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LYNN WRIGHT
Writer/Artist
Links to
Who are you?
Tell us a little bit about yourself and your interests
in general.
I’m retired (I’ll be 72 next April)
and live with my daughter and a variable number of dogs, In
I divide my time between keeping the
house, (after a fashion) wrangling dogs, and sitting at my computer.
The variable number of dogs is
because we foster dogs under a pug rescue program. We keep lost or unwanted
pugs until they’re healthy and ready to go to a permanent home. We have only
one foster dog right now, but since we have three pugs of our own, and are
keeping a daschund for a friend for the next two weeks, we presently are
housing five dogs, as well as our four cats. Oh well, we have a big back yard, and
it’s fenced.
What drew you to the Beauty and the Beast TV series,
I missed the original series
completely. I’m not a big TV watcher, I lean more to movies. I have collected
about a thousand films on tapes which are now obsolescent, so I’ve begun on DVD’s.
I discovered B&B through an interest in Ron Perlman. Inquiry into his work
soon turned up B&B, so I scoured the tape stores until I found the one with
“Once Upon a Time…” and “A Happy life”. By the time I’d seen both of them, I
was solidly hooked. What can I say? I’m a romantic at heart.
and why did you/do you feel the need to
write and draw about B&B?
I don’t know why I felt the need to
write fiction about B&B. But it was just about the first thing I did after
I’d discovered CABB and my dear friend
Terrie Milliman, who encouraged me. Also, there was an unfinished Round Robin
story on CABB
at that time, about Josiah and Elizabeth. It wasn’t getting finished,
and that drove me nuts, so I inquired of Terrie whether it would be all right
if I tried a chapter. She said sure, and I did, although at that time I had
never seen one minute of Magnificent Seven. But she thought it was true enough
to the series that she put it up anyhow. The completed series of the Round
Robin is now on The Steam Tunnels.
Was it something you had done before being involved
with Beauty and the Beast or something that developed out of it?
I had never written a line since I
was in school. I guess I started drawing B&B to illustrate stories. I’ve
always drawn and painted.
Who most influenced and/or encouraged your talent?
Terrie Milliman, as I said above.
What training have you had for art and/or
writing/literary techniques, and where, if it was formal training - or are you
self-taught, working from instinct?
None, and none. I had
some college, and I took a couple of drawing classes, and Compostion
123, but that’s it. I guess I’m self taught, although inherited ability has a
lot to do with the drawing part. My mother and grandmother and various other
relatives painted.
When you write:
Describe the space in which you do most of your
writing and your drawing.
I sit at my computer desk for both.
It is the third bedroom in our house, and like most third bedrooms very small,
and stuffed with computer equipment.
How do you work when you write - outline the story,
start from an image, a word, an individual section... Where do you start...
beginning, end or middle? Or does it just depend on the story?
Mostly, I just start. I started
“Journeys” because I had a strong desire to get Vincent out into the sunshine
away from the tunnels, and to let him see a little bit of the world. I really
had no idea where they were going or how they were going to get there when I
started. Devin solved that problem for me. He’s always been very helpful to me
in getting through difficult plot points. These things just write themselves
somehow. I don’t know where I’m going until I get there.
Do you have endings in mind for works in progress when
you start them or do you just let the stories go where they take you? Do you
always know what you want to achieve at the end?
Not a clue. Well, I do have in mind
when I start any story that they’ll end up in bed, but that’s as far as
planning goes. I’m afraid it’s a pretty slipshod way of writing, maybe that’s
why it takes me so long to write anything.
How often do the characters take off on their own once
you've started writing? Do you ever end up with a story entirely different from
the one you started?
See above. The characters do indeed
take off on their own. Especially
Devin.
What are your sources of inspiration? Do your stories
ever include some of your own life experiences? Have any of the characters you
have created in a story been a reflection of yourself or someone you know?
My daughter Sue had just come back
from a trip to
What research, if any, do you do for your stories?
What’s research?
What is the hardest part of writing a multi-chapter
story? Do you prefer to post a completed story or a work in progress?
I will never post a work in progress
again. The pressure to finish is punishing. And I very much prefer not to post
anything of anyone else’s that’s not finished on TST or TT either.
There are too many reasons why a story could be left unfinished. I don’t want
to leave the fans hanging.
Do you ever have a case of writer's block? If so, do
you have a technique to get past it?
All the time. I just wait.
Sometimes I’ll read or see something that will give me an idea of how to get
out of whatever mess I’ve written myself into, and
that will break the block.
Is there any particular part of a story or poem that
you had an unusual amount of trouble getting the way you wanted it and how did
you resolve that problem?
Love scenes. They’re VERY hard to
write, for me. I’ll tell you how I do it, although I may be exposing myself to
ridicule here.
I’ll get my characters up to the
point of going to bed. Then I sit for a while and sweat blood trying to think
of something to say about it. Finally I just shut my eyes and start typing.
Shutting the eyes is a very important part of it. I don’t think about what I’m
saying at all, I just let it flow. Then when it’s done, when they’re all through
and ready to go to sleep, I go back through it in a more rational manner, and
edit it until I’ve got something that is more or less satisfactory. I don’t
know why it works, maybe my subconscious is sexier that my conscious mind, but
that’s how I mostly do it.
I find also that it’s very hard to
write anything about sex that’s even partly original. There’s been such a lot
this stuff written for V&C that it’s all been pretty much said.
If you could change one thing about your writing,
writing habits, style, etc, what would it be?
My writing habits are nonexistent.
I’d like it to be easier to sit down and DO it.
Tell us about the story/stories you are working on at
present, if any.
I’m trying to write a Winterfest
story, but it’s not going well. I’ve pushed my characters too quickly into an
intimate situation, and it doesn’t ring true for Vincent. I wish I could
believe that he’d surprise us all and just give up, but I can’t.
After you’ve written
Do you have your stories edited and proofread? Do you
consider this important? Do you have favorite editors/proofreaders?
I have a favorite editor, or two
actually, who go over it and criticize. It’s very very
important. Everyone needs an editor!!! I can’t emphasize that enough. I read
things that are submitted to Tunnel Tales sometimes that obviously haven’t even
been reread by the writer. I reread my own stuff endlessly. I print it out
after an evening’s writing, take it to bed with me with a pen, and read it
again, making changes. After the story’s finished, I read it over at least ten
times, making small changes every time.
You, as well as the other guest authors we are
interviewing, have allowed your work to be posted online for the enjoyment of
all B&B fans. Why did you decide to do it?
That’s the reason I write. I
wouldn’t go through the pain of writing if I didn’t expect that someone,
somewhere, would read it. It’s so very satisfactory to me to read about V&C’s life after the series ends that I guess I just
wanted to contribute something to keep the dream alive.
Tell us about your site The Steam Tunnels: when
and how you decided to open it? How did you create it, how did you gather the
works and the guest authors, and how do you proceed to add stories to it?
The Steam Tunnels was Terrie Milliman’s idea. We used to laugh about the fact that she
had these great ideas, and that her special talent was getting other people to
do them. This was a case in point. Terrie didn’t like to post stories that were
too adult on TT, she thought since it was a family site
it should have some restrictions. Well, I wanted to write adult things, so she
suggested I start a new site for just adult stories. She also suggested the
name. Terrie was full of ideas.
I gathered the work mostly by asking
I guess. Of course, Teri’ stories are the mainstay of TST,
and Teri was very happy to have a place to put her more adult things. Then some
other people wrote and offered, and I was happy to post things that I thought
showed some talent, and some appreciation for the fact that writing adult love
scenes can be either pornographic or funny, or sometimes both, if some skill
isn’t available to the writer. That’s why I’ve put up a notice that I don’t
accept everything offered to TST.
I’m the sole judge of what goes up
on it. I guess that’s not very democratic, but I have strong feelings about what’s
suitable, and since I own the site I’m the one that gets to choose.
Your art
You often use pencil for your drawings but you have used color media, chalk or
pastels as well: how do you choose your medium? Which is your favorite medium
and why?
Pencil. I guess because
it’s easy. Colored pencils, which are the medium I use for color work, are much
more difficult. They look best, I believe, on a black background, and that
means that every millimeter must be covered with color. That’s a far cry from sketching
with a pencil, when a line or two will give the impression wanted. In the past
I have sold highly detailed water colors, mostly of wildlife, but that’s a very
difficult and time consuming medium, and I don’t do it any more, except I did
do our dogs, that was a labor of love.
Your pencil sketches look so “easy.” How long does it
take you to finish one?
Not very long. I should take
this opportunity to tell everyone that I’m not as good as it looks. I usually
find a picture that I want to do, print it the size I want to do it, then put
it on the light table and trace out the main lines: eyes, nose& mouth
position, and a few lines for hair or jaw or shoulders. With that to go on, I
don’t have to spend a lot of time getting the proportions correct. And when I
do love scenes, I always have a photo to go by. I’m not skilled enough to make
up bodies. I’m getting pretty skilled at cutting and pasting pictures to get
the bodies into the right position, though! And anyone who looked at my usage
history on the net would wonder if I’m some kind of pervert. I’ve got quite a
library of nude and partially nude figures.
Your pencil sketches often illustrate a story, such as
in the TST fic. Is it more fun to do such illustrations, or create something
from your own imagination?
I don’t think there’s any real
difference.
When you illustrate a story, either with your sketches
as seen in TST stories or the photo montages we all enjoyed in Castle of the
Beast by Anne R. Brown, how do you decide which scene to depict? Does the story
always inspire specific art, or does it happen that you have something ready
that fits?
Usually I find what I want to
illustrate, then I look on the net to find something that fits.
When you're putting together a steamy fic or drawing,
do you ever chuckle as you work or proof read, knowing you're leaving your
readers in need of a cold shower? Dare we ask if you might need a cold shower,
too, now and then?
Remember, I’m 71 years old. But I
hope that my writings and artwork are raising water usage in many parts of the
world. That’s what the purpose is, isn’t it? Yes, I chuckle. And I still like
to read this stuff, so I guess I’m not dead yet.
You are exploring new means of cyber art, especially
the photomontages, both to illustrate stories and to decorate the sites you
run, CABB
and TST. Such means
may open a new path to the B&B art and creativity. Would you tell us
something about this technique and how you enjoy it?
I absolutely love
doing it. I’ve made a couple of pages in The Work of Hands on
CABB, explaining how I do it, and offering to help if anyone would like to try
it.
http://www.classicalliance.net/workofhands/wrightcollagetitle.html
What do you like to hear from someone reading your
story or looking at your art? What was the most interesting response you've had
to your work? What do you consider the greatest compliment you've received?
Well, you know, there’s not a lot of
feedback. I’m sure every artist and writer will tell you the same thing. I have
a few faithful people, who always are complimentary about my work, but for the
most part, it just flies out into the void and I never know what people think.
I don’t know what the greatest compliment was, but I’ll tell you one that
sticks in my mind. I did a little picture for my Connor/Johner series, just a
small picture of Johner sitting in his car. Someone wrote me and just raved
about that picture. I still don’t know what he saw in it that I missed; it
looked very much like a hundred others I’d done to me.
Which of your B&B writings and art do you like
best, and why? If you were forced to pick one passage, scene or line from one
of your stories, and one of your art pieces, as a favorite, what would they be?
Connor/Johner is
my favorite work, but it’s not B&B. I guess “Journeys” would have to be the
story I think is the best. It was satisfying to write because it got Vincent
out of the tunnels and into the sunshine. And I liked the part about the house
they made from the old hardware building. That was fun to write.
Any advice you would give to beginners?
Get an editor!!!! And revise,
revise, revise.
Being a B&B fan
In RL are you a closet "beastie" or do all
your friends and family members know you're a fan? How do they feel about your
Beauty and the Beast involvement? Do they worry about your sanity?
My friends and family know. I’m I
little hesitant to tell new people about it. They do tend to think you’re nuts.
My daughter can’t stand the whole idea. She’s not a romantic. She says, “Mom!
He’s an animal! Ugh!” There’s no point in talking to her about it, so I don’t.
How did B&B affect your life?
A great deal. It gave me an
abiding interest in something that uses my creativity, and since I no longer
work I need such an outlet. And I’ve made many, many good friends. It’s amazing
how many compatible personalities there are in the fandom.
Who are some other B&B
authors who might inspire you or whose work you particularly enjoy? Is there someone
else’s writing or art that you especially like?
Yes! Now I get a chance to promote my favorite
B&B work Where the Rainbow Ends – Lee Kirkland. It’s on the Beauty and the Beast
Reading Chamber. But if anyone wants to read it, email me first,
I’ve got the stories in consecutive order, they’re not in any order on the
BBRC. Be prepared to cry. I do every time.
Artist? Yes I have a favorite, but I’ve neveer
been able to find out her name. Pen and ink, only in early zines, very
professional work.
Do you write and draw in any other fandoms besides
B&B?
No
Are you or have you been involved with any other
fandoms in the same way?
No.
Do you want to say anything else to the readers of
this interview about yourself, B&B, the writing, the art, or the fandom?
I think I’ve already said too much. J
The pics: mostly looking very outdoorsy –
Winterfest Online, January 2005