By Nicola Simpson

(interviewed October-December, 2000)

Dasha K posted her first story, "Night Vigil" in March 1998. She maintains that it was "AWFUL" and therefore not on her web site, so don’t go looking for it. She lost count of her output at story #50. As for awards…

I don't know how many I've been nominated for and won. I'd guess that I've won something like fifteen Spooky Awards, but to be perfectly honest, I don't like to talk about them. While it's been an honor to win them, there always seems to be such ugliness and resentment about the award process. I heard a LOT of second-hand backbiting about the awards I won after last year's Spookys and it really hurt my feelings. I'm sort of confused about the whole thing and I'm still considering dropping out of this year's Spooky Awards.

Oh, no, I don't want to sound completely down on fanfic awards. I think that the Spooky Awards are very well-run and are generally fair. The Spooky volunteers put in a huge amount of time and effort. It's been a huge honor for me to win the awards that I have.

I just think that the fanfic world is often rife with petty jealousy and back-talking. And believe me, I don't exempt myself from that. We all do, it's natural. But people get so weird about awards. I've seen friends in tears because they didn't win anything. I've seen insanely talented writers suddenly convinced that their writing sucks because they didn't win something. I've seen people whom I thought were friends of mine suddenly telling others that I didn't deserve the awards I won, that I had no talent and I was all hype. I've seen writers out and out campaign during the nomination process. It's just kind of...icky and hurtful.

But like I said before, I have mixed emotions about the whole thing. I think that any time something creative is praised and honored, that's a wonderful thing. On the other hand, awards can turn otherwise normal people into temporary maniacs. But can you imagine how Hollywood gets during Oscar season? Oy!

The first stories I really loved were by some of the "classic" writers. I adored Lydia Bower, Jill Selby, Shalimar, etc. But I was really moved and excited by some of the newer writers at the time, whom I got to read and know through the now-defunct XAPEN mailing list. I remember, in my first fanfic year, being just blown away by the honest angst of Nascent's casefiles, by the edginess of Jennifer-Oksana's "Choirgirl" series, by the incredible imagery of jordan's "A Cold Angel Eye," and Plausible Deniability's searing humor in "The Carrot and the Stick" and "The Clock Watcher" and the precise third party perspective of Gwendolyn's "Silhouettes." I felt like I was reading this amazing new writers and getting so much inspiration from the way they took chances and broke new ground.

There was a period of about a year when belonging to XAPEN was a rare treat. It seemed like just about every writer posting there was horrifically talented and was pushing new ground. It was also one of the few venues where slash and gen writers mixed and mingled freely, where I'd get feedback from slash writers on MSR and slash writers would be praised to the skies by shippers. I *gorged* on fanfic then. XAPEN also helped me feel free to push the boundaries of my writing-- to try Skinner/Scully and Scullyslash and even Mulder/Krycek (which I wrote under a different pen name).

As for my voice, it was a struggle finding it. I think that my first dozen or so stories weren't told the way I really wanted to tell them. I was still working on trying to keep the grammar and spelling clean, to figure out quotation marks and I was muddling through finding characterization. It took the precise touch of Plausible Deniability, my friend and beta reader, to help me find my own voice as a writer. I'd say that the first stories I told that read the way I wanted them to were probably in the Red Valerian series. They just flowed out of me over time and I was so surprised that I could tell a story in the voice of a gruff, macho, ex-Marine in his late forties. In the beginning, I could only tell a story from Scully's POV and here I was doing Skinner! It felt very freeing. But I couldn't have done it without my beta readers and without Plausible Deniability giving me his encouragement and honesty.

The best thing you can do to find your voice as a writer is to write. Simple as that. Write, write and write some more. Don't worry if it feels like what you're writing is crap. That's okay. Give yourself permission to write crap. You certainly don't have to post your story if you feel like it's really inferior, but at least you got the words out.

Also, read a lot. Read a lot of fanfic, but also read books. Reading is like food to a writer. You need to feed yourself with lots of literature to be a good writer yourself. While you're reading something that you enjoy, ask yourself some questions. Why is this working for me? What is it about this author's voice and point of view that makes it good? What is making the language flow and sing to me?

Don't tell a story unless you really are moved to do so. Don't write a fanfic story because you want to write one, or because your friend asked you to or because you're in study hall and bored. Wait for an idea to come to you. Let the idea itch at the back of your neck until it's driving you insane and that's all that you can think about.

Or not. Really, what do I know? <g>

Writers can definitely write without beta readers or belonging to lists, and be successful at it, too, but it makes it a whole lot harder. For me, I just get too close to my stories to be able to judge them objectively. I need outside input from people I trust. A good example is the work in progress I'm currently writing, "Thicker Than Water." I wrote my last chapter and sent it off to my beta readers and I was actually quite surprised when one of them had some very strong objections to the way I was portraying my original character, Susannah. It stung a bit and then I sat myself down and really thought about it and realized that my beta reader was dead right. I was just too close to Susannah and her story to see that the way I'd written her in the latest chapter sounded forced and artificial. And the chapter came out much better thanks to the gentle honesty of my beta.

Granted, you don't have to take your beta reader's advice every time. I've certainly ignored bits and pieces of advice I've gotten. But the thing is that I work with people I trust, whom I admire as writers. And I know that they're giving me constructive criticism not to hurt me but to make my story the best it can be. So, in the end, I usually gratefully take their corrections and advice.

I couldn't continue to write without the honesty, hard work and dedication of my beta readers. Nearly everything I've learned about writing and the English language has been thanks to them. :::pours a margarita for beta readers:::

Mailing lists are a beautiful thing. The tone is completely different from ATXC. The newsgroup is unmoderated, which is good. The fanfic world needs a place where we can rant, piss, moan, be silly, be off-topic. Even the flame wars are a necessary evil, in my opinion. But mailing lists are different. Usually they have a tone set by the moderator(s). If someone misbehaves, flames or just acts idiotic on-list, there's always the option of kicking them off.

There are literally hundreds of lists for writers and readers of X-Files fanfic to choose from these days, which is nice. No matter what your teeny, tiny specialty is, there's a list for you. Are you a teenaged writer looking for other teenagers to chat with? There's a list for you. Do you want to read and discuss stories about Skinner spanking Mulder? Yep-- there's a list for that, too. You can find kindred spirits to talk to and support for your own writing.

ATXC, for me, has mostly been a place for me to drop by and glance at the weirdness. Sometimes I get involved, but usually I sit back and lurk. I'm much more involved with the mailing list world. Actually, I only belong to a few lists these days. The biggest and most important would have to be Scullyfic, since I'm one of the list administrators. For my money, you can't beat it as a list. (Okay, maybe I'm a *little* prejudiced, but I felt this way long before I became an admin.) First of all, some of the best writers in fanfic post stories there. The list is structured around a daily topic which relates to the show (especially Scully-centric things), or fanfic, or writing in general. There's very little off-topicness on the list, yet it still manages to be a silly, lighthearted and fun list a lot of the time.

I've made some of my best fic friends on this list. And the best part is that there is a consistently adult tone to the list. There's very little backbiting and in-fighting and the members always seem to have a lot of respect for each other. It's a rare and wonderful place to hang out. The only drawback is the high volume of posts to the list. We have 500 members (in fact, we have a cap of 500 members so that the list doesn't go completely insane with posts) and that often means more than 100 posts a day. Still, it's my favorite place to be on the net.

That was probably the biggest challenge in writing "Blinded by White Light." How could I write Mulder and Scully as people who had lost the vast majority of their memories of life pre-colonization and still make them recognizable to the reader as the characters they see on TV? I first got the idea for the story right after I discovered fan fiction and I tried to write it but I found it too difficult. I don't think I was ready as a writer to tackle that challenge. So I sort of let the idea simmer in the back of my brain and then one day last fall I felt like I was ready to finally try it.

What I did was think about what made up Mulder and Scully's characters, what made them who they are. And then I tried to incorporate those things into their BBWL characterizations. For example, there's a scene near the beginning, just after Mulder and Scully "meet." They're at a park with Sarah, Mulder's wife, and their kids, and Mulder shares with Scully this theory he has about the Others. He questions their benevolent motives and wonders if the surviving humans really only spent a few months in stasis, or if it was actually years while the Others used them for experimentation. I wrote that scene not to cast doubt on the Others (in my mind, they are a benevolent people), but to show that even without his memories, Mulder is still Mulder-- he's always questioning things, casting doubt on the status quo, trying to dig deeper and figure out what's really going on.

I enjoyed the chance to play with their characters a little bit. As the line in the story goes, "What are we, but the sum of our memories?" Who are Mulder and Scully without their life experiences and memories? They're sort of warmer and fuzzier versions of themselves, domesticated in the new world order. They're not out chasing mutants and aliens but they have 9-5 jobs, spouses and kids. They're renovating kitchens and reading "Jerry the Blue Spaceship" to their children. But I tried to show that they're still themselves. Scully refuses to accept the common practice of ignoring her lost years, even at the cost of the stability of her marriage. She needs the truth and so does Mulder.

Honestly, I think that creating the setting for the story was the most fun part of writing BBWL. I would almost cackle with glee when I thought up something cool.

First of all, I wanted my story to be a bit different than most post-col stories. You're right-- "Brazil" versus "Mad Max" is a good way of putting it. With all due respect to other post-col stories, I wanted it to be something besides Mulder and Scully fighting nature and aliens in a barren landscape. My first thought for the story was-- what if the post-colonization world wasn't so bad? In fact, what if Scully had everything in her life she wanted except one thing, she couldn't remember her past and Mulder?

I have to admit (and I do admit this in the author's notes) that I borrowed some of the elements for the setting of this future world from the novel "He, She, It" by Marge Piercy, and also the cyberpunk novels of William Gibson. The cities under domes and scanning one's hand for payment are not my own. And the virtual reality world is pretty common in modern science fiction. Some of the elements I made up and that's was too much fun, such as the talking taxicab and genetically-enhanced oak trees. Now I can see why science fiction is such an alluring field of writing. It's really exciting being able to create your own world.

I think I already mentioned it, but I got the initial idea for the story very soon after I started writing fanfic. Even though it took me more than a year and a half to finally start writing the story, I thought about it a lot during that period.

I never actually used a written outline with BBWL, but I had a fairly detailed one in my head. For example, I knew from the very beginning how I wanted the story to end, but I also gave myself some room to improvise a bit on how to actually get to that point. And I spent more time just thinking about that story than any other story I've ever written. If any of my colleagues had seen me in a meeting during that period, I would have looked quite focused but inside I was trying to figure out how to get Scully outside the party so that she could kiss Mulder.

Writing a WIP is hard but it has its rewards, too. The people who were following BBWL were so wonderful and generous with their encouragement and "stalking." It does help me with a long story to have that kind of external pressure, to know that someone is out there, tapping her foot for the next chapter. On the other hand, sometimes it felt overwhelming and I just wanted to hide under the bed with the old magazines and dust-bunnies.

I felt a bit rushed, but I refused to write more quickly just to get the next part out for the folks who wanted more. I mean, I totally understand the frustration of waiting for the next part of a WIP, but I couldn't let that bother me. I even managed to get out of town for a long weekend with friends during the writing! ;-) But on the other hand, I was so immersed in the writing that I let my personal life slide a bit. I tended to turn the ringer off my phone, to turn down offers to go out to hole up, wired on iced lattes and Marlboro lights, and write. The story just took hold of me and wouldn't let go until I was done.

Sadly, that's not happening with my new WIP, "Thicker Than Water." Even though I love the story and what's going on with it, other things have to take precedence in my life right now: my family, my friends, work, some writing I do outside of fan fiction, and the care and feeding of a new relationship. And it frustrates me because I want to work on the story, but I just find the time and the energy lacking.

Well, not to use a cliche, but you have to make the time. I tend to do most of my writing on the weekends. I try to go to my favorite cafe, get loaded on caffeine and scribble. But even that has been hard lately. I'm just sort of blocked and it sucks. I guess I have too much other stuff on my mind. As for the guilt, it's awful. I've been dealing with it lately by doing a very Scully thing-- denial. Writer's block, huh? I have a WIP right now? What are you talking about?

As for the creative vision being compromised, I didn't really feel like that with BBWL. I tried to ignore the pressure to hurry up and just tell the story the way I wanted to. I knew that if I rushed the story, I'd end up cheating the people who were kind enough to be reading it.

Well, I think that if you *can* write through the block, it's a good thing. Writing is like working out, you have to keep your muscles in shape and make it a habit in your life. For example, I'm totally out of the habit of writing right now. I keep making these lame excuses about why I can't write. I have a headache, I have to meet a friend for a drink, I'm just too crabby. And the truth of the matter is that I should just be getting my butt down to the local cafe with my notebook and writing. But something is wrong inside.

I'm blocked. I don't know if I can write through it right now. Maybe I just have too much on my mind. I do promise, though, that I'm going to try again this weekend.

It really isn't affected by the readers. And what I mean by that is that I don't change major aspects of plot or story to go with the flow of what I'm hearing in feedback. When I write a WIP I generally have a pretty firm idea of where the story is going and I'm not about to budge from that.

I remember one WIP I was reading where the author asked in her notes at the end of a chapter, "So, should I throw another smut scene in?" And that kind of surprised me to see a writer adding stuff just because it was something that made readers happy. As much as I respect and treasure the people who read my stories, I have to remain true to my original vision. (God, that just sounded soooo Hollywood.)

Go to Part Two to read Dasha's thoughts on writing "The Professional," Scully slash and smut in general.