Featured Showcased Writer of the Month
Julie Mack

Writers' showcase revisited

What have you been up to since the last interview?
Mostly real life. My two children, Carlie and Sean, are now 9 and 7 respectively are a good chunk of free time is spent dealing with homework, school projects, and spending quality time with them. I also finished my two-year grad school program and now am the proud owner of a Pupil Personnel Services credential -- a fancy name for a certified high school counselor -- and a Master of Science degree in Counseling and Guidance. So, between grad school, work, and family it's been pretty busy here in my real life. Things are finally slowing down and bit and "normal" is returning.

Although a FoLC is forever, are you still an active part of the fandom?
I'm thinking that "active" is a subjective term. I don't spend a lot of time online and haven't gone to a chat room in a long while. So, in that sense I'm no longer active. But I am still an L&C fan and I think I always will be. I have all the episodes on tape, but haven't seen an ep on TNT in a long time. Every once in a while I pull out my L&C stuff and reminisce. I continue to read fanfic (kudos to Wendy Richards and all the newbie writers ... great stuff!) and the various L&C message boards.

I remain a fan of Dean Cain's work and look forward to any future projects from him. IMHO, he is still the most gorgeous man in Hollywood.

What holds your interest now?

With regard to television, I enjoy The West Wing and Law & Order. I'm doing a lot more reading nowadays. First it was textbooks for grad school -- ugh! -- but now it's simply for the pure enjoyment of a good story.

Are you still writing? If so, what is/are your current project/projects?
Yes, I am. I haven't written any L&C fanfic -- or nfic -- in a very long time. There were lots and lots of writing assignments, term papers, and a proposal for a research project that were part of grad school, as well as the comprehensive examination at the end of everything. My muse wasn't happy being locked into APA-style writing and the formality of educational "babble", but she -- and I -- made it through. During 1999 and 2000, I wrote a series of non-L&C fictional stories. They're available at Anne's site, in the nfic section.

I'm currently writing a story titled "Good To The Last Drop". It's up to chapter 8 and should be finished relatively soon -- I hope. My muse is just so happy to not have to write any research papers that she's constantly whispering to me nowadays. I don't know if this is a good or bad thing ;)

As of this posting "Good to the last Drop" has been completed and can be found here. - anne.

Do you think your writing style has evolved? How? Why?
Because of grad school, I think that I've "tightened" up my writing in that I'm using less words but conveying more detail. At least that's what I've been told by someone who's reading my latest work in progress. As far as I can tell, it's still free-flowing and Word 98 still highlights a lot of sentence fragments. But, I have gone back and read some of my previous stories and have had to resist the urge to re-open those story files and do some more editing and tweaking.

Has your view on the characters and the show changed, and why?
For me, "Lois and Clark" will always be about romance. I could forgive almost anything the writers did to the characters in terms of A-plot ... as long as there were memorable scenes centered around the idea that for Lois and Clark, being together was stronger than being apart. Luckily, for me, there were those types of scenes. And the L&C fanfic that I read has reinforced that for me.

Are your tastes in fanfic, as well as your view of writing in general, different from what they used to be? Why?
I don't think my tastes have changed. I'm still a sucker for a good story of any type.

What are your most recent picks of other fanfics in the fandom?
I will read anything by Wendy Richards. She has an writing style that just immediately straps me into my seat and takes me on a incredible roller coaster ride. She's awesome!

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