I once saw a TED talk by philosopher Stephen Cave and he gave a reason why we should not fear death that I think should resonate with anyone who is passionate about reading. I do not think paraphrasing would do his words justice so I have copied them here without editing.

"I find it helps to see life as being like a book: Just as a book is bounded by its covers, by beginning and end, so our lives are bounded by birth and death, and even though a book is limited by beginning and end, it can encompass distant landscapes, exotic figures, fantastic adventures. And even though a book is limited by beginning and end, the characters within it know no horizons. They only know the moments that make up their story, even when the book is closed. And so the characters of a book are not afraid of reaching the last page. Long John Silver is not afraid of you finishing your copy of 'Treasure Island.'"

I think that this is a wonderful sentiment, especially given the fact that I gravitate towards the Harry Potter fandom which deals with this quite extensively.

Published Stories:

Summer Serendipity - Complete

Songfic written to ’Something in the way she moves’ by The Beatles.

Twelve Failed Ways to Charm a Witch - Complete

A fic that was written as a gift for the essential workers who are keeping the rest of us going during a difficult time. The prompt was to write an ”eighth year” fic and keep it under 2000 words. The fic is not 2000 words.

Looking at Hermione - Complete

Songfic written to ’Cries in vain’ by Bullet for my Valentine.

Witches’ Night - Complete

Songfic written to ’Gimme gimme gimme’ by ABBA.

Dare to Dream - Complete

Written for the facebook group Harmony & Co. for their 2k member anniversary.

An Earnest Vow - Complete

A Harmony marriage fic where Ron's not the bad guy because just bashing gets boring.

Endgame - Complete

The obligatory "Ron ran away, now what?" fic that everyone who writes Harmony has to do at some point. I hope to keep it away from bashing and lead it more towards everyone having reasons for what they're doing.

The Truth About Rumours - Complete

A bit of a love letter to my readers to thank them for sticking with me for my first year writing HP fanfics.

Summer Nights - Complete

A challenge piece. I just wanted to show Harry and Hermione getting some support from someone who doesn't really know what they are or what they mean to the world they inhabit.

Intended - Complete

A one shot requested by a reader. It's not my usual fare, but I decided to do it so that I could practice writing something a little outside my comfort zone. I'm still not sure what I think about it, but hey, I'll put it up.

Healing Hermione - Complete

A magical whodunnit based on the story To Break the Curse by the late great broomstick flyer. Posted with the permission of her husband.

Strange Reflections - Complete

My stab at a dimension travel story, only rather than sending Harry who knows where, his family from another dimension come to the one we know right after the end of the war. The two Harry's are confronted with the differences that have been caused by their respective histories and the world around them gets to see one alternative for who Harry Potter could have been. This turned into a political drama since getting integrated in a new society couldn't be anything less.

The Mischief Maker's Mistletoe - Complete

A christmas present based on the thoughts of a reviewer of my Last Chance story.

Picnic Panic - Complete

A one-shot that became a two-shot and then a three chapter story due to excessive length. Just a fluffy little Ron-bash, which looks strange as a description now that I write it down, but that's what it is.

Harry Potter and the Last Chance: Deleted Scenes - On Hiatus

All the things that I had in mind while I wrote Last Chance that didn't make it into the story itself. Some bits are just for fun and some are so you understand what the characters were doing 'off screen'. Published to coincide with the cinematic release of JKR's fanfic of her own story: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. It's on hiatus because I'm not sure something like this is ever 'complete'.

Polyjuice Cocktail - Complete

Something that I never realised was rattling around in my brain. It came out late one night and once I'd written it I decided to just put it up anyway.

Revealing Perspectives - Complete

After writing Last Chance I noticed that most of the reviews and PMs addressed the way the characters were developed, or rather the amount of their development that I left up to insinuation. This is a story that I used to practice being more explicit in why my characters act the way they do. I also tried out a slightly different narrative style in the spirit of improvement through exploration. I tried to build the story more on dialogue than actions. To help myself achieve this I cut out any action/adventure aspects and let the character interactions drive the story. The result isn't a grand adventure but rather three teenagers discovering that the world does not necessarily work according to their assumptions because people may not think the way you assume that they do.

Harry Potter and the Last Chance - Complete

This story is based off of several frustrations with the usual responses to Reptillia28's challenge. Among others: Harry's reaper knows everything about everyone who's been messing with Harry's life so that he doesn't complete his destiny, but can't seem to remember anything about the extremely vital soulmate; the reaper gives Harry a how-to list that sucks any and all conflict out of the story; Harry actually accepts that this being has his best interests at heart and doesn't bother questioning whether he should be following this advice at all; Harry tells Hermione about their soul bond and she accepts this with zero evidence or critical thinking; a little future knowledge and all Harry's schemes go off without a hitch; finally, the soul bond itself: it is, in my opinion, completely superfluous and a mark of poor writing to simply shove the characters together without allowing their relationship to grow, so I have downplayed it as much as possible. There are certain other cliches that I wanted to avoid but that simply followed as a result of the challenge as it is presented. Specifically from the problem of why has Harry failed to accomplish his destiny so far.

I've learnt a lot from how people react to various parts of the story; or at least how reviewers react. I will try to take that knowledge and use it to better craft future stories.

Here is UrsaMinor's interpertation of Dobby from chapter 6 onward. You'll have to remove the excess spaces:
http:// /art/ Dobby-wearing-dungarees-and-a-beret- 611187216

Finding Your Way - Abandoned

You may be wondering why I am leaving up a story that I abandoned after 3 chapters and honestly have no intention of finishing. It's so that I have constant reminder of the pitfalls of not properly planning out a story and just writing off into the sunset. It doesn't work and this way I will hopefully never do it again.