I’ve been writing anime fan-fiction for almost twenty-two years now. I started off in highschool with a notebook and pencil when I was fifteen. My first love was Gatchaman, but my newest love is Darker Than Black.

I love writing comedy. It's my strong suit; it comes from reading too many David Sedaris books. I also love to write dramas with an espionage twist. Ray Bradbury is my favorite author, but I don't think I'll ever write anything quite as cool and bone-chilling as he does.

Lately I've been doing a lot of beta-reading for some outstanding people in all sorts of fandoms. Below I have a few listed. Go check them out and give them some love. They all are very talented. Also, below my beta-reading list is now a 'guidelines for writing GOOD fanfiction.' This was put together by WingedPanther73 and myself. A lot of it is common sense items. Check it out. If you have any more to add, questions, or comments send us a PM.

Some of my absolute favorites over the years? Gatchaman, Voltron (Lion and Vehicle), Gundam (all series), Starblazers/ Captain Harlock universe, Cyborg 009, Full Metal Alchemist, Gunslinger Girl, Samurai Seven, Big O, Avatar: Last Air Bender, Weiss Kreuz, Trinity Blood, Darker Than Black. (This list could go on and on) I’m more of an old-school kind of a girl, but I’m branching out into some great manga like like MARS.

Personal Info? I’m in my mid-thirties. I graduated college a year ago with both an English and a History degree. I’m married to a mathematician who has several cats! He's my most awesome beta-reader and his profile is WingedPanther73; I love him very much. He has several good, short stories, but his writing style is really different from mine. I do believe going back to college was a huge help in improving my writing style. (History professors happen to be pickier over grammar than English professors!)

My blog is http:///

Post on my blog are a couple of things I'm not allowed to post here. For one, a Gundam Wing story is there that centers around Cathrine getting kidnapped by Nikol so that Trowa will be off his game. There are some non-consent scenes and there is an implication that Trowa was abused as a child, so it's has mature warnings on it. For two, I have my 50 sentences challenges posted there. So far, only Cyborg 009 that are Jet and Albert centered; however, there are a couple of them that are 002003004 centered. I know... I hear the Cyborg 009 fandom out there wanting to throw tomatoes at me, but I've seen plenty of 002004009 centered items out there. I'm afraid I just really enjoy writing about the first generation more.

I want to encourage everyone to join these communities and try out these challenges. I feel like I'm becoming a better writer because of them:

http:///

Also, some other community listings:

http:///5140.html

People I beta for:

Battleship Yamato

Lady Lear- I've been enjoying seeing a fresh, original character that blends into the setting and plot without warping the original characters. Jessica Conroy is Peter Conroy's younger sister and a rouge medic; she is having to deal with seeing her old flame, Hardy, once again. Lady Lear has a wonderful take on Peter Conroy and the rest of the Tigershark pilots.

Weiss Kreuz

Laurose- This lady writes Schuldig and Aya centric stories. They have a lot of thought to them and are very deep. She uses the whole Weiss Kreuz universe and doesn't confine herself only to the anime. She really digs into how Rosenkreuz effected Schwarz's psyche. Fantastic writing because she really uses Schuldig's skill as a telepath to her advantage in the narrative.

Vitani- 'Nimm Mein Leben' is an exploration of Ken and Nagi after the events in the radio drama 'The Holy Children.' If you've read my stuff, you know I really devoted three entire months to exploring Ken's character in gross detail. He's not as simple as people thing, but Vitani does such an outstanding job at dissecting Ken's mind.

Sybil Rowan and WingedPanther's tips for writing GOOD fanfiction.

1) Get a copy of Strunk and White's Elements of Style. This has all the latest tips for smooth writing. It also contains up-to-date grammar rules.

2) Sybil always reads everything out loud. It's amazing how much you catch that way. Awkward phrases, incorrect pronouns, and missing commas.

3) Get to know your characters. The whole point of fanfiction is to put the characters you know and love in unique plots and/or settings. If you don't feel comfortable with a character, Winged recommends that you take a scene from your fandom and write it from that character's point of view. It's amazing how much insight you can gain from simply forcing yourself to understand why a character did and said the things he/she did in the fandom. Sybil was able to give Trowa Barton (from Gundam Wing) amnesia without changing his personality. That's why we know this can and should be done. This will also help you avoid problems with #9 below.

4) Always remain in the point of view of the character you're working with. It's never OK to switch from one character's point of view to another's in the middle of a scene. You must either break the scene or make the character with privileged information reveal it either through dialogue or actions (if you're lucky, your character's a telepath, thank goodness for Schuldig and Ivan!).

5) Sybil is a firm believer that you can never have too few “that”s. That is her firm belief. If you say “that” all the time, you get the feeling that you're being repetitive. That gets boring for the reader. That's a really good way to slow down the pacing as well. Don't do that. Winged is a little more lenient, but he also wrote the preceding to make the point, got that?

6) Always eliminate as many state of being verbs and modals as possible. In other words, eliminate “was”, “were”, “should”, “could”, etc. Make the verb active and past tense (unless in dialogue). It's OK to use modals in dialogue, because that's how people speak.

7) Have a point. No one wants to read your stream-of-consciousness experiments. Have a plot. Have a goal. Even a two page story should at least convey something about the characters. You can do experimental stuff (Winged certainly does) and you don't have to plan it all out (Winged doesn't), but you should have a purpose for putting your fingers to the keyboard.

8) Eliminate extraneous words. “Less is more.” This means that you don't have to go into extreme detail about the luxurient, honey-blonde, wavy, shoulder-length hair with red highlights and neatly trimmed bangs on your original character. She's blond. You can mention the highlights later. Nobody really cares. Your goal is to tell a story, not to take a photograph.

9) This brings us to the infamous Mary Sue phenomenon. If you don't know, a “Mary Sue” story is a story with an original character that overshadows the canon characters. You can read Winged's Mary Sue and Gary Stu stories for some parodies on this. Basically, there is nothing wrong with an original character, but that character cannot warp the other characters in order to be the star. For example, if you're writing a Star Wars fan fic, you cannot CANNOT CANNOT have an original character that makes Yoda look like a wimp. Sybil's working with a Battleship Yamato fanfic author who has done a wonderful job creating an original character and blending her into the existing canon. It can be done. You know you're on the wrong track if the most stoic male in canon starts gushing and sending roses and writing love letters. Think Han Solo as a hopeless romantic as something to avoid. See also #3 above.

10) Always have another set of eyes look over your stuff before posting it. You don't want to embarrass yourself. Granted, we find flaws in our stories after posting them, but we keep the errors to a minimum.

11) Your spell checker is your FRIEND! Use it. If you have a grammar checker, use that too. This doesn't replace having another person read your story, but will make things easier on that person. If your proof-reader opens the file and sees a bunch of red squiggly lines, it doesn't make him/her feel respected. That is not how you want to treat someone who's doing you a favor.

12) Eliminate speech tags. These are things like “he said”, “she exclaimed”, “he bemoaned”. Usually, they simply aren't necessary. You should always be able to tell who's speaking by the words being used. If need be, have the appropriate character DO something to keep the reader oriented. A useful experiment is to write a scene as pure dialog, and do it in a way that makes it clear who's speaking at all times. See also #3 above.

13) One of the keys to keeping the story moving is to use short sentences. “Bob hit Joe. Joe collapsed with a sore jaw.” is much better than “Bob struck out at Joe's chin. Flailing wildly, he managed to connect with a loud, crisp smack that sent Joe stumbling backwards, arms windmilling wildly, collapsing despite his best efforts to remain upright.” Unless your scene needs a little drama or comedy, avoid the second. Short, punchy sentences communicate action and speed. Long sentences slow down the action.

14) Find your own voice. If you think one of us has a great writing style, thanks! However, you'll notice that our writing styles are very different. Winged tends to write longer sentences and more analytic stories. Sybil focuses heavily on characters, with shorter sentences and longer, more detailed stories. Winged focuses on scenes, Sybil focuses on action. Your voice will be different from both of ours. Always write from your heart/gut, first. Then worry about editing. A good book to help get you inspired is Zen and the Art of Writing, by Ray Bradbury.

15) Read a lot. Not just modern novel, but older literature as well. Shakespeare, for example, can give you a lot of inspiration. Knowing the old Greek legends can provide you with lots of ideas. Reading Like A Writer, by Francine Prose, gives a lot of examples of how to pull ideas from other writers and use them to improve your own. This is a particularly important tip for people writing Cartoon/Anime fanfics. You are NOT directing an episode! You are working with a very different medium from the original story. Don't use chibi gimmicks, for example. It works visually, it fails literarily.

16) One other thing: comedy. Don't fool yourself, it is HARD to write. Winged generally avoids this. Sybil enjoys it. The key is word choice. Look at the two examples in #13 above. Notice the great difference in the choice of words, details, etc. Any David Sedaris essay will show you how word choice can make the difference between a slightly dull story and a side-splittingly funny story. You may have to use a few extra words, but it's usually a matter of opening your thesaurus and picking a substitute with a slightly more specific connotation.

17) Use specific language. Don't say things like “The nondescript person walked down the nondescript corridor to an ordinary, somewhat triangular door.” Don't use contradictory or confusing descriptions either. “The masculine girl strolled down the exciting, unadorned passageway towards the oblong, circular door.” It leaves your reader wondering what to believe. Have a consistent message, say it, and move on.

18) Please, learn a few, basic comma rules. You can find them with a simple google search, but once again, make sure you've picked up Elements of Style (only about 10.00). They're all in there, and they matter.

Special Note: My husband has created an IRC channel set up as a chat room we can all use. The idea is that it would be a place that fanfic writers could discuss ideas, stories, etc.

You may think that it would be something interesting, there's some basic info below:

If you're using FireFox for your web browser, you can install the ChatZilla plugin to connect. On Windows, most people use mIRC http:/// Some Mac clients are listed here: http:///irchelp/mac/ Linux has several options, including X-Chat.

The network I'm using is (Rizon). The Channel is #fanfiction. If you want to join, and run into issues, just ask here, or if you get into the network and have questions about setting your nick (nickname), he can try to help you in channel.

Thank you for your time, SR.

If you believe in Jesus Christ put this in your profile and don't ignore it because the Bible says that If you deny me, I will deny you in front of my father and the glory of Heaven.

This is a story about God. Read if you believe in him, and read even if you don't.

A teenage girl about 17 named Diane had gone to visit some friends one evening and time passed quickly as each shared their various experiences of the past year. She ended up staying longer than planned, and had to walk home alone. She wasn't afraid because it was a small town and she lived only a few blocks away.

As she walked along under the tall elm trees, Diane asked God to keep her safe from harm and danger. When she reached the alley, which was a short cut to her house, she decided to take it. However, halfway down the alley she noticed a man standing at the end as though he were waiting for her. She became uneasy and began to pray, asking for God's protection. Instantly a comforting feeling of quietness and security wrapped round her, she felt as though someone was walking with her. When she reached the end of the alley, she walked right past the man and arrived home safely.

The following day, she read in the newspaper that a young girl had been raped in the same alley just twenty minutes after she had been there. Feeling overwhelmed by this tragedy and the fact that it could have been her, she began to weep. Thanking the Lord for her safety and to help this young woman, she decided to go to the police station. She felt she could recognize the man, so she told them her story. The police asked her if she would be willing to look at a lineup to see if she could identify him. She agreed and immediately pointed out the man she had seen in the alley the night before. When the man was told he had been identified, he immediately broke down and confessed. The officer thanked Diane for her bravery and asked if there was anything they could do for her. She asked if they would ask the man one question. Diane was curious as to why he had not attacked her. When the policeman asked him, he answered, "Because she wasn't alone. She had two tall men walking on either side of her." Amazingly, whether you believe or not, you're never alone. Did you know that 98 of teenagers will not stand up for God, and 93 of the people that read this won’t repost it?

Repost this if you truly believe in God.