This month's featured author is D'Alaire. D'Alaire writes Voyager fanfiction and five of her stories are featured on this page.
If you're a fanfic writer and would like to be featured on this page, please drop us a note at [email protected] We'll also gladly take recommendations for writers whom you think deserve to be "in the spotlight."
Name: D'Alaire
Web site: D'A Green Room
Tell us a little bit about yourself.
Well, I'm single, commonly distracted by too many interests, have a large dog I adore, have finally left my 20's behind and sometimes dream of going back to the university to become a professional student (grin). I'm from New Jersey, but moved often until I graduated high school and settled in Chicago for ten years. Very recently, I relocated to the Washington DC area.
How long have you been a writer?
Probably since I could pick up a pen. I've always dabbled around, really, but wrote nothing with any aspirations. It was always for fun, or for school, which I usually enjoyed. Until the end of my second year of college, I'd been in studio art. Then I fell in love with lit and research and changed my major. Writing essays with what one prof called a "conversational voice" developed from that--and I loved every second of it.
How long have you been a Trek fan?
Since TNG began, or at least that's when I wouldn't miss my weekly Trek dose. I'd watched and liked TOS, but with moving all the time, I never really got into any habits of watching it, mainly for not knowing where/when it was. ;-)
What is your favorite series to watch? To write for?
Voyager's what caught my
heart and mind straight off, and it's the one whose characters inspire me to
spend countless hours at a keyboard.I'm
not sure someties if it's because of the delicious little tidbits the
show's brought up but never finished, or if it's because the characters
just struck my mind just right--probably both.
But somehow, even when I wasn't enjoying the show as much as I should
have as a regular viewer, I've never missed a week, and have always
taken at least something away from every ep. Even if I don't write a
lot of it down, that ensemble, those characters and their usual
expressiveness, always leave me thinking beyond the episode, beyond the
lines. That says a lot in my book.
What type of fanfic do you like to write?
I'm pretty staunch on my preference for P/T, and prefer alternate universes to any other kind of fanfic genre. I like to read the canon-based fanfic, but I'm always happier when I'm twisting reality. If I can find another epic poem to mutilate, I'd love to do that again, too.
Have you done any other type of writing?
Critical/Research essays,
in college. I found my "niche" in unearthing old, bitter literary
debates from the "catacombs" of the library and thrashing them around.
It was a thrill, bringing those moldy arguments back to life and trying to apply
them in a modern setting. If I could
have done that for a living, I would have seriously considered it.
Though now, I have to admit that fiction is far more fun--and even more
challenging much of the time. I like that. If I can find a plot worth
my while, I might try something more "professional."
What does your "writing space" look like?
It should be the dining room, actually. Against the wall, there's a big wooden desk not designed for PC use and my easel blocking the glare on one side. The action is all to the left, since I'm a lefty. The mouse pad is oversized and plain green. Old and new, Trek and non-Trek, some Swift and Byron and a mug with B'Elanna on it (1st season, her arms crossed). The wall has a box shelf with my few action figures on it, a pic of Swift beside it, T&B from DOH (signed by RD and RDM) below that. In essence, eclectic is a loose term for it, though it's surprisingly neat today.
How did you get started writing fanfic?
Killing Game II--and out of pure frustration. (snicker) In short, it was the "gum-cracking, baby-doll" scene (following the rich, beautiful portraits of Bobby and Brigitte) that made Tom look like such a dork, and made me so livid, I sat down at my brand new PC and started writing "Irremission" during the repeat weeks that followed. I purposefully gave T&B everything I thought they might deserve and some of what I'd imagined before but never thought to write. It was a release mechanism.
I thought I had it pretty aired out, but then "Vis-a-Vis" aired, and I went off the deep end. LOL! I added to and picked at it for a few more months because of that episode alone.
I never thought too seriously about sharing it, though, until someone challenged me into letting him post it. But I was already hooked. (grin)
Out of all the stories you've written, which is your favorite and why?
Hmmm, I think "The Word Painter" was the most rewarding to write, and probably the most vivid in my mind. It literally flew from my fingers. I truly enjoyed the characters, too, the peoples and histories I'd made there--and I sometimes can't believe I wrote that stuff. "Finishing" that story was an unhappy thing for me in a way, and am always tempted to go back to it, fill in some "holes." There was so much that I didn't include, if that can be believed.
Do you have a section of that story you'd like to share with us?
(From Chapter 1, Desalia Rising: After an introduction, the regent of Desal begins to tell the history of Janeway's missing crew.)
"For sixty Desalian years, the prey and hunter coexisted in the dark that was that time. By nature, however, owls grow old and blind in the night, wax infertile while the rodents breed and carry their nests in their migrations...and acclimate too well to the dark.
"Our word painters have told, in that cold stench of night, that there had crept creatures small, who burrowed without intent but passion and life into the nest of Desalia as it also laid alive, one hundred and eleven years past.
"Zha hevrra. Ye'o tsal nost, abralla'ad."
Havetsi had quited in her final intonation, then stepped off the dais, revealing the elders of her house, both unmoved. The elder-mother's eyes were closed.
The terrace was silent for nearly a minute. Engaged with that respectful stillness, no one spoke.
A breeze rustled through the garden, tickling leaves and windchimes on the branches. Then it stilled again.
Anai opened her eyes, devoutly brushed her thin, wrinkled fingers across the markings on her temple.
"Zha hevrra," she said softly, etched with distance. "I shall speak all of what is known to me. I shall speak of the memories I have of those around me, of myself at turns, and from the memoirs left for the scholarship, yet sequestered these years in hopes of this evening."
Her trance-like gaze floated over all those there, catching a few eyes, but slowly moving on. Then her stare pointed aimlessly, unfocused.
"For one hundred and one years, the materials have laid in pieces in our memories, collections of witnesses of that time. Now, the history shall be built completely: All those colors, all the voices, they all shall be painted into words, to create the portrait of lives I leave with you.
"It shall not be abstract--to spare those who are not accustomed to our way of speak, I shall instead be plain. For I wish them as well as all of Desalia to understand, and to see what I and others have seen, to know what we know, and to carry it in their hearts as I do.
"For my children," Anai whispered, "for the children all, for Desalia, my people--and for you, our honored guests--I shall paint the words that were our dear ones' lives. I shall, in it, make them all live again, and onward, as is the way, and also requested by their blessed spirits."
Silence blanketed the garden once more, and Anai of Cezia's stare turned faraway in the oncoming darkness of night, burnished bronze flickering increasingly with the torchlight and not the remaining sun.
In the moments of silence, Anai likewise faded from where she was to where she would remember, so distant her time-buried eyes became.
Only her voice remained, soft yet audible, heavily trilled and dialectal, but clearly spoken.
"It was upon the hot, dry Uillaran soil they were thrust," she began, "four in clothes not too dissimilar to the black and fires of Unar--and yet they were alien to even the wisest there in detention. In the Uillar Labor Camp, once a rich mineral trading station, all its occupants stopped their work to see the clean, groomed strangers. The stare of one, standing in the well-trodden trench behind her deep hood, was of unenviable prescience.
"The aliens would not be clean for long, it was whispered among the others. The one watcher blinked her dreadful acceptance.
"So they would not lift themselves, the strangers were snatched up by guards and thrown against the barricade for inspection by Commander Hychar. This was standard procedure, and the prisoners did not disappoint his regard for interesting subjects.
"Two men stood angrily yet without offense. One, a fair, tall man, had need to hold back a third person, a dark-glared woman who cursed and resisted Unar hands on her collar. She nearly earned their fists in but her first moments there were it not for that fair man who claimed her side and whispered firmly into her ear. The fourth, another dark-haired woman, stood rigidly still, not daring to be anything but beside the other man.
"Despite their costume, all who watched their entry knew without question that they were of another place and people, well-kept, educated and proud--as the defiance and pride in their faces, though vulnerable, showed them as such.
"Yet as they would come to know, for their being there alone, and for being not Unar, they had become--like all Desalians--nothing..."
What is your favorite fanfic written by someone else?
Quite a few qualify as favorites, mostly for my change in moods. But in a nutshell, Jamelia's "Warmth" and "Log Entries," DangerMom's "Daybreak" series, Annie M's "Hard Work," and Capt'n Jinx's "B'Elanna's Secret" series come to mind right off the bat. Julie's "Scenes from a Marriage" series is a recent love of mine, too. It's a pretty mature group, but all of them are just a joy to read over and over.
There's a ton more that I have saved on my HD, however, but the titles tend to escape me. There's so much good stuff out there, every time I compile a little list like this, I feel bad for leaving so many people out.
Where do you get your inspiration from?
Roxann Dawson and Robbie McNeill, first off. They are simply fabulous, as is Kate Mulgrew, who I've loved since I was a pre-teen. Voyager itself, even in its low points, has always sparked my imagination in ways no other show did. I've no idea why. Then again, I guess one's not supposed to know that.
Aside from that, I think inspiration in general is everywhere, and it hits when you least expect it. I get it from reading, family memories, art, other shows, walking down the street, cooking, scrubbing linoleum, whatever. I tend to be "taken" by things out of the blue, then practically kill myself to get it out of my mind the way I see it.
What are some of your favorite books?
"Books." Hmm. Much of what I've enjoyed the most is in anthologies (and there are too many to name in that department). I can say I adore Fielding's "Tom Jones," Herbert's original "Dune" and Clancy's "The Hunt for Red October." They're different, for certain, but so detail laden that I can open them at any page and be immersed all over again.
Do you have any advice to share with other fanfic writers?
Read good stuff, read trashy stuff, read boring stuff. Read for fun and to learn the difference between quality and enjoyment, voices and genres. Learn from it all.
Write for yourself, and *enjoy* it.
Even so, never forget the characters' voices (even if you must read it aloud), your narrator (narrative voice), the "Trek universe" as it is, and who your audience is. Even if it's fun, working within parameters and giving it some work is so worth it, for you and for the reader.
For that matter, who's to say what the literary canon will be in four hundred years? (evil grin)
Anything else?
Whoever decided to log on and nominate a work of mine: My most grateful thanks. :-)
Note: Each story opens in a separate window. Close the window to return to this page.
The Word Painter R.
A big A/U taking place between two timelines, the story of an away team who crash landed in an alien region is told by an aged woman who knew the survivors. It's large enough to warrant a page of its own, so the full summary is located there.
You Know NC-17. I'd had this plot in my head since reading "Pathways." This one works off the scenario of what might have happened if B'Elanna and Tom had had several days on that planet where she had her epiphany and he saved her life, and if they had briefly fallen together during that time.
Lullaby PG-13.
A little piece of angst formed from a friend's story idea: Tom singing a lullaby in Klingon to a severely ailing B'Elanna. Of course, I had to get him there, so it also examines his realizing the nature of the commitment he'd made to her, and accepting a few of his own insecurities as well.
Irremission R. NC-17. Set in an alternate universe, this story studies Paris and the people in his life, altered here by the chance meeting of a lady who would be an unexpected mentor to him. The result of that is told in descending time in the first two chapters, from just before the equivalent of "Hunters" to events six years before "Caretaker," the beginning of this AU. The third chapter moves forward in time to the end of the 4th season.
Rated R for mature/sexual situations, language and descriptions of violence.1998
1999 ASC --Second Place, Best P/T
Avalar R. A continuation of the "Irremission" universe, in which the Parises work to bring closure to parts of their lives left unresolved, and deal with the repeating cycles in their lives. This installment moves between two timeframes-- one taking place bewteen the late fourth to the equivalent eighth season, and the other taking place before and during Tom and B'Elanna's time on Avalar and into their first year on Voyager.
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