I’m prepping for my first-ever convention panels, and I had a few questions I wanted to ask for help with. Feel free to answer in comments or email me at shaeconnorwrites@gmail.com. 🙂
1. Published authors: Did you start out writing fanfic (or do you still write fanfic)? How did you make the transition? Have you ever taken a story or story idea from one of your fanfic works and repurposed it for an original fic?
2. Readers: What are your favorite romance stories with BDSM or any similar harder-edged themes? (Any pairings-or-more welcome: M/M, M/F, F/F, menage; would particularly like any F/F recs. Feel free to recommend your own!)
3. Authors with day jobs: How much time on average are you able to devote to your writing career? (All aspects, not just writing.) Do you hope to be able to quit the day job eventually in favor of full-time writing?
Thank you for any help you can give! I’ll credit any comments I use, of course, so please let me know if you’d rather be anonymous. 🙂
shaeconnorwrites 
First thing: Relax, you’ll do great! You “present” very well from what I’ve seen, and getting up there and looking like you know what you’re doing is half the battle 😉
1. Published authors: Did you start out writing fanfic (or do you still write fanfic)?
Yes, I started out writing fanfic, and no, I don’t write it any more, not because I don’t want to, I just don’t have time. (I try to do a short fanfic thing once in a while, but that’s all I can manage at the moment).
How did you make the transition?
My very first fanfiction was written back in the early 90’s. It was just for my own amusement. I put it away when I was done and didn’t think about it for a long time.
Right around 1999, I had to take an absence from work due to illness and decided to “finally write a novel”–I’ve been interested in writing forever, and finally had the time to sit down day after day and plug away at it. It never got published.
I discovered fanfiction.net by accident…I can’t even remember how. But it got me thinking about that fanfic I’d written so long ago and I decided to start re-writing (i.e. typing) some of it and posting it. One thing led to another and pretty soon I was having a *really* good time writing fanfic.
Then I stumbled on the Torchwood fandom and m/m “slash”. I was hooked! A number of my regular readers started urging me to go back to original fiction. I feel awful for taking their advice and then abandoning them as it were… but there are seriously only 24 hours in a day and it’s hard for me to concentrate on too many stories at once.
Have you ever taken a story or story idea from one of your fanfic works and repurposed it for an original fic?
I’m going to be re-working a segment of one of my fanfic stories for a YA novel–again at the urging of a number of my readers (who are at the upper end of the YA spectrum–or at least they were when I first wrote that one). The piece I’m taking is nearly all original characters to begin with, although I’m going to be re-working my original characters’ backgrounds anyway.
I have a couple of other pieces I could do that with, but I don’t want to. I like them as fanfiction and think they contribute too much to my little AU to repurpose them as something else.
2. Readers: What are your favorite romance stories with BDSM or any similar harder-edged themes? (Any pairings-or-more welcome: M/M, M/F, F/F, menage; would particularly like any F/F recs. Feel free to recommend your own!)
I should preface this with “it was a little too hardcore for me in places”, but I really enjoyed David Stein’s “Carried Away”. I’d just read a couple of really awful books by writers who didn’t seem to have a clue when I found it. Stein went places I would never, ever want to go, but he’s really in the lifestyle, so I appreciated his honesty. But let me say again, that does not mean I’m into all of the things his characters got into. It may be way too hard core for some folks.
I mostly liked the Deviations Series (I’ve read the first two). I had some nit-pick points with it, but the BDSM aspects were spot on and considering that’s what I was reading it for… 😉
Heidi Cullinan’s “Special Delivery” isn’t what I’d call “hard edged”, but there’s a light BDSM theme running through it that was just… perfect. It’s one of my favorite stories, period.
I guess if I’m free to recommend my own, I’ve got a BDSM novel coming out in September (M/M) that I really am in love with. What makes it special (and what I like about other harder edged books) is that there’s a lot of emotion between the characters. I consider it pretty hard hitting (pun intended), but in between all the kinky sex there’s a lot of emotional connection going on between the guys. The title is “Bound: Forget Me Knot”.
Awww, Shae, no worries! We can have each others’ backs. 😛
I’ve done a few panels, here and there (mostly D*C), though this will be my first time at Outlantacon. My one bit of advice, going into it, is… if the Dragon*Con people are any indication, anyway… no matter what you THINK you’ll be talking about, the audience WILL participate and take things down paths you never even dreamed of following.
It’s kinda scary how quickly time seems to be passing right now. I can’t believe it’s only a week and a half away. Yikes!
See you there! 🙂
~Tis
LOL, yeah, the audience takes over at these things. It’ll be fun, looking forward to it! 🙂
I think I’m sitting on that panel with you and TC, Shae. Don’t worry…I’ll hold your hand and we’ll face it together. Seriously, the folks at OutlantaCon are very sweet, and I always have a terrific time doing the panels there. 🙂
Yep, we’re doing a couple together, I think! Can’t wait to see you! 🙂