Ladies and gentlemen of Bludhaven

Dannell Lites!! :)

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Moi name is Dannell Lites, but moi's Daddy calls moi "pun'kin":):) What Mama calls moi is often unprintable in polite company! *VBEG* Ah'm AKA Miz Scarlet and Belle. Ah'm from The Deep South, Sugah:):) Can't y'all tell?? Raised in The Big Easy until Ah was 15 when moi's Daddy the Colonel retired from the military and we moved to his cattle ranch in Texas! Yeee- Ha! Remember The Alamo! Ah'm thirtysomething, and in real life Ah am a freelance historical researcher. Moi's hobbies and/or interests include reading anything Ah can get moi's hands on, history, comics, of course, movies, traveling the world and fine witty conversation of all kinds! People are the best toys this little ol' southern belle ever found to play with:):) Ain't too many places Ah haven't been, nor too much Ah haven't done at one time for another! And if'n Ah liked it Ah did it again!

Moi's favorite fan fiction writer, huh? Okay! This is where I get moiself into deep kaka by not mention the obligatory Syl Francis:):) Seriously, Ah enjoy Syl's work but moi's favorite ficcer has to be the inimitable DarkMark! Followd swiftly by Dr. Benway and Alara Rogers. Must not forget KJ nor Matt Nute, either:):) On the Batman fic front Ah enjoy Dark Lady's fic and also SKWrite! And for the lighter side of Batman y'all just can't beat Brooke Terry!

Moi's favorite non-fiction writer??? Oh Lordy! Are y'all right sure y'all want to let that particular genie out of the bottle?? Okay, you have been warned! ! Here goes!

Mainstream: Dostoyevski, Franz Kafka, Jean-Paul Sarte, Jose Luis Borges, James Thurber, Edgar Allen Poe, Mark Twain, Hemingway, James Herriot, Lee Falk, and Dame Agatha Christie
SF: Harlan Ellison, Howard Waldrop, Fritz Leiber, James Tiptre Jr., Larry Niven, Poul Anderson, Gordy Dickson, Craig Kee Strete, Connie Willis, Philip Jose Farmer, Phil K. Dick, Manley Wade Wellman, Roger Zelazny, and Isaac Asimov
Comics: Alan Moore, Kurt Busiek, Mark Waid, Elliot S! Maggin, Paul Levitz, Frank Miller, Marv Wolfman, Chris Claremont, Stan Lee, Denny O'Neil, and Warren Ellis

Professionals who write comic books have moi's utmost respect! Making a decent living in ANY creative field is consarned hard! Nightwing as a character is still # 3 on moi's BatFamily Hit parade:):) Moi's views on a NW writer, huh? Okay! Ah think Chuck Dixon is a very good writer. He has kept the character in the spotlight and in the eyes of the readers, IMHO! Devin Grayson does a splendid job with Gotham Knights! Lots of characterization which is what Ah crave when Ah read a comic! Ah have *almost* forgiven her for The Huntress! *G*

Dixon's NW title is a little too action-oriented for moi! Ah can read the consarned book in five minutes and when you pay $2.50 for a comic ... that's a little too fast! We need to see more of his supporting cast, IMHO! More interaction with Bruce and less with Tim! Ah would say that Ah would like to see more of Dick's Titan friends in Bludhaven but then that would mean more Arsenal! Absolutely NOT! Not unless they gag him!:):) Some better villains wouldn't hurt either! Most of Dick's so called Rogue's Gallery is pretty lame, sad to say! But most of all Ah would like to see the return of Dick's detective skills! He's the world's Second Greatest Detective! What happened to that?? Ah love Babs but why does he have to rely on her for virtually all his info??

Ah have been asked if Ah would like to write for a comic company. Nope! Too many restraints from the guys in suits (TPTB!) for moi's taste's. Fanfic offers much more creative license! And believe it or not unless you get very, very lucky, writing comics doesn't pay for spit:):) Nor does it offer a great deal of respect. "You do WHAT for a living?? You write those funny books? Get outta town!" Ah neither plan to nor have Ah submitted works to DC or to any other comic company. It's been suggested to moi many times, but Ah have no real desire to tie moiself down like that:):)

Ah've been a writer since Ah learned to read at about the age of four:):) Soon as Ah learned the alphabet, Ah was making up stories of moi's own! Ah have always been a storyteller! If'n y'all mean this fan fiction thing, then for about four years now. Moi's work is posted at ff.net, Bludhaven ML, Ossaville ML, KnightList ML, Moi's own DannFic ML, Nightwing ML, batrslash ML, comicslash ML, and several others. Ah am archived at CFAN'S The Wayside, Lori X-Men Archive, Shifting Sands X-Men Archive, Crime Alley, Alara's Magneto Page and her Darkest Heart Villians Arcive, The Itty Bitty Archives, Rogue's FanFiction, The JunkHeap, MoonCat's Library, The Shadow Lair, The Wonderful World of Make Believe, Titans Lair, Fonts Of Wisdom, Sabertooth Fan Page, The Better Batman Bureau, DC Comics Fan Fiction Lair, the System, Mooksville, moi's own Batman Page for moi's DC fics, moi's Magneto Page for Marvel fics, more HomePages than Ah can remember, and a partridge in a pear tree!:):) Ah'm all over the Net! *G*

Ah enjoy fiction writing the best, definitely! Writing non-fiction is what Ah do for a living so, while Ah LOVE history, that falls more under the category of work than fun! Ah am most often praised for "the humanity" of moi's writing. Told that Ah make these four color guys and gals real living people with real problems. Ah also, Ah am reliably informed, turn a mean descriptive phrase!:):) And Ah do put quite a bit of research into moi stories, which is a great rarity. Luckily, Ah have over thirty years worth of comics reading knowledge to draw from, which definitely makes moi different from the general run of ficcers. Ah suppose one of the other things that make moi different from most writers y'all will be reading about heah is that Ah did not start out writing Batman fic nor have Ah limited moiself to it.

The hardest part of writing fan fiction is the consarned typos! Ah type, as Ah like to put it "thirty errors a minute":):) So the process of actually, physically putting the words into the word processor and then going back and running that sucker through the spell checker is one larrge pain in the patoot, IMHO! Ah HATE it! Not to mention the fact that Ah spell terribly; that's t-e-r-b-b-l-y. And moi's grammar needs a Keeper sometimes!:):)

The fact is that in fanfic y'all can do things with these charcters that the pros actually writing the books can't! That's why Ah love fan fiction so much. When Ah write a story, since it's "just fanfic", Ah can whack Batman or Superman or take out moi's loathing of Arsenal in ways that Ah would never see in the comics:):) Basically, in fanfic you can make *permanent* life-altering changes in these characters which is not possible in the mainstream books! It's the opportunity to tell stories that y'all will never find in the monthly comics that attacts moi the most!

Ah haven't really got a favorite character to write about! Ah write about a wide variety of characters: everybody from various X-Folk to Preacher. Amongst the BatFamily moi's favorite character to write OR read about is Bruce:):) Second would be Jean-Paul Valley, Azrael! Ah like the characters that haven't been written to death. When Ah write an X-Men story Ah'm liable to write about Cyclops (whom everybody dismisses as an "anal retentive jerk"), Charles Xavier (everybody's favorite child-abusing telepath!) or Magneto ("He's crazy!") or even Gladiator of the Imperial Guard (Who??) instead of the more popular characters like Gambit or Rogue or Wolverine. *Another* Gambit/Rogue story? *yawn* Booooooring!

Ah have written stories in all those categories: action, angst, mystery, romance. Ah dislike being pigeonholed as this or that sort of writer:):) Moi's very favorite sort of tale to read OR write in the comics field is an Elseworlds! Ah have a loooooong history as an SF fan, and world building is just so much *fun*! What would Batman be like if ... (--insert Elseworld premise--)? How would he be different? The same? How would the world in which he operated be different?

Feedback is vitally important to a writer, IMHO! Moi's problem in this area is simple: Ah have seen waaay too many beginning writers (some of them with definite talent!) give up on writing because they get no fb! They don't understand that no fb doesn't mean that the story was bad: it mean that the readers are lazy. The vast majority of them (readers) seem to expect that writers will keep on writing no matter what and all they have to do is sit back and read the stories without taking the time and effort to say squat about it. No such of a thing! Unfortunately writers all too often reinforce this stereotype by pretending to be residents of Ivory Towers who don't need any sort of encouragement or fb. El toro poopoo! Any writer that tells you that is only fooling themselves, certainly not moi!

Of course, feedback is not the only reason Ah create:):) Ah write because Ah think Ah have a story to tell:):) Feedback can drive you or change the way you create. Freely offered constructive critisism is more precious than gems, IMHO!

When someone likes my work, Ah LOVE it! Ah always appreciate it when a reader takes the time and effort to let moi know they read moi's story! Mostly because so few people do it. When someone dislikes moi's work - Ahh! *VBEG* Ah have a tale to prefectly illustrate how Ah feel about that:):)

Some time ago at a WorldCon (World Science Fiction Convention) it was either very late at night or very early in the morning (Ah forget which!) and Harlan Ellison, Poul Anderson, Gordy Dickson, and Ah were on our weary way to crash and burn from Joe Haldeman's Saturday Night WorldCon Redistribution of the Wealth (AKA The Oldest Established Permanent Floating WorldCon Poker Game!) when we were accosted by a very loud, very large very obnoxious fan boy. Ah smiled. Naturally Ah assummed that fan boy's target was Harlan. Halran has a certain rep (well deserved Ah might add!) and it seems to attract dweebs like that - he's the fastest gun in the West so to speak and he gets lots of challengers! This was going to be instructional to say the least! Imagine moi's surprise, then, when the dweeb lit into not the formidabale Harlan but Poul Anderson! Now, understand! Poul is one of the niceest guys y'all are ever likely to met in the halls of SF fandom! Everybody likes Poul! It's a law of nature:):) Dweeb-City offered his opinion of Poul's latest book which amounted to the following: "It sucked! I want my money back!" Poul smiled, reached into his pocket, extraacted his wallet and said, "Hardback or softback?" Then he handed the dweeb a twenty, said, "You're entitiled to your opinion, son." yawned and went merrily on his way. With Poul soon safely in his room Ah turned to Gordy and remarked with astonishment, "Ah don't believe it! *How* could he be so *nice* to that toad!?!" Gordy chuckled. "You don't understand," he assured me. "Poul was nice because it doesn't matter to him! He's got more talent in his left big toe than that cretin's entire ancestry... and he knows it" Ah have always thereafter taken moi's cue in these matters from Poul:):) Truly, everyone IS entitled to their opinion and simply because one person did not enjoy a certain fic doesn't make it a bad fic.

Ah have an amusing fan/feedback tale to share: A gay man once read one of moi's Batman/Superman slash stories, thought moi's name was Daniel and sent moi the most charming indecent proposal Ah have ever received:):) It was almost a shame to have to tell him that not only was Ah female but spoken for!:):) Moi's main squeeze Jimbo (AKA The Reincarnated Jim Morrison!) *Cue air guitar solo* is moi's biggest fan! Ah have other friends who have occasionally read moi's works and enjoyed them. But friends who don't care for comics/fan fiction? Not common:):)

Moi overall view of fanfiction in general is Ah enjoy reading and writing it a lot! *G* Some characters are written unto death and others get hardly any fic a'tall! Superman, for example! Lord have mercy! Clark is THE mainstay of the DCU! And yet you can count the number of Superman fanfic stories virtully on both hands! And AH wrote most of them:):) A little more variety would be tres kewl folks!:):)

Ah started writing fan fiction because Ah'm an arrogant little ol' B-Word:):) Quite by accident, Ah stumbled upon an Archive of X-Men fan fic and was in Hog Heaven for nearly a week! When Ah'd exhausted that Archive, Ah found another and so on. At some point Ah sat back, took stock, and said to moiself, "Self, y'all can write better than some of these turnips!" And so Ah did!:):) An X-Men Elseowrlds called "End Of The Line"! A western! *G* Ah'm inspired to continue writing fanfic due to the fact that Ah get to work with so many absolutely fascinating characters in the DCU and other realms! And Ah just love to tell stories of all kinds! *G* WARNING! WARNING! DANGER, WILL ROBINSON, DANGER!! Ah am not known for moi's modesty! Ask anyone:):)

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Thank you, Dannell! :)
"...if it's too coarse or too vile or too awful for Gotham, it winds up here."
(Thanks to Jim for furnishing me with this one.)



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Dannell's "bio" has been paraphrased from a questionnaire she filled out for Bludhaven. I have edited it for typos and punctuation, and rearranged topics for continuity's sake. Content is otherwise ©2002, Dannell Lites. All graphics are credited to their creators to the best of my ability and knowledge. Except for spelling/punctuation errors, anything not in a red font is ©2002, Dannell Lites. Background set ©2002 by SleepyHead. Please do not use without her permission. Site url= http://dannfan.50megs.com/