My Bio: I am an adult female and I work in a library! Tread cautiously, or I'll shush you silly...

Just kidding. Actually, there's really not much to say about myself, except that I love romantic absurdity, funny anime (Slayers, Trigun, Nadesico, Ranma, Patlabor, Full Metal Panic, etc.), and enjoy a good discussion, especially about characters. And I rarely bite. ^_~ (Even though I am an admitted canon thumper! Just maybe not so diehard about it anymore.) Basically, anime is a hobby for me, and so is writing. I really love writing, though.

Current status of works in progress: (as of August 2010)

To put it mildly, I've had an extremely full and busy past 1 1/2 year - not that I'm complaining! But it certainly put writing down at the bottom of the to-do list. Well, only time will tell if I'll ever have the same amount of free time to work with ever again, but I'll do what I can. I do enjoy writing after all. :)

Newer Stuff:

Bittersweet Sixteen - updated, "Turnabout, Pt. 3"
Unparalleled Teamwork - updated, "A Master's Evaluation"

Older Stuff:

Morning Sickness - up to "Imagining Things, Pt.2."
Ginny Weasley and the Red Shoes - hiatus

Miscellaneous Stuff:

The Scent of Grass and Flowers is technically considered complete, being as it's only a collection of one-shots and added to when inspiration strikes. Although I'm generally following the "30 Kisses" theme set, this doesn't mean I'll ever hit thirty installments. Just thought you should know.

This is a link to the one-shot story "Cradle" - I would like very much to pull it out by itself for people who would like that, but it's against fanfiction.net rules. So here it is in my livejournal account: http://mascotterra.livejournal.com/19782.html#cutid1

My Random Musings (i.e. general pointless comments)

Some of my favorite pairings (because it's what we do)
(Slayers) Amelia ~ Zelgadis
(Trigun) Vash ~ Meryl
(Harry Potter) Harry ~ Ginny
(Naruto) Ino ~ Shikamaru
(Nadesico) Akito ~ Yurika
(Fullmetal Alchemist) Ed ~ Winry
(Full Metal Panic!) Sosuke ~ Kaname
(Inu Yasha) Sesshomaru ~ Rin
(Bleach) Ichigo ~ Orihime
(Ouran High School Host Club) Tamaki ~ Haruhi

I guess it should go without saying that there are many other pairings in the above shows that I'm friendly towards, others that I'm neutral, and still others that I detest... but, really, that's hardly unique and I feel no call to list them out. But I'm very faithful to what I like, that's for sure!

The Writer's Corner (i.e. things learned in the trenches)

(Note: the following only meant for serious would-be fanfic writers. Pretty much pointless to anyone else. Not meant to be a diatribe.)

I've seen a lot of profiles wherein someone admits that they haven't yet made the step toward posting their writing. It's hard to take that first step - putting yourself out there for any and all to criticize. Writing is rather personal (well, it is for me in any case). But if you're really serious about writing someday - you have to start somewhere, and this is a great place to practice. Why not go ahead and use the opportunity? True, the initial execution can be kind of ugly, but I promise you, if you stick at it, you will improve. Heck, you would almost have to. ^_~

Forgive me while I gratuitously point out the ugly truths behind my development as a writer.

My first big hangup (aside from a lack of confidence) was coming up with a "great" story idea. I was/am the kind who wants to know my ending before I write anything. Sadly, it can take a very long time to come up with anything "worthy" this way, and eventually what got me started was something a lot of us do - I copied something everyone else was doing. Yep, it was a fanfic cliche. Additionally, I broke two fic "rules" without even knowing it: the story was written in script style, and I made liberal use of ALL-CAPS. But it was my very first story! If I hadn't written this story, it's hard to say when I ever would have gotten around to doing anything other than reading.

Still short on ideas but at least a bit braver, my next two efforts were another novice fic writer's "no-no" (depending on whom you ask): songfics. This format is known to provoke strong reactions - either you're fine with them or you really dislike them, enough that the format alone will keep people from even giving the story a chance. But they were extremely useful in teaching me how to plot out a story.

Somewhere between these two songfic, I wrote a MST (not posted here, thankfully.) And yes, once again I managed to blow even a few of the good MST writing rules. (Taste being one of them.) I like to think it did help me with writing humor, but that might be too generous.

And then I wrote another script-style story. (I HEART ALL-CAPS)

After that, I finally had the guts to try my hand at a multi-chaptered story. Which I did - and started a second one besides. Neither of which I've finished as of this writing... and we're talking close to a decade here. Not a very nice thing to do, I know, although it was around this time that I pretty much gave up writing and fandom in general.

I suppose the upshot of all this is that when I did eventually return to writing, I could finally see that none of this had been a total waste of time and effort. I learned a lot by screwing up. It's much easier to write now (not a piece of cake, mind you. But easier nonetheless.) I would have hated to have let ten years go by without writing anything, only to be starting at square one today. And of course I'm still growing as a writer, with lots of room for improvement (as I am reminded of whenever I hear from an opinionated reviewer.) As for technique, I still mess up my spelling, my punctuation is a little unusual, and apparently I love run-on sentences, split infinitives, and adverbs waaay too much. Yet no matter what grief I may get for it, this is how I've grown to write... and I'm thankful for that!

So don't be afraid to post your first story. That's all I'm saying.