So I thought I’d throw this together as a peace offering since this hiatus is lasting longer than I intended. This is some questions I’ve been asked over the years and some others I’m making up. Ha. If you have anything you want to ask, feel free to reply and ask!

You can click the read more button for the interview. I also added the links (finally!) for All We Are, the ebook. All three formats are there.

Where do you get your ideas?

I’ve been asked this in a variety of ways pretty much since I started writing. When I first started writing GH fanfiction and posting in 2002, I used to write stories in response to challenges and spoilers. I don’t really find much inspiration in challenges and I tend to stay kind of spoiler free.

So now most of my stories are what if questions. What if Sam had died and the baby survived? What if Robin married Nikolas in the summer of 2006? What if Luis Alcazar had been a better villain? What if Ric was written as the psychopath he kind of is anyway?

I also just like to rewrite storylines. Even the ones I don’t hate. I always wonder what would happen if writers had taken this turn instead of that one. For example, during the 2003 miscarriage storyline. Instead of Ric kidnapping Carly, what if the PCPD really goes after Sonny for Elizabeth’s fall? I wrote about it in Intoxication. What if the writers had not taken the safe boring route and made Zander the father of Elizabeth’s child in 2003? What if, occasionally, you wrote Courtney as an actual human, rather than a Mary Sue who can do everything.

Why are you so prolific sometimes and then MIA?

I’ve finally realized that I write in cycles. I can have a few good months in which I can write ten pages a day sustained for a few weeks, and then my brain burns out. When I came back to writing in February 2014, I wrote from March-May without much effort. I wrote A Few Words, Shadows, parts of The Best Thing, early episodes of Damaged, and some short stories. And then I couldn’t write anything for a while. I came back in the fall, wrote more of The Best Thing, wrote that Christmas story, wrote another Christmas story, started All We Are. Then I stopped again. Then in the spring, I started churning out Damaged. In the summer, I added The Best Thing and All We Are. Wrote more short stories.

And now we’re in the fall, and my brain hurts. Ha. I have to learn how to write for several cycles before posting anything so that I can stretch out the posting so you guys don’t see the writer’s block. Though in the last year and a half, I’ve written more than a thousand pages. So…maybe I’m just putting too much pressure on myself 😛

Have you written anything other than GH fanfiction?

Yeah, I started writing when I was about 11 or 12. We’re talking 1996-97. I wrote Hanson fanfiction. Ha. And Backstreet Boys. I used to write reality fanfiction, which isn’t nearly as much fun. I wrote some General Hospital stuff in 1998 that almost no one ever read because I posted it on a Geocities site and the LLGA mailing list (Lucky & Liz Guardian Angels). I also wrote Roswell fanfiction from 1999-2002, which I used to have a lot of fun doing. I joined ezboard because of Roswell.

But since 2002, I only write GH. I don’t have the energy for anything else 😛

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The following questions are things that have shown up in my FF.net reviews 😉 

Why don’t you write NC-17? Where the sex scenes and hot kisses? (in response to TBT)

The major reason is I don’t like to. I don’t consider them one of my strengths, and it feels awkward when I do write them. Some of my early efforts of NC-17 can be found on the site, but they’re mechanical. I’m trying to get better at showing physical intimacy, but I don’t ever see myself as someone who’ll write smutty scenes. I like reading them just fine (romance novels are my favorite thing in the world), but it’s just something I’m personally not awesome at.

In response to TBT: If Jason is the father on the birth certificate, why does he need guardianship…Fathers don’t adopt their children.

So this came up around Chapter 14 last December. I’ve tried to address it since then, but here’s a longer explanation. The paternity test was an official record at the time, but once Sonny was revealed as the father, Sam knew he would have rights as a biological father. She had him sign termination papers, but if anything happened to her, without a legal guardian, Sonny could still claim her, the fiction with Jason bedamned.

Jason is considered Evie’s father in public, but legally, the courts are aware that Sonny is the biological father. I hope that helps.

In response to You Can’t Always Get What You Want, the short story where Elizabeth tells Jake and Sam the truth about Jake’s identity after Hayden’s shooting, and Sam is upset, promising Jake that he remembered her once, he’ll remember her again:  hy do all of you jiz fans have to act like Sam doesn’t have a right to be pissed at Elizabeth for not telling the truth shes taking a man not only from his wife but his son too she’s already to taken Jake from him. Now she’s being selfish and keeping danny out of Jake/Jason life too

I copied and pasted the question word for word because I wanted to keep the context. I hate Elizabeth keeping this secret. I’ve written the reveal a few ways, but I’ve tried to take Sam in both directions. Sam’s a decent character these days. I believe she could honestly react in a few ways. One of which is the angle I used in You Can’t Always Get What You Want, which is anger, betrayal, and a promise that she and Jason will be together again. The other is the much more measured response of Safe to Love You (though of course, she doesn’t know about Elizabeth’s deception in that one).

I like taking a character in the same situation and writing two different reactions. Like Carly, Sam has this duality in her nature.  She can be enormously petty and vindictive, but she can also be compassionate. I’m thinking of her actions during the summer of 2007 with Jake’s kidnapping and her forgiveness of Patrick for not telling her Jason was alive.

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Reader-Submitted Questions

I’ve been wondering about how you go about picking which actor is playing a character in your fanfic. I noticed at times you have Tamara Braun playing Carly and other times it’s Laura Wright. I believe you’ve switched other actors as well. Love that you do this BTW just wondered what tips the scales. Thanks! – Krista

Great question 🙂 This is particularly something I do with the character of Carly. Though I consider LW’s portrayal in the last decade to be the definitive Carly and generally use her more often than not, when I go back to the era of 2002-04, I use TB just as often. Each actress has brought something different to Carly.

With Sarah Brown, Carly was a brittle shell, always on the offensive because she just knew someone would piss her off or disappoint her. She went after AJ, accused Jason of kidnapping, shot Tony– SB’s Carly always tried to be one step ahead of everyone else, but her inability to read a situation often left her eight steps behind.

Tamara Braun was just as brittle, but she’d moved on a little. Grown up. She’s still reactive, but there’s a softer edge to her. TB’s Carly has much more of a friendship with Jason. But she’s still Carly, still a woman with a plan. They’re just not as dangerous.

And LW’s Carly has really opened up to other people. To her children, her circle of friends. She wants what’s best for the people she cares about, she’s just usually convinced what she thinks is best is always the right answer. But her old ways will always lurk beneath the surface. Don’t cross Carly in any form.

So how I decide which Carly I want to use depends on the story. The Best Thing required a very brittle and hard version of Carly, the woman who’d been shot in the head and cheated on and lied to. TB’s Carly lived through that. I couldn’t imagine anyone else playing her.

But in A Few Words, I wanted a Carly who was bright and open, a reluctant ally to Elizabeth, a devoted friend to Jason — and that’s always going to be Laura Wright.

I think Carly is the only character I recast for stories. I usually use Greg Vaughan’s Lucky because JJ’s Lucky is the Lucky of my childhood, and JY was the Anti-Christ. GV rehabilitated the character and brought him into adulthood. But occasionally, I use JJ’s Lucky, particularly when I want to channel that late 90s version.

I don’t know if that helps 😛

 

 

I thought I had more things to pull over from FF.net, but for the most part, the questions were things answered by later chapters, or, ah, heh, can’t really reproduced here since they’re more like…angry people who don’t like me. So…rather than make up other questions, I’ll just stop here. Feel free to ask anything. It’s not like I’m not an open book 😛