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I have watched many soaps over the years.

* Days of Our Lives

* Sunset Beach

* Passions

* The Young and the Restless

* The Bold and the Beautiful

* Guiding Light

* General Hospital

These are the soaps I have watched. So you can say I am well schooled in soaps. I know it, I breathe and live it. The three shows I have watched my whole life are Days of Our Lives, The Young and the Restless and The Bold and the Beautiful. I know the history of these shows very well, in fact I know the history before I even started watching. I know this because whenever I get involved in a new show I always go and read back as much as I can about the show before I started watching. So as I said, I enjoy voicing my opinion on soaps because that’s what I know. I’ve been thinking for the last month or so about being apart of a Days podcast. I love love love Days. It’s a great soap and I hope it doesn’t get cancelled for at least a few more years (if not more!) That’s where my head is at right now. I like talking about shows, and dissecting the stories and snarking on it all or praising it. It’s still a work in progress but I think we may get it up and running this weekend. I want to get started on it asap. I am very excited about it all. I need the distraction from my real life. It’s very soapy and I don’t really want to focus on my own soap opera, but on someone else’s!

We’ll see how it all goes.

I love Christian Le Blanc, but did he really deserve a third Emmy against Days of Our Lives‘ Peter Reckell, who had busted his butt last year for his show. Reckell was deserving, but thank god Anthony Geary didn’t win, or else I would’ve been throwing things around my bedroom. No offense to the great Luke Spencer, but being a drunk and a bad father, bad husband, bad character really, these days anyway, just doesn’t cut it with me.

Did Julie Berman really win over Kristin Storms? I don’t know about you but Storms can act circles around Berman, even on a lacklustre day. I would’ve much preferred either Storms or…nope, I think I would’ve just preferred Storms. Thank god Rachel Melvin didn’t win, Chelsea Brady got on my nerves!

Darin Brooks was nominated? He won? Oh dear, were the standards that low this year? I love Days of Our Lives, but really Max Brady was not that memorable for me. Blake Berris, you were robbed.

A tie for Supporting Actor? I like the sound of that!

BOB GUZA AND HIS TEAM WON FOR BEST WRITING? ARE YOU KIDDING ME? General Hospital, the show full of wannabe mobsters and their trashy women, won for the best writing for soaps last year? Who was smoking what when that happened?

I hope I didn’t dream the amazing appearance of Betty White, who presented the tribute to Guiding Light. Katie Kelly watched the Emmys with me as we were picking our Fantasy NFL picks for the uncoming draft and she was in tears during that segment. Betty White is a true legend of television. Please tell me that wasn’t all my imagination?

DID THEY REALLY CUT OFF THE GUIDING LIGHT TRIBUTE TO GO TO COMMERCIALS? Honestly, please tell me I dreamt that? The Grand Dame of Soaps is going off the air this year because a certain network, who shall remain nameless, decided to cancel it…and they were given less than three and a half minutes of airtime to say goodbye. I had hoped to hear from Robert Newman and Kim Zimmer, at the very least. Why would you cut it short? Why would Seseme Street get longer airtime on the Emmys then Guiding Light? Why didn’t we have more shots of all the stars of the show? I need to wash my brain out with bleach at the thought of this horrendous exit for the show. Such a shame.

Bold and the Beautiful, best show? Ok, I’ll give you that one Mr. Bell. I was somewhat entertained last year and after 22 years, I think he deserved a little credit for keeping us entertained through Ridge/Brooke/Taylor Take 134. I’ve been watching B&B since before I was born, so it’s kept me watching, even though I’ve laughed my way through most of it. Though, I will say, none of the nominees were my top pick out of all the soaps on offer. I thought The Young and the Restless was more enjoyable last year, but that’s just me…and my love for Elizabeth Hendrickson I guess! On another note, why the hell was All My Children even in that catagory?

And please tell me The CW, why did you deem it necessary to roll the credits before giving B&B the chance to even say a few words of thanks? Surely the most important award of the night would have been given some respect? No pre-thought as to time management folks? What about a split screen like on the red carpet?

Tamara Braun. Yes, ok she’s a good actress. But Ava Vitali was not a role I enjoyed seeing her in. Though, she did give me some laughs and some tears last year. Kudos to you, you’ve survived All My Children, you should get an Emmy just for that!

All in all, most of the winners were deserving I suppose. They weren’t the worst picks surely. Hopefully next year we’ll see more Guiding Light nominees (I’m so biased)!

What were your thoughts on the Daytime Emmys this year?

There, I said it. I even believe it. And before you say it, or think even it, no I have not been brainwashed by the show. I genuinely sympathise with Frank and what he’s been going through.

Before I get into the whys and hows, let me just say that I love Josh Lewis and I truly believe he is the best man on that show, followed closely by Phillip Spaulding. However, I am writing this piece on Frank because it was the most shocking of realisations (you can imagine why right?)

So why did I come to this conclusion?

The August 18th episode of Guiding Light. It struck me as I was watching Frank join Josh Lewis and Matt Reardon in a round of golf swinging. Just seeing Frank walk up with his clubs in his hand (and yes BPD Poddesses, I too found it odd that Frank would carry his clubs, even though the other men had bags) and thank Josh and Matt for letting him join them just pulled at my heart strings. There are some people out there who say that soap actors are like scraping the bottom of the barrell when it comes to acting ability, but boy did my chest squeeze when I heard Frank Dicopoulos use that tone of voice to thank the other men. Something in that tone of voice, whether intentional or not, made me really feel for Springfield’s resident Detective Lonelyhearts. It was as if in those few short sentences, “Hey Josh, thanks for calling me. I appreciate it. I needed to get out. This is huge,” I could feel the metaphorical weight of the years on Frank’s shoulders just emanate from him in waves. A deep longing for something more in life; to be wanted for a change; to stop being everyone’s second choice, or an afterthought. The years of trying to be there and raise Harley during the insanity that is her life, losing the girl more often then not and having everyone around him happy and successful have drained the once interesting character that was Frank.

Now what remains is a character so resented by many within a fandom that no matter what he chooses to do in regards to his unborn child with ex-fiancee Natalia Rivera, someone will find fault with his actions. What can Frank do? If he chooses to give up the rights to his child to Olivia, he will be branded a bad father. If he chooses to be involved in the kid’s life, some Otalians will be up in arms that he will remain in their orbit forever. The poor guy has been written into a corner where nothing he says or does could be the stepping stone to fans loving Frank Cooper. I rewatched the August 21 episode and he’s going on about how they’d be living in two seperate homes with Buzz. It struck me because most people think that just because it happens all the time, doesn’t mean it is always a positive situation for a baby to grow up in. Now, hold your horses there, I’m not advocating a Nank reunion here, I’m just pointing it out that while parents can eventually make it work living apart, it’s hard and often difficult for children to have two homes, two sets of rules from each parent, two bedrooms, two collections of toys and books and whatever else a kid could want or need. It’s a natural feeling to have as a parent of that baby to want the best situation and upbringing to maximise that child’s happiness.

Of course, having happy parents usually means a happy environment for a child, but what if the family was Otalia and baby…plus Frank. My heart just melted into a pool of Raz when Frank said to Blake, “maybe I shouldn’t get any at all, because Blake, where do I fit in with this family, hmm?” Blake was a voice of reason in that scene because frankly, that’s the name of the game, they can work it out, as all seperated parents do, and Frank is a good man. He’s always done the right thing by his family, he’s always been there for his friends, and the one time since Eleni that he really fell for another woman, she’s intent on making a family with Olivia. Olivia, the woman who crushed him by dating him and his father at the same time, and then when he left her and she went on with Buzz…well, she didn’t actually stay with Buzz, that broke down after she started kissing the man who raped her, Jeffrey “McRapist” O’Neill. I love Olivia Spencer, but boy has she given cause to make Frank uneasy around her.

Now as for the August 19th episode…

Why in the world would Natalia think Frank would be happy to find out that their loveless former union had resulted in a baby? I mean honestly, when most people imagine having a baby with someone, they hope that it’s with the person they love and want to raise that child with together as a family. Now, of course, let’s not excuse Frank here for everything. How can you NOT see that that would be your kid Frankie boy? Natalia is a Catholic woman who had said to you how improper it was to have had sex with you without the committments, and you think she’s somehow slept with another man? Or do your Cooper genes really think that Olivia Spencer could’ve gotten her pregnant? I mean, granted, Spencer is a one hell of a woman, but I doubt very much even she could engineer that one, this isn’t Days of Our Lives or Passions you know! Perhaps he thought it was an Immaculate Conception, Nat and God had chats during prayer time and poof! there’s a baby for you Miss. Rivera! Also, why would you mention getting married Frank? That didn’t exactly work out best for you two crazy kids last time now did it? But I digress, it’s hard not to though, Frank is a Cooper and can be very dimwitted.

Another tangent here, folks. My other question is: Why are the Coopers all written to be such fools? I mean, cmon Buzz and Marina, if Frank and Natalia have walked into Company together and announce that Natalia is having a baby, who else is going to be the father? Is Natalia, a very religious Catholic, the town slut who wouldn’t know what man would’ve provided the sperm to make the baby? Please Clampetts, I mean Coopers, for the love of God, grow a brain or two along with the corn and barley who rope belt wearing, banjo playing fools. Oh and Marina, the fake enthusiasm *crap acting* as you ask, “there going to be a wedding?”, just did not play right and quite frankly you must have such short term memory if you don’t remember the failed wedding back in April. You know, the one wearing Natalia ran out on your dad, crying as she sped back down the aisle and out the door. Too much moonshine apparently, that or Marina Clampett, I mean Cooper-Camaletti, has been unable to overcome her less than stellar gene pool. But again, I digress.

Back on track. The Frank and Liv scene by the tracks: Olivia, darling, it seems you don’t feel it matters what he wants or feels, Natalia has her own thoughts about what she wants and what she wants is Olivia and for you to turn around and tell a man he should marry the woman you love…well that’s just stupid. Frank to his credit tries to make her see that but she refuses to have any part in it. His “Oh Olivia, what are you doing?” is exactly what we’re all thinking. Yes Olivia we understand you’re hurting, but this isn’t the right way of dealing with those feelings. It didn’t work out last time and it won’t work out this time.

It’s clear that Frank is not happy with all of this and too right that he shouldn’t be. He’s being put into a situation he did not want in the first place. He knows Olivia and Natalia are in love, he knows she wants to raise the baby with Liv and Frank, but how can Frank fit in when clearly there is a family already being established between the two women and the baby? He still loves Natalia, but clearly that doesn’t mean he feels being with her and starting a little Cooper family with her is the right path to go on.

So, at the end of the August 21 episode, he offers her his support, that whatever her and Olivia decide with their relationship, they can all work it out and make it possible to have a three parent family. He’s just looking to be a big part of his baby’s life, not a fringe parent. That’s understandable, right?

Frank Cooper is a good man. He may not be the only good man in Springfield, but he is one of the best. He has his faults, but we all do too. And here ends my defence of Good Man Frank.

- Enjoy it or not. Comment if you wish. But thank you for reading regardless.

Ted Kennedy was the last surviving Kennedy brother. He was the only one of Joseph Kennedy’s sons who lived beyond his 40s. Edward’s elder brothers all died under tragic circumstances. The eldest, Joseph P. Kennedy,  Jr., died serving in WWII, aged 29. The most famous of his brothers, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, aged 46, and the brother he was closest to, Senator Robert F. Kennedy, was also assassinated, aged 42. Perhaps one solace in the revered elder statesman’s death is that he is finally reunited with all three of his brothers, who were all taken from this world well before their time. Kennedy carried the family name upon his shoulders as the family was hit hard in the 1960s following John and Robert’s assassinations in 1963 and 1968, respectively. Notwithstanding the blemish on path to the Presidency, the Chappaquiddick Incident of 1969, Kennedy was always a respected and influential member of the Democratic Party. Despite never reaching the Presidency, Kennedy remained an important asset to the party, despite his personal demons. His inability to carry on the image of “Camelot” that John and Robert exuded was more the result of his enduring life, rather than his unfavourable character in comparison. The life that he did lead resulted in his everlasting image as one of the greatest serving Senators in United States history. At his death, he was the second most senior member of the Senate, after West Virginia’s Robert Byrd and the third longest serving Senator of all time.

Now I’m sure I could go on and on about my admiration for Edward Kennedy, but I won’t. I will say that the United States Senate has experienced a great loss today, not only personally but politically. Known for his liberal causes and outspoken nature, Kennedy was a powerful figure to be reckoned with and the country has lost an incredible figure of reason and intelligence. The political powerhouse that was the Kennedy family has now ended with Edward’s death, leaving behind a rich legacy that will never be forgotten. The Kennedy political family have influenced the policies of this country for the most part of the 20th century, beginning with Edward’s father Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr. and continued on by his brothers and then himself. Let us all remember Senator Edward Moore Kennedy as the great man and great politician he was and rejoice in the fact that his influence on many of todays politicians, both Democratic and Republican, will continue on and serve the nation, including incumbent President Barack Obama, who Kennedy endorsed for the Presidency in return for universal healthcare to become a top priority of the Obama Administration.

Senator Edward Moore Kennedy, born on February 22, 1932 in Boston, Massachusetts, died on August 25, 2009 in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts of brain cancer. He was 77 years old, survived by his first wife Virginia Joan Bennett, their children Kara, Edward Jr. and Patrick and his second wife Victoria Reggie Kennedy.

May he rest in peace, the Lion of the Senate.

But at least Otalia fans have now been given the ultimate gift: the re-pairing of Jessica Leccia and Crystal Chappell on another show. Fans wondered after Guiding Light’s cancellation if Otalia would be spun off to As The World Turns, their sister soap, but once Chappell announceed her return to Days of Our Lives, speculation shifted to whether Leccia would join her there as perhaps Rafe Hernandez’s sister, Arianna. Well, of course what happened was that Lindsey Hartley, ex-Theresa Lopez-Fitzgerald of Passions fame, was cast as Arianna so that became a dead route to getting the girls back on screen together. Many had hoped that Venice would be the series to reunite them, and it looked one step closer as Leccia was announced as portraying one of the characters, named Ani. Then they made us wait…and wait…and wait…till today, when the waiting finally ceased.

Crystal Chappell being announced as Gina is sure to make Venice even more watchable. Could you honestly see yourself tuning in to a webseries that was designed to be a vehicle for Chappell, but not have Chappell star in it? I think not. My thoughts on the webseries is this: I do not want a gaggle of crazed Otalia fans being able to influence the show’s direction. Already the influence of the fan’s opinions, mostly vocalised on Twitter, is evident through Chappell’s announcement that fans will only have to wait 30 seconds before seeing Leccia and herself share a kiss. Thank you Chappell for giving us what Guiding Light hasn’t (yet), but I hope that the show remains above trying to transplant Otalia to the web as Gina and Ani. As much as I love the characters, I do not want to see several chunks of well developed characterisation be moulded into the framework for the characterisation of the Venice characters. I will be tuning into the show, no doubt, but I am tuning in to see something different, something fresh and new, not Otalia 2.0. I also don’t want to tune in just to see Billy and Bill Lewis on Venice, I want to see the Colonel and Owen.

Venice should take a leaf out of Imaginary Bitches’ book. Eden Riegel and Elizabeth Hendrickson were reunited in the webseries, years after their characters were seperated on All My Children. Yet, they didn’t do a BAM (Bianca and Maggie) redux, the characters of Eden and Lizzie were different and more layered, and they didn’t become romantic together either. It still remained successful because it pushed the boundaries and was interesting to watch, not because someone was making out with girl. I will be patient though, I’m sure the characters of Venice will be entertaining and full of life regardless, Turrisi seems to be a very interesting person on Twitter so I have faith that she can harness that energy she exudes into her characters.

- Enjoy it or not. Comment if you wish. But thank you for reading regardless.

Now, I know you have your secrets that you cannot reveal, but inquiring minds want to know. How many chapters do you have planned right now? Is it still 44? Will we get another chance to have the girls do the deed?

Ah, ha! Hide Beside Me questions. Currently, the chapter count is now at 45. It could change again. With an epilogue, afterwards. The epilogues will not be one of those gigantic, seventy-thousand word epilogues. It will be a true epilogue. I believe, probably, no more than five to seven thousand words, if that long. Of course, the chapter count could change, just depending on what I need to add or what I find I need to add as I get further along in the story. Currently, in addition to Chapter 26, which was Olivia and Natalia’s first time together, there will be an additional four or five other sex scenes, I believe. I can’t believe the exact number and I could look it up in my outline, but there will be other opportunities for, yes, the girls to “do the deed,” as you say.

So, when are Natalia and Olivia going to catch a break and get some outside help in dealing with Phillip?

Ah ha! Technically, they don’t catch a break really, ever. [Laughter] There’s a little arc of joy here that I’m working in, right now. 26, 27, and 28, I believe, are all part of that arc of joy and then we start going back down hill again. However, keep in mind that Olivia has made a telephone call to her brother Sam, and Sam will be a part of this story. Sam will help them. There’ll be some other outside help coming for them, but essentially, this is a story about Olivia, Natalia, and Emma and how they survive this threat against them. But yes, there’ll be some outside help. Some from Sam; some from other people. It’s coming. Don’t worry.

In fact, why did you choose to make Phillip so evil? He’s an angel on the show.

Yes, he is an angel on the show, and I adore the Phillip that’s currently on the show, and I adore Grant Aleksander. He has such an expressive smile and such a sweet face when he’s thinking about Emma or when he’s trying to help someone out, and I think he’s just so, just so sweet looking! Like a little boy! You just want to go “woo! Thank you!”

But, I wanted to know, when I first sat down to write the longer Hide Beside Me, where I was going to take this story. I wanted to know what would’ve happened if Olivia had been right about what she said on 2/16, which is, what? “We have to get out of here. He’s insane!” basically, and, “I have to flee!” And I wanted to know what would happen if she had been right. If he had gone through the madness and, instead of coming to the other side a sane person, had come to the other side clearly psychotic or sociopathic or both, and had become super evil. That’s why I went that direction. I wanted to see what would happen. I wanted more than anything to see Olivia, Natalia and Emma on the run, and the only way to get that to happen was to have Phillip chase them. That’s really the whole basis of this storyline.

Somebody once wrote, a long time ago, that there are seven or eight basic stories told over and over again, and one of those stories is the protagonist leaves town. Someone comes to town and then someone leaves town, and this is that story- the protagonist leaving town. That’s Olivia. Olivia, Natalia and Emma are leaving town, and why, and how that plays out, and that’s important. So that’s why I chose to make him evil. I know, he is so sweet on the show, isn’t he? I just want to, like, hug him, and I can’t believe they’re, yeah… anyway. [Sigh] We won’t go on to that, but yes.

And, lastly, are you ever completely satisfied with the stories you write? Does your emotional response beta help you with over criticizing your own work? In fact, can you tell us a little about the infamous Hide Beside Me betas that we all wait on (impatiently) after each chapter is complete?

Actually, I’m glad you brought up the betas, because I really, I can’t go, or leave this interview, without talking about them and how wonderful they’ve been to me. I have five betas, and all of them are extremely valuable to me. For this story, I have five betas. I don’t usually use betas all the time, but for this story, I deemed it necessary because there were so many things going on, and so much that I didn’t know about the history of the characters and that sort of thing.

So, Destini, from Big Purple Dreams, was one of my first betas, and she’s my canon beta, so she tells me what I need to know canon-wise, and provides me with links to clips so I can find out things from the past that I may not know. She helped me, extremely, with some clips of Phillip when he was crazy and had kidnapped the kids that I would not have had otherwise. That was extremely helpful.

Also, Megan, or she goes by the name Mightbefound on livejournal, is my ‘Grammar Nazi’ beta. She helps me, particularly with commas, because I suck at commas, word choice, and a lot of other grammatical issues. But she also helps with the story. She has made several chapters so much better by having a little comment here or there, like saying, “Have you thought about this?” or, “This is good, but have you thought about that?” and, “I like how this is done, but maybe change the punctuation so that it makes it sound like this.” She has been extremely helpful in that regard as well. She’s made many of my chapters much better.

So, let’s see. That’s Destini and Megan, and Fewthistle is also a beta of mine. She came to the story a little bit late, but she has a lot of grammar experience as well, and also, she helps me with word choice and kind of the overall feel of it to make sure that I’m on point, character-wise.

Tiffany, a friend of mine, is the plot genius who, in one afternoon of driving, we were on our way out of town, helped me figure out all the plot problems and the outline for this story, after Chapter 10. I’d gotten to Chapter 10, and I was worried that I didn’t have any idea where this story was going, and she had no experience with Guiding Light at all, but she listened to me tell her this story that I was trying to tell, and asked me questions. We figured out the plot for the rest of the chapters, pretty much that afternoon and evening. It was quite exciting to get that all out of my head and onto paper, within the next couple of days. And so, she’s truly a plot genius. I don’t know if this story would be half as good without her input, as it is.

And then Shiva. Darling, Shiva, who is my emotional response beta, and she keeps me in line by letting me know, really, what the reader is going to be thinking. If the reader is going to be thinking, ‘Oh my god, this is brilliant!’ or ‘Oh my god, that’s so sad,’ or ‘Oh my god, how could you do this to them?’ or ‘Oh my god, thud!’ [Laughter] Whatever the emotional response of the reader is likely to be, that’s what Shiva helps me to discover.

And, Shiva, well actually, all of them help me to not be too critical of my own work. I am not ever completely happy with a story. I will read a story that I’ve written or a chapter over and over again and I will find all the tiny little mistakes. All the tiny little… Like, in Coming Undone, I left off a ‘T’ in the word “three”. It’s driving me crazy. But, you know, with Hide Beside Me, I have the opportunity to go back, from the beginning and fix all my mistakes. Like, I have several chapters in the beginning where I referenced Olivia’s eyes as blues, and they’re not blue; they’re green, hello? So I have to go back and fix a couple of things before I can, you know, publish it all in one fell swoop. I will with Hide Beside Me, especially since it’s so long, I will go back through and fix all of that up, and I will publish it in one, long archived piece, probably, on Burning City’s archive so that, if somebody wanted to read it all the way through from the beginning, without stopping, they could. And it will be my final version of it so I’ll be able to fix it.

Some of the other ones, I don’t go back to fix just because it’s too much of a difficulty. [Cough] Excuse me. But no, I’m never completely satisfied. I always think that I could’ve done better, or I could’ve done something differently, or I could’ve… I go back, and I read it, and I think, ‘Ugh, god, that’s so ham-handed.’ There’s a story that I wrote for the Law and Order: SVU fandom called Twenty Twenty. It was posted probably three or four years ago. I still can’t read it because I’m so embarrassed that I wrote it. [Laughter] And yet, it’s not bad, at least, that’s what people tell me, that it’s not bad. It’s just that, woah, it’s a multi-chapter sex scene, and I was a little embarrassed that I had written, afterwards, and so, no. I’m not ever completely satisfied. Part of me wants to go and take that down, but I know that people from the Casey/Olivia fandom would be just livid with me if I did.

So there it is. The end of this edition of Insight. I’m hoping to line up a couple more shorter interviews with some other fan fiction authors and other Big Purple Dreams artistic members, like nut meggers. Stay tuned!

As always, thank you to Katie for transcribing the interview. Without your tireless efforts there would be no interview to post. Thank you to Xan and Badger for editing advice. A very special thank you to DiNovia and DJ Shiva for agreeing to the interviews, I love you both and am so glad to have you in my life. You are both so talented, I only hope that more people will see how incredible you two are through these interviews.

Lastly, thank you to you all for reading and checking my blog for a new update to the interview. It means a lot to me. I hope you’re enjoying it!

If I may ask, where did the original idea for “Hide Beside Me” come from? Did Fewthistle have anything to do with the creation of this amazing story?

Actually, the idea, when I first started writing for Otalia, I did that challenge, where it was put your iPod on shuffle and write a story to the first ten songs, and one of the songs that came up was a dance mix. No words, very throbby, rave-type music called Hyperborea, which actually is another word for Winter, by DJ Donna Olivia. I was listening to it and I was like, “Ah, how the hell am I going to write a story to this?!” There’s no words. There’s not even a real, clear intent for the song, other than to make you dance and I was like, “Well, god, what am I going to do with this?” So I listened to it a couple of times and as I listened to it, I was paying attention more to the beat of the music than any of the actual notes or anything like that. I was paying attention to how it sounded rushed. It made me want, and when I hear it in the car, it always makes me wants to drive faster. So, I was like, “Ok, something about faster, faster,” and then it just popped into my head.

This ficlet that I wrote for that particular piece, it’s known as “Number Seven,” from that post, that I ended up writing almost entirely in first person, and almost, I mean, it was probably the fastest one I wrote, even though it was not the shortest. This little blurb about how they’d gone on the run and Natalia had cut her hair, Olivia had confessed her love and they were trying to protect Emma from Phillip. It was all encapsulated in about five or six paragraphs and somebody wrote back to me and said, “You should really expand this one. This one has great potential,” and I said, “Oh, haha, thanks a lot.” Then somebody else came and said, “No, no, I agree,” and the more they talked about it and commented there, the more interested I became in the concept.

Then, when I came up with the whole idea, because I couldn’t figure out how I was going to do it in first person the whole way through, because I knew it was going to have to be a long one, I came up with the idea of doing first person perspective for Natalia, for Olivia, and for Emma, and then doing third person past omniscient for any other exposition that I needed. It became a very urgent feeling item, and it became, actually, quite exciting to write at that point because I became enamored of the fact that I could get into the heads of these three, well these two women and this one child, much better doing it that way, than trying to do it from one person’s perspective all the way through. Suddenly that became a challenge to me, and I’m nothing if not up for a challenge, so I ended up writing it that way.

Fewthistle did not actually have anything to do with the creation of this story. At the time, she hadn’t even started watching Otalia clips, I believe, when I first started writing it. It was more along the lines of a couple people commenting to me. I know one of them was one of my betas, Megan. I can’t remember who the other one was. I have a feeling it was probably Shiva. [Laughter] But I’m somehow not giving her the credit that she is due for the creation of this story. I’ll have to go back and look at the comments to find out who exactly it was. So, yeah, that’s where “Hide Beside Me” came from, and the title came from a Goo Goo Dolls’ song called “Name.” That song always had the feel of, you know, protection, like somebody famous was being protected by someone who wasn’t famous in that song and I thought it fit well with the feel that I wanted to do here. Which was basically, take the canon and change it drastically, from 2/16/09, which is the episode it shears off from.

Ok, Fewthistle, someone I have heard so much about. Tell us a little bit about your partnership.

Ah, what can I say about Few? Few and I have been running in the same fan fiction circles for years now. Somewhere between eight and ten. We originally came to know each other in the Janeway/Seven of Nine fandom, of Star Trek Voyager, is my guess, and we’ve been rotating, or going through our fandoms, pretty much on the same alignment ever since. I wrote one story for Law and Order: Trial by Jury, she wrote several. I did not write any for Law and Order (mothership), and she wrote several. I wrote a lot for Law and Order: SVU, and so has she, but with a different pairing. I was Olivia/Casey, and she was Olivia/Alex. I did not write anything for Devil Wears Prada, which is one of her favorite genres. We, and I mean we, by myself and one of our mutual friends, Flyingpeanuts, got her into Otalia by basically just nagging her, over and over again until she threatened to kill us. She watched the clips and then threatened to kill us again because she didn’t have time for another fandom. Then she said she’d never write for Otalia, and now she’s writing for Otalia. So. [Laughter] But I still get the death threats often.

Few also found out, oh, three years ago, that she lived within an hour and a half of me, and we decided to meet and have lunch, and since then, we’ve been dear, dear friends. Honestly, I don’t know what I would do without her. We go to Winston-Salem, North Carolina, twice a year to hang out at old Salem, at the bakery and have dinner. We’re just really good friends, and her friendship means a great deal to me. I will always be grateful for the fandoms that brought us together and the fact that, you know, that I’ve been able to meet her and make our friendship something that I will cherish for many years to come.

Our partnership? She and I talk on the phone regularly. We both feel the same way about the current canon storyline on Guiding Light, and so we came up with the idea of the community, Burning City, that cuts canon off as 6/22/09, which we decided would be the way that we would want to handle it. We created that site, and the back-up archive site. We have a few other people involved there too. Flyingpeanuts is one of the moderators and another mutual friend of ours does the archiving. We’re very passionate about Burning City because we believe that it has the potential to have some really good writing in it. It’s a new community. It’s less than two weeks old. Actually, I think it’s two weeks old now, and we’re excited to see it grow, and to see the people who will come and share their works with us. So, yeah, Fewthistle and I, we talk about storylines a lot, we write stories in our heads, we jokingly talk about the Olivia that lives in my head and the Olivia that lives in her head, and those two Olivias are very different people, [Laughter] and that sort of thing, and so, we have a great friendship. I think that, you know, our writing reflects some of that passion that we both have for this storyline too, and that makes us even better friends.

How far ahead have you got it planned out in detail? What happens if something similar you have had planned for a future chapter or other story randomly occurs on the show or in another writer’s fic?

Interesting questions. First of all, I have the whole thing planned out, all the way through the epilogue. My outline goes chapter-by-chapter, tells me who’s speaking, where they are in the world, because, as you know, Olivia and Natalia are on the run, and so they’re in different cities at any given time. It tells me whether or not it’s a Springfield chapter or one of the girls, obviously, and sometimes the line from the song that I used for the cut-text in livejournal that will be there because I’ve already picked it out. Then, underneath that, there’ll be, maybe, five or ten lines of notes. Sometimes they’re just two to three word sentences just to remind me what I have planned, but I do have it all the way planned out to the very end, including the epilogue.

For instance, I can give you the notes that I had for Chapter 23, which was Emma’s chapter as they were driving to Oklahoma. Sometimes the things that I write down as notes change a little bit, or are removed or overlooked or, not overlooked, but I decide not to do them for whatever reason, and these are the notes that I wrote for that chapter.:

“What she’s been told, what she picks up on, and what she knows.
Frightened. Worried.
Feeling like her world is falling apart.
Feeling like it’s all her fault.
Wishing she could make it all right again.
She isn’t having any fun anymore.
Can’t we just go home?”

Those are the notes that I made about that chapter and that became Chapter 23.

Oh, what happens if something similar you’ve had planned for a future chapter or other story randomly occurs on the show or in another writer’s fic? Well, right now, I don’t read a lot of writers’ fics. I’m so far behind on fic, it’s not even funny. I keep up with Dax’s, The Courtship of Emma’s Mother, because, my god, that is a brilliant piece. I keep up with Wither Thou Goest, oh, and her name is going to escape me. Crap! I’m sorry! I just read the other piece the other day! Umm… Hold on a minute. I can find it really quickly. Anyway, I keep up with Whither Thou Goest, and I also read a lot of Gillian_Kane’s work, which are not episodic, usually. Oh, Whither Thou Goest is written by Geekgirllurking. I keep up with Fewthistle’s work, obviously, but also not episodic in nature. That’s all that I keep up with, routinely. So, if somebody else is going to be putting something in their fic that I have planned for Hide Beside Me, I might not be aware of it, and since I’m not watching the show right now, in order to save my vision for Hide Beside Me, I may not be aware of that either.

The really interesting thing is several things have shown up in the show after I have written them. [Laughter] Just little things, like, I wrote the scene in South Dakota where Natalia gets strawberry pie on her lip and Olivia reaches across the table in the Buffalo dining room, swipes it off with her thumb, licks her thumb, and then they’re both sort of shocked that that has happened. A couple weeks later, there was the peanut butter scene, on canon! Then, I had a scene that happened in a hotel room. I don’t know if it was in South Dakota or sometime later, where the girls have a king-sized bed and Emma is sitting in between them, they’re going to watch movies. A couple weeks later on the show, the spa happened, and Emma shows up, and they’re going to sit on the bed and watch movies. And then the Mary Poppins stuff. I had not posted yet, but had written most of the scene where actually, they’re watching the movie, and the movie happens to be Mary Poppins, and I had written it two days before 4/14, which is when Olivia, at her graveside confession to Gus, refers to Natalia as “the eternally cheerful Mary Poppins.” And so, those things have happened, but they’ve happened after the fact. Since I’m not watching the show right now, then it’s not going to be a big deal to me because I’m not going to see it.

I sincerely doubt that the show is going to have any of my current chapters planned for its show. I would be very surprised. Hide Beside Me is kind of unique in the way that I, as far as I know anyway, from what I’ve read, that I’ve sheared off from a particular point in time canon-wise, and I’ve changed nothing except for the activities of basically four people. That’s what’s driving this story: Phillip, Olivia, Emma, and Natalia. So I don’t see a lot of other people choosing that particular path to go down.

I have been asked to put in this question. Will Frank die in Hide Beside Me? I mean, you have to admit that’s a valid question. Please tell me he won’t die as the ‘good man’?

Ok, Frank does not die in Hide Beside Me. There will be two deaths in Hide Beside Me. I will not tell you who, but neither one of those people is Frank. He will not, however, be the “good man”. I don’t particularly believe Frank Cooper is a good man. I don’t believe he’s a bad man. I just think he’s a man, and I think that he is subject to all the petty jealousies and all the “I’m so pissed at Olivia”s and all that crap that I’ve already written him having.

I think that he is, essentially, an insecure man. I think that he is full of himself, to a certain extent, and that he became a cop in a small town because he likes power and he doesn’t have it in his life. He has created an artificial sense of power by becoming a cop in his town, and I think that his aversion to powerlessness is actually what drives him more than anything. I think it’s also why he, in the show, routinely underestimated and sold short Natalia, treating her as the little woman who could cook and clean and sew or whatever, and failing to recognise that this was a woman who would also put herself and her son basically through life on their own. From the age of sixteen, she was able to utilise resources to keep them alive and healthy and solvent, without resorting to criminal activity all those years. How impossibly difficult that must have been for her, and yet, he completely ignores that part of her life in the show.

He is, essentially, an insecure, self-centered man who really is not a bad man. He’s not evil. He’s just misguided. And so, no, my Frank will not end up the “good man”. You can relax, there’s no need to worry about me going down that road.

Hang in there purple peeps! One more part to go! Even more details about “Hide Beside Me” to follow. Stay tuned!

As always, thank you to Katie for transcribing and Xan and Badger for editing advice.

Just like the story on Guiding Light, Otalia fan fiction has had its positives and negatives. What are your thoughts on Otalia fan fiction at the moment, in light of the current story arc that has been formulated on the show?

Ok, that’s an excellent question. I’m not fond of the storyline as it stands after June the 22nd; doesn’t make me a very popular person right now. [Laughter] Or at least, it’s not a popular opinion. But I don’t like it. I think that it was a mishandled idea. I think that it would have been more aptly played, more deftly played, if they had done it after the wedding, rather than four months later. To be honest, as a writer, I think it is sloppy writing, or lazy writing. I think it makes use of clichés that weren’t necessarily needed here. I understand there were logistics issues with Jessica Leccia’s absence due to her maternity leave. However, I think that there were a number of options for them to play with, and that having chosen the one that they did and placed it in the way that they did, I think it did a disservice to the characters. That’s what’s most important to me as an author, the characters, especially these two.

I think that fan fiction can help heal a fandom that is beset by these conflicts, as it were, because there are differing opinions about this particular storyline. There are certainly others with opinions that say that this is excellent for this couple, and so dramatic and so aptly played, and yes, of course, the actresses are doing wonderful work with what they’ve been given, I certainly agree with that and would never say otherwise. Fan fiction can show an alternate way of having to deal with it. And that is actually why my friend Fewthistle and I created Burning City, which is an Otalia fan fiction, art, and video community that, as its premise, restricts artists and video artists and authors from using any canon having to do with the Otalia storyline, post June 22nd. Meaning, no reference to the pregnancy scare and no pregnancy issues at all. Other things from canon, such as Phillip’s illness or Natalia working for Blake, or those sorts of things, are certainly up for grabs, but the one main issue or premise for this community was to stop it at 6/22, as far as the Otalia storyline went. I think that the storyline on screen presents a very interesting challenge for authors. We, at Burning City, have chosen one way to deal with it.

Certainly there are other valid ways to deal with it, such as writing the storyline into fan fiction and attempting to repair the damage that has so obviously been done to this couple by speculating what’s going to happen when Natalia returns. I find it very difficult to read those pieces right now, but I do read them. There are four authors whose works I would read if they chose to deal with that particular subject. One of them is my dear friend Bronzey, who is doing a fabulous job with this particular aspect of the storyline and I enjoy reading her story very much. Another one is one of my betas, Megan, who has asked me to beta for her a story that deals with this particular storyline and how she has chosen to resolve it. So, there are absolutely many different ways that fan fiction can be used during this time to help fans deal with their issues regarding the storyline because we are a family, and we pride ourselves on that.

I was reading Coming Undone last night, and I was just amazed at how you could just get inside Olivia’s head and write as if you were her. How do you get inside their heads like that? How do they even stay there? There must be four corners to your mind to keep all those women in there and yourself!

This is where I get to talk a little bit about what makes DiNovia, DiNovia. I am a theater major. I have a degree in theater. Although my particular major emphasised stage management and directing, I had to be on stage a number of times as part of the program. One of my favorite parts about acting is to be able to create a character, based on a script, and extrapolate from that script how the character would react in certain situations and incorporate that into your whole being. I tended more towards method acting. Although, I drew the line at like, if I had an injury, actually injuring myself to find out what it felt like. But my choice in acting was to take my character and write a journal in their voice. Not just a journal about what was happening in the script, but also a journal page or three from their childhood, from their future, taking the script and making it a baseline, but extrapolating both the past and the future for this character.

From that, I learned that I could use that in my writing. I find myself writing in first person perspective more for the genre of Otalia than any other fandom I’ve ever written for. Which I believe is interesting. In Hide Beside Me, I write Olivia, Emma and Natalia in first person. I find Natalia the hardest, even though I’m possibly more like her or, well, Fewthistle would say I am the Natalia, so being like a character doesn’t necessarily make her easy to write when it’s first person perspective.

I find I write Olivia the easiest. I can get inside her head like nobody’s business. I can hear her snark. I can hear her pain. I can hear her fear. I don’t quite understand, actually, unless it’s just a case of opposites. That she is opposite of me, but yet, we share a common history of damage that maybe I’m able to get into her head a little easier.

The one that surprises me the most is how well received my interpretation of Emma is. Emma, as you know, is eight, and to write first person perspective of an eight year old is…well I’m never quite sure I’m going to get it. I’m never quite sure when I come up to an Emma chapter that I’m going to be able to recreate the first one and be able to hear her in my head again, and yet, she never fails me. So I am very surprised that I am able to get Emma on the page consistently because as a character, it’s hard to follow her. She’s not a consistently used character, and she’s not consistently portrayed, so the fact that I am able to create a consistent eight year old who sounds like Emma to other people is very gratifying.

It is difficult to write in first person perspective. It can be very difficult if you can’t hear the voice of the person you’re trying to write, and that’s the next chapter, and you can’t move on with the story until you get that chapter. I had that problem with Natalia a lot early on in Hide Beside Me. Or in general, even when I wrote third person omniscient, past tense, with Natalia in Captured for the Queen to Use, I found myself listening, over and over, to clips of her. Not watching, but listening, to get her cadence down, to get her word choice down, to get her pauses. My God, that character has more pauses and changes in thought and pace in sentences than I’ve ever had the unfortunate necessity to write. In fact, I was joking about this with Fewthistle the other day when she was expressing she was having problems writing Natalia as well, and I said, “Really, honestly. Just throw in a couple of double-dashes and some ellipses and you’ll be fine.” But that’s really too simplistic. It’s very difficult to get Natalia’s voice down and her word choice down and all of that.

It’s gratifying when I get told, “How do you keep these characters in your head that well? How do you get their voices down so well?” I wish I knew. It’s some sort of strange alchemy of my training and my level of empathy. I do have a heightened sense of perception where people’s emotions are concerned. I always have, ever since I was a small child. So I think it’s a strange alchemy of just natural empathy, the ability to empathise, the training that I received in acting and a writer’s ear. I think it just comes together and makes something happen that’s wonderful.

Why did you get started on writing Otalia fanfic? Why do you continue to write for us fans?

Wow, well, I would have to say that, although I hesitate to use the word “blame”, the blame does fall to Destini, our fearless leader at Big Purple Dreams. Destini and I have been in similar groups for many, many years. She used to run Alternative Quadrant, back when I was writing in Voyager days. We knew each other online, and still it’s only online. I have not had the pleasure of meeting her. We have been kind of circling each other all this time, and I have had a livejournal account for years now, and she friended me and we’ve been on each others’ livejournal accounts as friends for, I would say, a good three years, at least. And so, what happens with livejournal is you check every day to see what your friends are doing.

And around January – December and January – I kept seeing these Youtube clips of something that she was defining as “Otalia,” and I was like, “Ok, I don’t know what this is,” and so a couple of blurbs underneath said, you know, Guiding Light and I was like, “Ah, a soap opera! I wasn’t aware that Guiding Light was doing a lesbian storyline like All My Children was doing.” So 20 years previous, I had stopped watching soap operas cold turkey and never went back. And, so I was like, “Oh, a soap opera. I’m not interested in that!”

So, I continued to ignore the clips. And then, there was one. It turns out it was from January 13th, 2009. The episode was known as “Family Day.” I believe that’s what it’s known as online. The scene was Natalia, Olivia and Emma trying to get Emma out the door for family day. It’s the scene that ends with “You deserve it, Mom!” – the cookie, and I knew nothing about these characters. I didn’t know who belonged to whom, what was going on, why they were there, who the child was, anything. And I watched the scene, and I extrapolated from the scene that Emma was Natalia’s child and that Olivia was Natalia’s live-in lover and that Guiding Light had gone much further in a lesbian storyline than I had ever seen on television before. That’s what I extrapolated from that one scene. I was wrong, on every level, except the names of the characters. At least I got those right. But underneath it Destini had said, “I’m falling in love right along with them.” And you know what? It didn’t take me long to figure that out.

Like I said about what types of fan fiction I like, there are three ways to get me involved in a storyline very fast. Hurt/comfort. I also like redemption stories. Recreating yourself and finding your way. Those stories, I love that. Then the third thing that will get me every time is a child. And lord mercy, Otalia has a child. Emma sucked me in, while Destini got me hooked. You know, started me off, pushed that stuff on me like a drug, and boy, oh boy, Otalia is a virus or a drug or an addiction or an obsession or whatever else you want to call it. Emma kept that going for me. She really got me hooked on the pairing and how those two women reacted and interacted with that child in that one little clip just sealed the deal for me.

Why do I continue to write for the fans? Well, first of all, who wouldn’t want to write in this fandom? I have to say that the Otalia fandom is different from any other fandom I’ve ever been involved in, ever. And I mean that. I was stunned at how quickly I became addicted to Otalia. I was flabbergasted when that addiction led me to stop eating; to stop doing almost anything. Unfortunately, at the time, I was working full time and going to school full time. It was unheard of that I would be so enamored of any fandom that I would forget to eat. I would stay up 24 hours, just to watch clips, to write, to talk to the fans, oh my god, the fans! How could you not write for this fandom? That’s what I want to know. If you have any sort of writing skill whatsoever, if you love Otalia, this fan base is the most vibrant, the most organised, the most loving and connected fan group I have ever been involved in. I can’t tell you how many friends I have made and how my life has been changed by the fan base. Not just the actresses, but the fan base has been so generous and so kind and so supportive, not just of my work, but of me, as a human being! So yeah, that’s why I write for you fans. Because you? You guys rock.

Do you have a muse or are you just inspired by the characters on the show?

I do have a muse, and if any of you are familiar with the movie Tank Girl, starring Laurie Petty, I call my muse “Tanked Muse.” And basically, when I interact with Tanked Muse, because I do interact with her, she is generally Laurie Petty, dressed as Tank Girl, with a bottle of Bombay Sapphire or some other very expensive alcohol, in her hand, swigging from it and telling me what to write. She and I have had arguments. She and I have had disagreements. A notorious one is that, very early on in my writing for Otalia fandom, I wrote ten ficlets to music. The challenge was to take your iPod, put it on shuffle and write a story for the first ten songs. The tenth song that came up for me when I did that was Melissa Etheridge’s “Sleep,” and Tanked Muse took off and started writing and I was typing until I realised that it was a death scene, a major character death scene. It was an Olivia death scene and my throat closed up and I started to weep. I couldn’t get past the first paragraph, knowing what was coming, because she told me the whole story, how it was going to end and I could not deal with it. She has been told we don’t do death scenes and she still comes around to suggest them every once in a while, and I just ignore her. But yes, I do interact with my muse.

I know that sounds odd. She can be recalcitrant, she can be silent. She spent years silent. She can be fun. She can be overbearing. But she is always creative, and she is the kind of me that I’m not. I am much more professional, much more organised, much more even-keeled, much more quiet and cautious and compassionate than my muse is. She’s the brash part of me, the brash side of me, that I don’t get to express very often, and I think I need that in order to break through to get the writing. It’s important to have a muse, so yeah. I am very much inspired by the characters of the shows that I have written for. But I’ve been inspired by characters before and have not actually ended writing for those fandoms, so it really depends on what’s going on and what I feel I can give to the fandom and what I feel not qualified to do. For instance, I have been inspired by the characters on Saving Grace, and yet, I choose not to write for Saving Grace because I just don’t feel I could do it justice. I don’t think it’s my genre, but I’ll read it.

There you go DiNovia lovers, that’s part two of her interview with me. Again, I’d like to thank Katie Kelly for transcribing the interview as well as Xan and Badger for the editing advice. Also for those who can’t wait for the next instalment, I predict two more editions after this one (including tid bits about “Hide Beside Me”!)