I wrote my first slash story (Denny's Cycle I) sometime in 1996. Some people think I wrote it because I wanted to fill a niche—that being M/Sk that was intentionally funny, of which there was a dearth at the time—but really, I wrote it because I was pissed off and freaking out.

As with everybody except Bone, some of my stories aren't as good as others, but I find that the ones I wrote when I was pissed off and freaking out are generally the most popular.

Because of this, I was forced to seek emancipated minor status before the age of ten so that I could continue to exploit my psychological frailties for the good of the people instead of taking a lot of pills and listening to my dad shout "We're only doing this because we love yooooou!" out the window of the van as it screams out of the hospital parking lot.

But I digress.

I was one of the slash writers who write a big-ass pile o' fic in a month, and then post something every six months or so. I was willing to wait for an idea to come to me, and when I wasn't—well, don't read "The Threat of Other Chicks", either, okay?

I retired Ethan Nelson because I'd made some pretty good friends as him, and realized *way* too late that some of them were very invested in the idea that he really was a guy. (Most people don't believe that, but trust me, I'm an idiot. Really.)

I might have stayed out of slash forever if I'd never seen... "Prisoner X". It's probably not the worst episode of "The Sentinel" ever made, but it remains the worst one I've seen, which is really saying some- thing. I was only sort of sneering through most of it, but I swear to you, I came this close to incontinence of the bladder when it turned out that there was an official WWF Fighting Cage in the prison basement.

"Oh my god," I said, "it's 'Caged Heat IV: The Quickening'!"

As with most of my stories, "Woe is You I: Pine and Stew" began with a block of dialogue, and I plunked down my stool next to that block of dialogue and milked it for everything it was worth.

I still don't understand why this story was even as popular as it was, but experience has shown me that I'm a freak: when people comment on lines in my stories, they like something I lost sleep over, and totally ignore whatever I thought was the most kick-ass line in the piece.

My slashy inclinations have waned significantly over time. I don't have it in me to write any more XF, yet that remains my favorite of the three fandoms I've written for. Mulder and Skinner—as I saw them, anyway—had this tense, quirky, affectionately angry dynamic going. Jim and Blair are good friends, Ray and Ben are good friends, and Mulder and Skinner are...Mulder and Skinner.

Lately I've been saying I'm just not going to write slash anymore, but hey, you never know—I've said it before.

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