InsaneJournal

Oh, that's easy! First fic ever was "Revenge" (Leon/D, PG-13) in the Petshop of Horrors series. I wrote it several years ago for the Petshop Yahoo Group, and recently re-posted it here on my journal. I remember that it was a little scary to post it in public for the first time, although not too scary, since the Petshop community at the time was fairly small and close-knit. This was when only the anime was officially available in the US, not the manga, and I was craving more stories about Leon and D, so I finally decided to write one myself! They were the first couple that I got so hooked on that I just had to write fic! My Petshop writing probably gave me the practice and courage to tackle the much bigger HP fandom later on.

Since most of you reading this are probably here because of my Snupin fics, I'll add that my first Snupin fic was "Mirror, Mirror" (Snape/Lupin, PG-13; also available on Moonshadow). It's typically angsty--I do love my angst!--but has an uncharacteristically (for me) unhappy ending. I could only end it that way because I was already planning another happy-ending Snupin fic in my head.

2. What's your most recent work?

I won't count the old Petshop fics that I recently re-posted, since they were written several years ago. But my most recently written fic turns out to be another Petshop fic, "Fragaria Vesca" (Vesca/Papa D, PG), which is sort of ironic, since I'd sorely been neglecting Petshop in favor of Snupin until recently.

The second most recent fic is a Snupin, "Watching Videos" (Snape/Lupin, R), which has Snape and Lupin watching a porn parody called "Orgy of the Phoenix" in a Japanese love hotel. It is, as you might have guessed, a comedy. ;) It was very silly, and I had tons of fun writing it!

3. What do you think you're best at (genre, style, theme)?

Oh, definitely romance tempered with angst! Or is it angst tempered with romance? I love writing stories where the main characters are in love, but something is keeping them apart--often their own prejudices and insecurities, but also circumstance and societal pressures--and they must go through agonies of angst before I finally give them a happy ending, but it does always end happily, or at least hopefully. And since I am the soppy and sentimental sort, there are also going to be a lot of tender and romantic moments mixed in among the angst. ^_^

Gee, I just realized I follow that same pattern with nearly every couple I write. Leon and D--Leon doesn't want to admit that he might be gay; D doesn't want to admit that he might be in love with a human. Snape and Lupin--well, that's pretty obvious. Even the OCs in my Snupin series: Theo and Blaise have to overcome family disapproval; Aric and Takeshi have to deal with Aric's arranged marriage; Ash and Tsubasa both have baggage from their past to deal with before they can get together; and even my favorite het couple, Dylan and Hermione, are star-crossed lovers with him being an aspiring Death Eater, and her being a Muggle-born. Oh, and we mustn't forget Narcissa and Lukas--the pureblood and the werewolf, with Draco adamantly opposed to anyone trying to take his father's place. A few of the minor couples, like Crabbe and Luna, and Millicent and Miles get together without much fuss or angst, but that's more the exception than the rule.

EDIT: Okay, Theo and Blaise are technically canon characters, but for all practical purposes, they're OCs in my series, since I had almost no info in the books about them at the time, and they bear almost no resemblance to their canon counterparts.

The other thing that I think I'm good at--or at least, that I really love writing--are domestic scenes of family life. I love writing quiet little scenes where nothing much happens but the family spending time together: Lupin cooking dinner with Theo and Dylan, or Snape playing chess with the boys while Lupin watches contentedly; and Leon and D becoming parents and raising baby Daiki together. In "Daiki," I was actually going to spend a lot less time on Daiki's childhood and skip ahead to the storyline where he becomes the Plant Dolls shop owner, but it was so much fun writing Leon and D as parents that it ending up being a major part of the story.

4. What would you like to be better at?

Um...sex scenes. I can write them, but it takes a lot of effort, as I find it a bit embarrassing. ;) And I wish I could find a good euphemism for, er, male body parts that doesn't sound too crude, too clinical, or too much like a bad Harlequin novel.

I'd also like to get better at handling the pacing of a long story, like Aftermaths or Scars, where I tend to go off on tangents, and sometimes things slow down with long descriptive chapters of people not really doing much but thinking to themselves. Although, to be honest, that probably isn't going to change too much. I often like to say I want to put in all the stuff that JKR wouldn't be able to fit in the books because of space constraints, down to the kids brushing their teeth before bed! ^_^ When Mercedes Lackey was still a new author, I remember reading a review of her first book, "Arrows of the Queen," where the reviewer basically said that it was a good story, but had too little action compared to the amount of description and characterization--which was kind of funny, because that's what I liked about it! There's nothing wrong with action, but for me, I can read pages and pages of characterizations and be perfectly happy. It's almost always the characters that get me hooked on a story.

Anyhow, I'm not saying that I want all my stories to be fast-paced action adventures, but I'd like to be able to strike a good balance of action vs. characterization and description.

Oh, and I almost forgot--I tend to switch character viewpoints a lot, moreso in my earlier stories. No one's ever complained, but I've seen lots of general writing meta indicating that most people don't like viewpoints switching within the same scene because they find it jarring or confusing. But sometimes I do like showing how two characters view the same events, and I don't always want to write the same scene twice, so I'd like to be able to switch viewpoints in a clear and consistent way that will make it obvious which character's eyes we're seeing through.

5. Which of your works do you think best represents you as a writer?

Hmm...most likely "Always" (Snape/Lupin, NC-17 overall but mostly PG-13; first chapter starts here, or can be found on Moonshadow). It has the angst, it has the romance, and it has the happy ending. This is my first major Snupin story; I wrote two short Snupin stories previous to this (including "Mirror, Mirror"), but they were just a warm-up. This was the story that I had in my head for months before I wrote it down, my own Snupin-y revision of "Prisoner of Azkaban," and it's probably the one that I'm most fond of. I wasn't planning a whole series at the time, but it laid the groundwork for my AU series, establishing their relationship in school, along with hints about Snape's family background. I especially loved writing the teenage romance part in the Marauders-era flashback, and that seems to be most of the readers' favorite part, too.

6. What's your favorite story you've ever written?

Probably "Always," for the reasons stated above. For Petshop fics, it would probably be "Daiki," which I haven't had time to post on my journal yet, but can be found on my website.

7. What's your favorite scene/chapter you've ever written?

Oh wow, it's like trying to choose which of your kids is your favorite! It's probably a toss-up between the first kiss scene with the teenage Snape and Lupin, or the snowball fight between them in the same story. I just love the snowball scene because it's one of the very rare moments where they can just have fun together like normal kids without having to worry about what their housemates will think. I loved it so much that I did sort of a paralell scene in "Aftermaths," where the grownup Snape and Lupin have a snowball fight with their two adopted sons.

Oh, and how could I forget?! The scene in "Phoenix Rising" (Snape/Lupin, PG-13; can be found on my website or Moonshadow) where Bane (Professor Blackmore's demonic raven familiar) accidentally gets turned into a bunny rabbit by a dueling Harry, Ron, and Draco! :D God, I had so much fun writing that storyline!

8. What's your favorite passage or line you've ever written?

Argh, that's even harder to choose! I'm sure I'll think of some great snarky line I wrote for Snape after this is posted, but right now, I'm having trouble recalling memorable bits of dialogue. I know that one particularly vivid image I had in my mind was this passage from "Always": "It was just Lupin, talking to Potter, but a ray of fading sunlight fell through the window and across the desk where Lupin was sitting. It hid the lines of exhaustion on Lupin's face, and gave his hair a soft glow, changing light brown into molten gold, and gray into strands of pure silver."

I'm not sure if the words do it justice, but I had this image in my head of Snape coming to deliver the Wolfsbane Potion to Lupin in PoA, and seeing him lit by sunlight falling through the window, giving him an almost angelic glow and reminding Snape of how much he loved Lupin and how he lost everything he really cared about after the "prank".

Okay, I just remembered one of my favorite lines, or rather passages, from "Aftermaths" (Snape/Lupin and various other pairings, NC-17; again, found on my website or Moonshadow). Draco and an OC student named Aric have just been caught getting drunk on Firewhiskey up on the Astronomy Tower by Professor Sinistra, Lupin, and a furious Snape:


Draco and Aric exchanged looks. "Uh-oh," Draco said.

"We're in deep shit, aren't we?" Aric asked.

"Very deep," Lupin agreed, trying to hold back a smile, and Snape glared at him.


I was grinning to myself the whole time I was writing that passage! ^_^

9. Have you ever written something that you found really upsetting, that you almost couldn't bring yourself to write?

Hmm, well it was tough writing the scene in "Always" where the teenage Snape and Lupin break up, because they'd been so happy during their idyllic Christmas vacation. But it wasn't that bad, since I knew they would eventually get back together, even if it would take many years. The thing I usually suck at is writing character deaths. I was originally going to kill the werewolf character Brian in the big final battle scene in "Phoenix Rising," but I chickened out of it because I'd grown too fond of him--and he was just a minor character. I couldn't bring myself to kill off any of the main characters, even though it probably wasn't very realistic that they would all make it through the war okay. It was hard killing off Dylan's mother Ariane, because she'd become a lot more sympathetic than I'd originally planned, but I had to do it, in order to follow through with the subplot I'd planned where Snape and Lupin took Dylan in as a foster son.

As I said above, I like happy endings, so I don't tend to write things that are too upsetting--generally, there's angst, but nothing that can't be fixed. The only thing that was so upsetting that I almost couldn't do it actually hasn't been written yet--or at least not posted. It's my post-DH plot bunny that I've been planning for over a year but still haven't finished. In it, Snape and Lupin break up after the war, unable to mend the rift that was caused when Snape killed Dumbledore and Lupin believed him to be a traitor and married Tonks. Snupin is my OTP, and the thought of them breaking up is even more traumatic than character death! I was terribly sad that they died in canon, but I preferred that both of them were dead than to have Lupin living happily ever after married to Tonks--that's how much I love my Snupin! But I actually grew fond of the OC lover, Kuro, that I created for Snape, so I couldn't decide how to end the story. It didn't seem right to have Snape and Lupin break up permanently, but I felt sorry for Kuro if Snape dumped him. And this version of Snape and Lupin were so dysfunctional that it was hard to find a realistic way for them to get over all the hurtful things they'd done to each other. So I was at a stalemate until suddenly I was struck by inspiration and created two alternate endings: one where Snape remains with his new lover, and a rather bittersweet ending where he and Lupin reconcile, sort of like a choose your own adventure story, if you will. ;) So the basic outline of the story is mapped out in my head; I just have to write the damn thing!

10. Which (if any) of your works represents a departure from your usual style, you taking a risk and trying something new? Do you think it worked?

"Betrayed" (Vesca/Papa D, PG) was a huge departure, because it demanded to be told in first person, which I'd never before written. And so is "Double Date" (girl-Snape/Sirius, PG), which was written after a commenter on a snapedom discussion on "What if Snape had been a girl?" gave me the plot bunny. With that story I did two things I'd never done before: (1) write Snape as a woman, and (2) pair Snape with Sirius! The premise--James and Lily going on a double date with girl-Snape (Severina) and Sirius is totally cracky, but somehow it worked. ;) It got a great response from the readers, and I'm really proud of how well it turned out.

11. Who's your favourite character to write? Who do you think you write best?

Lupin and Snape in the HP universe, and Leon and D in the Petshop universe. My personality is probably closer to Lupin's than Snape's, but strangely, I have an easier time writing from Snape's POV, though I feel that I have a pretty good handle on Lupin, too. For Petshop, Leon is easier and more fun to write, given his straightforward and emotional nature. But I do like writing D as well, and getting beneath his outwardly cool and emotionless surface; it just takes more work.

12. Name five things that typically characterize your work.

Let's see...angst, romance...that's two. If it's a Snupin fic, it's almost guaranteed to have a scene with Lupin in wolf form licking Snape's face like a puppy dog, and Snape scratching Lupin behind the ears...that makes three, or does that count as two things? Japan often works its way into the story, either as a setting, or in the form of a Japanese OC, or some reference to a Japanese folktale (that's four). And if it's a Snupin, it will usually have Lupin (or one of the other werewolves) "claiming" his mate by biting him on the neck. (Some of these are the same as the "Ten signs you are reading a fic by..." meme that I did awhile back.)

13. List the projects you're working on right now or have coming up in the near future.

I had lots of fun working on various challenges for snapedom  and lupin_snape , but I deliberately didn't sign up for Snupin Santa because I want to get back to working on the projects I've put on the back burner, including more stories in my Always series. I sort of promised to write a follow-up to "Watching Videos," and I wanted to write some side stories about Narcissa and Lukas and their baby, and I have at last three sequels planned for the main storyline. And I am determined to at least start posting the post-DH plot bunny mentioned in #9 before the end of the year. I've actually written the first couple of chapters, but I'd like to get a few more done before I start posting as a WIP, to give myself some cushioning. (If I wait till I'm done, it'll probably take another damn year! Plus, people asking when the next update is going to be tends to motivate me to write a little faster.)

And if I can ever find the time, I'd like to do sequels for "Double Date," "The Return of the Slytherins," and "Snupin Meme".

On the Petshop side, I'm working on two sequels to "Daiki," and there's also an XXXholic story in my head that's clamoring to be written. So many plot bunnies...so little time; if only I could win the lottery and quit my job to write fanfic all day long, I would be a happy camper! ^_^

14. How do you think your writing has changed since you first started?

Well, I hope I've improved. There are certain passages in my early fics that seem a little awkward to me, and I think that the dialogue and the plot flows a little more smoothly now. And writing the sex scenes is less awkward than it used to be, though I'm still not completely comfortable with them.

15. Describe yourself as a writer in five words or less.

"Writer of the angsty fluff". Or maybe, "Writer of the fluffy angst". ^_^

16. Links to any archives or websites where you have your work.

Moonshadow, Ink Stained Fingers (password-protected, but it's easy to join), and the Snape_n_Lupin Yahoo Group and the Pet Shop of Horrors Fanfiction Yahoo Group (you must be a member to view archives). My personal website (which contains everything up to "Scars" on the Snupin side and "Daiki" on the Petshop side. All my later fics can be found on my LiveJournal or Insane Journal, which I can update easily on my own (a volunteer created and updated the site for me, since I am an ignoramus about that sort of thing).

If you made it this far, thanks for listening to my ramblings! It was fun to go back and look over the history of my writing career, such as it is! ^_^