Well, despite the fact that any entry in the FoLCdom Directory of Authors would list me as Author (Defunct), I've enjoyed reading the other posts so much that I thought I'd join in anyway. Made me quite nostalgic for the Writer's Showcase interviews. I can remember I couldn't wait till the end of each week to go read a new one.

1. What shall we call you?

LabRat. Or any one of a number of variations that people seem comfortable using: Lab, Labby, Rat etc. I don't mind, so long as it's friendly. <g>

2. How long have you been writing L&C fanfic?

Oh gosh, dates. Not good with dates. I found FoLCdom right after LNC was cancelled, so it would have to have been around then. I'm fairly sure I started with my series of PWP nfic romps. Has to have been around 1999, I think. My first 'serious' work was Caped Fear (nfic version available at Annesplace), so, yeah – long way around to say, 1999.

3. Have you ever written fic for other shows?

Oh gosh, yes. I began writing around about 8 years old. Firstly, it was animal stories, then I graduated to SFantasy, so over the years I've written for many of my favourites, from Blake's 7 to Star Wars, Robin of Sherwood, the list goes on. My great love right before LNC was the western series, The Young Riders. Wrote a ton of fic for that. But LNC was the first time my work went online. Everything before that was published in paper zines.

4. Current stories you're working on?

Er…moving swiftly on…

5. Your first fic?

Can't remember what my first fic was, but my first LNC fic was one of those nfic romps: Inside Scoop. The funny thing about that was that I'd never tackled nfic before, or even read it. I didn't have any serious objections to it, I just hadn't experienced any that were to my tastes. In fact, on a couple of short months before writing IS, I'd written a scene in my latest TYR fic where the hero got to place his hand on the heroine's breast while they kissed. I was in a cold sweat as I wrote it and finally had to remove it because I blushed whenever I read it. I have no clue what happened in the intervening months to go from that to a full blown nfic! I just know I woke up one morning with an idea in my head that was only ever going to work as an nfic, thought I'd give it a go and found it wasn't only easy as pie to do, but caused me no emotional freakouts whatsoever. Go figure.


6. Piece of work you're proudest of?

Hmmmmm. You know, that's a hard one. I guess I'd have to say Caped Fear. If only because I once got a feedback email on that one from a girl who said she had terminal cancer and that reading it had given her enormous pleasure and taken her mind off her problems and treatment. You have to be proud of that really. If something you've written has given just a moment's pleasure to someone else…well, what an achievement.

7. Piece of work you had the hardest time writing/finishing?

Everything half written and currently languishing on my hd.

8. Your greatest strengths as an author?

No clue at all on this one. I am desperately incapable of judging my own writing in any sense. I have zero idea what makes it work and, in fact, am pretty much constantly convinced it doesn't and deeply surprised when others seem to disagree and like it. laugh

9. Your biggest weaknesses?

Rewrites. I swear I'm the Rewrite Queen. I had to train myself to stop doing it so much because there's such a danger of just leeching out all that's good in a paragraph if you go over it too many times. But I still find myself itching to change just one last word. And I cannot move on unless that paragraph is just right. Then, six months later, I think…I should have changed….

That and procrastination.


10. Preferred genre(s) to write?

Angst, definitely. Hurt/Comfort. I like to include a lot of light and dark in my stories though. Trauma is weakened if you don't have humor to lighten it, now and then.

11. Genre(s) you won't write?

I don't think there's any genre I wouldn't write. It just depends on the plot I think of. There are genres that I don't generally read, just because their not to my taste – NG, for instance, barring a few exceptions – but I wouldn't not write a NG if I thought of a good plot for one.

12. What makes a fic good for you?

Just a cracking good story, well told. Humor, especially humorous dialogue – I do love good banter between characters. And lots of angst, of course. laugh

13. What ruins a fic for you?

The characters doing or saying something I consider OOC. If the author has a very good explanation for why they're doing it, I'm prepared to go along, but if it's just because of bad writing, then I'm outta there pronto. Otherwise, I'm a pretty sanguine reader.

14. Author you wish you could trade places with?

Definitely CC Aiken, who makes it all look so effortless. I have deep and abiding greenness for that woman's first drafts, which are practically as good as her finished story. (You don't want to see my first drafts. Seriously.)

15. The best fic you've read recently?

I haven't been reading fanfic for some time now, sadly, but it would definitely have to be DJ's Flawed. An amazing story which just didn't put a foot wrong and includes some of the most powerfully emotional scenes I've ever read in a fanfic.



Athos: If you'd told us what you were doing, we might have been able to plan this properly.
Aramis: Yes, sorry.
Athos: No, no, by all means, let's keep things suicidal.


The Musketeers