Current Status of Stories (2013-05-01):

Since my job changed at the beginning of 2011, my time to write has severely decreased. At the same time, I've figure out why I had insomnia and that's been fixed, also decreasing my writing time. At the beginning of 2013, a very difficult time developed for our family and it's taken over 3 months to deal with. Fortunately, I was only editing "Choices" and not having to write. Of course, that also meant I was unable to do much for the next story. Sorry, but writing only happens when I have time and I'm not paid for this.

Choices: Version 1.1 is now posting finished posting.

Lily's Child: My muse is torturing me. Most of ch 4 is done, but I'm not happy with it and can't figure out how to get to where I want. It will come out when it's ready. However, if you want to consider this story as on hiatus, feel free. OTOH, Bobmin has given me an idea that may help get this back on track -- we'll see.

For those wanting to know what's coming next, there's a very good chance of a Harry/Fleur story (or possibly two). I'm about 30K into one and it's coming along nicely. Projected posting time: June. Sorry, writing time has been very limited lately.

Here are some stories I've written in the Harry Potter universe. While I started uploading stories to SIYE (http://www.siye.co.uk/siye/), I'm uploading here too because some of the stories I write will not fit into SIYE's guidelines. So I guess all my works will be here. If you're looking for me on SIYE, my ID is "_kb_" (yeah, a bit strange, but that's me. :-)

In some of my early stories posted here, I've noticed that I've lost some of my formatting, and a few of my chapters were cut-short. I believe I've fixed all the short chapters. I've also tried to fix the formatting in various alternate ways. But if you see a place where you suspect there should be a section marker and there isn't, it's probably just missing because the upload filter stripped it out. To make matters work, FFdotNet keeps changing the rules on what characters are allowed and what's not. My apologies, but it ain't me. :-) I'll see about what other fixes I can do.

I have more stories coming and I'll probably redo "Leave Me Alone" one day, while it was sorta what I envisioned, I had trouble getting it there. I think I've had enough reviews to help me understand what I did wrong and how to fix it. This is my least favorite story of the ones I've written.

A reader (GinaWeasleyPotter) has decided to translate my story "A Friend Indeed" into French; she has 3 chapters done last I looked. So if French is a more natural language to you than English, head on over to her profile page or directly to Un_ami_en_effet.

Another reader (Myrkul) has finished translating my story "A Friend Indeed" into Polish. So if Polish is a more natural language to you than English, head on over to his profile page or directly to Prawdziwa_przyjaciorka.

I hope you'll forgive me for this section, but I feel it really needs to be said...

I've had multiple reviews over multiple stories that express "Ginny-hate". They come in the form of: "I like this story so please don't pair Ginny with Harry", "I liked this story, despite Ginny being paired with Harry", "I usually don't read Ginny stories, but I liked this one", etc.

First, I'm happy that people like what I write. I enjoy writing and sharing is fun (just like they taught us in kindergarten. :) So, I must have done something right.

Second, I'm mystified by the "Ginny-hate". I suppose I can understand a very small number hating Ginny just because of something that happened in their life, like where a best friend did something mean to them and that person happened to be named Ginny, so they transfer that hate to all people named Ginny (real or fictional). Other than something like that, I truly don't understand.

I now believe that a lot of the "Ginny-hate" can be laid at either the feet of JKR who spent very little time developing Ginny (80perc) or by people being too lazy to think about and understand what JKR did (or her writing style if that explains it better for you) (20perc). (Doesn't everything generalization have an 80/20 rule? :) On the other hand, I think another major source of much of the "Ginny-hate" comes from non-H/G forums/boards (I won't name any of them lest it encourage them). There's also the aspect of by tearing Ginny down, it supposedly makes their favorite female better. Hmm, I've got 4 things here, so maybe the 80/20 rule doesn't apply here. :)

The books were written from Harry's PoV (or "Third-person limited", except for about 4 scenes in the entire series). That means, if something didn't happen around Harry, we don't know about it. To make it worse, JKR didn't write about everything that happened to him. (One of the things this means is that there are a LOT of things about the HP-universe we don't know because Harry didn't see or understand them.)

Because the story is from Harry's PoV, the extremely vast majority of the time the story focuses on Harry, Ron, and Hermione -- the Golden Trio. Ginny was not a part of that, nor was any other girl. Therefore, all girls but Hermione are essentially unknown (or a blank slate). That means, you don't know enough about them to be able to fully say if you should like them or not, and that includes Ginny. (I'll make an exception for girls like Marietta who did something very wrong to Harry, it's OK to hate them. :)

For example, if my search was done right, in book 5, Ginny talks around Harry a total of 11 times, and the conversation in each is from 2-12 paragraphs long. My numbers may not be totally correct, but they should be close enough for this analysis. That's not much information to glean about how Ginny thinks, feels, or anything else on very many subjects (Ron saying "Ginny likes..." doesn't count very much to me because we all know Ron is wrong a lot of the time, and he doesn't talk about Ginny much anyway). That is true of all other girls, except for Hermione, and only because she hung around with Harry. So I don't see any reason to hate Ginny, because we don't know the real her. BTW, I picked book5 because this is where H/G start to see each other as real people and become friends, forming the basis of their later relationship.

Now, I completely understand those who say something like, "It's not that I hate Ginny, but I don't understand why JKR put her and Harry together. Hermione makes more sense." That logic has some credibility because we know about Hermione, but not very much about anyone else; therefore, it's easy (lazy?) to pick the 1 girl we know about and ignore the rest we don't know about. One could also argue that Harry and Hermione share a Muggle background, something Ginny and all the other Pureblood girls don't have. For the stories that focus on or have a lot of time spent in the Muggle world, it makes sense to pair Harry with Hermione. I've read (and enjoyed) a number of good stories in that type of universe. I have a story like that in my plot-bunny file that I hope to have time to write one day.

However, I'll also point out that Ginny shares a "core personality trait" that Hermione doesn't have: Ginny understands Voldemort and fighting him in a way Hermione never will. The battle with the diary gave Ginny a very special common ground with Harry that no one else will ever have. (I know it's said that Ginny doesn't really know much from the "diary episodes", but her conversation with Harry during Christmas in book5 where she talks about possession makes me think she knows more about Tom Riddle than most give her credit for.) Ginny loves flying and Quidditch, something Hermione really doesn't. I think Ginny's sense of humor is something that meshes more closely with Harry's than Hermione's does. There's probably other things, but with the way Voldemort has impacted Harry's life, this common ground is central to understanding why JKR put Harry and Ginny together. I also suspect Harry and Ginny talked more than the books told us (like when he stayed at the Weasleys and Hermione wasn't there), but that's merely speculation. In my (real) world, practically every successful relationship is built on common ground starting with beliefs, and I think H/G have more common ground than H/Hr.

Don't get me started on R/Hr, as I think their common ground is so small, that pairing really is a work of fiction :) and JKR just goofed! R/Hr's common ground is through adventures with Harry as "the glue", take those away and they have almost nothing in common for a relationship -- IMO. Without a similar PoV, they will be in for a difficult time in the long run. They're fighting is not "sexual tension", it's low-level animosity -- not a good foundation for a romantic relationship.

Some people have mentioned that they hate Ginny because she's a "rabid-fangirl", "demonic stalker", a moody girl with a temper, etc. If you see Ginny that way, then it's because you've been reading fanfic stories with Ginny written that way. I don't see any of that in JKR's books. Yes, Ginny had a crush on Harry and did seem to keep an eye on him at times, but watching someone occasionally from across the room does not make you a bad person or fulfill any of the "bad terms" I've listed above. Watching a person a little more than others usually means you find that person attractive in some way, which I find perfectly normal.

We all have our favorite characters and 'ships. Personally, after good H/G stories, I happen to like Harry and "strong Slytherin girl" stories, as that tends to make Harry more independent and grow up faster, not mention growing a spine in every day life, unlike how wimpy JKR wrote Harry. Nevertheless, as long as the story is well-written and the plot gives good, logical reasons for what happens (I'm ignoring any "Eww!" factor that we each have, like pairing Harry with a female of his parents generation), is the pairing really that important if the plot and writing are good?

One last thing to put everyone's mind at ease. I never write Ginny as "fangirl" or anything else bad. So even if you normally hate Ginny, you should be able to stand her in my stories because she should come across as a reasonably normal person. Even in those stories where she's not the lead female, I do my best to make her reasonable. Go on, read any of my stories and point out 1 where I make her "bad". The closest you'll find is in "Leave Me Alone" (my least favorite if it matters), and in there, Ginny is someone who makes 1 mistake as a young teen girl and has to deal with the consequences until she grows up and fixes the mistake. Even in that story, she seeks Harry out of love for him, her family and friends, and because she doesn't want to see her country destroyed -- not because she's a fangirl nor does she throw a temper tantrum. In "Mage Harry" (which is a comedy and so I'm allowed to have more fun with things), you might accuse Ginny of being a "Mary Sue" (I didn't write her that way but I could see where some people say that as I spent very little time developing her character in that story), but I don't see that as "bad" or as a fangirl. I write the lead female (whoever she is) to be strong (or she becomes so during the story) and someone who's a good match for Harry.

So, can we please get over the "Ginny-hate", at least for my stories? If the above hasn't helped to change your mind and you still hate Ginny, go tell someone who writes weak/spiteful Ginny stories to start writing Ginny more realistically. You won't find any whiny Ginny here.

(Added 12/2010) I received a PM from "old-crow" who makes a very interesting point. While not "Ginny-hate", there is a downside to pairing H/G. Namely, that pairing requires dealing with a smothering/over-protective/Victorian-age Molly and a usually jealous/over-protective/big-brother Ron. I will admit, those two points (err -- people) are very real issues when writing the pair, and as an author, those have to either be pushed aside (blindly ignored) or else dealt with head-on -- if you're going to make Molly and Ron anywhere near like their canon characters. "Old-crow" also pointed out there is the issue of Ginny being a year younger, which can cause other issues: like lack of screen-time (she's not in his classes), Harry has to wait an extra year for her after Hogwarts, and Harry must wait an extra year before doing various "romantic" things or risk doing inappropriate things with a younger girl.

If you want to discuss this from either side, or have more insight I should add, feel free to PM me. All I ask is that the comments/questions be logical and delivered in a civil way. Please don't send flames or spiteful comments, unless you want me to think badly of you.

My stories in the order they were written:

1 Choices
2 To Love Is To Live
3 His Motivation
4 Harry Potter: Rogue
5 Leave Me Alone
6 A Friend Indeed
7 Harry Potter: Unchampion
8 Harry Potter's Promise
9 Fates Mistake
10 The Grass Is Always Greener
11 Lily's Child (still a WiP)
12 Ginny's Return
13 Harry Potter: Kidnapped
14 Mage Harry
15 A Smarter Hunt
16 The Easy Way
17 Odds and Ends (won't ever really complete)
18 Accidental Bond
19 Harry Potter's Reaction to the Marriage Law
20 Unconventional Harry
21 Harry's Happy Christmas
22 --probably a 6th/7th year fic with Fleur--