20 years
Earlier today I had a bit of a realization: this year marks 20 years that I've been writing. I'm 33 now, so we're talking well over half my life.
I've never shied away from talking about how I started out writing fanfiction, and when I started writing, it was during spring break of seventh grade. So March-ish of 1999. This was during the heyday of boy bands and the 90's pop craze, and I was, unashamedly, a Backstreet Boys girl. A friend of mine introduced me to the idea of fanfiction, and my little middle school brain just seized that and ran away with it.
My first fandom was, of course, Backstreet Boys RPF (real person fic). It was all very cringey and not very good, but I kept at it, because it was fun (writing fanfiction was a lot more fun and rewarding back in those days, I will admit). The more I wrote, the better it got, and at some point in high school I shifted to writing AU (alternate universe) fic. It was still Backstreet Boys fic, but the guys were more like characters in the stories now, instead of just... themselves. My biggest fic during this time was an AU called Revelations, largely inspired by me getting into Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It was a huge, multichaptered monster, quite probably the longest fic I ever wrote, though I couldn't tell you now how long it was. But people really enjoyed it. I even won awards for it (and other fics) back in the day when fic awards were a thing.
Back in those days, I posted my fic on fanfiction.net, but around 2003 (according to Wikipedia) is when they stopped allowing RPF, and when I stopped posting there for some time. I can't remember when I stopped writing Backstreet Boys RPF, but it was probably around then.
After that, I got into Harry Potter, and then, eventually, started writing Harry Potter fic. It wasn't my most prolific fandom, but I did write a few multichaptered stories over several years, along with several shorter one-shots.
In 2008 I started watching Doctor Who, and entered into my most prolific and rewarding writing period. I made several friends during this time, a handful of whom I'm still friends with to this day, including my best friend Lindsay (referred to as my braintwin in the acknowledgments of my books). This was when LiveJournal was at its peak, and had large fanfiction communities. I was a member of a Doctor/Rose fic challenge community for some time, and wrote over 50 fics for that alone.
This was also the time I got into Glee, and I think it was the first time I was writing fic for two different fandoms, where before I had always focused on one single fandom until another one sparked my interest.
February 2010 is when I took my first steps into original writing. There was a game going around on LJ, a TV show casting meme, where someone would give you a prompt, and you'd have to create a TV show around it, with a cast and everything. A friend at the time gave me "something set 50 years in the future" and it ended up spawning into a fic project that took up two years of my life.
I'd always been intimidated by the idea of writing original fiction, because it just seemed like so much work, coming up with a plot, and characters, and figuring out what they looked like, and all of that, but I discovered with that first project (formally called Mad World, informally called apoca!fic) that if I start with a cast, it somehow makes everything so much easier. I think it's getting my favorite actors to interact, even if it's just in my head, and putting them in situations I'd love to see on-screen.
Apoca!fic was also the first time Lindsay and I really collaborated, as she wrote several fics for that as well, and it was sort of a dual project.
Apoca!fic lasted from March of 2010 until February of 2012, and still holds a very special place in my heart. I continue to toy with the idea of polishing it up one day and publishing it, but that's so far down the road it's several towns over, lol.
During this time I was still writing Doctor Who and Glee fic, and still heavily involved in the LJ crowd, which is where No Safe Place (aka An Eye For An Eye/AEFAE) was born. I got the idea late in 2010, and it didn't take long before I decided I had to write it. This time, I decided to write the entirety of the main story before I started posting it, because one of my biggest peeves about apoca!fic was that I posted it as I was writing it, so there were continuity errors because I'd get ideas for stuff, but it didn't always mesh with what already existed. I didn't want that with AEFAE, so I decided to write the whole thing first.
Posting the first chapter coincided with my first visit to meet Lindsay, who was also heavily involved in AEFAE, as she has been in all of my original ideas. I posted the first chapter in July of 2011, and posted the last set of ficlets in November of 2014. The main arc is what eventually turned into No Safe Place, while several fics I wrote and posted afterward eventually became Finding Home Again. To date it's my most ambitious project, as I wrote fic spanning several years of these characters' lives, even into the next generation. I still intend to publish Hannah and Eli's wedding as a novella at some point, if I can remember to actually do it, lol.
After that was The Only One, and then I went back to AEFAE to get it polished and ready for publication, and then along came Kindle Scout, which may be where most of you initially "discovered" me. Even if Kindle Scout is gone now, it was still a very memorable experience, and I'll never forget the rush of finding out I had been selected.
About a year and a half after No Safe Place was published, I published Finding Home Again after a failed Kindle Scout campaign. It may not be as popular as No Safe Place, but it still holds a very special place in my heart; Hannah's story will always be so important to me.
During all of this, I continued to write fanfiction, though not as prolifically as I once had. I branched out into other fandoms, but still mainly focused on Doctor Who fic, and to this day, it's the fandom I've been writing for the longest, as I do still write fic every once in a while, when the mood strikes. I currently have over 100 Doctor Who fics posted on Archive Of Our Own (or AO3).
Now it's 2019, I have three published books under my belt, and I'm currently working on my most ambitious project yet with Crimson Hollow. I have four books and two novellas planned, along with a "spin off" book, so there's a lot on my plate, and though I hate to do it, I'm waiting until the whole series is finished before I start publishing. I've lost a lot of writing time this year, but I'm back into it now, and hard at work on Book 2.
Crimson Hollow isn't even the last stop, as I have another idea I want to write after I'm finished with that, and then maybe I'll polish up apoca!fic. Who knows?
I hope you stick with me until I start publishing Crimson Hollow, because I do think it will definitely be worth the wait. In the meantime, you can support me on Patreon, where I'm going to try to post more behind-the-scenes type stuff to do with The Only One and No Safe Place/Finding Home Again, and eventually, sneak peeks of Crimson Hollow.
I've never shied away from talking about how I started out writing fanfiction, and when I started writing, it was during spring break of seventh grade. So March-ish of 1999. This was during the heyday of boy bands and the 90's pop craze, and I was, unashamedly, a Backstreet Boys girl. A friend of mine introduced me to the idea of fanfiction, and my little middle school brain just seized that and ran away with it.
My first fandom was, of course, Backstreet Boys RPF (real person fic). It was all very cringey and not very good, but I kept at it, because it was fun (writing fanfiction was a lot more fun and rewarding back in those days, I will admit). The more I wrote, the better it got, and at some point in high school I shifted to writing AU (alternate universe) fic. It was still Backstreet Boys fic, but the guys were more like characters in the stories now, instead of just... themselves. My biggest fic during this time was an AU called Revelations, largely inspired by me getting into Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It was a huge, multichaptered monster, quite probably the longest fic I ever wrote, though I couldn't tell you now how long it was. But people really enjoyed it. I even won awards for it (and other fics) back in the day when fic awards were a thing.
Back in those days, I posted my fic on fanfiction.net, but around 2003 (according to Wikipedia) is when they stopped allowing RPF, and when I stopped posting there for some time. I can't remember when I stopped writing Backstreet Boys RPF, but it was probably around then.
After that, I got into Harry Potter, and then, eventually, started writing Harry Potter fic. It wasn't my most prolific fandom, but I did write a few multichaptered stories over several years, along with several shorter one-shots.
In 2008 I started watching Doctor Who, and entered into my most prolific and rewarding writing period. I made several friends during this time, a handful of whom I'm still friends with to this day, including my best friend Lindsay (referred to as my braintwin in the acknowledgments of my books). This was when LiveJournal was at its peak, and had large fanfiction communities. I was a member of a Doctor/Rose fic challenge community for some time, and wrote over 50 fics for that alone.
This was also the time I got into Glee, and I think it was the first time I was writing fic for two different fandoms, where before I had always focused on one single fandom until another one sparked my interest.
February 2010 is when I took my first steps into original writing. There was a game going around on LJ, a TV show casting meme, where someone would give you a prompt, and you'd have to create a TV show around it, with a cast and everything. A friend at the time gave me "something set 50 years in the future" and it ended up spawning into a fic project that took up two years of my life.
I'd always been intimidated by the idea of writing original fiction, because it just seemed like so much work, coming up with a plot, and characters, and figuring out what they looked like, and all of that, but I discovered with that first project (formally called Mad World, informally called apoca!fic) that if I start with a cast, it somehow makes everything so much easier. I think it's getting my favorite actors to interact, even if it's just in my head, and putting them in situations I'd love to see on-screen.
Apoca!fic was also the first time Lindsay and I really collaborated, as she wrote several fics for that as well, and it was sort of a dual project.
Apoca!fic lasted from March of 2010 until February of 2012, and still holds a very special place in my heart. I continue to toy with the idea of polishing it up one day and publishing it, but that's so far down the road it's several towns over, lol.
During this time I was still writing Doctor Who and Glee fic, and still heavily involved in the LJ crowd, which is where No Safe Place (aka An Eye For An Eye/AEFAE) was born. I got the idea late in 2010, and it didn't take long before I decided I had to write it. This time, I decided to write the entirety of the main story before I started posting it, because one of my biggest peeves about apoca!fic was that I posted it as I was writing it, so there were continuity errors because I'd get ideas for stuff, but it didn't always mesh with what already existed. I didn't want that with AEFAE, so I decided to write the whole thing first.
Posting the first chapter coincided with my first visit to meet Lindsay, who was also heavily involved in AEFAE, as she has been in all of my original ideas. I posted the first chapter in July of 2011, and posted the last set of ficlets in November of 2014. The main arc is what eventually turned into No Safe Place, while several fics I wrote and posted afterward eventually became Finding Home Again. To date it's my most ambitious project, as I wrote fic spanning several years of these characters' lives, even into the next generation. I still intend to publish Hannah and Eli's wedding as a novella at some point, if I can remember to actually do it, lol.
After that was The Only One, and then I went back to AEFAE to get it polished and ready for publication, and then along came Kindle Scout, which may be where most of you initially "discovered" me. Even if Kindle Scout is gone now, it was still a very memorable experience, and I'll never forget the rush of finding out I had been selected.
About a year and a half after No Safe Place was published, I published Finding Home Again after a failed Kindle Scout campaign. It may not be as popular as No Safe Place, but it still holds a very special place in my heart; Hannah's story will always be so important to me.
During all of this, I continued to write fanfiction, though not as prolifically as I once had. I branched out into other fandoms, but still mainly focused on Doctor Who fic, and to this day, it's the fandom I've been writing for the longest, as I do still write fic every once in a while, when the mood strikes. I currently have over 100 Doctor Who fics posted on Archive Of Our Own (or AO3).
Now it's 2019, I have three published books under my belt, and I'm currently working on my most ambitious project yet with Crimson Hollow. I have four books and two novellas planned, along with a "spin off" book, so there's a lot on my plate, and though I hate to do it, I'm waiting until the whole series is finished before I start publishing. I've lost a lot of writing time this year, but I'm back into it now, and hard at work on Book 2.
Crimson Hollow isn't even the last stop, as I have another idea I want to write after I'm finished with that, and then maybe I'll polish up apoca!fic. Who knows?
I hope you stick with me until I start publishing Crimson Hollow, because I do think it will definitely be worth the wait. In the meantime, you can support me on Patreon, where I'm going to try to post more behind-the-scenes type stuff to do with The Only One and No Safe Place/Finding Home Again, and eventually, sneak peeks of Crimson Hollow.
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