Question: Is there anything you'd like to share about yourself? (i.e. where you live, hobbies, etc) (submitted by Sarah) Answer: Erm. I'm not all that enthused with myself to be honest *laughs*. I've always loved writing stories, ever since I was a kid. I loved writing far more than reading, but the main writers I kept coming back to were HG Wells, Douglas Adams (ie - God), and right now I'm reading Jules Verne (which is kinda cool). My hobbies are the arts, and the main thing which I' striving in life to accomplish is starting a band and singing lead. I'm actually a musician, singer. You know, singing in the front, being the star, that sort of guff. Until then, I'm writing fan stories to keep my hand in the writing game.

Also, I write comics, and draw them as well. Me and my sister run a comic house called Mangel Comics (the catch cry is 'Nothing new, just something different). I made up the name cause my style wasn't exactly Marvel, and wasn't exactly Manga, and I thought it sounded nice and voilent (Mangled corpeses etc). Not that I'm inclined to voilence, but fan boys like that sort of thing.

Question: How long have you been writing and what made you decide to start writing fan fic? (submitted by Sarah) Answer: I've been writing since I learnt to read and write. It was something we all did in primary school, the teacher would get us to write stories about stuff. Mine were always pretty self obsessed - I've always been a bit of a drama queen really. I got a lot of practice in with making up silly dramatic storylines playing Barbies, believe it or not. Having only one male 12 inch toy (C3PO and his harem of gorgeous barbie dolls were my life at age 3), and a band of barbie dolls, it made for a lot of complex love affairs and rooting around. I don't know what I was doing, knowing about sex at such a young age, but I did. I was a strange child.

My first fan fic was Star Trek, The Next Generation. Embarrassingly enough, I was head over heels in love with both Wil Wheaton and Wesley Crusher. My Mary-Sue was Eleanor Ruddesford, broadsword weilding kick ass bitch from the Farragut, with lots of loathing towards Top-Brass Starfleet life. Thing is, she didn't start out like that, and she was so - well - ick! Nice, flirty, Wesley instantly liked her. She was pretty lame, but I stuck with the whole concept of Wesley going to the Academy, and I'm still writing them today (on and off). I should have the series finished when I'm about - oh - fifty.

The reason why I started doing fan fiction was because I missed Wesley so badly, and I thought he deserved to have his tale told. I didn't think they did him enough justice, and saw a lot of potential for fun in this character that they dropped like a hot potato. Star Trek wasn't as much fun for me after that. It lost it's youth, it's vivacity.

Question: Do you have any writing experience in other fandoms or outside of fan fiction? (submitted by various) Answer: Oh yes. After Star Trek came Xena, in which I made quite a name for myself. I was a Gabrielle/Joxer fan, which - well it doesn't have an equivalent really in the X-Men Movieverse. The main pairing everyone followed was Xena and Gabrielle. I found it trite and hamfisted, and I enjoyed the chemistry and subtleties of Gabrielle and Joxer much more. Plus, a male/female pairing had a lot more of a draw for me, because well - I'm pretty much straight (from what I can tell, but you never know). I was shunned, nobody really read my stories except other Gabrielle/Joxer romantics. I used to be really bitter about that, but I figure hey - you do what you do because you love it, right? Right. So - I have a great big backlog of lovely Xena stories if anyone wants to read them. They're not as good as the X-Men ones I think, cause my skills have really come into their element with the X-Men genre.

I also am writing a couple of novels that have nothing to do with any fandom. For some reason, I'm only ever able to write about the supernatural. I love the supernatural, and the stories - one is a dramatic/romantic/spooky/coming-of-age tale, and the other one is a parody/jokey story that I haven't fleshed out yet. The first one is called "Kaitlin", and it's about this young guy living in Fremantle (near where I live) who does music in his spare time, but never plays it to anyone except his flat mate Angie. Angie is obsessed with Jeff Buckley, dates awful men, and is an eccentric weirdo (Pretty much me I guess). Every time the guy (Cameron) drives to work (he's works at a fruit juice bar in Perth), a strange apparition appears in the passenger seat of his car. Every day he drives past Karakatta Cemetery (A real cemetery in perth) she appears, and they talk for a little bit each day. It goes on, with stuff happening to Angie and Cameron, tempers flaring, trouble hit, etc etc, and in the end well - when I finish writing it you can read it then :) Maybe I can get it sold or something.

The other one - the idea isn't anywhere near as filled out. Basically, this guy gets drunk with his friends on a beach near Rockingham (Also set in Perth) and they see a strange light over Garden Island - a military base. The main fellow makes signals at it with a torch, and much to his surprise he's abducted. After this, he gets abducted constantly, and it gets very embarrassing as the aliens aren't very good at what they do, and they put his clothes on wrong. Terribly acted Men In Black harrass him at parties and jobs, and eventually the aliens send him stark raving mad.

Anyway - those are my two big non-fan-fic literary projects. One day, when I'm rich and famous, I'll probably release my auto-biography too. Wow - pages and pages of self-serving diatribe. Bet you can't wait!

Question: What is the writing process like for you? Do you find any part of writing difficult? (i.e. coming up with an idea, fleshing out the story, etc) (submitted by Diane) Answer: Well, usually, I get a situation in my head, and I just have to write. It'll be a certain scene in particular. I'll get to the computer, and start. And write and write and write and my family get worried about me cause I don't eat, sleep, pee, until I get enough of the idea down so I don't lose it. If it's a particularly long story, I'll go to Microsoft Power-Point and write up a chapter-by-chapter plan, based on what goals each character has, what has to be done, etc etc. With long stories I like to have a goal because then I don't lose track of my ideas. Shorter stories I plan in my head - I always plan ahead. I usually have various formulas and things that I work to, so I don't have a story that sags in plot. I like to break cliches too, that's a big motivator of stories for me. If there's a running cliche in a fandom, I'll write something to totally twist it around (like Unhappy In Me and Things We Said Today for example). I never let anything slide in a fan fic. If Rogue says something overly dramatic, I'll make Logan or Jubilee come back with some snide witty comment. Buffy inspires me a lot with that sort of character play, as does the work of my dear friend Dharma Bum (Xena author). Humour is a must with me, even in sad stories. I always love to laugh when I write.

Question: Where do you get your inspiration? Do other people often suggest the ideas for stories, or do you come up with them on your own? (submitted by various) Answer: Usually I come up with them on my own whilst watching television, or watching a movie, or just doing that 'life' thing so many people are crazy about. Hell, going to the supermarket has been my best inspiration so far. It's so hum-drum, yet human. I really get in touch with my 'Inner Logan' there. I have 'Inner' versions of the characters that I listen to when I live. I know that sounds really mental, but it works for me really well. I usually don't follow other people's suggestions for fan fictions, but a lot of other people inspire me to write. The Angst Grrls especially. If Donna writes a really sad story, I'll write a happy one just to cheer myself up. If Diebin writes a violent story, I'll write an erotic one. If any of them happen to write a happy story for once, strange angsty me comes out to play. As I said before, running fandom cliches often spur me on to buck the system, to write something different than the rest.

Question: Do you prefer writing series or stand alones? (submitted by Diane) Answer: Oh, I love them both, but I tend to write in series. Series get a deeper character interaction going on, a complexity and colour to the people involved that you just don't get with a short stand-alone fic. I like taking the Logan/Rogue relationship places too. You just can't do that with the short fics. Plus I usually *start* something silly in a fic and people want more (like the Eggroll fic).

Question: Among your own stories, what are your favourites, and why? (submitted by various) Answer: Ooh. With Six You Get Eggroll - I really loved writing that one. Max was so much fun to create, and being a huge fan of Joseph Gordon-Levitt (Tommy from Third Rock from the Sun), I really enjoyed placing him in the X-Menverse. I really adored writing Goody Two Shoes, and That Closet Is So Passé. It was the first time I really got into writing Bobby, believe it or not. Anything where Remy is being a seductive jerk, I love.

The one that isn't released, that is definitely without a doubt my favourite ever, is Causa Anima. I'm still working on it, but it's basically me continuing the movie the way I'd like to. It's going to have a very heavy action plot, and isn't going to be romance driven. Romance plays a part, but it's all about humanity. Humanity is interesting to me.

Question: Which story was the most difficult to write and why? (submitted by Diane) Answer: Causa Anima. There are a *lot* of issues in it that I'm dealing with, ones with myself. There's one part where Rogue is struggling with a new mind she's absorbed, and I went into a lot of my own problems with clinical depression to write that, which was, despite the difficulty, very theraputic. I think that's why I avoid angst. Other people can write angst, distance themselves from it. Since I'm living damned angst, I could do with something that makes me smile.

The other thing that was REALLY difficult, was the sex scene in Thank Goodness for Small Mercies (and Lack Thereof). Seriously - it took me three or four days. I just kept running into walls with that one. I've felt a little uncomfortable with sex scenes of lately - I feel my material for that is getting a little dry. I need more real life experiences I'm guessing (nudge-nudge wink-wink).

Question: How do you write sex (smut) scenes?? It's difficult to get them on paper. :-) (submitted by Melanie) Answer: Man - these questions are reading my mind. Yes it is. Very hard. I usually go about it with some form of relationship facet in mind. Like - there's a *reason* why they're doing the sex, and it's not just because their getting themselves off. With Small Mercies, the sex really flowed (pardon that terrible pun) when I figured that Rogue was so relieved to feel touch again, that all she wanted was to feel it more, and for Logan, he had the chance he always wanted, and all he could do was feel and adore and love Rogue. Remy and Jubes kissing scenes are never hard. It's just the actual *sex* part I have trouble describing. It's really hard sitting there thinking "Okay - what am I gonna call Logan's prick now? Thrumming member just doesn't cut it this time!!!"

Usually I try to get some importance into the sex scene, try to get it 'meaning' something. I can never do out and out sex either. I just can't grab two indiscriminate pairs (Logan/Gambit) and make them have sex. I need to love the two characters involved, feel like they're a part of me, and understand their love for eachother intimately.

All I can say Melanie is understand what's going on in each character's head while the sex is going on. The sexiest thing is what the character is feeling during the sex, in my mind.

Question: Why write for X-Men? Are you a movie-verse or comic-verse fan? (submitted by various) Answer: Okay, well - X-Men. I've loved X-Men since I saw this silly ad for a deal with McDonalds back when I was about 12 or something. If you sent in so many coupons or something, you got back a video. Someone got it from my little brother cause it looked like a bunch of stupid looking superheros and something a little boy would enjoy. They also had these silly car-car things you could link up with the characters in them. (Storm, Wolverine, Cyclops etc). We still have little Storm in a car. Anyway, I saw the tape, which was the two parts of "Night of the Sentinels". Needless to say, I've been a Jubilee fan since day one. I always thought she and Remy were kinda cute (he looked out for her a lot in that ep). She cracked me up a LOT, actually the whole episode did. I was hooked, but sadly the tv stations didn't play the episodes of X-Men, so I was deprived. I only had a vague notion in my head that it was a near-thirty year old comic book series with millions of fans. All I knew was there was these silly toys (my Mum got Scotty [my brother] ALL these X-Men figurines too, which we all loved cause they all DID something, much like the movie ones. The Magento still has a sparking chest cavity - it's wicked), and cute cartoon, and that's about it. I soon forgot about it. It was a tape my mother played for my nephew incessantly, and I knew all the lines by heart. Having such an episode such as Night of the Sentinels ingrained into my head as my first exposure to the idea of Mutants shunned by society, I always felt *that* was what X-Men was to me. Humanity issues. The whole aliens from outer space/savage land/future travellers thing never really gelled with me. Never has. Some of the storylines in the comics really don't interest me either. It's always been the core struggle that mirrors race issues, real issues we have to face every day, that appeal to me. Outcasts appeal to me, because I've always felt like one. I guess that's the main thing - feeling like an outcast, and having a genre in which to express that need to belong somewhere.

When I finally saw the movie, I saw that it embodied that perfectly. I loved that. I damned LOVED it. I thought it captured that spirit better than the comics ever did. I love the comics, love Jubilee, love her interactions with Logan and Remy, even love the smack-down come-back relationship with Rogue and Remy, but the movie won me so much, that I became a die-hard no-life fan. Plus who can get past Hugh Jackman's Wolverine? Geez. My life was made the night I saw his chest man.

Question: What are your feelings and opinions on Ms. Jean Grey? (submitted by Siale) Answer: Aahaahahha. Oh dear. Well - *clears throat* As long as she stays the hell away from Logan, I like her fine. Really. I love writing her with Scott too, and I think she's a marvelous role model and friend. I like her in stories where she's a good friend, and a good wife, and a good person. When you get the LJ stories (Not that I'm being one to discriminate against other fans since I suffered that a lot in the Xenaverse), they deal with her doing things that I'm not comfortable reading about. When they make her do crap like that in the comics, I get very angry, mainly cause it's glorifying adultery, and adultery is a terrible thing that can tear families apart. (I've had experience second hand of such a thing, and it's not pretty). I guess I'm an old fashioned romantic, that thinks Jean is in love with Scott, and they live happy lives together.

When I wrote her in A Cup of Tea, I came to peace with her very much, but I think I completed my anger towards the character as *I* saw her in Things We Said Today.

An interesting thing to note is that she annoyed the crap out of me in the cartoons. :)

Question: Which part during the movie/comic book/cartoon did you realise that W/R should have more than a friendly relationship? (submitted by Siale) Answer: It wasn't until the movie that that relationship even occured to me. Believe it or not, the only ones I percieved were Gambit/Jubilee, from Night of the Sentinels. I didn't really think sex lives and X-Men were synonymous subject matters. My good friend Mistiec was RAVING about X-Men to me, and I was very very anxious to see the movie. She showed me all these Rogue/Logan manipulations she'd done, so I guess I was corrupted early. I wasn't convinced though, cause she loved Cordelia/Angel, and it took me a long time to see that one work.

Anyways - I went to the movie, and man - the second they started speaking to each other, I knew I was hooked. It was the most tender scene I'd seen in years (last one - well I can't remember a romance moving me this much before). Hell, even BEFORE they were talking, they were creating sparks! It was when I was walking home from the theatre that I thought "I gotta start writing about these guys". Causa Anima was born that very night. (After I took my brother and sister to see X-Men of course).

Question: What is it you enjoy/like about the L/R 'ship? (submitted by Sarah) Answer: Oh man. Everything. Every single damned thing. I love the way Rogue is sweet, soft, yet strong and robust. Nobody ever really writes about that, or seems to notice how strong she has to be. I love glorying in her strength. She inspires me, really. I love the way she sees right through Logan, the way he's a cynical cold person on the outside, yet she just has to say a few sentences to him, and she brings out the best in him. To me, that's real love. It's the kinda love I'm living to have one day.

Question: You're a bonafide foof-goddess and AngstGrrl... but which do you prefer? Foof or angst? (submitted by Sarah) Answer: Foof is far easier to write for me, and it's what flows most naturally from me. I'm naturally moved to write comedy - comedy is my thing. I do love Angst though - you know, I don't know how I became a damned Angst Grrl. Misty said I was one, so I was one. I don't actually write that much angst. See, I don't like shoving one 'kind' of drama into one fic. I like mushing them up into a nice casserole. Which is why I come out with fics that I come up with ridiculously stupid category names for, like smangst (smut/angst) and smoof (smut/foof) and I'm trying to come up with one that combines both of those (smoongst?) cause I like a mix.

The only real angst things I've written to date would have to be Photograph Smile, Albanach and Causa Anima. The rest is just too happy and fun to be anything else.

Question: Do you have any favourite authors? (submitted by Sarah) Answer: Non-Fan-Fic, my favourites are Douglas Adams, HG Wells, and I'm enjoying Jules Verne a lot. Recently I read a book by Nigel Tranter called "The Wallace", and that affected me very deeply. He's very good at rendering history to drama, and making you care about it. I learnt a lot about writing action, and also about Scottish History, which will fuel the drama in Albanach beautifully.

Fan-Fic wise, well, there are a whole host of writers that I enjoy. From the Xenaverse, Dharma Bum would have to be my absolute favourite. She has a style and wit that is so sharp, so good - damn! I just seriously suffer from shock after reading her stories, cause they're *SO* good. In the X-Men Movieverse, well, Donna Bevan of course, and Diebin. Molly is excellent (damn! She's too good), Mistiec is great as well, and Jengrrl has *really* been cracking me up with her Of Friends And Good Intentions. She and I are collaberating on a fic that involves Logan getting off his face from a laced cigar that Jubilee makes for him. Should be great! Jenn's smuts are always the best out there, and I never stop beating Gowdie over the head for the rest of Reasonable Doubts. Andariel has been impressing me with her recent fics too.

Question: What upcoming stories are you working on now that we should look forward to? Will we be seeing any more of "Causa Anima" any time soon? (submitted by various) Answer: Albanach will be a ripper. Long epical historical drama that has everything. Love, hate, revenge, action, rebellion, uprisings, war, the fall of King Edward Longshanks and even William Wallace. The Marie in this story isn't a wilting angst machine. She's strong, defiant, hungry for justice, much like the comic Rogue.

Causa Anima is definitely coming out eventually. Say - a month or so. I'm also getting ready for a trip to Los Angeles, so I might be a bit busy, but Causa is on my list of priorities. [In Drop Dead Fred voice] PRO-MISE!

Rogue gets her new powers in Causa Anima, and it details her working through the pain of that. Her relationship with Logan is something that is close, binding, slowly growing. While that's happening, Magneto escapes, and a leading Genetics lab is plundered of it's research. Mystique is discovered in her charade as Senator Kelly, and immediately the Mutant Registration law is passed. Things get bad for the mutants fast, and Rogue is working through her powers when this crises occur. It's a pretty serious fic.

Question: If you could be one of the characters in your favourite fic (one you've written), who would you be? (submitted by Tellie) Answer: Good one Tellie!! Jubilee, without a doubt. Jubilee, chasing that hot piece of Cajun, with my cute little yellow things and a bag full of cheetos. Indeed. I love Jubes. I guess because in real life, I'm actually quite loud, obnoxious, affronting, all the things Jubilee is. I abuse men without any thought to what they might think of me afterwards, and a lot of people find me annoying. Much like Jubes. You know there's a shop here in Perth that sells pleather yellow jackets? I want one. Badly!

Question: Is feedback a want or need? (submitted by Tellie) Answer: Need. Need need need need NEED! Let me put it this way - fan fic is something people like me infuse with their own blood, sweat, and tears. We're not getting paid for it, we're taking time out of our lives for it (which we often feel like sad bastards for). We send off those fics and we're sitting there, arms wrapped around knees, teeth chattering, because we're waiting for people to respond and talk to us about what they liked or hated.

That's the thing I love most - people telling me exactly *what* they liked or disliked about a fic. I think if everyone who *really* liked a fan fic just responded to the author with something like that, they'd see fan-fic productivity boost tenfold. I kid you not.

I know personally that the part when you talk to people about the fan fic is the best part of all. I mean, to me, having somebody say "Jubilee was great when she..." or "I really felt for Rogue when..." is just fantastic. When I show my fan fiction to Donna, she'll usually reply by shouting at the characters as if they were real. That's really fabulous when that happens! I adore that. I think feedback is important to anything (particularly comics and articles, hint-hint LOL), especially fan fiction. It makes the author's world go round, and without it, they just don't feel like writing anymore.

I know in the Xenaverse, when people stopped sending me feedback (I'd been there a while and they just couldn't be bothered anymore I think), I stopped writing. It just hurt too much, after the third time of sending a fiction out, and getting bugger-all in response, and then seeing other people get loads of it, I started wondering what the hell was wrong with me or my stories that I never got any response. Someone once said "Once you get good, people just expect you to be that good. It's a sign that they're comfortable with your brilliance if you're ignored." I honestly hope that's true in the case of the Xenaverse!

X-Men Movie fans have always been much more responsive to my writing, and I thank them for that. For all the people that have responded to me, have encouraged me - thank you.