Age: 25

Bad Habits: Smoking, white wine, leaving dirty clothes on the floor and clean laundry in the washer, spending hours at a time reading and/or writing

Secret Fears: Apocalypse, pandemic, end-of-the-world scenarios. Seriously, it's not that I think it'll happen, but the though gives me the willies enough to stock a year's supply of the necessities.

Favorite Authors: William Gibson, Douglas Adams, Frank Herbert, Poppy Z. Brite, Terry Goodkind, Neil Gaiman

I've been on the fanfiction scene as a reader since either late 2003 or early 2004. It began with Harry Potter and it never seemed like there was enough written that I really enjoyed. Life got busy for a few years and when I returned, the fanfiction scene had exploded. It wasn't that I never wanted to write a story for the HP fandom, but every time I sat down to write, I worried it just wasn't British enough. I know I really dislike reading those types of stories. I also can't just hop a plane and figure out those britticisms I've been missing either.

Then Twilight came out. I'd heard about it, sure, but it took until 2008 to give them a try. I was so massively pregnant with my little man that I couldn't leave the couch so I started reading them. I zipped through the three books that were out at the time and waited anxiously for Breaking Dawn. I have to admit, I was a little weirded out by the whole monster, flesh eating baby, but the world in which the stories was written was compelling. The cast of characters with unexplored personalities gave fanfiction writers a way to flesh out pasts and stories without changing the basic plot of the book. These were very interesting to read, like the outtakes on a DVD. Then there were fics where parts changed, were thrown out or ignored completely and these were good too. The one subtype of twilight fanfics I don't find appealing is the all-human stories. It isn't that they can't be well done because that isn't true. I've found a few that I've really enjoyed but most of the appeal of twilight is the vampires. They're sexy and dangerous. If I wanted to read sweet non-monster stories, I'd go back to Harry Potter for a while.

Now I'm trying my hand at a fic of my own. Please let me know how I'm doing, what you like and where I can improve. To be fair though, I'd even take reviews that just say, 'hello, I'm reading your story.' because they're a kind of thanks and acknowledgement too. That's the only kind of payment a fanfiction author gets. It's like one of those stupid bumper stickers, "SAVE A STORY, REVIEW THE AUTHOR" because I know I'm always way more motivated to please those that have a voice as opposed to those who skipped through unnoticed.