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

This web site is named after a place I used to write: the laundry room in an apartment complex. I moved out of that complex in 2005, but I’ve never forgotten how much I enjoyed that laundry room.

These days, I love to write in restaurants — for some reason I seem to be especially partial to Moe’s — but I often don’t because my Dana gets so much attention. It’s not always easy to write when people come and ask questions, and it’s doubly difficult when I’m writing fan fiction because I might not always want a random stranger to realize what I’m doing.

I type considerably faster than I write (my last typing test result was 113 cwpm) so it’s rare for me to work in longhand except when I’m making notes or planning. The majority of my fan fiction was written on the Dana or using another word processor that I no longer own; but recently I’ve been directly using my laptop, at home on my desk, more often.

My suspicion is that this is because I’ve been trying harder to build writing time into every single day, and it’s easier — and cheaper! — for me to work at home versus a restaurant on a daily basis.

The oddest place I’ve ever written was probably at a gate at Raleigh-Durham International Airport. The situation itself was weird — among other things, that trip involved a connection through Philadelphia to get to Atlanta — but I certainly managed to come up with a good story while I was there.

What is the oddest (or funniest) thing you’ve had to research for a fic?

I do so much research for fics that I really had to think about this one for a while. In fact, I have more than once had to force myself to stop researching because I was spending so much time reading about things that it was cutting into writing.

I suppose, though, if I had to choose, the most unusual — and esoteric — thing I’ve ever had to research is color symbolism in roses, which I used in my Voyager fic of the same name. I had known that red roses were for love and that pink roses could symbolize peace (I learned this last via Peace Rose).

But I didn’t know about blue, white, or yellow roses; or that pink roses could also indicate the beginnings of love. So not only did my research help me pick out the right colors for the fic, it actually helped me write the fic since the alternate meaning of pink roses is mentioned in Chapter 3.

I’ve never had any sort of practical usage for what I’ve learned about colors in roses, but it certainly is a fun bit of trivia to share when conversations run that way. It also definitely qualifies as an example of the odd things you can learn when doing research.

Music: Do you listen to music while you write? Do you make playlists to get into a certain “mood” to write your fic? Do you need noise in general? Or do you need it completely quiet?

I absolutely despise noise when I’m trying to concentrate on something. There’s a very long and depressing explanation about why, but that’s the bottom line. It’s also very likely one of the reasons I “never got around” to replacing my television after I moved to Atlanta; why the only radio in my house is a small tabletop version; and why I strongly prefer living alone.

In a way that’s a shame, because I like to listen to music and I truly love making it. During the last several months, I’ve started experimenting with playlists in odd moments. To my surprise and delight, I’ve discovered that listening to the right one before I sit down to write can help me get around a “creative blunting” problem that I have thanks to a medical condition.

So I’ve started listening to music before I sit down to write, but I do turn it off when I start. I don’t think I’m ever going to stop needing my space and silence when doing the actual work, and I doubt I’ll ever be able to work well in noisy environments (this is the case in “real life” as well). But yes, I make playlists now, and yes, they’ve led to some interesting results.

Beta Reading: How many betas do you like to use to make sure there aren’t any major flaws in your fic? Do you have a Beta horror story or dream story?

In a lot of cases, though not all, I work without a beta. This isn’t (entirely) an ego issue; it’s an availability issue. There aren’t that many people around who can beta Earth 2 stories anymore, for example; and while I enjoy writing Firefly fanfic I’m not heavily involved in that fandom community.

So, in my case, the answer to this question is “I’d love to use betas, but in many cases I can’t even find one.” While some of my fic has been beta’ed — I had a regular beta for my Voyager fic back when I was writing it — most of it has not, and thus I have no horror or dream stories to share.

I’m the first to admit that’s a shame, as every story can benefit by a beta read (or an editor, if you want to use formal writers’ language). I’ll also admit that I haven’t yet completely learned how to divorce my ego from my writing although I do consider it important to work on learning how to do so. Working in a vacuum is no fun, and I’d be shocked if it wasn’t detracting from the quality of my writing.

When you post, where do you post to? Just your journal? Just an archive? Your own personal site?

My official archive is here at The Laundry Room — a site that I operate and administer myself — but I also post most of my fic over at FanFiction.net. I’ve also posted several of my items at An Archive of Our Own.

In addition, I have put my stories on some fandom-specific archives such as Andy’s E2 Archive and the Warp 5 Complex, but I tend not to contribute heavily to such archives a they have a rather annoying tendency to go stale or even disappear completely (á la Voyager’s Delights, a web site I still miss today).

During the 2007-2009 time period I regularly posted to a LiveJournal account as well. I never have deleted that journal as I announced in the last post, but I have no real interest in going back to it either (though I’ve occasionally thought about turning a cross-poster on).

That’s a lot of different places, and that’s why I finally decided I’d start this site as my own archive. My work will always be here, but for anywhere else the answer will pretty much have to be “maybe.”

Have you ever participated in a fest or a Big Bang? If so, write about your favorite experience in relation to one. If not, are there any you’ve thought about doing? And if not, why not?

I participated in Yuletide in 2008, and I participated in a couple of contests during my 1999-2001 stage of fan fiction, but that’s about it. After I defaulted on Yuletide in 2009 and failed to finish a Firefly Big Bang, I decided I might be better off sitting contests and fests out.

That was a hard decision, because I absolutely loved doing Yuletide in 2008. I even liveblogged the story reveal. But, as the Yuletide administrators point out every year, it’s not fair to commit to writing something by a certain date if you can’t produce it.

When I missed a deadline the first time, I attributed it to chance. After the second deadline, I decided I’d be better off not making time-based commitments. Instead, I participate in challenges and set my own goals. Sometimes I post those goals. Sometimes I don’t, and that way nobody else ends up disappointed.

Now that I’m working on being more disciplined about writing, I may eventually get to a point where I feel like I can commit to a goal again. If so, I might participate in a fest or exchange. But it’ll be a while; I want to make sure that this latest phase of fan fiction writing is going to last a while first.

Sequels: Have you ever written a sequel to a fic you wrote, and if so, why, and if not, how do you feel about sequels?

I’ve written sequels twice. The first one eventually became the second chapter of my story Roses. The second one was a sequel to Vulnerability called “Pilot Memories.” I eventually took that one down and have no plans for revision or reposting.

In general, I don’t write sequels because I try to tell the entire story the first time around. When I mark a fic as “complete,” it means I believe that story has been completely told. It doesn’t mean there aren’t other potential stories; I’m just talking about that one particular story.

I should clarify that I differentiate between writing a sequel and writing the next story in a series. A sequel, in my mind, is an follow-up that addresses the exact same plot and theme elements. A series is a group of different stories that sequentially build on each other.

I’ve occasionally been asked for sequels; I got several requests for First Kiss in particular. I considered the idea that perhaps those requests indicated the story hadn’t been completely told, but try as I might, I have never been able to figure out what was missing. If there’s going to be a sequel, someone else needs to write it (though I would hope they’d ask me first just as a matter of common courtesy).

Other writers see sequels differently; that’s fine, and there are some extremely good ones out there. But I’m more likely to go for series as opposed to writing sequels. My stories are best when they’re completely told the first time around.

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

Of course I do. The hard part, sometimes, is making sure I’m aware of it. That way, I can take steps to ensure that whatever I produce as a result isn’t simply a copy of the original.

Case in point: a major plot element in Seventeen Months is lingering effects of the pollen exposure in the episode, “Flower Child.” I’m well aware that this bears a striking resemblance to a major plot element in Arcole's Earth 2 continuation series. It’s not coincidence; reading her series is what got me thinking about that idea*. But I made a very deliberate effort to go in a different direction than she did.

At the same time, one of the fun things about fan fiction is examining different writers’ perspective on the same idea. When I wrote Déjà Vu, I knew I was likely duplicating other fan fiction writers. But I went ahead with it anyway because I suspected we’d all have different reactions to it. I was right; I’m not the only one who explored that moment, but as one of my reviews said, I love reading everyone’s [ideas about a particular character], they’re so fascinating.

“Déjá Vu” was based on a canon idea, but the point extends into the fanon of fan writers and artists. Being inspired is a positive thing. Copying is a negative one. The important thing for the fan writer (or any writer or artist, for that matter) is making sure that one doesn’t turn into the other.