elrhiarhodan

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

I do some writing in my office - lunch hour, after hours. I also write at home, too. But I think I do some of my best work at my local Starbucks. I think it’s the sunlight. My home office is in the basement and while the space is lovely, it’s also artificially lit - not a speck of sunshine.

I can write odes to my Starbucks. It used to be a Wendy’s - so it’s big and bright and clean. There are plenty of outlets and tables large enough to spread out on. My favorite table is the one in the corner, behind the entrance. I don’t really care if people are looking over my shoulder at what I write, and if they get an eyeful of Peter and Neal going at it like a pair of horny goats, that’s their problem. But I like the corner because it’s quiet and out of the traffic flow.

I rarely write long hand - which is a huge change in the why I used to write, because I loved the feel of lead and pencil across the paper. I have some physical problems with my neck and shoulder, so my right hand isn’t very strong and begins to ache if I hold a pen or pencil too long.

Besides, I have an embarrassment of technology at my fingertips - if I’m ever struck with a random thought or fic, I can pull out an iDevice and go at it.

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

Perhaps one of the most enjoyable writing experiences was the creation of the round robin fic, Easier Things, that I wrote with afiawri, rabidchild67 and hoosierbitch during the Great Chicago White Collar Meet Up in January, 2011. We had always planned to do a round robin writing exercise, and the night before, we went to see “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf”. We had also just watched the Pilot episode of White Collar and wondered just how Neal got his hands on the Warden’s wife’s credit cards.

I am also collaborating with the awesome jrosemary on an original fic (she has been after me to own up to my minor contributions).

I have wanted artwork for some of my longer fics - I had contracted with an artist for Between the Darkness and the Dawn but unfortunately, my artist went AWOL. Which is a pity, because her work was HOT.

29 – What is your current project or projects?

I have too many WIPs languishing to enumerate, but I am proud to say that my “magnum opus” is in beta (rabidchild67 has done a masterful job, and I’m just waiting for elainasaunt to get back to me with her comments, and I’ll be ready to start posting. I should think about cover art...any artists out there interested in a commission?

30 – Do you have a favorite fic you've written? What makes it your favorite? And don't forget to give us a link!

I have a couple of favorite fics - stories that I’m most proud of for various reasons. The top of the list has to be Minutes and Hours. It’s about the actions Peter took to keep Neal safe after the airplane exploded. There were two very specific triggers for that fic - hoosierbitch’s awesome story, Shelter and a very misleading tweet from the White Collar show runner, Jeff Eastin. He said that Season Two would be all about Peter and Neal adjusting to Neal’s work with OPR. Which was a total lie, of course. But it did make for some very interesting plot bunnies.

If I have to pick a favorite piece of porn, it would have to be Take a Seat, Mr. Caffrey. It’s still some of the hottest smut I’ve ever committed to the bitstream.

And then there is Between the Darkness and the Dawn, which rolls up all of the angst I love to write in a nice and tidy package. It’s the story that captures so much of the fanon mythology I’ve created for White Collar, and projects a lot of my hopes and dreams for Neal’s future. It also sets a precedent - it made me realize how much I prefer writing future fic - where I don’t have to worry about my stories being jossed by canon.

There are other tales I love - certain chapters from Danger’verse, ficlets that resonate for reasons I find hard to name.

Well - this meme is done. I’m happy I’ve done it, but I don’t think I’m ever going to commit to another one of these thirty-day things. Just because I can’t be counted on to remember to post them each and every day.

Thank you for reading and commenting and being patient. You are the best flist on LJ.

These next three questions are best answered in a single day, for me, the are all interrelated.

18 – Where do you get the most inspiration for your fics (aka "bunnies") from?

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

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

When I started writing, my bunnies came from canon – whether to plug a hole, to correct a fact, or to expand on a story. But since canon didn’t accommodate the romantic threesome I wanted to read and write about, I began to go elsewhere. Mostly into my head, sometimes onto the kinkmeme. At first, writing to other people’s prompts seemed rather daunting, and there is still an element of trepidation when I try to fill a fellow fan’s prompt – am I giving her what she wanted or am I just writing what I want to read, although I have become so comfortable with filling prompts that I host my own promptfests on a regular basis – just so I can get prompts and plot bunnehs. There’s one going on right now, in case anyone’s interested: Promptfest VI – Summertime Madness.

Sometimes I am inspired by my fellow fans’ writings. Probably the best example of this was the wonderful, post Out of the Box fic Shelter, which inspired me to write Minutes and Hours (which remains one of my all time favorite stories).

I love single word prompts – they seem to bring out a lot of creativity in me. I attribute that to two wonderful friends – photoash, who taught me all about exchanging prompts and <ladygray99, who jumped feet-first into my very first promptfest (she had never written anything for White Collar before), had so much fun, she decided to create the drabble/ficlet community whitecollar100.

Bunnehs can come from songs – someday I am going to write a complete cycle for both Mumford’s Sigh No More and the Eurythmic’s Peace. I’ve also been inspired by poetry, by history, by art.

In fact, just about everything inspires me. I keep a small notebook with me just for the purpose of jotting down story ideas. Hopefully, I‘ll have the time to write them all, some day.

I can't believe I am actually posting this meme two days in a row. Maybe I'm back on schedule. Doubt it.
17 – Titles – Are they the bane of your existence, or the easiest part of the fic? Also, if you do chaptered fic, do you give each chapter a title, or not?

I used to struggle over titles. Tried to be cute, tried to be clever. And I usually fell flat on my face. Then I discovered something that my fellow writers had know for a long, long time. Song lyrics can solve your problems.

Actually, it was my friend gyzym who pointed me in the right direction. I had been dabbling with song titles for a while, but not seriously. I was struggling with one for a long, angsty fic and she suggested lyrics. It didn’t take me ten seconds to hone in on Art Garfunkel’s “All I Know” for the title to Between the Darkness and the Dawn..

I haven’t looked back since. Mumford and Sons has provided a few titles, most notably Love Will Not Break Your Heart (it will dismiss your fears), Live Unbruised (we are friends).

Oysterband, Ani DiFranco, Annie Lennox are my go-tos for titles, but I’ve also branched out. REM has been generous and so has Dead Can Dance.

The oddest place I’ve gotten titles from is the Preamble Redux series - where I was inspired to take each of the clause of the Preable of the U.S. Constitution and write a fic for it. It was one of the rare cases where I have been inspired to write from a title, rather than searching for a title for a story that’s already begun.

With longer fics, I usually just start writing, get a few thousand words down and then look for a title. A current project “Close Your Eyes and Think of Me (call out my name)” got a title almost before I started writing. I was humming the James Taylor song for no good reason (and even odder - I had been listening to Ravel’s Bolero just before that), and it came to me as the perfect title for the story I was about to tell.

I’ve also had the embarrassing situation of using the same title for two completely different fics. Not once, but twice. Luckily, one time I caught it as a WIP and changed titles, but the other time it was a ficlet that never got cateloged onto my Masterlist. Only caught it when I was looking for something else.

As for chapters - the only time I’ve titled chapters in a complete fic (not a regularly published WIP like Danger’verse or Vampire World) was for the aforementioned Between the Darkness and the Dawn - where I used parts of the lyrics for each chapter. It worked marvelously well until I ran out of lyrics.

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?

This is two rather different questions.

1 – I am not – as I’ve indicated elsewhere in this survey – not a canon purist. But that being said, I love canon. I love the way that canon has developed the characters I play with, and I admire and respect canon for what it brings to the creative process. And yet, canon, by its very nature, has its limitations and its flaws. For example – in this season of White Collar, Mozzie and Neal have acted in ways that are contrary to expectation and to a certain extent, the level of human decency that was previously established. My own fanon, or head canon, has them going through numerous scenarios to correct their behavior. I prefer this. It makes me happy. In fact, Moz and Neal’s actions with regards to the treasure is so distressing that I wonder if I would have stopped watching if I and my fellow writers weren’t writing fic to correct the problem.

2 – Fan fic has, in some cases, changed the way I look at canon. Early on, I enjoyed reading a particular fic writer’s extensive redux of entire episodes, and they recast a lot of the action and development when I went back and rewatched those episodes. So much so that I started to wonder if there were problems with the videos, since certain scenes that I was certain were there – or bits of dialogue – were now missing.

Admittedly, that is an extreme case.

More recently, I’ve read fic that has given me new and better views of characters. Even though it was an A/U, lionessvalenti’s story Bought and Paid For Fantasy and the follow ups (sorry for the lack of a link) made me see Kate as something more than the cardboard cutout the show gave to us. Going back and watching Forging Bonds was a revelation – even though the story took place in a ‘verse where Neal wasn’t a criminal and Peter had never chased him.


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?

Oh, I am comfortable with the complete span of ratings. I’ll write NC-17 more often than I’ll write G. I have written stories that started out as NC-17, but ended up R because I got a little lazy and decided not to be explicit. I’ve had stories that have gone the other way too.

Playing catchup, my lovelies. Gad, do I HATE summer colds.

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

White Collar: This is easy:

Neal/Peter
Peter/Neal
Peter/Neal/Elizabeth

No - you didn’t misread. I don’t know if it’s a typical thing in a slash pairing to write the dominant partner first (as in D/s), but that’s the way I tend to roll, so Peter/Neal is different from Neal/Peter. And by Neal/Peter, I don’t mean that Peter is submissive to Neal - it’s just that the relationship has a different dynamic than Peter/Neal. I think I tend to reserve Neal/Peter for A/Us like Wings of Desire and a few others.

If I were to write, say XMFC - Erik/Charles, Farscape - John/Crais, John/Aeryn, Chiana/Zhaan, The West Wing - Josh/Sam.

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?

I do try to stretch myself. I enjoy odd pairings - Clinton/Mozzie, June/Bancroft, Sara/Peter. The Clinton/Mozzie pairing has an interesting painplay dynamic that I want to explore further.

I think the pairing that I’ve tried the hardest to write has been anything with Alex - I’ve warmed to the character, and I’ve written her solo several times, but I can’t put her in a room or in a bed with anyone. Dunno why.

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

I think I like romance as a genre the most - both to write and to read. Almost all of my stories build around a romantic connection - whether they are porn or casefic or something entirely different.

I’ve also had a lot of fun in the fantasy genre (and we pause for a commercial interruption - if anyone is writing for Promptfest VI, know that I can be twisted into writing Vampire World with the right Peter/Neal prompt). The 61k epic I recently finished is perhaps the oddest thing I’ve even written, including Wings of Desire, but it’s not at all cracky (okay - other than for a few odd moments it’s not).

The genre I write the least is gen - not because I always want to write about sex - far from it. It’s just that, well, I don’t enjoy it. Maybe had I started writing fan fiction when I was much less mature, less worldly, I would have found that satisfying.

ETA (because, in addition to my waning headcold, I have a case of foot and mouth disease: I probably should have said that I came into fandom through slash, explored because of slash, and started writing because I wanted more slash. Gen and Slash has nothing to do with anyone's age or maturity level - it has to do with their personal preferences, full stop.

I’m not the type of writer who needs to be constrained by canon, hell - I wouldn’t be writing epic fantasies and fairytales if I was! I like my imagination, and I like to explore the whole sequence of “what if’s”.

12 – Have you ever attempted an "adaptation" fic of a favorite book or movie but set in a different fandom?

Hmmm - I think the closest think I’ve written that comes to that is the displacement of White Collar’s Pilot into a vampire fantasy.

And I’ve borrowed very heavily from certain classics for my Urban Fantasy epic. But that’s not a deliberate rewrite or adaption.

Since tomorrow is a holiday here and my entry for Day Seven is brief, I'm doing two days of the meme today. Day Eight will go up on Tuesday.

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

In brief I have no preference.

I write Peter and Neal (and Peter/Neal) because the show is centered around that relationship, but I also like writing Elizabeth, too. She has a unique voice and perspective - she’s a lot more than the “understanding” wife. She’s a true partner, not just an afterthought or foil for Peter. Of course, that the Burke marriage is so canonically strong and she’s such a positive figure that writing her - as both wife, lover and independent woman is a pleasure.

One of the things about my writing that I’ve noticed lately is that I am having as much fun writing the secondary characters, regardless of their sex. As their roles within canon have expanded, I’ve enjoyed writing Diana (and Christie) and Sara. I also like writing June (as a major focus and as a minor character). I’ve also begun to enjoy writing Kate - to give her the personality that the writers forgot about.

Although I’ll never stop writing Peter and Neal, I anticipate writing a lot more of the female characters in the show as time goes by.


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

Yes. I didn’t like Kate - at least not the way the the writers and even the actor playing the character presented her. Despite Forging Bonds, Kate Moreau was still a cardboard cutout, but I’ve tried to make her something more - if not sympathetic, than at least a real person.

It also helped having a lot of good fic that fleshed her out - both in canonical and in alternative universe settings.

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

No, not really. Or not in any major way. In a way - I don’t even understand this question, because if a story needs something - a character or a “voice” it needs it, and that’s the way I’ll write it. I don’t fight or argue with my writing. At least not yet. When that happens, I think I’ll need some medical attention.

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 fic isn't about them? Who are they, and why did that character became your muse?

I don’t really think I have a muse character or one that just pushes him/herself into a fic. Once my mind is set on the story that I want to write, it’s pretty much set.

Like I said yesterday, I enjoy writing Mozzie the most, but I am also most likely to leave him out of a story too, particularly in the Paladin’verse, which is completely PEN-centric.

If anything, I have a relationship as a muse - Peter/Neal - whether as a romantic couple or as friends. My “muse” so to speak is breaking them up so I can put them back together again.

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

Since I’ve said that I only really write in White Collar, I’m going to limit my answers to that fandom.

Hands down, I really love writing Peter/Neal – as a pairing. A close follow up is Peter/Elizabeth/Neal. There is something so very satisfying about them, together. It’s not just the porn. I love weaving in their canonical characteristics into the slash relationship – and it helps that the show runner really loves to slash his own creations. Come to think of it, one of the stars does too (I know of at least three times that TDK has made explicit reference to a slash relationship between Peter and Neal).

But, and this is an interesting “but” – the character I love writing the most is Mozzie. I love his voice – and I find it so easy to write. Maybe it’s the little bit of anti-establishmentarian in me that resonates with Mozzie. I keep hoping that he’ll come to his senses about the origin of the treasure. Millions of people (most of them civilians) died in the siege of Leningrad.

I don’t think there is a character I haven’t written at least once. Lauren Cruz was central in my still-unfinished Vampire World series, but she’s not made it into my more mainstream works, mostly because I’ve written based on canon after the end of S1, and she’d left the show.

I’ve written Satchmo, Bugsy, Blake (the probie), Bancroft, Hughes, June, Alex, Sara, Fowler, Kate. I’ll probably give Cindy and Agent Matthews a shot in the coming weeks (maybe during Promptfest). With the exception of Keller and Adler, who were the more interesting of the S2 villains (ok – Keller showed up originally in S1), I’ve stayed away from the bad guys – mostly because I don’t enjoy writing Neal-whump.

If I was, hypothetically, to write outside of White Collar, I’d probably write either Sam/Josh from The West Wing, Crais/John in Farscape, and Exley/White in L.A. Confidential. But don’t hold me to that. I’ve got more White Collar WIPs that I really want to think about.