About

× Who’s the shadow? •

My beginning was “ShadowSpirit,” a penname that drew its roots from, dear-me, FanFiction.net. Since, I have stuck with it; an interesting, concept, no? Shadow and spirit – two things that cannot work together. In my eyes, it’s the shadow of the spirit.

My name is Heather; nickname Allia, from just as long ago. I’m a 22 year old non-alcoholic: the only way you’ll get me to have a drink of anything is if I can’t taste the alcohol. I care about flavor, not getting myself drunk. I’m currently holed up in the cold state of Vermont, studying English – Creative Writing at Lyndon State College. I started there in 2006, and I don’t see myself graduating anytime soon.

Lately my mind has just been… unresponsive, to say the least. Flatlined. My memory’s shot to hell, and I can barely focus on much of anything, let alone get anything done. From that, my grades have suffered, and I’ve been letting a lot of people down. My writing, mostly, is stalled.

Music keeps me most together. I’ll listen to about anything, although very, very lightly regarding country and rap. I have listened and enjoyed some of both, however. What I’m listening to at any given time is either dependent on my mood, or if I’m writing. Many times when it comes to writing, I’ll set aside a playlist for that story. And no matter how many times I listen to any of their stuff, or see them live, Nightwish draws the most feeling from me than anyone.

If I knew how to – and could – coin a phrase, it’d be “gutting the imaginary.” I started using this around March 2007. Easily put, it’s the way I look at some of my writing, some of the way I see things. Digging into imagination and pulling all its innards out…

× Day in the Life •

Aside from attempting to do the school-thing, I hang out with my circle of friends from our college’s Roleplaying Club. They’re what draw me back to campus more than my class. I co-DJ the radio show “Wasted Time Factor” although we’ve taken a break this current semester. We goof off, probably waste some peoples’ time with some of our music that people have never heard of, and overall enjoy ourselves. My DJ name is “Lady Fox,” a name given to me by one of the other DJs from my earlier semesters of moving around campus wearing a fox tail. I haven’t since (except for Halloween), for no reason at all, but I haven’t felt like changing the name.

I’m also the former President and House Rep for the Literary Society. Unfortunately the club needed a break because, well, I certainly didn’t want to be the Rep anymore (especially since budgeting was coming up) and the other main girl was falling out as well… perhaps we’ll resurrect it some day, but for now neither one of us can handle it.

And four times of the year you’ll find me down in Massachusetts for a full weekend of LARP. Yes, LARP. That stands for “Live Action Roleplay.” Wherein we don a costume (and in my case, and others’, full makeup) and run around the the woods, fighting with boffer weapons, having Bardic in the tavern, and having a grand ol’ time. When asked what we’re up to when buying a load of supplies, we say “well, it’s kind of like camping” and leave it at that. There, I take on the persona of “Aljuna Firefox” who is, gasp, a fox-esk character. She wields two yellow boffer ‘swords’ with red flames painted up them. She was sort of “given” her last name during her creation, when I told a friend and fellow LARPer of the character and she responded with something along the lines of having to need the name “Firefox.” It’s quite wonderful, with a lovely variety of people.

× On Roleplaying and Fanfiction •

Now, with my mind unwilling to cooperate more than ever, I value these two categories greatly. Roleplaying keeps me writing actively, nearly daily. Something to keep the basic skills and then some fresh. I focus on the three that are linked on the side, and mod at Paixao.

Fanfiction is a bit… more than that. I use to say that “fanfiction is the training wheels to writing.” I still sort of think like that, and although you never really forget how to ride a bike after you get rid of those training wheels, sometimes it could be worth taking them out again, even just to look at.

Fanfiction provides you with a full slate. You’ve got the characters, the plot… mostly everything you need. Everything that you may not have in your own writing. So say there’s something you wanted to try; a new style, maybe, but you’re lacking in your own work that you just don’t want to go through the trouble of making stuff up (yeah, it’s annoying to have to do that in your own work). A simple solution? Test it out on a fandom!

I rarely actually publicize my fanfiction nowadays. I’m generally not writing it for others, and while feedback can be nice in some cases, it’s not the end of the world to not have any. Although, many times the reason I don’t publicize and put things anywhere other than my writing journal, really comes down to the fact that I’m lazy.

But I do like using fanfiction to test things. There are, of course, the occasions where it’s just fun to explore the fandom. Some things are fun to write about; it just can’t always be helped.

And I do read fanfiction. A lot. I’ll have moods where I go digging for particular fandoms. Many pieces should not be overlooked; their are some remarkable works out there, and sometimes, like when I read certain books, I can get that confused twitch that makes me suddenly inspired to start writing something myself, but I’m torn to keep reading…