Fact: Until I was marooned within the exodus which was the 2005 pre-H.Katrina evacuation from NOLA, I was not interested in fan fiction. However, twenty-plus hours in a small, manual-transmission sports car with only a large, semi-tranquilized dog and a terrified cat for companionship, while inching along at 5MPH or less, forces one to find a diversion that does not involve screaming. I believe traffic had stalled somewhere east of Baton Rouge, when I first began amusing myself by imagining alternate endings to classic movies, which led to musings about minor characters and scenes in well-known books, which eventually inspired me to begin to mentally compose an entirely new story about a secondary character in the Harry Potter series. Yes, folks I was THAT desperate: but that brain-work of considering plot developments, linking my ideas to the original story arc, interweaving odd bits of history within this new adventure and assigning clever names to the new characters was an unexpected gift to my sanity during that horrible journey.
Since then, I’ve mentally composed alternate endings to other classic stories or follow-up stories to those classics - usually while waiting in long lines or traffic jams or even on those nights when I can’t sleep. The inspiration for my short story “Decisions” began as a late-night exercise to calm my mind after insomnia threatened to keep me awake past 2AM. The idea amused me so much, I wrote it down. Then, I took the next step: editing and polishing the idea into a short story. Next, followed the cold reality that I needed more information about mourning and funerary customs in England during the early 1800s, an accurate understanding of locales, landmarks and distances around Kent, London, etc. and not of the least importance, to develop a writing style which structured dialog and tone as if J.A. herself had read my drafts and offered helpful advice. The effort was both consuming and disruptive. Many times, I felt like a child playing dress-up with the clothes, shoes and make-up of an older, more fashionable and far more clever friend…yet fully aware this was the ultimate game of pretend and (probably) few would appreciate the results.
Still, I am pleased with “Decisions” and hold out hope that other P&P fans will be pleasantly diverted by this bit of fan fiction. [slight curtsy]