Ask the Author: Rejeneration
| Interviews by Fans | |
|---|---|
| Title: | Ask the Author: Rejeneration |
| Interviewer: | |
| Interviewee: | Rejeneration |
| Date(s): | June 13, 2009 |
| Medium: | online |
| Fandom(s): | Supernatural, J2 |
| External Links: | interview and comments are here; reference link here or here |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
Rejeneration was interviewed for Supernatural Roundtable.
Some Excerpts
So, hey there! Where to start? Well, I’m rejeneration, or as some of you might already know me, Jen. I have been writing since the day my mother first jammed one of those fat crayons into my chubby, little hands and parked me in front of the tube. I’d like to think I’ve improved since then, but there are still days when it’s a process—an excruciating one at that—and I struggle to turn a hunk of waxy plastic into some kind of art. I’m in good company, I’m sure.The first thing I’ll tell you is that I am no writer. For me, a writer is someone who takes the technical aspects of composition and knocks them out of the park. And that’s not me (see, starting a sentence with and, pretty sure I ended one above with a preposition, I double my negatives, I dangle my participles, I make up words (like mumbly and blush), and don’t get me started on comma splices!).
I like to think of myself as a storyteller. I am a dreamer from way back. I like to take a visual—an imagine in my head—and not only express the color, taste, sight, sound, texture of it, but I try to create an emotional connection to it, something that bonds the reader and the image. If I can do that, if I can make the reader feel, then I’ve accomplished my only goal.
Typically, I write for myself. I started writing in the J2/SPN fandom a little over two years ago. My first piece of J2, Catch Release, was a purely self-indulgent endeavor. I wanted to explore two very different sets of emotions—one character’s fear of being left (Jensen’s) and the other’s (Jared’s) aggravation in not being trusted to understand what he feels. For two angsty sets of emotions, they managed to sort of schmoopily work out, and the boys are left to their growth in the second part. That’s kind of the way I roll when writing, emotion, emotion, emotion, resolution. Usually, a happy ending for all.
Yes and yes! Writing J2 is always an experiment in creativity for me. I'm trying to fashion believable characters (because no matter how many sound bites we have, you can't claim to build the actual person out of that), in real world situations, with feasible resolutions. Writing Jensen and Jared as characters is always difficult for me, because while I can use their likeness and what I can extrapolate from how they seem to be, it’s mostly invention. When you're doing that, at least for me, it seems like time that would be better spent doing something original. When I'm writing, I prefer to write Sam and Dean. Kripke (and Co.) has given us an incredible world to play in, two characters who have grown so much since we started with them, a never-ending playground when it comes to the smaller and larger stories. I think I feel like I know Dean because I can identify with him. I think I feel like I know Sam, because he's people I've seen. Taken together, they're a force and writing them ends up feeling personal (in a way that's fulfilling).