The Kel-manifesto

[kellifer]

So, there's been an influx of new people to my journal lately (and linking to me via FF.Net... what's that about? I haven't posted to there in... a loooong time) which I am completely chuffed about but I'm figuring it's about time I tell you what I'm all about...

The Me-Me

My real name is Kelly and I live in Sydney, Australia. I love it here more than anywhere I've been to (which, okay, isn't actually saying much... sigh) but there's something about the harbour and the weather and the people. Just walking along Sydney harbour on a summer's night when there's a gentle breeze and music is in the air and the Opera House is your back drop... *happy*

I'm now thirty-one and people always say, "You're what??" when I tell them this. I'm hoping it's because they think I look younger... although now that I think about it... dammit! :)

I look like your cousin/friend/that-girl-you-want-to-school-with (I swear, every person I meet for the first time starts the conversation with "Wow, you really look like... "). I'm Irish winter-pale, blue eyed and freckled. The almost-black hair is a little incongruous... heh.



The Fannish-Me

I've had the same television for ten years which my mate Dave (everyone has one!) thinks is a travesty considering the size of my DVD collection. I'm not very old in fandom years and started out on a mailing list of rowan_d's so I can officially call her my first fandom friend. (I'm pretty sure this was less than three short years ago... holy crap!)

I'm poly-fannish but am *very* loyal to the shows I do pickup. I can love something and not feel compelled to write/read/discuss it. This is what happened to Heroes.

I started out writing Sam/Jack (SG-1) as a gift for a very generous friend who basically housed me for a month when I was in between abodes. I was amazed to discover that other people did this kind of thing too... and online! I was titilated by the very idea of slash (as you can guess... I got over it) and basically branched out.

Atlantis was a natural progression from SG-1 but more and more people on my flist (when I finally created a writing journal to spare my poor RLFs who were like, "Huh, what??") were also talking about this show called Supernatural and two spunky boys running and jumping and climbing things? Yeah, I could get on board with that.

I still write some pairing stuff... but discovered I really loved the gen. I loved exploring relationships without the complex miasma of sex. Loyalty, bravery and honest friendship were still things I loved to delve into. I'm pretty sure the crack!fic was a complete accident. I honestly have no idea where the wings/zombies/dolls comes from...

I have recently created kel_draft which I will be using more and more as a repository for snippets, fics that just might never go anywhere, breakdowns and summaries of stuff I have in the works and streams of consciousness. Not everything posted to kel_draft will make it here...



The Original-Me

I'm currently mostly concentrating on urban fantasy. I was raised on a diet of solid sci-fi and old fashioned fantasy novel courtesy of my dad and will always love them the best. Horror also is close to my heart and my fantasy tends to have a darker bent. (See an evil little kid in a movie? My friends will point to it and go, "Yep, one of Kelly's characters).

I've had a couple of original pieces published but woman cannot live on contributor copies alone... The Aussie writing market being what it is though, I'm really going to have to pull up my socks.

My current goal is to have something to enter into the Vogel (sp?? I could be totally wrong... it sounds like that!) Award which is for novelists under 35 years of age. Having a goal will help because give me a deadline and I'm a demon (which is why I love ficathons). Otherwise I'm the worst procrastinator in the world.

People say write what you know. I like to write what I imagine because it's always sparklier and has more cookies.


And Enough-About-Me

What's your story?

What brought you here?

What do you love?

Just say hey, if you're so inclined.

Comments

[libitina]

It's a long and self-indulgent sort of ramble you are asking for there.

Me me -
I live in Philadelphia, PA (USA). That's halfway between New York City and Washington, D.C. - but even though it's fed by a major river/port and is fairly close to the Atlantic Ocean, it's almost impossible to get really quality seafood here. Even still, I love it here more than anything. We have lush green trees and a full four seasons. There's a full range of weather, with each kind edging towards just a bit too much before it swings to some other season.

I love to cook, and from my apartment everything is convenient. Within a block and a half there is a Supermarket (specializing in Latin and South American foods), a truck that sells produce out the back, an Asian grocer, an Halal market, and an Indian grocery. I grew up in the suburbs where you had to drive 15 minutes to get to a stop if you wanted to take public transit, but in the city I can *walk* to everything. I can walk to work! My father never had a commute that was shorter than a 30 minute drive.

I'm 30. I've always looked older than my age, but the gap of how much older I look is narrowing. I thought my appearance was distinctive until I went to conventions for Highlander and absolutely everyone looked exactly like me: short to average height, overweight, long red hair, and glasses.

Fannish-me:
It's all my parents' fault. I came home from school and said, "So the kids are talking about this new show - it's called Star Trek." And my parents gasped and said, "They're remaking that? It can't ever be as good as the original!" So we watched all of the original show, joined Starfleet, and went to conventions. For my 11th birthday, we traveled three hours to see Leonard Nimoy.

I met my first ever boyfriend at a Star Trek Fan Club meeting. And I'm pretty sure I remember asking my mother to buy me a K/S fanzine at one point but that she refused to buy it for me.

Several years later, my father started watching a show on television called Highlander. My mother got sucked in. She sucked me in. She read fanfic, but only the funny stuff written by her internet friend. I still wasn't reading fanfic so much. My main fannish activity was finding every other film the actors had ever been in and watching that.

Then Lord of the Rings (with Harry Potter fandom following in close succession) happened and I started getting sucked into the land of fanfic. This mainly happened because I had a job with only enough work to keep me busy a quarter of the time I had to sit around working. I'd been killing time with webcomics and online games, but those turned out to be too flashy and just too blatant... so then I discovered that fanfic came with black text on a white background, so it looked rather responsible, and the porn kept me awake at my desk better than caffeine. Thus began the addiction.

I got into SGA fandom through rather forceful means. A friend(Z) of a friend(L) was visiting friend(L) and was trying very hard to pimp her into SGA by means of the pushing-Rodney-off-a-balcony scene. Friend(L), however, was just in the fresh flush of discovering anime fandom and her eyes were already too full of stars to see the new shiny. I, on the other hand, was not averse to slutting around. There's nothing sexier about a fandom than someone else truly in love with it. So friend(Z) ended up pulling up IMDB and extolling the virtues of one David Hewlett, to which my responses were, "Nope," "Never seen that," "Never heard of that," "Nope," "Sorry," "I think I watched that once on bad late night television, but I don't remember who was the architect," "Nope" -- and then, "Oh my GOD! I know that show! That movia is coming to the Philadelphia Gay and Lesbian Film Festival! That's a GAY movie!"

[libitina]

And, sure, in some circles that's not a complimentary thing to say, but in our world that called for friend(Z) completely changing her flight and coming back to my apartment for the night so that we could see this movie. Over the next 26 hours, we watched the entirety of season 1 and then caught the screening of Ice Men.

And then after season 2 was over, I convinced the library where I work to order all of SG-1 so that I could catch up on the background for free.

Original me -
There is no original me. I only occasionally write, and even fanfic is a bit of a surprise when it actually comes out as real fic. The closest I come to artistic expression is bookbinding, but that's mostly cutting and pasting and craftsmanship, and I look like Sheppard trying to talk about his feelings when you ask me to make an artist statement about this stuff I just had fun assembling.

[libitina]

Oh, that's just the first question, isn't it?

Ummm... I like what you write. Oh, wait I remember - it was specifically a story about them regressed? to kids that was written well and revealingly and I liked it even though I hate kids. So I tracked back to your journal and ended up staying.

[kellifer-fic.livejournal.com]

Hahahaaa... awesome... ! :)

I'm having a lot of fun reading these... I think the common theme is people starting in Star Trek... which I never watched... I'm a late bloomer... heh

[libitina]

I have no idea if I would be able to get into it now - just as I love Anne McCafferey's books and have no idea whether I'd like them half as much coming to them as a more mature reader.

But what the original series had was this optimism! They went forth (Boldly!) and had a grand time poking their noses in places and fighting the good fight. I mean, sure there wasn't a supercomputer made that Kirk didn't feel a need to break, but it was all in good fun. I like a little cheese, and (to mix metaphors) it has some really good crack.