “Giving Thanks,” had it’s basis in the fact that my family always goes around the table at Thanksgiving and says what they’re thankful for, which I suppose could be an ‘every day’ event.


If you consider yourself to have a muse, what exactly do you mean?
I used to have a female muse, Calliope, and she was simply one of the characters/voices in my head who didn’t have her own story but always liked to tell me what she thought of other ones I made up. But she stopped talking to me awhile ago and I created a new muse, who is a male named Gabriel, who tends to be dark and broody. He’s more a fantasy than a muse really, something I use to reward myself when I actually sit down and write. I guess in a way all the fragments of characters and people in my mind are muses after a fashion.


Who is your favorite character to write?
I love writing them both, but I’m more comfortable writing Marie, because I’m never quite sure I pull off Logan the way I mean to.


Most of your stories are all fairly short, how long does it generally take you to write a story?E
It varies. I’m a ridiculously slow typist, so what is quick to me may not be to others. A few of them have simply flowed out (like “His Reason” and “Buckling Under”) and were done in an hour or less (“His Hands” took less than twenty minutes thanks to the length). Other times I get stuck and it can take a week to finish the darn things. That’s actually a big part of why all but my WIP are “short.” It’s actually a double-edged sword. I know with how slow I am to update it would be better to write the whole story before posting it, but without feedback, I’d put the longer things on the back burner indefinitely and they’d never get done. I have longer stories in other fandoms that took months to finish, but they got there. It doesn’t help that I usually have several projects going at once.


Do you still have them beta’ed or do you do your own editing?
I never have anything beta’ed. I’m used to proofing my own and other people’s documents at work, so I never saw the need to give my stories to anyone to correct. I haven’t really had any complaints about mistakes, though of course there a few that slip by me. Another part of it is not having the patience to let someone else read the stories once I’m done writing them. As soon as they’re done, I post them.


Do you have to have any special conditions while you’re writing (i.e. – particular music playing, time of day, place, etc.)?
I always write at my computer. In the past few years, I’ve found it much slower to write on paper. I usually have music playing, though not one set genre. I have a twenty-disk stereo that has everything and everyone from Phantom of the Opera soundtrack, Black Eyed Peas, a bunch of eighties pop/rock collections, Evanescence, Rob Zombie, Shania Twain, Backstreet Boys to Eminem. When I do listen to music, it’s with my headphones on to drown out everything else, it helps me focus more. I write at night a lot simply because I have insomnia and it leaves me with free time then.


Speaking of music, several stories include song lyrics and/or take their titles from songs. Are songs often a springboard for your writing?
Yes. I firmly believe that music is a so-called “universal language.” Songs can have different meanings for different people and situations, and I like finding ways to apply them to characters I love. And other times, there are songs that just scream ‘I am a Wolvie-Rogue story waiting to be written.’ And it’s very handy to be able to pull a title out of lyrics used in a story since I happen to be horrible at titling fics.


What current song do you think might make a perfect Logan/Rogue story?
I actually thought about this one for a long time and couldn’t really come up with anything among the current chart-toppers that was ‘perfect.’ I think maybe “Let Me Go” by Three Doors Down and Kelly Clarkson’s “Behind These Hazel Eyes” might make good angst-y songfics.


You’ve written quite a variety of types of stories: songfics, drabbles, challenges, holiday fic, humor, shipper, etc. What’s your favorite type to write and why?
Hmmm, not sure I have one. Most of the time, it’s just a story until I have to post it and label it with a genre. When I do purposefully write a certain type of story, I’d say I enjoy the challenges the most because it’s more of a sense of accomplishment for me to write something by preset guidelines as opposed to just randomly picking a scenario from my own head.


“Candy or Claws,” “Giving Thanks” and “The Trouble With Mistletoe” are all holiday-themed stories. Which holiday would you pick if you had to write another Logan/Rogue story around one? … and Valentine’s Day is too obvious! :)
I actually have another Christmas story in the works for this year. But if I have to pick a holiday I haven’t done yet, I think it would be fun to do a St. Patrick’s Day one. Rogue could get drunk and Logan could get pinched for not wearing green… at the risk of the pincher’s life, unless of course the pincher *was* Rogue.


Do you usually include sexual content in your stories? Why or why not?
Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. “Sleep With Me” obviously contains adult content and it was fun to write. Stories I’ve written in other fandoms contain more lightly rated sexual content when it fits the story. But most of my stories haven’t called for it, and I’m not good enough at smut to write too much of it for it’s own sake.


Have your written drabbles before or did you write “His Hands” to try your hand at it? :)
No pun intended? I was trying it out. I had written a few short stories that were only a few hundred words before, but never an on-purpose drabble. I read a few other people’s and thought I’d see if I could do it.


Was it easier or harder than you thought?
Both, actually. It started out really easy because one phrase just came right out and it was fairly simple to build around it. Getting it to exactly one hundred words, though, proved a bit more harrowing.


How do you feel about challenges? Like ‘em? Hate ‘em?
I love them. It’s fun to take someone else’s idea and run with it for awhile. It’s also interesting to see how different authors take the same primary idea and go a different direction with it, especially in the case of the Big 3-0! Challenge. There were some excellent stories with differing plots that resulted from that one.


Tell us about “Buckling Under” and “Marie’s List,” the two stories you wrote for challenges. What was it like to write them as opposed to the rest of your non-challenge stories? Harder? Easier?
They were both a lot of fun to write, BU just flowed right out, and the general idea for ML resulted in a brain-storming session with Jenn to name thirty reasons we love Logan, er, reasons *Marie* loves Logan. Suffice to say, it wasn’t difficult. I don’t think they were any harder or easier to write. It’s good to have a starting block when you write, but when it’s someone else’s starting block it can sometimes trip you up, sometimes a story is created that doesn’t quite fit the challenge and it ends up needing to be tweaked.


Do challenges usually help you with writer’s block? If not, how do you usually deal with the situation?
Sometimes they help. It’s more of an ‘ok, go work on something else for awhile’ kind of thing though, so it could be any new story and not just challenges. Other things that help… throwing things makes me feel better but doesn’t usually help me write ;). I do have a couple people I bounce ideas off of when I get stuck (Jenn and Cass, a friend and writer who actually doesn’t really write for this fandom). But most of the time I just have to step back and not try to force myself, because if I do what I write just comes out stilted.


Lots of people (who shall remain nameless :)) seem fascinated with Logan’s belt buckle. If *you* could have one thing that any of the characters wore in the movies, what would it be and why?
There’s no need to say the name, is there? ;) Do Wolvie’s claws count? They are such a symbol of who he is, and I have a thing for knives and swords. And, come on, they’re just *so* cool! If it had to be something that was painlessly detachable, I’d take the tag both for all it means to Logan himself and for the way he used it to cement his connection with Marie before leaving.


Which of your stories would you recommend to someone wanting to get a taste for a typical FlameDancer77 story and why?
I was contemplating putting a piece of paper with the titles of the stories on my dartboard, or just going eeny meeny miney moe. I suppose “Marie’s List” would be the closest thing to fitting that criteria. It shows what I like to write their relationship as, and it’s a happy fic, which most of mine are.


What story have you gotten the most feedback about? (positive and/or negative)
I’ve been lucky in that I haven’t received much in the way of negative feedback, except for a couple people on FFN who say things like “Rogue and Wolverine together are gross” even though they say they like my writing style or a certain aspect of the story or what-have-you. One person was really annoying me for awhile because she read and reviewed every Rogue/Wolverine story I posted (which were all labeled as such, by the way) and would say that she thought WR was wrong, even though she did have nice things to say about the stories. I couldn’t help thinking every time “then why are you reading them?” And then, on my recent story, “Half Asleep” I had someone tell me it was a lovely story but that writing about right after the first movie (the situation of Logan having left the mansion and Rogue behind) five years after the fact was lame. To which of course I internally ranted about fandoms that have been around for decades (Star Wars and Star Trek for example) and people continuing to write stories about them.

As for numbers, that depends if we’re counting WIP or not. On WRFA (combined with feedback received on wrbeta), for finished story it would be a tie between “Marie’s List” and “Candy or Claws” with 7 a piece. Including WIP, it would be my story “The Darkholme Legacy” with a current tally of 10. On FFN, completed WR story would be “Marie’s List” with 11; “The Darkholme Legacy” again leaps out in front if WIPs are included with a running total of 98. If we’re talking any fandom, my completed multi-chapter story on FFN entitled “Child of the Sun” had a grand total of well over a hundred were it not for the unfortunate circumstance of having to repost as I was nearing the end.


How important is the support of the online creative community, in all its various forms (LiveJournals, bulletin boards, mailing lists, websites, archives, etc.) to you as a writer?
They are important in that I now know more than just my mother and my Creative Writing professor from community college think I have at least a little talent in this area. Despite my nervousness every time I post another part of myself for other people to see and judge, it is still exhilarating to be able to do so. Feedback on the wrbeta mailing list and on archives like WRFA and fanfiction.net keep me posting online, and frankly keep me writing more often than I would otherwise.


Do you have a webpage/livejournal?
I don’t have a webpage. My brother offered to make me one years ago (he gets paid to do them among his various odd jobs) but the timing was always off and back then I was too afraid to post anything online so it just fell away. More recently (though it was awhile ago) Win from the wrbeta and wolviefemmes mailing lists offered to help me make one, but by then it seemed like it would be overkill since I already had my stuff on FFN and WRFA. Also, I was nervous about it because I am pretty hopeless when it comes to technological things. It still sometimes surprises me that I do as much as I do online.

As for a LiveJournal, yes, I have one on livejournal.com (Win helped me start that – thanks again, hon), but I hardly ever update it. I go through phases where I write everyday for a couple days and then not at all for months. I used to do the same thing with journals and diaries when I was younger. I have been thinking lately about using it more, and at some point I’d like to start posting stories and chapters there just to see if they would attract any attention. My screenname is “etebarigirl” but, remember, you’ve been warned about the lack of updates!

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