Cascade Library Interview with Swellison

Interviews by Fans
Title:	Cascade Library Interview with Swellison
Interviewer:	Cascade Library
Interviewee:	Swellison
Date(s):	September 5, 2010
Medium:	online
Fandom(s):	The Sentinel
External Links:	interview is here, Archived version
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In 2010, Swellison was interviewed for Cascade Library.

Some Excerpts

I've been in fandom a long time, and I started out as a zine writer, using my own name. I kept using it when I finally got online in 1997. When I got laid off in 2003, I decided that I needed a disconnect between my fan life and my work life, so I created a pseudonym, Swellison – my initials and ellison, identifying myself loud and clear as a Jimbabe.

My fannish activities include being part of the Revelcon ConComm. Revelcon .is a multi-media fan convention in Houston in March. Most of the ConComm are Sentinel fans, so there's always a Sentinel panel or two, and other Sentinel fans around for talking about the guys. I've wanted to be a writer since I was ten. I thought I'd be a librarian and write the Great American Novel on the side. As with Blair, things didn't turn out the way I thought they would, maybe I'll write that novel when I'm retired. In the meantime, I satisfy my creative urges through writing fanfic.

I remember a couple of my friends tried to get me to watch The Sentinel when it first came on, but I wasn't interested because, from the title, I thought it was a lone hero show like Stingray, and I preferred partnership shows. (Talk about your first impressions being off-base!) My friend Jennifer showed me 'The Debt" and then asked if I wanted to see more. I did, and was well and truly hooked by the first episode of the second season ("Flight... My friend Christy loaned me her notebooks of Kristine Williams' TS stories, which she printed off from the net and whetted my appetite for TS fanfic. For a few months after that, if I was visiting a fan friend who had a computer, I'd usurp their pc and read fanfic. Finally, I broke down and bought my own computer in the summer of 1997, so The Sentinel is the reason I went online. Once online, I hung out at Guide Posts, reading—and my first TS fic was a response to their non-owie smarm challenge, Here and There. I just kept writing, after that.

My first few stories were (classic) Star Trek stories, published in zines long out of print. Then I moved on to Simon & Simon, Alias Smith & Jones, Blake's 7 and (gen) The Professionals – all partnership shows. With zine stories, the nervous period is the time between submitting the story to the editor and hearing back from them, saying they accepted or rejected the story for publication, so it's a private worrying/waiting period. My first TS story was also my first story posted online, Here and There. I wasn't worried about posting the story, because I'd been writing fanfic for over a decade by then, but I was anxious to read the reviews, because everyone has their own perception of the characters. I was new to the fandom; I wanted to know how close to the mark I was in portraying Jim, Blair and the Cascade Universe. Most of my current writing is Supernatural, which I tell friends is the best partnership show since The Sentinel. My three main fandoms have been The Professionals, The Sentinel and Supernatural. My Sentinel and most of my Pros stories are posted at Mackie's Idol Pursuits, and I post my Supernatural stories at ff.net and Supernaturalville, still under Swellison.

Yes, I do create original characters, if the plot needs them. It's easy to write a missing scene that's just between Jim and Blair, but a detailed case story has them interacting with other people, just like the guest cast in an episode, so I create whatever minor and major OCs are necessary for the story to work. I read somewhere that every character, no matter how minor, should have a description included, so that the reader can visualize them, and I try to follow that rule. Creating an OC is difficult because they have to stack up to and interact with the established TS characters, and feel real enough that the reader accepts them as part of the story. Usually, my main OC is the villain of the story. I take care in naming my OCs – how many syllables do I want in his/her first name, what kind of first name, traditional or unusual, what letter of the alphabet do I want for the last name? I pick a letter and then haul out the residential pages and randomly open it, scanning for a good last name.