If you want to read my stories in chronological order, this is how it goes:

All Is Full of Love [link]
The Best of Both Worlds [link]
The Vinculus Charm [link]
The Hypocritic Oath [link]
The Last Night [link]
The Wisher [link]
Vengeance [link]
Meg Valance [link]
Yesterday's Slug Club [link]
The Forest [link]
The Slytherin Common Room [link]
Narcissa Black [link]
Hemlock and Vanilla [link]
Knockturn Alley [link]
Spilt Milk, Part One [link]
Spilt Milk, Part Two [link]
Spilt Milk, Part Three [link]
Spilt Milk, Part Four [link]
Spilt Milk, Part Five [link]
Spilt Milk, Part Six [link]
Spilt Milk, Part Seven [link]
A Single Candle [link]
Blue Satin [link]
Rosura [link]
Rosura, Part Two [link]
Rosura, Part Three [link]
Rosura, Part Four [link]
Rosura, Part Five [link]
Rosura, Part Six [link]
Rosura, Part Seven [link]
Where the Action Is [link]
Rosura, Part Eight [link]
Splintered [link]
Torn [link]
The Green-Eyed Monster [link]
The Corona [link]
Professor Caladrius [link]
Divination [link]
The Plan [link]
Furious Calm [link]
Full Fathom Five [link]
The Descent, Part One [link]
The Descent, Part Two [link]
A Taste of Things to Come [link]
A Taste of Thing to Come II [link]
Curly Hair, Feathers and Flame [link]
The Porcelain Bitch [link]
A Little Corner of Paradise [link]
A Means to Nothing [link]
A Beautiful Accident [link]
Less Broken [link]
Two Romantic Reunions [link]
Constructive Agony [link]
White in the Moon [link]
Lily and the Unicorn, Part One [link]
Lily and the Unicorn, Part Two [link]
Lily and the Unicorn, Part 3 [link]
Monochrome [link]
Foe Fire [link]
Jaded [link]
Possession [link]
A Wife, a Mother, and a Corpse [link]
Damage Limitation [link]
The Viceberg [link]
The Cavalry [link]
Otherworldly [link]
The Thaw [link]
The Angel in the Ice [link]
The Loose End [link]
Spinning Plates [link]
Spinning Plates, Part Two [link]
The Fall [link]
The Rise [link]
Sympathetic Magic [link]
Once Upon a Time [link]
The Soulless Redhead [link]
Happily Ever After [link]
Sanctuary [link]
Never, Never, Never Land [link]
Day and Night [link]
Smoke [link]
Shades of Red [link]
The Man who Lived [link]
Rosemary [link]
Pandora's Box [link]
The Witch and the Wardrobe [link]
Smouldering [link]
Miss Morgan [link]
Notes on the Bad Guy [link]
The Nightmare Guide [link]
Creepers [link]
Another Argument [link]

And stories that aren't really part of the main plot yet, but hopefully will be someday, when I get my ass in gear:

Night Ramblings [link]
The Dark Snitch [link]
Always Winter, Never Christmas [link]
Potions [link]
The Goddess of Death [link]
The Goddess of Waking [link]
Scars [link]

I get that question a lot. Here’s my favourite version of it, as posed by my dad:

“Have you ever considered thinking up your own characters, Lucy? Or is that too difficult?”

If you looked at my life – my actual life, not the periods of it that I spend in fictional universes or on the internet – you might ask the same question.

On the face of it, it looks as though I’m writing fanfiction for nothing other than the opportunity to get embarrassed when I’m talking to my colleagues at work. I know this will result in awkwardness, but I can neither stop writing the fanfiction, nor stop talking about it. All the things I’ve described: eyebrow raises, slow-okays – I have been greeted with every one of those. I’ve barely succeeded in outlining the shadow of how embarrassing some of these encounters were. Really, they have broken my spirit so much that I tell people about my hobby with an apologetic smile on my face. I don’t even have the nerve to be proud of what I am any more. I’m adrift on a sea of polite disdain. And yet, I can’t stop mentioning it. It’s the only thing I like to talk about – it’s certainly the only thing I can talk even remotely knowledgeably about.

Do I just want to make things difficult for myself? Or is this genuinely not a thing to be ashamed of?

Am I fighting against prejudice? Is this one of those genuine crusades, like gay rights? Or is it one of those misled, pervy crusades, like zoophile rights? I know in my heart that I haven’t done anything wrong. But so, probably, do the people who really have done something wrong. That’s the problem with your conscience. It’s all you have to go on, but it can be notoriously untrustworthy. It’s a product of evolution, just like everything else, and so it’s always trying to make things easier for you.

Is writing with somebody else’s characters so bad? Hasn’t the best art in the world been about working within constraints? Nobody would say the sonnet was lazy and derivative, just because it always has fourteen lines and ends in a rhyming couplet. Nobody would say Shakespeare was just acting out his fantasies when he wrote about Anthony and Cleopatra.

My favourite comedians, Daniel Kitson and Josie Long, are in love with the ideal of heroic failure. They love it when people make the effort, especially when the effort is so disproportionate to the actual result. It’s the same with Severus Snape. I love the idea that, throughout the entire series, he’s exerting every fibre of his being just to keep himself from strangling Harry Potter. Nobody would say, after reading the books, that he was trying to be nice to Harry. But they don’t understand where he started from. They don’t appreciate the current he had to swim against. All that cruelty is actually the end result of a lifelong campaign not to be a bastard. The effort doesn’t match the results, but I still find it stunning.

I’m not in love with the idea of heroic failure for myself, though. I much prefer the idea of heroic success. Maybe that isn’t possible, but I’d like to give it a try.

Anyway, I wanted to talk about reading. I love reading because it brings me into contact with details and perspectives that would never have occurred to me in a million years. Every time you read, it broadens your horizons. Every time you go to Hogwarts, or Narnia, or Lilliput, you bring something back with you. A souvenir. Sometimes it’s just a word. Sometimes it’s a whole, glorious epiphany.

Every time Machiavelli sat down to read, he would dress in the period costume of the author he was reading. If he was reading Plato, he’d put on a toga. And then he would set a place at his table for the author. I love this idea that, when you’re reading, you’re actually having the author round for dinner.

I especially love it because it reminds me of a comedy sketch in Important Things with Demetri Martin where a boy actually does get to have dinner with his heroes – Benjamin Franklin, Shakespeare and Galileo – and they’re complete dicks. They’re rude to the waitress; they make filthy jokes; and they don’t want to talk about their high-minded theories or past achievements.

I know I have a habit of doing this, but I’m going to include another link to Paul’s blog. Before I do, I’ll tell you that he’s writing about the fact that he walked to work through the rain yesterday morning. Imagine where he might take this subject. I guarantee, you will not be able to predict where he eventually goes with it. [link]

Fanfiction is special because you know that the writers are also readers. You know you have something in common with them before you even start. You both love J.K. Rowling’s books. But this common-ground can be like quicksand. Sometimes you discover they’ve come to completely different conclusions about the books you’ve both loved. Sometimes you find out they have completely different visions of the characters.

That’s OK, because it fosters debate. Fanfiction doesn’t have the absolute authority that other works of fiction do, because you know they’re just extensions and interpretations of somebody else’s work. As such, it always involves dialogue. It’s a dialogue with J.K. Rowling and it’s a dialogue between her fans. It’s writing that can answer back. And that’s why it’s so much fun. At one and the same time, it’s a quiet evening in, and a big, scary party.

The real reason I write fanfiction is bewitchingly simple. It’s because, every once in a while, someone tells me that they like it. I can’t describe how happy that makes me, so I won’t try. And I like to think that, even if it happened very infrequently, the occasions when it did happen would be enough to keep me doing it. I like to think that, but I don’t know, because everyone on this website has been incredibly kind, and I can’t tell you how much I appreciate it.

And all this brings me to the fact that my chapter ‘Scars’ won second runner-up in *northangel27’s wonderful Snapely contest. I want to thank her and all the judges for their kindness.

Also, please check out my friend ~FlameoftheWest7’s fanfic about the wedding of Narcissa Black and Lucius Malfoy. It’s beautifully-written, exotically-detailed, and the characters are so canon, and so entertaining, that reading it is like meeting up with old friends.