Who I Am: I am a 26-year-old woman living in the northeastern United States, and I work in a magazine & tobacco shop. I have short brown hair, brown eyes, glasses, a tendency to flush heavily in cold weather, a slightly off-kilter sense of humor, shaky time-management skills, eight bookcases, a very long to-read list, and a weakness for houseplants and Coca-Cola. I do not have a car, an air conditioner, or a college degree, and I regret each lack on occasion.
I am Unitarian Universalist and currently teaching first grade religious education in my local congregation. I am also a habitual procrastinator, a thwarted musician, and a grammar nut. In light of that last characteristic, if you find grammar, spelling, or punctuation errors in my stories, please tell me so I can fix them!
o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o
What I Read And Write: I write most of my fanfiction for Naruto and Harry Potter. (And now Angel Sanctuary, of all things.) However, I read fanfiction for a ridiculous number of books, manga, anime, TV shows, movies, comics, and games, to the point where I sometimes think fanfiction has eaten my life. +grin+ I do write outside of my primary fandoms, but not with any consistency.
I read many different pairings in most fandoms, though I like some better than others. I don't believe in OTPs, because I think the idea that a person can only truly love one other person in the entire world is sad, scary, and stupid. I don't have preferences as to het, yaoi, or yuri pairings -- those would be het, slash, and femslash for non-anime people -- and I seem to have fallen into writing threesomes lately. In an ideal world, none of those things would be issues, but, people being people, everything anyone writes will offend somebody, and I feel I should provide fair warning. (With luck, I'll get back to writing mostly genfic once I finish my current WIPs. The world always needs more genfic.)
I use a lot of original characters for three reasons: canon characters often won't fit into the niches I need to fill, I enjoy having greater control over certain parts of my stories, and I'm used to writing original fiction. I try my hardest not to twist canon around any OCs; they exist to serve the stories, not to make the stories serve them. However, as many people are wary of OCs, I feel I should provide warning about that as well.
o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o
Where I Post: My livejournal (http://edenfalling.livejournal.com/) contains various original stories and a lot of short fanfiction, all of which can be found via the memory function (http://www.livejournal.com/tools/memories.bml?user=edenfalling). Most of the fanfiction will never appear anywhere else, until and unless I get my own website.
I have a few Harry Potter stories at FictionAlley (http://www.fictionalley.org/authors/elizabeth_culmer/) that I haven't cross-posted here. Some of my stories are also hosted on other archives, but all the published fanfiction I've written can be found here, at FA, or on my livejournal. If you want to archive one of my stories, go right ahead. Just drop a line and tell me about it!
o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o
What I'm Writing Now (10/3/08):
Naruto Fanfiction
"The Guardian in Spite of Herself" -- ch. 13 rough draft is 1,375 words
"Undertow" -- semi-sequel to "Tides;" rough draft is 3,750 words
Harry Potter Fanfiction
xxx"Secrets" -- ch. 12 rough draft is 10,350 words
"Strange Likenesses" -- ch. 6 rough draft is 325 words
"New Horizons" -- post-epilogue Ginny/Harry/Draco for Asuka Kureru; LJ only; ch. 2 rough draft is 400 words; chs. 3 and 4 outlined
Angel Sanctuary Fanfiction
"Debts" -- Alexiel's cycle of incarnations; on hiatus for historical research
"The Transient and the Eternal" -- Kira/Setsuna/Sara for thirtyforthree; 18 of 30 written; 8 partial; 18 posted on LJ
"Ephemera" -- backstory on Belial; rough draft is 5,675 words
Enchanted Forest Chronicles Fanfiction
"An Honest Opinion" -- Morwen's childhood and early friendship with Telemain; rough draft is 1,350 words
"A Question of Familiarity" -- Morwen gets her familiars, with 'help' from Telemain; rough draft is 1,875 words
xxx"The Affairs of Dragons" -- Morwen meets Kazul and moves to the Enchanted Forest; UP!
Other Fanfiction
"Lemonade" -- BtVS/Gundam Wing/Naruto crossover; ch. 16 is 0 words
"Obstruction of Justice" -- Batman (Nolan!verse); Anna Ramirez; "Why do we fall? So we can learn to pick ourselves up."; rough draft is 2,100 words
I also have somewhere between 5 and 30 original stories (depending on how I define a live story vs. a dormant or mostly abandoned one) that I work on sporadically, which is one reason my fanfiction wordcounts sometimes get stuck for weeks on end. The other reasons are that I work full time and I read a lot.
I promise that if I've started publicly posting a story, I will eventually finish it... but 'eventually' may end up being quite a long time.
o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o
Special Note:
In an effort to finish stories faster, I've decided to focus on only one at a time. This means my other stories will be on extended hiatus until their turns, but I think this method will prove more efficient in the long run. The xxx marks the story I'm writing at the moment -- "Secrets" is currently up.
Once I finish "Secrets," I plan to work on "Lemonade," "Strange Likenesses," "The Guardian in Spite of Herself," and "Debts," in that order. One-shots and "The Transient and the Eternal" will be worked on as inspiration strikes.
o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o
If you have a question about any of my stories, please log in and leave a signed review, or at least leave your email address. If you're anonymous, I can't answer, but I make a point of responding to all reviews that have some form of contact information. So remember to log in. +grin+