OoO Update: 1/23/2009 OoO

Catch a sneak peek at the first chapter of Taking Control's sequel at http://www.mvsfiction.com/Default.aspx?page=read&action=readChapter&StoryID=7&ChapterID=44

I've just launched a new site: www.mvsfiction.com. I do not currently plan to abandon this site, but any and all news and story updates will go through mvsfiction.com site first. I hope to see you guys there. Thanks - Matt / fake a smile

Hello. This is Matt AKA fake a smile checking in here. The pen-name came from a song title from the band Radford. If you're into alt. rock, check them out. You can learn about them and a whole slew of other bands you've probably never heard of at Alternative Addiction.

Now, about me... I'm currently 24 years old. I graduated from Marquette University with a BS in Computer Science and Math. I'm from the NW suburbs of Chicago. I'm really into football (Da Bears), video games (though not as much in recent years), and listening/singing to music, if you hadn't already guessed as much from the shameless plug above.

I'm mostly into the fantasy genre with some healthy interest in sci-fi, but I get into the occasional other book as well. Besides the HP books, I've also read Tolkien, Paolini, Orson Scott Card, Heinlein, C.S. Lewis, Pullman, Nix, and Dostoyevski. I've also read a ton of HP fanfiction (naturally).

I became obsessed with fanfiction shortly after the release of Book 6. I read rather obsessively at first, but have since tapered off. I only follow a handful of stories and only occasionally go searching for more.

Taking Control is my first attempt at writing any type of fictional work. As such, I don't expect it to be a great piece of work or anything, but I'll let others be the judge of that. I started writing it in November of 2005 and only worked up the nerve to post in May of 2006 after having written over 200,000 words. I love to hear from readers, whether compliments or criticisms, so don't be shy about leaving reviews.

Taking Control is set pre-HBP. This might seem odd seeing as I started it well after HBP was out, but I have my reasons for it. For one, there's not much you can do with the story after HBP. But more importantly, there were some things I didn't like about HBP, namely Harry's complete lack of magical development in the book. We don't get a sense that Harry is any stronger magically than the previous year, and that bothers me. You would think that after learning the prophecy Harry would be a little more interested in learning how to fight him, yet at the end of HBP he can't even connect with a single curse on Snape, so how is he supposed to fight Voldemort? It bothered me so much that I just had to fix that by writing my own version of book 6.

Unrequited, funnily enough, was actually what got me writing TC in the first place. I distinctly remember sitting in a math course, Numerical Analysis I think, when the idea came to me, and I pulled out a notebook and started writing right then and there. I quickly scrapped the idea for a novel length story and things adapted into what what TC is now, but the plot idea never left me and one day just demanded to be written.

I'm not the most structured or organized person in the world, so updates can be a bit sporadic at times. They seem to take anywhere from a few weeks to a few months, though they're generally long enough to merit the long waits. I keep a running word count of the current chapter on my Yahoo group if anyone is interested. It's not the most accurate gauge of when the next update is coming since I never know how many words a chapter will be, but it gives you some idea of my progress.