The Mirror in my Mind

The Great Write Meme. You're protected by anonymity, so tell me anything you really think about my writing. No, really, I mean it.

And now hopefully back to figure skating...

Whereas you’ve pointed out that much “great literature” bears many affinities with what nowadays gets called “genre fiction.”

Right. Shakespeare was a genre writer, down the line, never wrote outside his genre. He was not an innovator. Because it’s really quite a recent idea, that the best books have no genre. You know, if they’re literary fiction, then they have to be genre-free. It’s a very, very new idea. And most of the books we study as academics are firmly within one genre or another. Not to compare myself to Shakespeare. But I think you’d have to be a fool as a writer not to apprentice yourself to the very best in your field.

To read the rest of the article, go here.

Take *that*, Creative Writing programme!

::flounces off to pick up seminar readings::

(I hope you don't mind that this letter is backdated; I tend to keep my fandom stuff filtered and locked.)

Dear rarewomen Author--

First of all, thank you! As you have already noticed, I am sure, my requests are scattershot to say the least, so I am incredibly grateful for your efforts and I know I'll love whatever you write for me.

You can find a large percentage of my obscure-fandom fic here on AO3, and in the following communities on LJ (along with fic I read and love): dw_historical, thisengland, the_phrensies, femgenficathon, and ides_of_april. I've also got a selection of Harry Potter fic archived here.

I am happy with gen, het, or slash (M/M and F/F both). Whatever best fits the story you want to tell.

Things I love: Complicated, nuanced relationships; siblings and friends bothering one another; clever characters being clever; clever characters being idiots (in-character idiots, of course); longing; UST; emphasizin ur wimminz (see icon); Gothic undertones; classical allusions/references; musical references; historical references; Grand Epic Moments; genfic with just a bit of romance; snark; period detail (I am an absolute sucker for it); moral ambiguity; unreliable narrators; gut-punch endings.

Things I do not love so much: PWP, explicit kink (unless it's required by the plot), dubious or coerced consent (unless it's genuinely in-character, i.e. Melisande Shahrizai); characters behaving unrealistically for the time period/canon; invisible wimminz; using magic to explain things away (I'm looking at you, Philippa Gregory); using romance to explain things away; gratuitous violence.

Requests:
Large Fandom: Doctor Who (New)
Women: [Reinette, Nancy]
Optional Details: The episodes where these characters appear are hands-down my favourite episodes of Who ever because I love how they play with the historical record and twist it into timey-wimeyness. Reinette isn't defined by her encounters with the Doctor; neither is Nancy, and I would love to read fic about who they were before and what they became after.

I have found Madame de Pompadour fascinating for years, and I personally love what Steven Moffat did with her in The Girl in the Fireplace. I loved that she was clever and brave but also selfish and impulsive and arrogant. What I'd love to know about her is what happened in between those visits from the Doctor. Did she still have imaginary conversations with him? Did she convince herself that he no longer existed? How did having that moment with Fireplace Man and the clockwork creature shape everything that came after?

Nancy too seems to have so much untold about her and if you'd rather write about her, I'd just like to know more. Where did she come from? What is her story?

Fandom 2 (large or small): Kushiel's Legacy - Jacqueline Carey
Women: Melisande Shahrizai
Optional Details: We know next to nothing about Melisande before she appears in Kushiel's Dart. I want to know where she came from and how she became the woman we meet in canon.

Apparently I am just a sucker for backstory. One of the things I quite enjoyed about the Imriel novels was how he tried to define and redefine himself both within and against the Shahrizai family, and all of that is so utterly tied up with Melisande and what she signifies. What I'd love to know is her story. How much is real and how much is myth? How does Melisande really see the world? What was her relationship with Anafiel Delaunay and his whisperers? Did she ever have Imriel's doubts about her family and her bloodline? How did she negotiate being a woman of Kushiel's line in a world (and a family) dominated by men?

Fandom 3 (large or small, totally optional): The Borgias
Women: Any
Optional Details: The women on this show are brilliant and I love them. Just let them be their awesome selves.

Pretty much what it says on the tin. I adore Lucrezia with all my heart so anything with her would make me absurdly happy. Lucrezia/Cesare is fine, as is Lucrezia/Giulia. That being said, I'd be happy with any fic about the women in the series. What makes me absurdly happy in any scenario is fic that melds series!canon with historical detail--it's a time period that I absolutely love reading and writing about and it's so incredibly rich with detail, so if you'd like to speculate on the future of the series using what we know really happened, please, do it!