I was born in November 1980, in Missouri. My family moved around often during my childhood, because my father was enlisted in the military. I've lived in Kansas, Germany, Texas, and then back to Missouri when my father retired. I've lived in a quirky little tourist town on the Mississippi River for the past eleven years. I work in a group home for three mentally challenged women, and I hope I work in this field for the rest of my life. As for hobbies, I love to read. I'm not too fond of mysteries -- I'm one of those people who get irritated and flip to the end to find out whodunit -- but I love reading pretty much anything else. I think it goes without saying that I love reading fanfic as well, LOL.
The endless possibilities.
Originally, my answer was long and rambling and smelled like Eau de Pretension. And it all wound back to the simple fact that you can do anything you damn well please in fan fiction. Writing-wise, the lure for me is in exploring the smaller moments that get glossed over in canon material.
I've lost enormous chunks of time reading fanfic. Long hours, entire weekends, all gone. The writers I admire most? Quite a few. Jenn is my favorite. Diebin, Bethy, Victoria P., Ransom, Ramos, Macha, they're all fantastic and unique, with their own distinct voices and styles. Newer authors like Abelard and Green Owl rock my socks.
I'm forgetting many, and I know I'll think of them at two o'clock in the morning next Thursday and want to kick myself.
I like to think that a girl who had the nerve to sneak into his truck like she did, mere seconds after seeing his temper and claws, would be the kind of girl who wouldn't let herself be set aside and forgotton once the danger was over. I like to think her courage impresses him and gets her past his defenses in a way no one else ever has.
One of the key components that make them different from other couples is, of course, the age difference. And not just a May-December dynamic, either. Their ages aren't normal, seperately -- he looks to be in his mid-to-late thirties but can't remember anything before the last twenty, yet he knows it's likely he's older than dirt. She's in her late teens in the movies, seventeen or so, with memories that mentally and emotionally age her considerably. Put together, on the surface they're not right -- he's too old and she's far too young. Emotionally, it's a different story. In fact, it's many different stories.
I love Jubilee! Jubilee in this fandom, to me, is a big Mary Sue. Authors use her to insert their own thoughts into the story.
Originally, the series was just one story. The last story. I liked how it turned out but I kept having thoughts about Marie's friendship with Jubilee. I've read so many fics where Jubilee was nothing but a shit-stirring sidekick with little to no personality of her own, and I wanted to explore her a little more.
I like challenges because they offer a theme or element to focus on. A lot of the reason I don't write more is because I have a hard time narrowing an idea down to something I can manage. And I can't plot my way out of a paper bag.
I also like to have a deadline. Most of the time I blow the deadline, but I like to know that there is an end in sight.
I write a lot of fic that I abandon, and signing up for a challenge makes me work hard to finish after a point I'd otherwise give up and go read something.
I don't really have a typical process. When I have an idea, I try to get it down on a piece of paper before I lose it, and then sometimes I talk to my friends and see what they think and what ideas they might have to offer. The actual writing part is slow and drags on, unless I'm writing dialogue. I require silence because I'm easily distracted. My hands sweat. I annoy a few friends on AIM to read whatever I'm writing practically paragraph by paragraph.
I get stuck on opening sentences. I have a horribly difficult time setting the scene that establishes the story. I try to open stories with dialogue instead, but sometimes that seems like the weenie's way out. Sometimes I ask my friends to provide an opening line.
Beta readers are wonderful creatures, if you're willing to go with ones who won't necessarily spare your feelings and tell you what you want to hear. Everything I write goes through a beta reader. I don't trust myself to catch my own mistakes, grammar-wise and content-wise. When I wrote my first remix, I pretty much had two beta readers dragging me through it, and each offered something different. One focused on the story itself and told me when I was repeating myself or botching the characters and pointing me in the right direction, and the other focused on the mechanics and flow.
I like writing moments that make me smile or tug at my heartstrings. I'm a big fan of angst, but it's not what comes out when I write. I write like Pollyanna on Paxil if left alone.
Sometimes. I like humor that's natural, not stemming from forced situations. I think humor humanizes Logan, to a certain degree.
LOL! I like this question. I'd say Logan is a Sagiattarius -- his own boss, relies on himself, searches for truth and knowledge.
I'd say Rogue is a Scorpio. Emotional and stubborn, loyal. But then again, Rogue could have a few different signs guiding her. ;p
The one I enjoyed writing the most was "A Sure Thing." The process for that story was very quick -- I had the idea, I fleshed it out a little, wrote the majority of it in one sitting, and liked the story for the most part when I reread it the next day.
The most challenging? Remixing Jenn's "For Now" was damn hard. And talking to her several evenings a week without spilling and asking for her help was very very very difficult. Writing that thing was all I did for several long weeks, and it consumed my thoughts when I wasn't writing.
I had the idea for the dogpile of kids when his phone rang and I wanted to explore that further. I had a cute picture in my head and I wanted to convey it fully.
I think Logan relates to each kid differently, because he seems like a person who takes nothing at face value and doesn't go in for generalizations. I think he likes bratty children. ;p
The entire idea for "A Sure Thing" flowed from a single line of dialogue. Marie to Logan when he makes the suggestion that she's there for reasons other than seeing to his comfort -- "Mmmm, mmm, mm, I sure do love me some sick, clammy man."
My favorite Logan/Rogue moment from one of my own stories was also in "A Sure Thing," when Marie asks if there's anything she could do for him, and he tells her to go get him a beer.
Great original stories that are widely read and loved often inspire other authors. Ideas, themes, and characteristics are borrowed, repeated, and twisted into new forms. Fanon comes from the same general source.
Sometimes I go with it, because it's there and so simple and one less thing to worry about. Sometimes I get tired of just blindly believing that Rogue's parents kicked her out, that Bobby is really gay, that Jean's a raving bitch and we just didn't see it on the screen.
Stand-alones are glimpses of a bigger story, I think, and they're what I'm better at writing. I can't write stories with complex, interweaving storylines. The biggest drawback is that there is always someone who will read your story and comprehend that you wrapped up the story you intended to tell, and yet still demand to know when there will be a sequel. A series is big and sprawling and not something I like to try all that often, but I sure love to read them.
How? Victoria P has a slightly evil sense of humor and she assigned me Jenn knowing full well I'd panic. ;p As to the why? I love "For now" and I've read it a dozen times. Originally, I was going to remix another of her fics, my favorite one, but didn't have the nerve. So I went with "For Now" because Jenn's version is strictly told from Marie's POV and a lot of the time neither the reader nor Marie have a clue what's going inside Logan's head. I wanted to figure out what Logan was thinking and feeling.
It was difficult at first, especially when it came to shifting his view of her from smitten teen to possible lifelong love. It happens between chapters. After that, it became easier and easier to get into his head. Jenn's story leaves room for a lot of possible explanations for Logan's thought process.
If Jenn had written "For Now" in a different POV, like third person, there would be no remixing it. Her story is solid and moves quickly with few time gaps (other than between chapters). Because she wrote her story so strictly from Marie's narrow POV, there was room on the flip side.
Rogue's dialogue is easier to write, because she's young and emotional and moody, with little ability to keep herself in check. Therefore she can be flexible -- shy and flirty, strong and confident, uncertain yet stubborn. Logan is a person who strives to keep in control of himself, with carefully guarded thoughts, and for his dialogue to be believable it has to reflect that.
For the simple reason that Marie doesn't seem to be a bitter person. If her home life was awful, if her family was as cruel as fanon would have us believe, she wouldn't be so instantly trusting of a man with an obvious temper. And I wanted to go against the norm. ;p
I have four unfinished stories that involve Logan meeting Rogue's parents. I like the idea. I do plan on finishing a story where that happens. I just don't know when. Originally, I was going to have there be quite a bit of tension between Rogue's father and Logan, obvious disapproval over the age diffreence and distrustful based on Logan's rather rough appearance. For his part, Logan would be slightly concerned that Marie might want to stay with them.
I wish I could write more often. I'm less of a fanfic author and more of a reader who occasionally dabbles. Writing is hard for me, and I live life on the lazy side. ;p Thank you for picking me to interview. I was tickled pink to be asked. (: