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eye_of_a_catIt has been a while!
Enter your cut contents here.
1. How did you come up with your username and what does it mean?
I don't actually remember. The shame of it! It's a name I've had for a long time and I think it was related to the Margaret Atwood novel 'Cat's Eye'
2. Which fanfic of yours has the most feedback?
'Shadow-Bride', the epically long Rings of Power WIP that's currently on chapter 20 and still going. I have never written any story so long before and quite possibly never will again, but this one's great fun to write.
3. What is your AO3 profile icon, and why did you choose it?
It's a picture of one of the spinny chair fairground rides in Edinburgh at the Christmas fair. As for why - it's sort of abstract and looks ok?
4. Do you have any regular/favourite commenters?
I have regular commenters and I love everybody.
5. Is there a fanfic that you keep going back to read again and again?
Yes but mostly because I forget ones I've already read and am useless at keeping bookmarks, so occasionally I search by tags/pairings/characters and find something I remember and go "oh I loved this!"
6. How many stories are you subscribed to? How many do you have bookmarked?
I have about 30 bookmarks (again because I'm bad at this), I am subscribed to I think 2.
7. Which AU do you find yourself writing the most?
Canon divergence, all the time every time. I wrote one modern AU for a fic challenge to see if I could do it and a) yes! but b) only by sort of cheating (it looks like everyone's a regular human but they are not) and c) it was so much harder than just writing in-universe.
8. How many people are subscribed and bookmarked to you in total?
I don't know and won't look. I once looked at the subscriber numbers for 'Shadow-Bride' and it made me nervous to update because it was in the hundreds and I don't want all those people seeing the typo-filled mess I often hit 'publish' on before fixing it.
9. Is there something you’d like to write about but are afraid of people judging you for it? (Feeling brave? If so, share it!)
No, I have neither shame nor pity.
10. Is there anything you would like to be better at? Writing certain scenes or genres, replying to comments, updating better, etc.
Dialogue! I am terrible at dialogue. I'd also like to be better at leaving the kind of comments I want to leave on other people's fics, and at writing an author's note right the first time rather than having to edit it three times as I remember things I wanted to include.
11. Do you write rarepairs or popular ships more often?
Mostly and historically, fairly rare pairs (and I think I'm still the only Babylon 5 Zack/Byron author out there, albeit that was for a challenge!), although I am pleased to see that Delenn/Lennier and Delenn/Neroon have become a bit more popular over time. Although currently the fic I'm writing is the big popular ship in Rings of Power, so [shrug emoji].
12. How many stories have you posted on AO3 to this day (finished and unfinished)?
54.
13. How many stories do you have saved in/with your writing program?
I'm writing with Dabble at the moment, and I have four different stories on the go in there.
14. Do you write down story ideas, or just keep them in your head?
I usually write some part of the story if I get a story idea, even if it's just a paragraph or two.
15. Have you ever co-authored a story?
A couple of times but not that successfully.
16. How did you discover AO3?
I came back to fandom and everybody was already on it.
17. Do you consider yourself to be a popular or famous author in your fandom(s) on AO3?
I am pretty popular in Rings of Power fandom which is not something I ever expected and still feel a conflagration of feelings about. Babylon 5 fandom is small, and sometimes I see someone mention one of my old fics and am really happy about it.
18. Do you have a nickname or fandom name for your readers?
What the hell, no. Did we not all stop doing this after the days of the BNFs? Have we learned nothing from history?
19. Was there an author who inspired or encouraged you to write?
If anything, other authors have unknowingly put me off writing by being better at it than I thought I'd be. (I probably got better at writing, and I certainly got better at caring less.)
20. What writing advice would you give to a beginning author?
Write the fic you want to write. Don't try to write for what you think the fandom is looking for, write the one you'd want to read.
21. Do you plot out your stories, or do you just figure it out as you go?
I roughly plot them, and then for multi-chapter works guess a chapter count based on that, and then get it entirely wrong as the last half always takes 80% of the story.
22. Have you ever gotten a bad comment on a story? If so, what did you do?
Hahahahaha welcome to active fandoms in 2023 when you're writing the Bad Ship! Yes, I've had over a dozen comments now tellling me to kill myself and calling me a freak. Thanks for the hits I suppose. (I just delete them.)
Outside Rings of Power I got a weird comment on a B5 complaining I'd written Delenn/Lennier in a fic where I had not, in fact, written Delenn/Lennier. It also said I'd got everything wrong about canon but that it was okay to do that if I just wanted to have some fun. I left some bland reply I think?
23. Is there a certain type of scene that you have a hard time writing? (action, smut, etc..)
Action. I am very pleased that I managed to write a Balrog fight in a Rings of Power fic and have it work out okay, although it was probably too short for the actual action.
24. What story(s) are you working on now?
Rings of Power and Tolkien:
'Shadow-Bride' (Haladriel), currently chapter 20 of... I don't know. 30 maybe? Many;
A story for a fic exchange;
Another chapter to 'All The Kinds Of Alive You Can Be', a Celeborn/Sauron (okay okay bear with me) that started off as one-shot, but I think is now going to be 3 chapters;
A Galadriel/Celeborn story, currently title-less.
Also have two Babylon 5 fics currently on pause - the Minbari WIP which gets updated, uh, sporadically but WILL BE FINISHED, and a Lennier one.
25. Do you plan your next project(s) before you finish your current ongoing story(s)?
I plan multiple things at once.
26. Do you have a daily writing goal set for yourself?
No - my time isn't reliable and I don't write consistently enough for that. If I'm not getting anywhere I can write and delete the same few hundred words for hours, but if I'm in a writing headspace I can write fast - my Rings of Power Celebrian fix-it story, 'Silver Queen', I wrote most of on a lunch break. (I think this was because I had spent literally decades feeling disappointed about Celebrian's actual Tolkien storyline before this, so I will count that as prep.)
Dabble counts your daily words written, so at the moment I write most days and it's anything between 150-1000 words.
27. Do you think you’ve improved as a writer since you first started?
Oh God yes.
28. What is your favorite story that you’ve written?
I like 'Missing' (B5), 'A man is a god in ruins' (Rings of Power), 'Changeling' (Silmarillion), 'Civil Twilight' (Rings of Power) and 'And things that go bump in the night' (Ghosts), about equally.
29. What is your least favorite story that you’ve written?
They never made it to AO3 and we do not speak of them.
30. Where do you see yourself (as a writer) in 5 years?
Five years before this I was pretty much out of writing entirely and wouldn't have seen myself as actively bad in as I am, so, I dunno? I will have finished all my current WIPs by then though. I WILL.
31. What is the easiest thing about writing?
Writing bad guys. For some reason, dialogue is easier when it's some potentially-ambiguous villain saying it.
32. What is the hardest thing about writing?
Summaries. I am terrible at summaries. Also titles. Also dialogue.
33. Why do you write?
So the stories in my head will exist without me having to wait for someone else to write them for me.
Enter your cut contents here.
1. How did you come up with your username and what does it mean?
I don't actually remember. The shame of it! It's a name I've had for a long time and I think it was related to the Margaret Atwood novel 'Cat's Eye'
2. Which fanfic of yours has the most feedback?
'Shadow-Bride', the epically long Rings of Power WIP that's currently on chapter 20 and still going. I have never written any story so long before and quite possibly never will again, but this one's great fun to write.
3. What is your AO3 profile icon, and why did you choose it?
It's a picture of one of the spinny chair fairground rides in Edinburgh at the Christmas fair. As for why - it's sort of abstract and looks ok?
4. Do you have any regular/favourite commenters?
I have regular commenters and I love everybody.
5. Is there a fanfic that you keep going back to read again and again?
Yes but mostly because I forget ones I've already read and am useless at keeping bookmarks, so occasionally I search by tags/pairings/characters and find something I remember and go "oh I loved this!"
6. How many stories are you subscribed to? How many do you have bookmarked?
I have about 30 bookmarks (again because I'm bad at this), I am subscribed to I think 2.
7. Which AU do you find yourself writing the most?
Canon divergence, all the time every time. I wrote one modern AU for a fic challenge to see if I could do it and a) yes! but b) only by sort of cheating (it looks like everyone's a regular human but they are not) and c) it was so much harder than just writing in-universe.
8. How many people are subscribed and bookmarked to you in total?
I don't know and won't look. I once looked at the subscriber numbers for 'Shadow-Bride' and it made me nervous to update because it was in the hundreds and I don't want all those people seeing the typo-filled mess I often hit 'publish' on before fixing it.
9. Is there something you’d like to write about but are afraid of people judging you for it? (Feeling brave? If so, share it!)
No, I have neither shame nor pity.
10. Is there anything you would like to be better at? Writing certain scenes or genres, replying to comments, updating better, etc.
Dialogue! I am terrible at dialogue. I'd also like to be better at leaving the kind of comments I want to leave on other people's fics, and at writing an author's note right the first time rather than having to edit it three times as I remember things I wanted to include.
11. Do you write rarepairs or popular ships more often?
Mostly and historically, fairly rare pairs (and I think I'm still the only Babylon 5 Zack/Byron author out there, albeit that was for a challenge!), although I am pleased to see that Delenn/Lennier and Delenn/Neroon have become a bit more popular over time. Although currently the fic I'm writing is the big popular ship in Rings of Power, so [shrug emoji].
12. How many stories have you posted on AO3 to this day (finished and unfinished)?
54.
13. How many stories do you have saved in/with your writing program?
I'm writing with Dabble at the moment, and I have four different stories on the go in there.
14. Do you write down story ideas, or just keep them in your head?
I usually write some part of the story if I get a story idea, even if it's just a paragraph or two.
15. Have you ever co-authored a story?
A couple of times but not that successfully.
16. How did you discover AO3?
I came back to fandom and everybody was already on it.
17. Do you consider yourself to be a popular or famous author in your fandom(s) on AO3?
I am pretty popular in Rings of Power fandom which is not something I ever expected and still feel a conflagration of feelings about. Babylon 5 fandom is small, and sometimes I see someone mention one of my old fics and am really happy about it.
18. Do you have a nickname or fandom name for your readers?
What the hell, no. Did we not all stop doing this after the days of the BNFs? Have we learned nothing from history?
19. Was there an author who inspired or encouraged you to write?
If anything, other authors have unknowingly put me off writing by being better at it than I thought I'd be. (I probably got better at writing, and I certainly got better at caring less.)
20. What writing advice would you give to a beginning author?
Write the fic you want to write. Don't try to write for what you think the fandom is looking for, write the one you'd want to read.
21. Do you plot out your stories, or do you just figure it out as you go?
I roughly plot them, and then for multi-chapter works guess a chapter count based on that, and then get it entirely wrong as the last half always takes 80% of the story.
22. Have you ever gotten a bad comment on a story? If so, what did you do?
Hahahahaha welcome to active fandoms in 2023 when you're writing the Bad Ship! Yes, I've had over a dozen comments now tellling me to kill myself and calling me a freak. Thanks for the hits I suppose. (I just delete them.)
Outside Rings of Power I got a weird comment on a B5 complaining I'd written Delenn/Lennier in a fic where I had not, in fact, written Delenn/Lennier. It also said I'd got everything wrong about canon but that it was okay to do that if I just wanted to have some fun. I left some bland reply I think?
23. Is there a certain type of scene that you have a hard time writing? (action, smut, etc..)
Action. I am very pleased that I managed to write a Balrog fight in a Rings of Power fic and have it work out okay, although it was probably too short for the actual action.
24. What story(s) are you working on now?
Rings of Power and Tolkien:
'Shadow-Bride' (Haladriel), currently chapter 20 of... I don't know. 30 maybe? Many;
A story for a fic exchange;
Another chapter to 'All The Kinds Of Alive You Can Be', a Celeborn/Sauron (okay okay bear with me) that started off as one-shot, but I think is now going to be 3 chapters;
A Galadriel/Celeborn story, currently title-less.
Also have two Babylon 5 fics currently on pause - the Minbari WIP which gets updated, uh, sporadically but WILL BE FINISHED, and a Lennier one.
25. Do you plan your next project(s) before you finish your current ongoing story(s)?
I plan multiple things at once.
26. Do you have a daily writing goal set for yourself?
No - my time isn't reliable and I don't write consistently enough for that. If I'm not getting anywhere I can write and delete the same few hundred words for hours, but if I'm in a writing headspace I can write fast - my Rings of Power Celebrian fix-it story, 'Silver Queen', I wrote most of on a lunch break. (I think this was because I had spent literally decades feeling disappointed about Celebrian's actual Tolkien storyline before this, so I will count that as prep.)
Dabble counts your daily words written, so at the moment I write most days and it's anything between 150-1000 words.
27. Do you think you’ve improved as a writer since you first started?
Oh God yes.
28. What is your favorite story that you’ve written?
I like 'Missing' (B5), 'A man is a god in ruins' (Rings of Power), 'Changeling' (Silmarillion), 'Civil Twilight' (Rings of Power) and 'And things that go bump in the night' (Ghosts), about equally.
29. What is your least favorite story that you’ve written?
They never made it to AO3 and we do not speak of them.
30. Where do you see yourself (as a writer) in 5 years?
Five years before this I was pretty much out of writing entirely and wouldn't have seen myself as actively bad in as I am, so, I dunno? I will have finished all my current WIPs by then though. I WILL.
31. What is the easiest thing about writing?
Writing bad guys. For some reason, dialogue is easier when it's some potentially-ambiguous villain saying it.
32. What is the hardest thing about writing?
Summaries. I am terrible at summaries. Also titles. Also dialogue.
33. Why do you write?
So the stories in my head will exist without me having to wait for someone else to write them for me.
