My desire to write sprang from my love of creating alternate realities. I can remember one of my first answers to the question 'what do you want to be when you grow up?' was 'a writer'. I think that was by the end of kindergarten: well before I was reading. I had some very elaborate games I played with my friends, and around the end of my time in kindergarten I began to realise that I wanted to conserve these, or rather the universes they were set in, for posterity, strange as that may sound for a six-year-old.

So, pretty soon after I had learned how to write, I began to try and compose my first stories.

Unfortunately, I was blessed (or cursed) with the - unusual in a seven- or eight-year-old - ability to stand back and look at my own work from a critical distance. I had a high degree of sensitivity to language; I could copy the style of a writer much my senior pretty successfully at an early age, to the point of it being a problem when we were asked, at school, to recount a story we had been read 'in our own words'. I couldn't find my own words. I just - automatically - used the ones I had heard in the original story.

So, with that sensitivity and that critical distance, I looked at what I had written, and I saw it was precocious crap. I didn't put it that way to myself, of course. I just felt that it was all wrong. So, for a long time, I would get tempted to write from time to time, only to abort my attempts after maybe a page, because they were just too embarrassing.

Time passed; I read lots; I grew older.

By the beginning of puberty I stopped acting out my fantasies with my friends (who decided to grow up a lot sooner than I would have decided on my own), but I couldn't stop inventing universes. I couldn't stop telling stories. So, instead of acting them out in play, I now began to develop my universes only in my mind. At thirteen, I began writing a 'novel'.

Needless to say, that novel also was crap, but that time, I failed on a higher level than previously.

The style began to feel all right. It was just the content that sucked.

Of course, I never really got around to developing the content properly, because I kept refining the style of the first two chapters. I think I rewrote those two chapters (plus prologue) dozens, maybe a hundred times.

That kept me busy for three years.

Then came 'The Lord of the Rings'.

I read it shortly before my sixteenth birthday, and it deflated any aspirations to becoming a writer that I might have had.

Everything I had ever wanted to write about was in there. And, unlike many people (a hundred Tolkien wannabes churning out three-volume sagas every year come to mind), I didn't see why I should try and add my own - most likely vastly inferior - version of what Tolkien had already said so much better.

I stopped writing. And apart from a few texts that I wrote for school (both my German and my English teachers liked to give us creative writing exercises on occasion), I stayed away from it pretty completely, and didn't expect ever to start again.

Cut to 1999. It's three years since I wrote my last creative writing piece for school; seven since I decided to stop writing after reading 'The Lord of the Rings'. I'm obsessed with Methos and, more importantly, fan fiction. Oh, just reading, of course. I don't have the stuff to become a writer. Or do I?

Then, a vision of sorts. An image, the seeds of a story, maybe. Feelings that need to be captured on paper.

In June 1999 I reluctantly begin to write my first fan fiction.

And, wonder of wonders, the frustration of earlier attempts does not come this time. I am satisfied with what I write, within reason. Of course, it's not perfect. But, if I'm still failing (and I suspect I am), at least I am now failing on a level sufficiently high to satisfy me to a certain degree.

Since then, I've made visible progress, I think. Some of the things I have written recently I am rather proud of. I hardly ever get any feedback. (Really. This is not just me whining, this is a fact.) But it doesn't really matter (although feedback certainly would be nice and would make my day). What I'm really working for is that feeling I get when I read some of the better parts of my writing. The feeling that, hey, this is pretty good!

And it is. On my better days, I know that. On the not-so-good days, I am haunted by self-doubt, but never mind, 'cause, as John Crichton said: 'This is one of the good days.'

Now for some words about what, why and how I write these days.

WHAT I WRITE:

Well, fan fiction, d'uh. But, fan fiction that does not strictly adhere to the unwritten laws of fan fiction. Some of it, at least, I guess you could call experimental. Well, slightly. Experimental enough to be called experimental in the realm of fanfic, anyway. Apart from that, what you will find in my stories is little plot, and much description. I realise this is boring to many, many readers. I don't care.

WHY I WRITE:

Writing for me is to a large degree a way of holding onto things I remember and imagine, and passing them on (if someone is willing to read what I write). Feelings. Atmospheres. Images. I also enjoy language for its own sake. I also like to try and achieve certain effects, and sometimes pose myself certain tasks I then try to fulfil in a piece of writing. I write to create something that is aesthetically and emotionally pleasing and satisfying to myself. The standards I try to meet are my own, and I'm afraid they are rather idiosyncratic ones. I do not write for an audience, period. I will not change my writing to meet the tastes of a broader audience. I will also not simplify my writing to make it more accessible to that same audience. Yes, in that way I am pretty arrogant. I will be absolutely thrilled if you, dear reader ;), like what I write, but if you don't. . . well, tastes are different, and that's fine. Although sometimes the lack of feedback depresses me a bit, ultimately I am writing for myself first and foremost, and as long as I like my own work, and can see myself improving, I'm happy.

HOW I WRITE:

Very, very slowly. Carefully. Deliberately. I revise and rewrite and refine, endlessly. On a good day, I write maybe a paragraph. In a good year, I write two, maybe three stories. I've never been able to write anything longer than 11 pages or so. So, don't expect frequent updates here, but please, do come back. :-)

What I am currently most proud of:

I rather like 'Together', my first and probably only slash piece (Harry Potter slash, no less!), because it's also my first thoroughly relationship-based piece and I think I managed to portray the relationship between Sirius and Remus pretty well in it.

I love 'Endure' for its atmosphere, its images, its basic idea. I hope it is just as hauntingly chilling to read as it was to write. I realise that the Methos in it might be considered out of character, but I ask you to consider that this story is set in a far, far future. And I think that I managed to preserve what is the core of Methos' personality, as much as it could be preserved over such a time.

I also love 'Rise and Shine', which has, IMONSHO, some of my best writing as well as some less effective stuff but for all its flaws is still pretty nice. The purpose of that was getting into the characters' minds, and I think I did that well enough to call it a success. I also got to play around with some experimental styles, which was fun.