Del Floria's Interview with Alex51324

Interviews by Fans
Title:	Del Floria's Interview with Alex51324
Interviewer:	Del Floria (Live Journal)
Interviewee:	Alex51324
Date(s):	October 11, 2015
Medium:	online
Fandom(s):	Man from U.N.C.L.E.
External Links:	full interview is here, Archived version
Click here for related articles on Fanlore.

Del Floria's Interview with Alex51324 is an interview with a Man from U.N.C.L.E. fan.

It is part of a series at Del Floria's. See Del Floria's Interview Series.

Excerpts

How would you respond to a critic who says, “Oh, you write fan fiction. You’re not a real writer.”

"What have you written lately?" I would also point out that if "real" means "getting paid for it," that doesn't have to be your goal if you don't want it to be. We don't tell people who play pick-up basketball with their friends every Saturday that they're wasting their time because they aren't "real" athletes, or people who make delicious food for their family and friends that they aren't a "real" cook because they don't have a restaurant. Doing something because you enjoy it is enough, and if it also brings pleasure to other people, that's a bonus.

What do you consider your weakest piece of work and why do you consider it so?

Well, the My Little Pony story was pretty weak; it was a self-insert where the ponies came over to my house and ate ham. Apparently I hadn't figured out the whole "herbivore" thing yet. (Also I really liked ham.)

In terms of things that people could actually find on the internet...I have a White Collar Sentinel/Guide AU that is just a mess; I started posting it on LJ as "story I am definitely not writing," and it's all bits and pieces that are out of order at the beginning. Then I got into the swing of it and it's a story that makes sense for a while, and then there's a bit in the middle where I say, "OK, it's a few months later, blah-blah-blah has happened in between, and now...." I meant to, at some point, clean it up and post it as a coherent story with all the parts in the right order, but that hasn't happened yet. If you look at my fic master post on LJ, you can get an idea of what a mess it is. I have a lot of work I haven't transferred over to AO3 from LJ, and one of the reasons is that whenever I thinking, "Oh, I should do some of that," I remember that job 1 on the to-do list is "Sort out Sentinel!Neal," and then I get overwhelmed and give up.

What do you consider to be your greatest challenge in the creation process?

Endings! And plot generally. I'm great at coming up with a situation to put my characters in, but then once I have them there, I end up going, "What now?" I'm also really bad at sticking with something once the initial burst of creativity has worn off. I started my major MFU work, Waging World Peace, in spring of 2014, left it sit for almost a year, and then came back and finished it in summer 2015. I'm proud of that because coming back to something and finishing it is not something I've managed to do, historically.