Cascade Library Interview with Jael Lyn

Interviews by Fans
Title:	Cascade Library Interview with Jael Lyn
Interviewer:	Cascade Library
Interviewee:	Jael Lyn
Date(s):	January 15, 2001
Medium:	online
Fandom(s):	The Sentinel
External Links:	interview is here, Archived version
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In 2001, Jael Lyn was interviewed for Cascade Library.

Some Excerpts

Oddly enough, I never saw the show. I read the newspaper reports when the show was cancelled and the protest add was run in USA Today. I was intrigued & looked it up on the net. I read a few stories and decided it was kind of an interesting premise.

Well, I sort of backed into this one, too. In the fall of 1999 I noticed a lot of stories in the library were coming in labelled "written for the Sentinel Angst list". I really enjoyed some of them, and decided to join the list. I had every intention of doing the very minimum and still be allowed to read to my heart's content. I hadn't written creatively since my last theme in high school English, so I had a little bit of a panic when I realized my 2 months was up and I needed to write something for dues. I could barely use an email program. I had no idea how to post, and finally sent an email to DawnC. begging for help. She talked me through the process. So now you know. Blatant self-interest and pure desperation.

I'm ashamed to admit I don't really have one. I know, complete heresy. For about the first six months I didn't know what a beta was, and after that, I felt guilty asking someone to weed through my mistakes. I proofread the things to death, and I get really angry with myself when I miss things. Occasionally, I have a few people that I ask to read for me, mostly if I'm having plot difficulties, and I'm very grateful for their interpretations. Since I always send stuff to SA first, I take any of their comments very seriously, and usually rewrite before I send anything on to Mackie. I'm sure that's a terrible misuse of my listsibs, but they're an indulgent bunch.

I sat down on my deadline day and started typing, hoping for maybe a couple of paragraphs or the shortest story in the world. When I didn't finish after about an hour, I sort of went "oops!" and sent what I had. My new list-sibs (charitably, I'm sure) flooded me with emails, all saying how excited they would be to read the rest and speculateing on how it would end. Oops again. What rest of the story??? and I didn't know how it ended. I kept posting in parts until it was done. That little piece ended up being Excessive Force.

To be honest, I was shocked anyone thought it was worth reading. If I hadn't needed to do it to stay on-list, it never would have happened.

As for posting, I have yet to post a story I didn't want to get back and burn 10 seconds after I hit the SEND button. When my first story went to Mackie's site, I think I avoided the computer completely for a couple of days.

I'm not sure I'm a good candidate to give advice, since my entire writing experience was a cosmic accident.