I've been writing fan fiction since I was about 15 (good lord that's half of my life, now). Read the early stuff with slightly more caution than the later stuff... I was too young to know just how cheesy I could be. :P

My first fandom love was Dark Angel - and by my first, I mean the first for which I wrote the stories in my head. A leap of faith, that. Then came ... oh, what came next? CSI, then Supernatural, then Firefly, etc. - but none of them held interest quite as long or as tightly as Dark Angel. These days my fandom loves come in intense but short bursts of perusing through entire sections of this site, and there may have been too many of them for me to count.

For anyone reading this who is new to the fan fiction scene, my advice to you is this: Don't be afraid of it. Honestly, writing fan fiction teaches you things about writing that you may never learn without it (I don't really know this, but it's a theory). It teaches you characterization, commitment, interaction with your audience.

Your audience helps you to learn out what works and what doesn't, but you do have to be cautious with reviewers; not because they sometimes tell you things you don't want to hear, but because sometimes they omit the things you don't want to hear. Take positive reviews as encouragement, but never forget who your most critical reader is (who it has to be): yourself. Don't forget your flames, either - sometimes they are angry, useless word vomit, but they can be a very helpful tool too. Read them, close them off for a few days, put them out of your mind, then re-read them - if your work is being flamed, there very well may be a problem. Take a second look. Do the same for constructive criticism, if it bothers you. Don't let pride stop you from improving.

Also, I recommend reading Strunk and White's The Elements of Style. It's short, it's witty, and it's an excellent guide.

And thanks for reading this,

- Kel

Quick note: My DA fics Cargo, and The Only Way Out are regrettably not going to be finished. I'm sorry if I've left you hanging, and I hope you (and I!) can get past it.