1. How did you first get into writing fanfic, and what was the first fandom you wrote for? What do you think it was about that fandom that pulled you in?
I just had to go check my fanfiction.net account (which still exists and is as vaguely embarrassing as you’d expect, given that it’s 12 years old) but I think the answer is Harry Potter. It’s either that or a desperately terrible Houshin Engi songfic, which was written around the same time as my very first forays into HP fandom.
HP was a gateway drug for a lot of people, and while it wasn’t the first fandom I read in it was definitely the first one I was tempted to participate in. It was just such a broad church - whatever you were interested in, there were bound to be other people interested in it and willing to discuss it.
In terms of writing, I have to give credit to a few older writers who were willing to give a young and unformed fan the time of day, and spent quality time talking fics out with me and beta reading my efforts. Without that encouragement I probably wouldn’t have kept going.
13. Do you prefer canon or non-canon when you write? Has writing fanfic for a fandom changed the way you see some or even all of the original source material?
I’m guessing ‘non-canon’ refers to AUs? I do enjoy writing AUs, especially in fandoms where the canon makes it very difficult to give my pairing anything like a happy ending (see: pretty much all my pairings). But I also enjoy exploring or extrapolating canon in a new direction, and that’s the basis of a lot of my non-AU work.
Most of my football fic has footnotes, which probably says something about my enjoyment of the little details of canon.
Writing fic has often changed how I think about certain characters. If I have to get into someone’s head to write them, I often come out of it liking them more. (e.g. I didn’t love Xavi Hernandez until I wrote his origin story.)
25. Music – Do you listen to music while you write? Do you make playlists to get into a certain “mood” to write your fic? Do you need noise in general? Or do you need it completely quiet?
I do often have songs I use to get in the correct mindset for a certain character or fic. For example:
Noah and the Whale and Such Great Heights by the Postal Service if I’m writing Baby Dream Team fic.
Indietro over and over when I was writing Xavi’s story because of this video (from the documentary Xavi 550).
I have an entire playlist for Pep Guardiola, but the main song is probably Que tinguem sort by Luis Llach. (It’s his favourite song, and the one they played on the tannoy during his second farewell. They played With or Without You during his first farewell, because that is the type of relationship Pep has with Barca.)
No Church in the Wild and the Kooks’ cover of Pumped Up Kicks when I’m writing A Conspiracy of Ravens. Not 100% sure why on that one. To invoke the tension and paranoia, maybe?
Gun and Lies, both by Chvrches, are my Will Graham songs.
Poison and Wine by the Civil Wars, the Stand By Me cover from the s2 trailer and Vide Cor Meum from Hannibal (the film) for marvelous are your works.