Greetings, gentle readers.

Three or four years ago I was a moderately efficient, functioning member of society. Then I discovered fanfiction, or as it has been called, the crack cocaine of literature - use it once and you're hooked - and everything else took a back seat.

I started off (post Ashes to Ashes series1) by writing a version of Alex and Gene getting it together, in the hope that this would get it out of my system ('Appetite'). Some hope. Then some similarities inspired me to write a crossover fiction ('Coppers are Coppers') and I also wanted to get down my one idea for Harry Potter fanfic, which I had been thinking about for some time ('The Sorting').

I don't know what gave me the idea of sending Alex and Gene to Spain, but once I had it, scenes kept occurring to me and I had to fashion a story to put them into. Thus came 'Busman's Holiday', my first longer story. I enjoyed writing this and was so encouraged by all the kind reviews that I received for it. I'm still really quite proud of it, actually.

After a while I got some ideas for a longer Galex fic, 'The Beat and Bad Company', following on from the events in 'Appetite'. 'Appetite' has therefore been deleted, but appears as the first chapter of the longer fic. If I'd have known when starting out that 'The Beat' would take me the best part of two years to finish, I would probably never have started, but I did, and it's finally finished. I'm hugely grateful to the faithful readers who have reviewed it so encouragingly all the way through.

Having finished that, I decided to put writing on the back burner for a while, but then promptly came up with ideas for three little one-shots in three different fandoms. Two of those are now published - 'A Room with a View' and 'Good Breeding'. The third, another Gene and Alex story, came back from the beta with comments that it needed some quite major revision, and I haven't summoned the energy yet.

Whether or not I write any more just depends on whether the muse grabs me again. In the last couple of days I must admit I have been revisiting an idea I had a while back, for a story about William Dobbin, the sad, faithful hero of Vanity Fair. So something might come of that.

Oh, and I still haven't watched most of series 3 of Ashes to Ashes. Almost everyone I know hates it, so why bother?