AUTHOR OF THE MONTH

The White Lily

by Eterah

Many of us have read and admired the 5-award winner of last year’s Orion Awards. Those who have read her works like His Son’s Father and this year’s repeatedly nominated On Becoming an Axiom, can note her characterization and her perfect diction. But behind those words and the title of Judge Coordinator of the Orion Awards, there is a young woman with a job and a husband. For this issue’s feature article, I have the privilege of interviewing her for the benefit of our readers! And now, for the context!

How did it feel to be rewarded with so many awards last year?

It was a fantastic feeling. When I was first nominated, I was totally stoked just at the nomination and the idea that someone thought I was even in the same league as people like Blue Yeti and AgiVega. To actually win was... simply incredible to me.

What is your favorite story that you've written?

Hmmm, that changes day to day, and as it gets longer and longer from the time I've written them I get more and more concerned about the flaws I discover. I still love His Son's Father, but it's starting to lose a little of its luster as I think of bits and pieces where I could have done things better. I'd probably have to say The Mother of Invention, because it's still really shiny in my mind and I can't imagine having been able to do a better job at anything I did there. Or perhaps And in Health, which remains my favorite drabble despite having taken not that long to write.

You must write a lot, then. Do you know how many fics you've written?

*laughs* Well, you need to realize that the fics I've actually put up on the website are just the tip of the iceberg. I've got thirteen fics actually posted (twenty-seven if I count drabbles individually) - but on my hard drive, I've got around forty-five semi-complete fics, around sixty if I count the ones where the flash wasn't strong enough to carry it over a single page. But the thing is, I *love* all these fics. I love them all, and I want all of them to be finished and polished and posted, but... I'm a slow writer and a perfectionist, and I can't write anything if I can't block off the time for myself to do so well.

Every time I think of them I'll go back to add a couple of paragraphs to one or the other - and then remember why I abandoned them and get distracted by something else. Another problem that leads to my abandoning fics without ever showing them to anyone is that I write completely out of order. Completely. Some fics I have a first scene - or a first chapter for - but that's it. I usually start with the climax and work my way back - and what I have written for the earlier chapters usually gets totally revamped by the time I'm actually finished. His Son's Father, for example, actually started as a St Bartelby's fic where Artemis wrote a letter home to his mother and mock-fought his father and his teachers over whether he should attend physical education or not. And that was all stuff I'd actually written. Um... yeah, as those who've read it know, it ended up kind of different. :) So I can't even post the first few chapters of my half-finished fics, because even if I've written them, they'll probably change by the time I'm finished!

What is a favorite story that you've read?

There's so many - and they come and go in my memory because I've reread them or thought about them recently. Um... I love everything Yeti writes. Maybe Aquarium, because it's shiny and fishy and I helped grease the circuit boards of the Blue Goddess’s keyboard as she was writing it. I keep rereading it, and I keep loving it.

So, we heard you made it to 50k for NaNoWriMo! How was it? Do you plan to release your novel?

It was a strange feeling, actually. I think I'd built up the expectation of what it would feel like to reach 50K to be something it wasn't, because... when I got there, I just felt pretty numb. Of course now I'm over the sleep deprivation and the mental exhaustion, it's awesome to know that I'm know that I've actually managed to carve out an awesome chunk of my very first original novel. Of course, I'm only a tiny step of the way there to having it finished.

While I've tipped over 50K and officially finished the story from beginning to end, there's a great deal more left to do, and thinking about the vast quantities left to do tends to get me down a little. I think I've probably actually got at least another 50K left to write in interwoven alternate character plotlines. Still, it all depends on how I look at it - I've come this far in only a month, maybe I just need to find another month I can devote myself to writing and sit down and do it! Unfortunately, with the Orion judging coming up... that's not likely to happen until April.

As for releasing my novel - once it's properly polished up, I'll send it around to some publishers. It probably won't get picked up, but... at least it'll show me the ropes so that I'll know what to do in my next attempt. :)

You've been nominated for several Orions this year. How does that make you feel?

I'm honored, really. Of course there's some pretty tough competition this year, including some of my personal favorite fics, so I'm on the edge of my seat waiting for how it all turns out!

You're Judge Coordinator, also, at OA. What are your responsibilities there?

My job is to make sure the judging goes smoothly. Last year we had a number of hiccups in the process, not least of all that no one had a clue what we were doing, or how much work we were letting ourselves in for! :) This year should hopefully run a whole lot smoother, since we generally have more experience as well as a number of new judges to spread the workload around more.

I've made the timetable and put together the judging panels for each category based on which judges prefer to judge which areas, etc, assigned the category chairs to mediate the discussions for each panel. And come judging season I'll be marching around with a whip and a long stick to poke judges with!

Anyone who wants to help us out more would be very welcome, and should not feel the least bit of embarrassment in volunteering! We'd love to have you on board, no matter what your level of expertise.

Wow, you're really busy! Doesn't all of your work at OA, on your stories, and in real life get overwhelming sometimes?

Absolutely! I just can't stand by and watch something being mismanaged or unmanaged - I step in and put in the hard yards necessary to make things work. A few months ago, I got so bad at simply saying "yes" to whatever anyone asked that my husband had me chanting 'I will not take on any more responsibilities' after him.

Sadly, it's my writing that tends to suffer first when I'm overworked, or even feeling vaguely under pressure. I need uninterrupted thought-space to write, and that either happens when the inspiration's so strong that it simply pushes everything else aside, or when I'm totally up-to-date in everything, and haven't a single job left to do. But I tend to go in cycles. I take on more and more and more work until I'm so busy that I don't have time to eat or sleep and then... slack about [by] reading in another fandom where I don't feel so guilty for not reviewing for a few weeks before I start building up another load of work.

What types of things do you get inspiration from?

Usually two places. I get these really intense *flashes* every now and then. I don't have a visual imagination at all, but when I get a picture in my mind it's... just unbelievably intense. I get the feeling, the emotion, the unspecific emotional history of that point ,all along with this vivid picture of that single snap-shotted moment in time.

Sometimes I get them watching TV, sometimes reading a magazine, sometimes I get them driving the car alone at night - I actually ended up writing an entire short fic while I was driving one night chanting the lines that came to me over and over until I had practically the whole thing memorized and went home and just typed it out it. That was probably the fastest I've ever written anything save a drabble. Sometimes it's a dream that starts the whole thing, and I'll get a flash about something I dreamt the night before.

But once I've had a flash, however it started, it's inevitable that I'll start dreaming about it, bits and pieces that don't even really make sense, but when I go to write it'll just slot into place. That is, until my inspiration runs dry and I'm left with a half-finished fic and the hard work's only just about to start. :)

I get "plot bunnies" all the time - things I think would be cool, ideas I have about slotting this bit into that one and concepts I want to explore - I can have them plotted out - who's who, what happens where, etc. But unless I have that flash or series of dreams with it, I never even start writing.

I must ask – what's your favorite genre to write?

Oh, I don't think I have a favorite. I find it easiest to write angst, but I find it most rewarding to resist my natural angsty urges and write something heartwarming with the tiniest angsty kick. Or something mind-blowing with an angsty kick. Or something humorous with an angsty kick. Or something that sets your heart racing underpinned by a thread of angst. Seeing the pattern? I like writing all sorts of things, but angst all by itself doesn't satisfy me – it gets boring. But nothing I write is right without that angsty kick, and I love it when I hit that part of the greater whole.

You don't seem like the angsty type of person, Lily. LOL. I can say On Becoming an Axiom was definitely heartwarming but His Son's Father was one of the best angsty kick in the pants I've read. Even so, some people have a personal reason for writing something, while others just want good reviews. So, I guess my next question would be which genre do you dislike writing - and reading? Or the genre you've experienced the most... disappointments in?

Hmmm. I have to write for myself, always. I can and do take criticism or advice on board, but unless it's happening in *my* mind, I can't possibly write what I need to. It's probably the main reason that I have all these unfinished fics on my hard drive - I wrote them because it was important to me to write them. Reviews are fantastic, reviews make me glow, reviews make me *want* to write that next thing because they make me understand that I can touch other people with the words I write - but I've never got "what will people think?" in mind while I'm writing. "Will people understand what I mean?" is a different question, and one that I consider constantly, but whether it's something that people will like almost never occurs to me.

I suppose humor and parody are the genres where I've experienced the most disappointments. Some of my favorite fics - Idiot Savant, Improvisation, An Unexpected Visit - are humor that just... *hits the spot*. Many of my favorite books - Good Omens, The Princess Bride - and movies - Galaxy Quest, Mystery Men, The Incredibles - are parodies that don't forget that the first rule of parody is to love your object. But there's such a fine line between good humor or parody and a complete flop, and it's always disappointing when a fic falls on the wrong side of that line.

Now I'm thinking about it again - perhaps it's romance poorly done that bugs me the most (although why I'm still in the Lois&Clark fandom in that case, I've got no idea)! I generally like reading more unconventional pairings because people put *work* into making those pairings work. Things like Artemis/Holly, Harry/Ginny, Ron/Hermione, or the dreaded Harry/Hermione are wonderful to read when they're done well, but they're all-too-often considered "obvious" by the author. So while they tell their particular story about how it all happened, the fundamental changes the characters *must* undergo when beginning or considering a relationship are often glossed over, misrepresented, or considered so obvious that they're not even mentioned.

Basically, the thing that disappoints me most isn't any one genre - it's seeing stories not living up to the potential they could and should be realizing.

As far as a genre I dislike writing... well, I don't think I've found one, yet. Genre has to suit the story you're writing - just as everything down to the sentence structure should suit the story – and if the bunny I'm working with suits a certain genre, that's what I write. Any genre is difficult to write if you're not in the right mood or the bunny isn't cooperating - conversely, any genre is easy to write if I am in the right mood, or the bunny *does* cooperate.

As you can see, The White Lily is a busy young woman that has her own ways of doing things. Thanks for letting me interview you, Lily, and thanks to everyone reading this for getting through all 5 pages of her answers! (Yes, her interview ended up being 5 pages!). We all look forward to reading the rest of her fics (when she gets around to finishing them).