#am I writer? and meagyn has always assured me YES

[lambourngb]

Fic Writer Interview

Tagged by: @irolltwenties ❤️ thank you so much my dear!

Name(s):  L , lambourn on AO3, lambourngb here.

Fandom(s): Roswell New Mexico, a very long time ago, Smallville, and lost to the ages, baseball.

Where you post: AO3 is where just about everything lives. The only things that are tumblr specific at the moment are sneak peaks at future works and my Michael Week AU - the “This Hard” series that will be under one title -  “This Hard Love” - once I finish it. 🤞

Most Popular One Shot (by kudos)
This year : Leave the Fire Burning , my post-season 2 sex pollen getting back together fic.  This was also one of my first stories to be in Michael’s POV.

Overall: it’s still my first finished work here, truth (to the people we love) - that I posted in Nov 2019. Probably the most ideal way to enter a fandom, lots of great people warmly welcomed me in and I still get emotional thinking about it.


Most Popular Multi-Chapter (by kudos)
Overall: last year’s wishes are this year’s apologies - if I’m known by one story, it’s this one and you know what, I’m okay with it. This story changed my fandom life and honestly, my confidence level. I’m extremely harsh on myself, and often hate something once it’s done, so when I reread the epilogue just the other day, I thought “this is still good, well done L” that’s unique for me. This year: 
 See above.

Favorite story you’ve written so far:
 Oh I would say “Leave the Fire Burning” because I wrote it very quickly almost in a trance. 2020 has been a challenging year for writing for the most part, long battles with days of only a 100 words here or there, but that story was basically 20 K in 10 days. A runner up is you give me a good reason to be heartsick again (let me down easy) - my salty post season 2 co-write with Christi @michaels-blackhat where we made fun of the narrative surrounding Forrest and Forlex for almost 6,000 words. I haven’t done a co-write in years, and Christi was game for it and so gracious about my bossy participation ❤️...

Fic you were nervous to post: All of them, but I would say my upcoming Big Bang is giving me butterflies since it references a lot of what happened in season 2, and generally the fandom response to season 2 is pretty polarizing?

How do you choose your titles?: Song titles generally, or sometimes it’s a song lyric that I misremember? Like “Leave the Fire Burning” is related to a Noah Gunderson song “Fire Don’t Die”. I also liked to repurpose lines of dialog from the show into titles, like “truth (to the people we love)” was cannibalized from Michael’s speech to Isobel, “maybe it’s time to tell the truth to the people we love”. And “If You Regret (What You Know) was from Michael’s conversation with Alex in 1x10. Yes, I’m going to continue to abuse punctuation in my titles.

Do you outline?: Yes, absolutely. The outline is allowed to change, with inserted scenes or scenes that get blended together but every project that I’ve made some progress on has an outline that I write within. I like to use brackets, and write just above it, so I can see my goals as a go and to keep my focus.

Complete: 6 works, soon to be 7 when the Big Bang goes live.

In-Progress:  *laughs uncontrollably* A LOT. I’ve somehow acquired a circle of friends who are constantly dropping soft and sad head canons on me and then it turns into a fic idea. Right now, I’m working on “This Hard Love” to finish by the end of the year. Next up after that, I want to finish my epilogue to “Last Year’s Wishes”, write the Michael POV scenes that others have requested previously, and then dive into my LYW prequel/Lost Decade epic “prettier and younger, but not any better off”. Also smaller projects in the works, some AUs - like Michael is a guitar maker and Alex is a Nashville star called “Summon Out of These Hollow Places” - @haloud , @adiwriting and @christchex are firmly to blame for that project, along with “Dress Blues (hold me lover, this ain’t an arms race) - Michael becomes Alex’s military spouse and follows him around. I also started a really dark, torture Michael story for @ninswhimsy called “Piece by Piece” where Mr. Jones basically trades Michael to be experimented on and Alex & Maria go undercover to save him. And finally, I’ve got “Why Can’t I Change” - Michael dating during season 3 with background Forlex, and my really sad epic “Grave Dancer’s Union” where Sanders is dying and Michael is his caretaker.

Coming soon/not yet started:  All of the above have some words, outlines, etc. Not yet started- stuff like a coma AU, where Jesse puts Alex into a longterm care facility when he’s a teenager and Michael “meets” him because he’s visiting Isobel after the drifter’s attack. “Pressing on a bruse (we can heal)” is my sequel to “Truth” that has taken me forever but still planned, Duty of Care needs some reworking to turn it into a canon-divergent AU, same with “Gather Your Skeletons” my attempt at a soul-bond fic for Malex.

Prompts?: I’ve still got a few in my ask box that are old enough to vote, and as you all can see, I’ve got a lot of google docs in progress. So sure, you can submit, but I don’t know if I’ll get there. I’m better at answering questions about WIPs in progress- like I’ve definitely written more on some of those WIPs just from that last meme that went around. So sending me a nudge about something in progress might get you a sneak peek faster than sending me a whole prompt. With RNM there’s always a chance something will happen and turn you off of the fandom before I can fill the prompt submitted.

Upcoming work you’re most excited about: I would say my prequel to LYW. It’s looking quite long, especially the sections where Michael transitions from sneaker and jeans to jeans and cowboy boots with a big belt buckle. I’ve got a lot of horse knowledge I can’t wait to bore everyone with !

No-pressure Tags: @jule1122 , @adiwriting , @litwitlady , @aewriting , @tasyfa ,  @andrea-lyn @prouvaireafterdark, @el-gilliath