"Perfection is like a bar of soap: once you get a small hold on it, it slips from your grasp and lands on your toe."

Holtemore Harold - Fanfic News!

Gravestones COMPLETE, along with my fanfic career

September 5, 2007

I have finally completed Gravestones, which I'm sure many of you appreciate, considering 26 of you have put it on alert. It's a fairly good ending, I think, and I hope you all like it. I enjoyed writing it, anyway.

I would also like to announce that, with this completed fic, I am officially done with my fanfiction writing career. Perhaps in a few years I'll write one or two more, but by then there probably won't be any audience for HP fanfics. That idea is sort of strange, since I've spent so much of my life submerged in the world of fanfiction. But not anymore.

I don't want to make this seem extremely sad. The reason I'm setting aside fanfiction is so that I can finally write my own books. I want to please a greater audience with ideas that are entirely my own. I have a book in mind that I've had to put on hold for two and a half years now, because I wasn't ready at first, and then I had fanfiction to settle, and it just wouldn't work. But now, with my writing skills sharpened through the fanfiction world, I am ready to set pen to paper.

I feel that the ending to Gravestones is highly symbolic of my leaving you all. You'll have to read it to see, but I think you should understand once you get to the very end.

Look for me on the shelves in a few years! I think I'm going to be under "J. Holtemore." If I put it under my real name, I will let you guys know.

Until then, this is Julia Holtemore signing off.

Cheers!

J. Holtemore

My standards regarding fanfic-- I firmly oppose any of the following: slash, sex, excessive swearing, excessive drugs, and extreme violence. They aren't canon and I therefore don't like them, not to mention they go against everything I stand for. Anyway, if you have those same fanfic standards and are a sucker for the Harry/Ginny relationship, check out my C2 called "Good Clean HarryGinny."

My beta and best friend, HoofsTails Gal, has helped me immensely on PFM, and I can't even express my gratitude. She writes Supernatural and Smallville fics, and they're AWESOME!! You can check them out at Hoofs' Profile.

Name: Mary Julia ("Julia Holtemore" is not my real name, guys)

Location: Virginia, USA (Native to California, though. I'm just in VA for college)

Age: Nineteen as of May 4th

Time Zone: Eastern Time (-5)

Religion: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Hobbies: Writing (of course), theatre, reading, eating, sleeping, hanging out with friends, drawing, spending time with my family, cooking, playing with my 13 nieces and nephews, etc.

Having reread and thought about the plots of my fanfics, I want to say that these fanfics were to improve my own writing in style, plot, and character development, and I hope no one thinks less of me for my somewhat juvenile choices in this past writing. I wrote fanfiction to please myself, and though that made me passionate about my writing, it also made for girly, overly-sympathetic and dramatic plotlines. I hope you don't try to take these works too seriously and instead try to enjoy them as... crowd pleasers, as you will. Thank you for being such wonderful and enthusiastic readers! Cheers!

-J.H. May 9, 2008