My Hero Kelly

[paulamcg]

Challenge #10

Talk About A Creator/Someone Who Inspired You.



I remember vividly how a lot of people, strangers (except through their fiction) and friends (who became friends thanks to our fiction) have inspired me since the day I entered fandom in August 2003. And this winter all of you in my access/subscription list here, and also people whose writing I’ve seen on LJ or AO3 but whom I haven’t found on DW, have inspired me – at least to all this rambling around Snowflake!

Since I have to pick one person, I want it to be kelly_chambliss, who is here to see this – and for you all to meet – and who also was there for me before my hiatus, in 2009 and 2010. Kelly was new to HP fandom back then, still looking for places with more stories of the kind she was most interested in.

(Oddly enough I can’t remember the exact beginning of it but) the two of us must have commented on each other’s small one-shots and gone on discussing our writing. And this amazing lady gave a chance to my post-OotP Remus novel (Remus Lupin and the Revolt of the Creatures – yes, I urge you to click the link, because you’ll see not only the humble beginning of my fic but also some of Kelly’s most extensive contribution, her concrit right there in the public comments, just as I wanted to leave it) which I had started writing six years earlier and posting on LiveJournal a month earlier. At my request she included beta corrections in her thoughtful, generously praising comments.

Kelly stayed loyal to me and my Remus novel, even though she was finding more of those fests and communities that she wanted to focus on. She went on – for a whole year – and commented quite as wonderfully on each of the twenty-one long chapters, until the story was completed and published in its edited form. This was extremely important for me, because during the long process of writing the story almost all of my original readers (on the small forum where I’d posted it as WiP) as well as later readers of my short stories had left the fandom, and in 2009 I thought I’d also lost the beta and dear friend whom I’d found on LJ in 2006. Without Kelly’s support it would have been harder for me to succeed in the final scenes and to believe the story was worth finally sharing on LJ and FictionAlley, and her comments helped me fix mistakes particularly in the early (previously unbeta’ed) chapters.

At the same time Kelly inspired me to explore new corners of HP fandom. Thanks to her I started reading more about female characters and older characters, and enjoying femslash. Her own wise and beautiful stories made me finally begin to know Minerva, from whom I had, back in 2003, just taken part of my user name. Reading Kelly’s gorgeous fiction – for instance Genius Loci (characters Rubeus Hagrid, Minerva McGonagall, Poppy Pomfrey, Aurora Sinistra, Pomona Sprout, Severus Snape, Aberforth Dumbledore, Argus Filch, and the Genius of the Place. Wordcount 6200) at recent hoggywartyxmas) – is still an inspiration.

Comments

[sperrywink]

What a wonderful tribute and what a great friend to offer concrit so dedicated-ly. Nice response to today's challenge!

[paulamcg]

Thank you! I was so excited to get an opportunity to thank Kelly in this way that I couldn’t consider longer and see what others’ responses would be like. Here I also took the chance to promote (*cough* my old fic *cough* and) giving feedback in general and writing detailed comments and reviews including concrit, even in public.

[spikedluv]

Lovely post! Thank you for sharing it.

[paulamcg]

Thank you! I’m happy I got the chance to share.

[author_by_night]

I'm so glad you had Kelly as a friend. :)

It was always so sad when forums/communities shut down or became inactive. Especially when it disrupted ongoing projects. I also didn't like when it seemed that the admins didn't care how it might affect people who still loved the site. I get it from the admin standpoint, it's hard running a site and they have every right to do what they want. But I felt that some of the closures could have been handled with more sensitivity.

[paulamcg]

Thank you. She was a very responsible and kind reader and fellow writer.

My first fandom home was hacked once less than I year after I joined, and I took some responsibility in restoring (not technically) the contents and the interaction on the forums. Years later, the forums disappeared – to appear and disappear again, but that must have been after 2010. In my case it was actually just that readers and writers moved on, and I could blame rather myself for working on such a big project so painstakingly, and keeping it in that first place (because I needed to change to another standard of dialogue punctuation so as to get the fic accepted on FA, and later I wanted to revise it all before publishing outside of that forum).

But I’m sure there’s been a lot of sadness. I, too, wish there’d been a warning before closure, so that I could have tried to save contact information or to contact old friends through personal messages (not to ask them to read my fic again, but to have the chance to perhaps years later share a memory of the good old days. I must have lost my email addresses around the same time).

[lee_bella]

Great post. It's always a fortune to have met a great friend who supports you and helps push you along and is there for you.

[paulamcg]

Thank you! I was very lucky to meet Kelly at that point of our fandom lives. She was so kind and generous and gave me something so valuable that I couldn’t ever repay.

[torino10154]

Wonderful post. I don't know Kelly nearly so well but she's always been absolutely lovely in any interactions we've had and certainly is the first person I think of when it comes to Minerva McGonagall and the other women of Hogwarts.

[paulamcg]

Thank you! I’m so glad to have it confirmed that it isn’t just me paying attention to her presence – that she truly is such a definitive writer of Minerva and other women of Hogwarts, and absolutely lovely! I can’t help being proud of having once had such intense interaction (related to my fic) with her.

[writcraft]

A lovely tribute to one of my favourite people and writers! Kelly was so welcoming when I started tentatively writing the older women of the Potterverse and took part in her terrific Minerva fest and I've so enjoyed having the opportunity to meet her a couple of times over the years. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this and it's so wonderful to hear how she's inspired and helped you too. Thank you for putting this post together.

[paulamcg]

Oh, is it a small world, after all? Or I’ve just succeeded in finding my favourite corner of the fandom again – the company of the kindest and most brilliant people.

Really, I had no idea that you’d had such close interaction with Kelly. I actually found her on DW only two weeks ago, thanks to a comment on walgesang’s Snowflake post – just where I first saw you, too. Kelly’s been a LJ friend all the time and I interracted with her briefly earlier last year and then again at HP Halloween, so I knew that you shared that, and then at Hoggywartyxmas – on LJ. I searched for her here in vain with the LJ name, without the underscore.

In turn, it’s wonderful to learn that Kelly’s been perhaps some kind of a guide or mentor for you in the world of Minerva and the other older ladies, and that you’ve be fortunate to actually meet her. I’m so glad I’ve managed to make this post into such a tribute that people like you have loved to read it and to come and chime in.

[antuhsa]

That's lovely. I hope she sees this! I don't know Kelly very well, though we are familiar with each other's work, but I'm glad she's had such an impact on you and your writing. I've enjoyed a lot of her fics over the years and she seemed very nice during the few times we've interacted!

[paulamcg]

Thank you – also for this contribution: for commenting that you, too, have enjoyed Kelly’s fics and interaction with her. I really hope that in case she’s seen this she’s happy about the way I (we) have shown my (our) gratitude.

[kelly_chambliss]

Wow! Dear Paula, I'm speechless! (Well, not really; I'm actually quite verbose, but you know what I mean). I'm turning as red as Ron Weasley's ears so often do. I missed this lovely comment when you first posted it, but I'm so very glad to find it now. You are too, too kind. I loved immersing myself in the powerful world of your Remus novel, and I'm so glad that we're back in fandom together still. Our fandom friendships are so important with the world as it is today. I'm very happy that I could be part of your writing journey and so pleased that you're working again. I look forward to many more fests and stories.

I'm truly thankful for this post and for the chance to call you friend.

(And thanks to all the rest of you commentators and friends, too! So kind. *waves at [Bad username or unknown identity: writcraft,], antuhsa and all you lovelies.)

[paulamcg]

Thank you so much for commenting here in such a lovely, not really speechless way! :) It feels wonderful to know that you're glad about what I wrote here in January. I could have sent you a message back then to make sure you'd seen this, but I assumed you had (because I'd not long before found you on DW and commented on a Snowflake post of yours, I think), and that you just didn't want more of this attention. There was one “like” on the cross-posted entry on LJ and I thought it was from you.

Because I'd already said all this, I didn't want to include any detailed personal praise and thanks in my post at your bash. I am so glad I was invited to the bash and to have it confirmed that we do have this friendship. Seeing you – your gorgeous work and your connecting with others – around has made me ever more grateful and also proud of having once had intense interaction (related to my work) with you. Thank you once again and now also for this latest beautiful thing you say about my Remus fic! Having fandom friendships is immensely important to me. I can't help wondering how much better it would have been for me if I hadn't left soon after reaching what I thought was the end of my Remus/Sirius writing, but had stayed to develop relationships with fabulous older female characters and writers. :) Above all, I'm overjoyed to have found my way back and to this brilliant corner of the fandom.