Hi everyone! It's been way too long. Just wanted to drop by with my greetings and hope everyone had a great holidays and a Happy New Year.

18 – Where do you get the most inspiration for your fics (aka "bunnies") from?
I get mine from my characters.

17 – Titles: are they the bane of your existence, or the easiest part of the fic? Also, if you do chaptered fic, do you give each chapter a title, or not?
I don't have problems with titles. Mine tend to be short and simple. I never give chapters titles.

14 – Ratings – how high are you comfortable with going? Have you ever written higher? If you're comfortable with NC-17, have you ever been shocked by finding that the story you're writing is G-rated instead?

I have done up to PG-13. I've never been surprised that a story I'm writing is G-rated, but I have been surprised that some people considered one scene to rate higher than I thought. I wrote it as a very suggestive scene without going into any explicit details, a la Psycho.

13 - Do you prefer canon or fanon when you write? Has writing fanfic for a fandom changed the way you see some or even all of the original source material?

I prefer canon above fanon at all times. It's why I did a study-pass through the whole series again in order to familiarize myself with the characters and details of the series before I started writing my own stories. I feel that the world and the characters don't belong to me, I'm just borrowing them and I like to do justice to the original creator's visions. When I first started looking for fanfic, after watching the final episode, I was very disappointed with how cartoon-like most fanon portrayal of the characters was. At least, all the ones I could find online. It's funny that I found, thanks to Entropy_House, old fanzine stories tended to have more well-rounded versions of the characters and closer to canon. I'm not sure why that is. But that goodness for old fanzines.

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Looks like I missed a day...

12 – Have you ever attempted an "adaptation" fic of a favorite book or movie but set in a different fandom?

I've done one of B7 in a Maltese Falcon-noir style combined with crazy cliches, The Name is Smith. I never had time to finish it. It's the hardest one I've ever done because witty yet wacky humor is really difficult to get right.

11 – Do you prefer certain genres of fic when you're writing? What kind do you tend to write most?

I prefer sci-fi, and generally sci-fi with a touch of humor/romance.

10 – Pairings – Have you ever gone outside your comfort zone and written a pairing you liked, but found you couldn't write, or a pairing you didn't like, and found you could?

I've never written a pairing I liked but found I couldn't write. I thought Soolin and Dayna might be difficult since I never write them and don't know them well as characters, but they're didn't prove that hard once I started. Of course, it was only a short scene.

9 – Pairings – For each of the fandoms from day two, what are your three favorite pairings to write?

That's easy. Avon/Cally. It's about the only pairing I write. Occasionally I might write Avon and Vila.

Though do hate pairings count? Then that would be Avon and Blake.

I haven't been back to LJ in a while and looks like I'm missing a lot. Hope everyone is doing well. A fanfic meme...great! I'll start off with that.

1 – How did you first get into writing fanfic, and what was the first fandom you wrote for? What do you think it was about that fandom that pulled you in?
The first and only show I've ever been inspired to write for is B7.

The reason? Only one. Avon. The next would be Avon and Cally.

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Sci-Fi World's Feature Friday is about...teleportation

Being B7 fans, we are all familiar with the concept of teleportation, but is it possible? Explore the facts behind this amazing technology in today's Sci-Fi Worlds Feature Friday. B7 gets a gratuitous mention, as well as the indomitable Avon :)

Science Fact or Fiction: Teleportation - Or Take Me Home the Quick Way

Well, I'm back from New York. The awards ceremony was great. The Plaza hotel was gorgeous. New York was crowded. And there are way too many tolls. I didn't win, but I am happy that I made it as a finalist...in the romance category. Sigh. It's not that I'm disappointed. It's an honor to be recognized, but I really had my heart set on the Sci-Fi category. Oh well, there is always next year.

I've been a busy beaver since getting back, trying to catch up with everyone.
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I can't believe I've been away from LJ for this long. It's been hectic. I've been visiting with my sister for the last 3 weeks. I'm flying out tonight. It's been a great visit. My little nephew is full of energy and enjoying being able to walk and run. The Star Trek onesie I got him from the scifi writer's convention fits perfectly.

A bit of good news. It looks like The Empire is a finalist in the 2011 Next Gen Indie Book Awards; in the Romance category if you can believe it. I would have preferred in the SciFi category, but I'll take it.

I'm hard at work on the 2nd novel in the series, The Rebels. This one is far more action-packed then The Empire, but it is still a psychological thriller with a side of romance.

Hi everyone. I haven't posted in awhile but I'm still around. Don't have much energy these days so I've been cutting down my activities to essential ones only. But I came across this and wanted to share it...

Doctor Who - Full Length Trailer for New Series 2011 - BBC One

Yes, I know, more information about the book. I'm just excited.

The Empire is now available in Kindle format, both on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk.

Unfortunately, it's not available in print on Amazon.co.uk yet or available in any format in Amazon.ca, but they are coming. I have no idea when, but they are coming.

Here's the link for those who are interested in taking a look:

Amazon page for The Empire

The Empire is now officially published! It's been a long road but definitely worth it.

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I haven't been around much on LJ. It's still hard to do as much as I used to, and I had to set some priorities. I haven't forgotten everyone. I wish I was able to participate in picowrimo this year but maybe next year. I might drop by before it ends to say hi to everyone.

I'm recovering nicely, getting more exercise in every day and adjusting to the new diet. That's probably the hardest part :)

The book is going well. Everything is done, the cover was finalized last week and the release date is December 1st! I'm mildly excited :)

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This is only to the people who have been following the Adrian&Kali story and my PGP series.

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Just a quick status update. I haven't been on LJ lately but I am doing much better now. At the moment, I don't have a lot of energy so I'm restricting my activities to ones that have priority, which currently is related to the publishing of The Empire.

Apart from working on my health, improving my diet and slowly increasing my exercise level, I've been learning a lot about what it means to be an author and the publishing industry. Getting a book written is actually the easiest part of the process. The real work comes after the book is finished.

Currently, the book has finished the editing phase with the publisher. Numerous rounds of back-and-forth with my editor. Fortunately, most of the changes were minor grammar things. I still have problems with the use of ellipses vs. em dashes. Sigh. We are now in the proofing stage, which shouldn't take long and working on the design for the cover.  I've also set up a writer's page for Facebook (Elizabeth Lang on Facebook and started on an author's Website  (with much help from my brother). In addition, I've been learning lots about book advertising and getting a book reviewed, not easy. Managed to get the book deal reported on the Quill and Quire magazine, which is one of the main magazines for book news and reviews in Canada. Hopefully they'll be willing to review it too but I'm not holding my breath.

I also discovered a great cartoon animation program for dummies yesterday and I am creating a cartoon of the first couple of chapters of The Empire. Unfinished cartoon for chapter 1 of The Empire

I will get back to writing for my friends. Amusements still needs to be finished but not until I have a bit more energy.

That's all the news for me. How is everyone else doing?

Just a quick FYI for those who are interested. I am slowly removing the, Adrian and Kali: The Confederation Empire story from LJ at a request from my publisher as we are getting closer to the publication date, which is now set for December 2010. The final title is, The Empire and I will be writing under the pen name of Elizabeth Lang.

I've taken leadership courses and there are many types of leaders and Avon definitely falls into one of those types. He's actually a natural leader. He expects people to follow him, he slips into a leadership role quite easily without having to ram it down people's throats like Blake and Tarrant, he initiates actions and people naturally look to him for leadership when someone louder and more distracting isn't around.

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Because only Avon can make me happy. And Avon and Cally are simply lover-ly.

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Hello. I'm back from the hospital today. Thanks for all your messages, good wishes and prayers. You're wonderful friends.

It was a scary time and completely unexpected. I had pains the last few weeks but didn't connect it with a heart attack because it started in my jaw, down my throat and to my chest. Even my family doctor thought it was an allergy or pre-asthma and prescribed me some inhalers. But it got steadily worse and by Saturday I was having regular attacks of pain, so bad that I was sweating. That was when I decided to go to the hospital (Scarborough Grace Hospital).

Of course, as always happens, the attack cleared up and my blood pressure and heart beat had returned to normal but fortunately, these days, if you have chest pain, they automatically check for heart trouble and thank god they did. An ECG and blood test later, they saw that an incident was happening, which is their way of saying a heart attack. Up went the IVs and saline solutions and a mouthful of drugs. By then I was suffering another attack. But it was happening so quickly and it was so unexpected that I didn't understand what was going on until they called for an ambulance to ship me to a hospital (Centenary Hospital) that specialized in heart procedures.

You're doing what? I'm having what? A heart attack? That was when it hit me. They wheeled me right into the procedure room at Centenary and described what they were going to do. Balloon angioplasty and a shunt. The whole thing took about an hour and I was awake the entire time. I stayed in the Coronary Care Unit there overnight and they transported me back to Scarborough Grace for 2 days for observation before releasing me to go home.

One thing that I've learned is that women have to be very careful about heart attacks. We don't necessarily experience the standard symptoms as men do. i.e. No pain down the arm. It can feel like indigesion or jaw pain. If it persists and gets worse, it's safer to have it seen to.

But I'm back home now and I'll slowly get back into things. Here's a before and after picture of the heart.

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This is a msg from Kal's brother: She is unable to be online for the next couple of days, because she suffered a heartattack and had to be rushed to the hospital. Surgery went fine and a shunt was installed. She is resting and will be back online when she feels better.