Cascade Library Interview with Rimilod

Interviews by Fans
Title:	Cascade Library Interview with Rimilod
Interviewer:	Cascade Library
Interviewee:	Rimilod
Date(s):	July 6, 2009
Medium:	online
Fandom(s):	The Sentinel
External Links:	interview is here, Archived version
Click here for related articles on Fanlore.

In 2009, Rimilod was interviewed for Cascade Library.

Some Excerpts

I have two pen names: Dolimir and Rimilod (which is Dolimir spelled backwards). Just to let you all know how long I've been online -- my first internet connection only had 9600 bauds. Imagine my surprise when I later discovered that if you had a higher baud you could actually see images and not just text. :-) But even back then, I knew better than to put my real name out into cyberspace. Therefore, I took the name of my favorite college-played D&D character. When I submitted a screenplay to Project Greenlight, it never dawned on me to create another screen name (there are days when I'm not the brightest bulb in the chandelier), so I tried to get Dolimir taken off the web. Obviously, that didn't go well. But that's how Rimilod was created.

When I left The Sentinel fandom, I dove headfirst into Smallville. From Smallville, I migrated into Supernatural (apparently, I have a thing for "S" fandoms), although I don't really participate much in the fandom side of things anymore. I guess you could say I'm more of a lurker now. While I mostly read Supernatural, I have branched out into a myriad of other fandoms as well (including, occasionally, Sentinel). The one thing I love about being on LiveJournal/Dreamwidth (dolimir_k) is that I can dip my toes into any fandom I choose, without necessarily having to submerse myself into any of them. I have discovered numerous authors I would never have run across if I had stayed in a "mailing list" environment.

I first ran across The Sentinel because I was channel flipping and came across a curly-haired young man who didn't want to be ventilated by a pissed off magpie. I remember looking at my son and saying, "What do you think?" He shrugged and said, "Sure, why not?"... When I took my first steps onto the information highway, I joined the AOL Babylon 5 community. When the series ended, I found myself craving that sort of on-line community. I had tried a few fandoms, but nothing clicked. I honestly don't remember how I came across the Sentinel fandom online. I do remember that I used to haunt the Sentinel Library daily, looking for new stories. I read as a lurker for nearly fifteen months before I decided that I'd like to do something to 'pay fandom back' for all the wonderful stories I'd read. Of course, making the decision to write and actually writing were two completely separate ideas. I didn't have a clue where to start. So I joined the Sentinel Angst List, wherein you had to produce a story every six weeks (I believe) or you were kicked off the list. The authors on the list were incredible and I found myself producing stories just so I could continue reading their stuff.)

The very first fanfiction story I ever wrote was called, "Chains" and it was set in the B5 universe. I had no idea what fanfiction was. But it was an idea that wouldn't let me go until I wrote it down. I showed it to my fandom friends, who liked it, but who also had no idea what fanfiction was. I later discovered that B5 writers had to be incredibly careful because JMS, the series producer/writer, actively hunted down fanfiction stories, so all fanfiction was hidden on enclosed lists. Somehow, I ran across such a list and the rest is history. The very first Sentinel story I wrote (which was actually only my second fanfiction story) was Ain't No Mountain High Enough. How did it feel to put it into the public eye? It was terrifying. Absolutely terrifying. I went back and reread it recently and, surprisingly, it didn't make me cringe. I also like the fact that not only did I focus on Jim and Blair's relationship but Simon's relationship with them as well, which sort of became a theme with me.

I love feedback. Heh. I've had some incredibly moving feedback over the years. It's always fascinating to me to see what readers pick up on and what moves them. However, I rarely get feedback on my Sentinel stories anymore because I moved from AOL to Gmail and was unable to change a lot of the addresses that appeared on my stories. [email address redacted] Regarding concrit, I'm of two minds about it. (a) Questions while writing a work-in-progress are awesome. They challenge me and make me think. I've had several stories strengthened because people took the time to ask for clarification or to point something out to me. (b) After a story is written and posted, I'm not so thrilled with it...because basically the story is done. A lot of times it's posted to an archive. How can I make changes to it then? Of course, in the early days, I had people offer me their beta services because they liked my 'style' but were bothered by grammar errors, etc. I learned a lot through these folks!