(Updated July 7, 2015) I started writing my first fanfiction sometime in 2001, and two years later was persuaded by a friend of mine who was a hardcore "Harry Potter" and "Redwall" fangirl to try writing my own novel. She's the one who introduced me to this site, known on here as Sandalino Silvio Leif. Sometimes, I wonder if I wish I hadn't let her talk me into that... Now there's nothing in this world I enjoy more than weaving a good story.

That is not to say I am fast at it. I am a very slow writer, diligently striving for poignant humanistic, existential, and intricately technical Horror/Fairytale/Sci-Fi subjects transposed through an Historically inspired Gothic Victorian style, which I've been working on since 2006. I think you can already tell, even my relaxed, conversational style of writing has absorbed much of it, like a professional deformity... Sadly, I have never finished any of my epics...

I've been at this craft long enough to have developed a personal pattern. First, I write what might as well be called an outline, which is a condensed, straightforward form of the story that focuses on making each cause and effect perfectly clear. It is a readable form of the story, not a bullet list or field of postit-notes, that feels action-packed because it lacks all dialogue and descriptive adornment. In these, I don't even attempt to sound like the leading character myself, rather, I write as if from the point-of-view of a film director. The goal is to define each arc of the story in its entirety, from point A to point Z, like a flight plan. And usually, if I have failed to smooth out any wrinkles in the logic of how one event leads to another, I get hung up on it and the project goes cold for months or even years. Most of my fanfictions end up this way. That is not to say I quit easily; that just goes to show I have the patience of a rock and the perseverance of a river; in the time elapsing, I never stop thinking about what to write next. Once, it took me four-and-a-half years to think of the perfect name for a space ship; it was for one of my pet-projects, so I wanted one as memorable and meaningful as "The Nautilus". No, I won't share it. ;)

The next step is, by many ignorant definitions, the only one that counts: the final draft. (The draft that people mean when they hear you're working on a novel and snidely ask how many pages you've finished, like they're doing you a favor by turning up the pressure. [Any more of that and I'm going to incinerate and my ashes turn into a flippin' diamond! ...My profile picture is of me--for real--attacking the ocean with a sword, which illustrates my feelings about the forces I'm up against. Just because I can't win doesn't mean it isn't a worthy fight...]) Oddly enough, if I have completed the condensed version of the story discussed above, then I can blast through this phase in less than a month, turning a 2,000 word 'flight plan' into a 50,000 word piece of poetry like it was firework. (At first, an unassuming ball of cement, but light it and it soon transforms into a splendorous, multicolor phoenix; that transformation was neither spontaneous nor randomly patterned, but had to be carefully sown within that cement shell long prior to the firework being lit, its potential lying dormant until its launch, at which point the die has already been cast.) I have tried many times to write this way without 'filing a flight plan' first, in order to save myself a load of work and some seriously deep heartbreak, but invariably I just learn how necessary that first phase is. Instead of 'poetry', as acclaimed by my inner circle, my writing turns out unforgivably bad. Therefore, I simply endure the shame of being a writer with a bottomless reservoir of ideas but, in the end, a low word-count... TT~TT

I'm not sure whether FanFiction.Net would allow me to post my short drafts, since FF.Net forbids "outlines". True, mine are in readable paragraph format, like short stories, but I make no attempt to disguise my own voice, which shatters "the suspension of disbelief" that storytellers (like moviemakers) uphold as the Holy Grail of their trade... So, for my recent fanfiction, check out my LiveJournal under the penname eutytoalba. On there, chiefly, I have an "Avatar" anti-fanfiction, a "Deus Ex 3" rewrite, as well as an "Ironman" fanfiction based on a dream that I had, and a "Frozen" fanfiction based on a nightmare. (Anna covers herself in tattoos that steal and corrupt Elsa's powers!) A good while ago, I also tried to start an "Eragon" fanfic on there, in which a human Dragon Rider gets expelled from the Order of Riders over a philosophical disagreement (vegetarianism) and then allowed back in on account of meddling by the Elf weapons smith, Rheunon...but never even got that one off the ground. :(

Nowadays, when I go to the trouble of writing fanfiction--which is significant considering I'm drowning in my dozens of all-original projects--it is usually because I loved a series but still noticed major shortcomings, or even golden opportunities missed. Like: if something or someone's backstory wasn't explored, and as a result the central plot spiraled-off in a random direction that made the ending sound ridiculous; or if something was one thing but would have clicked with the rest of the story so much better if it had been something else, such as a MacGuffin or a character's motives; or even if the whole story generally lacked scope of imagination, like mental peripheral vision, and as a result important things, like fictional civilizations or warring philosophical factions, became oversimplified; etc... But instead of whining about those respective issues in a stream of blog reviews, I 'activate challenge accepted mode', imagine that I'm back in time working on the series as a member of its development team, and start a fanfiction to demonstrate my point, showing the changes I would have made instead of merely telling everyone.

These fanfictions of mine are incredibly old, but if you leave any reviews, I promise to return the favor!