I promised to adapt this set of questions for my original work so here it is.

1 What made you start writing original stories, poetry, etc?
My first ‘work’ was a play performed by our local Brownie troop. I was five, and because I had written it I was allowed to join the big girls and be onstage. I think this must have gone to my head… I continued with plays, poems and stories until I left uni. Working as an English teacher meant producing work as a ‘role model’ for pupils, and I had neither the time nor the creative energy left to write anything else. When I took early retirement, one story was already in my head so I was itching to get to the keyboard.

2. Which of your own works have you reread the most?
I think sections of my Living Fae series. The story started in a ‘muse’ journal on LJ and by the time I decided on publication it needed a great deal of collection, collation, and decisions about what to include. As a result, I read and re-read various parts till I almost knew them by heart. At first, they were a pleasant surprise as I’d forgotten quite a lot. Later, I just wanted to get them sorted out and sent off to my editor.

3. Describe the differences between your first published work and your most recent.
When I decided to self-publish I used two novellas and a collection of three short stories as ‘practice’. So they were comparatively short. They were all based on legends and fairy tales, twisted into fresh forms. I was lucky enough to have seriously good editors and I learnt a lot from them.
My most recent publication was a short story – a contemporary romance. I wrote it some time ago, initially for a prompt in a writing group then, in a longer and edited version, for inclusion in a now defunct online zine. I decided to publish it myself and it went through a further editing and formatting process until I was satisfied with it. It has no fantasy and no connection with fairy tales.

4. Do you think your style has changed over time? How so?
I think and hope I use different styles depending on the kind of story I am telling. For example, my novella The Lord of Shalott, and the first volume of Living Fae are told in first person. I write novels, novellas, short stories, flashfic and poetry. I also write reviews and critiques. Obviously I need to use varied styles for all these. I don’t think my style has changed much in recent years; it has changed since I was a teenager, of course, but that’s to be expected.

5. You’ve posted a work anonymously. How would someone be able to guess you’ve written it?
As I said in the fanfic meme with the same questions, I once did this when the online writing group suggested we all write a flashfic in the style of my Living Fae material. Nobody was able to guess who had written what; I assume part of the reason was the choice of similar subject matter, characters, etc. Beyond that experiment, I can’t think how anyone would guess I had written something unless I included locations that people who know me know I’m familiar with.

6. Name three stories you found easy to write.
No real answer to this.

7. Name three stories you found difficult to write.
All writing is easy for me. It’s the editing, proof reading, formatting, etc. that causes headaches.

8. What’s your ratio of hits to kudos?
This was a fanfic question and I assume I need to consider ‘success’ as a writer. The world is drowning in self published material and I am not alone in sinking without much of a trace. My royalties about keep us in pizza and we don’t eat that every week. They also cause intense irritation to me when my tax returns are due. Most people who both like fantasy and actually find my books are complimentary, but too few find them! The same applies to my fanfic and I think the bottom line is just that I’m completely hopeless at marketing.

9. What do your fic bookmarks say about you?
Another fanfic question (specific to AO3) so I’ll refer to my to-be-read list instead. I read widely and voraciously, and at any one time you’d find mainstream novels, genre novels, short stories, poetry, and non-fiction in the queue. I think it just says I like reading! I also keep a record of e-books I’ve read, partly to stop myself re-purchasing them and partly so that I can recall the titles and authors to recommend to other people. That list says I like history, fantasy, mm romance, crime, biography, science (especially the natural world), finance, politics, and cookbooks.

10. What’s a theme that keeps coming up in your writing?
Culture clash, which is something that interests me.

11. What kind of relationships are you most interested in writing?
I have a tendency to focus on mm romantic relationships, though not to the exclusion of anything else.

12. For E-rated fic what are some things your characters keep doing?
I will assume we are talking about books that would be suitable for general audiences. That means my Skilled Investigators series, and as the name implies, the characters keep finding crimes and mysteries to investigate. Other than that, like anyone, they eat, sleep, talk, etc.

13. Name three favourite characters to write.
1. Harlequin, the main character in Living Fae. I call him my muse and he lives in my head and tries to influence all my writing.
2. Genef, the main character in Skilled Investigators. She is training as a detective and I like both her attitude to her work and her ability to question herself. She doesn’t live in my head, and although female, has almost nothing in common with me.
3. Scratch, the dragon who helps Genef in Skilled Investigators. I love writing from a dragon’s point of view, thinking how he might see human and elf behaviour and what he might say about it.

14. You’re applying for the [fanfic] writer of the year award. What five works do you put in your portfolio?
I’d have to think about things that are published somewhere, including my WordPress site. My work wanders around between genres and I don’t think they’d ever be regarded as award material for original writing. However, if I had to put together a selection:
1. Lord of Shalott: a novella set in Arthurian legend and inspired by Tennyson’s poem The Lady of Shalott.
2. Growing up Fae: volume 1 of Living Fae, told in journal form by Harlequin, a modern fairy living on Alderley Edge in Cheshire.
3. Answering Amanda: a children’s story based on Harlequin’s little sister’s letters to a human child. This is ready to send to anyone who asks for it using the information at the end of volume 3 of Living Fae. It was, in fact, the springboard for the entire world/series.
4. The Zoo: one of my poems, based on an actual day at Chester Zoo. It’s on my WordPress site. I might create a volume of poems to put on Smashwords; poems always get more ‘likes’ than anything on WordPress.
4. The Scroll: volume 1 of The Skilled Investigators and the one that introduces Scratch, the dragon.

A friend (on Dreamwidth and in real life) posted a meme about her fanfic writing. This inspired me and I promised to do my own. I also intend to adapt the meme for my original writing.

1. What made you start writing fanfic?
My daughter knew some of my tastes in books and linked me to a Yuletide story in Arthurian Legend. At about the same time I was asked to teach an upper primary class English Language using Tennyson’s Lady of Shalott (note this was a language class, not a literature one). I was annoyed with the national curriculum approach to poetry and felt able to write to the same standard as the Yuletide fic so I wrote Lord of Shalott which I originally posted as fanfic. A lot of editing and additions later it turned into a self-published novella… I was already writing original work but was panic stricken at the thought of submitting to editors. The Lord of Shalott enabled me to try putting my work ‘out there’ and to explore self-publishing. Once I’d started, in both original and fanfic writing, the floodgates opened.

2. Which of your own fanfics have you reread the most?
I don’t usually re-read my fanfics unless I need to refer to something in a series and then I just skim or do ‘find’ (with no ‘replace’). I have re-read First a couple of times when people have asked to quote from it.

3. Describe the differences between your first fanfic and your most recent fanfic.
Lord of Shalott was historic fantasy, inspired by a poem. It was written in first person, it had a focus on cross-dressing, it referenced various myths and legends and it involved a longing for a relationship. My most recent work (other than some meta and drabbles) was …to catch a thief, a mediaeval AU for a cop buddy fandom (Pros), where I wrote part 1, a friend wrote part 2, we co-wrote part 3 and part 4 was my most recent fanfic. It had an established relationship (from the first three parts) as the focus and was a mild mystery story, told in third person. So although both were ‘historical’ fics they had totally different inspiration and were in different fandoms. In the first, I needed to echo the tone of the poem, and in the second I needed to capture the voices of the modern actors.

4. Do you think your style has changed over time? How so?
I use a number of different styles and I don’t think there has been any particular change over time. I try to alter my style to suit the canon I am writing for, but I know some of my work will be recognisable anyway.

5. You’ve posted a fic anonymously. How would someone be able to guess you’ve written it?
I tried this in a writing exercise I did in a Yahoo writing group – we all wrote a fanfic of part of my Living Fae series. Nobody was able to guess immediately which effort was mine. Presumably the others were attempting to copy my style!

6. Name three stories you found easy to write.
The first version of Lord of Shalott just poured out of me, probably fuelled by anger at the way we were supposed to ask children to view poetry and literature. The result wasn’t actually suitable for young children but that’s beside the point.
…to catch a thief was easy, too, because all the period research was already done for the first three parts and all the names etc. were in my head.
The Thing (SGA) was easy because I just went with the prompts people gave me and didn’t have to think about the story in advance.

7. Name three stories you found difficult to write.
This is an impossible question because I don’t find writing difficult. Editing, yes, research, yes, and proof reading, yes, but not writing. I sometimes find it difficult to motivate myself to start a story but that’s a different matter.

8. What’s your ratio of hits to kudos?
I haven’t the faintest idea. I vaguely know which of my fics get most hits and kudos and it seems to be linked to the general popularity of the fandom. (LotR and Grimm). Beyond that, I don’t know and the idea of trying to work it out dismays me. Besides, why would I?

9. What do your fic bookmarks say about you?
I usually bookmark a fic if I want to recommend it. I don’t have private bookmarks as a rule – I either subscribe to an author or series, or I download something I want to read eventually and it lurks on my hard drive. So I suppose my bookmarks say I’m a reviewer. They also show I’m extremely multi-fandom.

10. What’s a theme that keeps coming up in your writing?
I suppose mm romance.

11. What kind of relationships are you most interested in writing?
It varies with different fandoms. I quite like relationships that grow slowly and involve a lot of banter. I also like the kind that connect with a lot of minor characters, both canon and OC.

12. For E-rated fic what are some things your characters keep doing?
I had to Google this and I gather it means gen fic. I don’t write much of this and if I did, I hope my characters wouldn’t keep doing anything, other than sleeping and eating… I suppose they’d talk? I like writing dialogue.

13. Name three favourite characters to write.
Another impossible one. I’m too multi-fandom to have favourites. I should think my favourites are the ones I’m writing at the time.

14. You’re applying for the fanfic writer of the year award. What five fics do you put in your portfolio?
I wouldn’t apply, but if I had to, on pain of death or losing thbe right to be considered a fanfic writer, then:
First (Rome)
Blame Daniel (SG1)
The Morning Gift (Pros AU)
Elegy for a hanged man (Spooks)
Paths of the Living (LotR)