Tell us a little bit about yourself:

I'm a University student who doesn't study nearly enough. In part this is due to the amount of time I spend writing or reading fanfic. I'm quite short and I listen to a lot of punk. My political affiliations are fairly obvious to anyone who's ever read my fanfic. I write in umpteen fandoms, but the true love of my life is Doctor Who. Yeah, geek here.



How long have you been writing?

Well, they taught us the alphabet back in primary one, and they used to try and make us craft things in school... But fanfic... technically my first "published" fanfic was an X-files parody in a fanzine, but thankfully no one I know has ever seen that and it's under another name. My first net fanfic was Star Wars stuff in the summer of '01. The following year I started writing ENT. Dammit. I think fanfiction.net is actually a great place for newbies - it shows that not everyone is great, and that there will always be authors who write far worse than you ever could.



Why do you write fan fiction?

Boredom/procrastination. Or a mixture of both. Actually, a remarkable amount of my fic gets written in response to things that bugged me either in canon or in other people's fanfic. I'm evil like that. I mean, 'Ensign' was partly to put some pain into R/S fic, to see if people would get annoyed or confused by it. I do fanfic rather than original stuff because in some ways it's easier (you have canon to work with - but it's also tricky because you have to work with characterisations and so forth) and mainly because I don't see myself as a writer and have no belief that any original stuff I wrote would be any good. I've done some anarchic student newspaper stuff, but that's about it.



Which character is easiest to write for and which hardest?

Travis is hard because he's had a total screentime of about five minutes. I avoid writing Trip simply because phonetic spellings of his accent drive me up the wall. Reed is hard because he's basically two people in canon - I note that Sleazy!Reed gets very little attention in fic. Hmm. Hoshi...she's easy in that she's the everywoman of the show, but it can be hard to give her an edge. She spends to much fanfic time wallowing in her own girly lurv issues. (She also seems to spend an inordinate amount of fic-time being pregnant with the spawn of some alien or other. I don't know what that's about. Thank God I don't do psychology.)



If you write ship-fic, tell us why you like that particular ship?

I try not to. I like to claim I don't write properly 'shippy fic. (Note the word "claim".) I still can't get into Tu/S, so I never write that (probably will eventually though). I like R/S for the tremendous angst potential - both of them are very screwed up at times. I wrote A/S once to see if I could. S/T'P is one I like and write a lot. There's so little femslash in the fandom. Again, this is probably just me reacting to the fandom - I'd write less if other people wrote more (that's a promise, folks - start writing). Probably part of why I haven't done Tu/S is that other people have.



What writing weakness do you think you have? How do you go about correcting this?

I have no respect for the proper hardness of "the writing process". That for me is tapping at a keyboard while sleep-deprived, running spellcheck and then spamming the world with my ramblings. I know I should have a beta, I know I should care about the proper use of a semi-colon and I know I should keep my fics on my hard-drive and revise them till all the spark has dwindled from them. But I'm just too lazy for all that. I have an overly-liberal view of the English language - my rule is that if you'd say it, you can write it. I have no time for prescriptive grammars - English is a living language, you can't just pin it down and claim to have found the perfect form. As you might have guessed, I am too lazy to go about fixing my weaknesses. I do this for fun, people read it for fun, and a lot of my previous weaknesses have just disappeared with practice. So that's my policy for my current ones. Oh, and I can't seem to write anything above 500 words.



What writing strength do you think you have? How did it come about?

Umm.. Er... Well, I can see angst in almost any situation. But that's probably more of a perversion than a strength. I can honestly say that you don't have to suffer to write angst - my fic since I went on anti-depressants is just as miserable as it was when my brain was running on no seratonin. I keep getting told I'm "concise" - of course I put that down to my uselessness at adding pointless paragraphs of padding, but possibly it's a good thing. I suppose it means I don't churn out 10,000 words in which nothing happens. I just churn out 400 words in which people angst a bit and go on about their deep emotional pain. Oh, and I can spell. That's a plus.



Pet peeves when it comes to writing/reading?

For writing it's probably the sheer effort involved. Reading: It's *not* grammar and spelling. I can spot those a mile off, close the window, move onto something else. Bad stuff on that level rarely hides goodness within it. They will improve in time. No, what *really* bugs me is when people who can do the technical stuff churn out turgid rubbish about nothing. Seriously. Does my head in. Bugs me easily as much as Phonetic!Trip does. Reading the same story over and over again is a bit annoying too - live a little, write something demented that no one else has ever even thought of. But mainly when competent writers churn out flaccid gibberish that makes no impact upon the lives of fictional characters or the reader. Oh, and telling me the full names and jobs of all the characters - I *know* who they are, OK?!



Which do you think is your best/fav work in terms of Hoshi fic?

Oh, arse. Do I have to? Hmm. Many of the older ones I can barely look at now. Umm. 'Ensign' isn't bad. It's got angst and a gratutitous Doctor Who reference, and I can sometimes manage to make myself read it again. Arse.



How do you take your feedback?

You mean people actually get feedback? Woah. Seriously(er) though, all feedback is nice. Even amusing flames.



Pick a fav Hoshi fic and tell us why it worked for you. Was it something particular the author did? Was it the subject matter?

Kaesi's 'Abraham' - it's got levels, baby. Now, some people can't do layers to save themselves, but Kaesi can. It's about Hoshi, it's about women, it's about failing to be the social norm. Wow. It's incredible. Oh, and anything Nehal so much as breathes on is usually worth a look. She's utterly divine. I like fic that's snappy, eloquent and actually *about* something.



Other advice for fellow writers?

Just say no.