// me. //

I love this picture because it always freaks everyone out. Although my hands look sort of squashed in it. Ah, well. Oddly, my piano teacher always used to say I had 'long' fingers. Right. That's what harmonics are for.

On writing: I am good at approximately four things: writing, playing piano, being sarcastic, and humiliating myself in public. The first, I would hope, is probably the reason you're here. In September 2001, I began writing a hanfic called 'Catapult'. Surprisingly, I had never really written anything before. There were a few reasons the story began -- one, I had this crazy (but fabulous) dream about Taylor Hanson showing up in my room in the middle of the night. When I awoke, I began writing down what I remembered, and then I thought, 'Hmmm, this could be interesting.' It began morphing into a real story. At one point, I considered changing Taylor to Daniel Johns, since I worship him, but decided against it. More people read Hanson fiction than silverchair fiction, and besides, the dream was about Taylor, so why mess with perfection?

Since I started writing, I've done all sorts of stuff. I started as a journalism major in college, because I had aspirations to write for Rolling Stone. I would still love to write for Rolling Stone, but realized that the journalistic style of writing, overall, was just too constricting for me. After I began my Hanfic, I decided to take some creative writing classes... and I loved them. I ended up taking every possible writing class I could while in college. I personally can tell a huge difference in the quality of the story from the time I began, to the time I started learning more about how to write well, to now. I cringe when I read the first part of Catapult -- there is just so much shit that I could do so much better now. Ah, well...

Having decided that journalism was not for me, I ended up switching to advertising and becoming a copy writer. It's cool. I get to write, I get to be creative, but I don't wear myself out by writing too much. Plus, I met some of the coolest people in the advertising department. I don't know what it is about that field that attracts smart, funny, unpretentious people, but it's incredible. We did tons of group work in those classes, and normally I hate group work, but with my fellow ad folks, it was fun. By the way, if you haven't noticed, I have a tendency to ramble. Long story short, I love to write, and I've done everything from journalistic style, to fiction, to essays, to ad copy. I also did the Journal Project at UK my senior year, which is where I kept a journal and had an advisor who I'd meet with periodically to discuss the issues I wrote about. I loved it. My advisor was an English professor with a wicked sense of humor. She and I became great friends and I still go visit her periodically.

On Hanfic: Personally, I think fan fiction of any variety, any fandom, is underrated. You should go read some of the LOTR fanfic over at henneth-annun.net. It's incredible! I don't know why some people think fanfic is so weird, but then again, I read and write it. When I'm writing about Taylor, I know it's not the real Taylor. I know that my Taylor is totally different from the real one. It's like the only thing my character has in common with him, really, is the name, a general likeness, and some details. But I don't even really think of him as the Taylor Hanson... if that makes sense. I imagine a boy who looks sort of like Taylor but acts the way I want him to. And truth be told, I prefer my version of him. As others have said, he's sweet, a little needy, slightly arrogant, and imperfect but loveable. He's fun to write. And I do think it's sort of sad that good Hanfic is on the decline. Most of my favorite stories from a few years ago, circa 2000/2001, have either disappeared or are no longer updated. I don't need to tell you how heartbroken I was to find that 'My Mother's Obsession with Pies' was completely taken down. Why remove it? I understand that she no longer wanted to continue it, but why not leave what she had up for others to enjoy? And that was even before Taylor got married. After that happened, fanfic really declined. To see my thoughts on that, go read my rant.

And though I hide this site/my stories from my real-life friends (because I would be teased mercilessly until the end of time), I won't apologize for writing fanfic. I like it, and I'm so glad that others like it too -- not just out of some sense of ego gratification, but because I love that I'm creating something that others are enjoying. I like to entertain (I usually end up the center of attention when my friends and I get together -- that's where the whole 'public humiliation' thing comes in), and writing is one way I do it.

On my favorite author: I love Stephen King (errr, could you tell? hehe). I realize that a 'real' (read: pretentious) writer would probably admire a more legendary/prestigious author. When I had my advanced creative writing class, we all had to go around and say who our favorite authors were. Here's a sample of the names mentioned by my fellow students: Tolstoy, J.D. Salinger, Tolkien (which is the only one I could relate to), John Steinbeck, James Joyce, etc. You get the picture. What did I say? King, of course. My reason? Because he writes books that are so easy to get lost in, he's incredibly out there and creative, and he has this wonderful way with character development so that you actually care what happens to them. To me, his plotlines are secondary to his characters. He just sort of asks you to accept the crazy world he's invented, not dwell on it, because the character dynamics are what's so interesting and important. I've tried to somewhat emulate that notion in 'Catapult'. The inner/outer Taylor thing may be what makes the story different from others, but to me, the relationship between Alley and Taylor is the heart of the story.

That's about it for right now. Anything else you want to know... just ask.

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