I have been honored for a second time with a Story of the Month award from The Darkness Within. This time First Consideration won the honors for June 2001. If It's Not One Thing.... received the same award back in March. My thanks to the voters there.
I have always loved stories--of just about any kind. Which is why, I suppose, I love TV and movies so much. But believe it or not, I didn't always write Star Trek. Actually, my first Star Trek story was my first science fiction piece--and my first mystery. And my first completed novel-length story.
I started out writing historical fiction and will probably get back to that someday. You won't find those stories here because I'm actually attempting to get them published. Cross your fingers for me.
So how did I get into fan fiction? Actually, I didn't know it existed when I started writing my first Star Trek story. I began by thinking that two years had gone by since DS9 started and we still hadn't gotten a background for Doctor Bashir. So I thought up one that I thought fit him and had enough angst to carry a story. But after 10 pages, "Melora" aired. In that episode, Dr. Bashir tells a little story about being 10 years old and on a planet with his father. It's a touching little story, but it contradicted what I wrote. So I put the story away. Then, when I decided to go away to Europe (to teach English in the Czech Republic), I also decided to write that story anyway. At the very least it would be a writing exercise. So to fix the contradiction, I made Bashir adopted (This has since also been negated on TV, but hey, I wrote this one way before we every heard about Julian's parents on the show.) I wrote 40 pages before leaving for Europe. But I hadn't thought of a B-story. All the episodes and books had B-stories. So I left blank spots for them and kept writing. I maybe wrote 100 pages before I found a B-story. Then a C-story found its way in there, then a D-story.
It's a very complicated piece, but I think it's a lot of fun. It took one year to write and I posted it on alt.startrek.creative
when I returned to the States and heard there was such a place. That was in 1996. The story is called If
It's Not One Thing. . . . and it won alt.startrek.creative's Best DS9 Story award for 1996. It was recently honored
with a Story of the Month award for March 2001 by the voters at Since then, the show has negated the backstory I had built for Bashir. I usually incorporate the history of
my previous stories into the new ones, and that includes If It's Not...., though I (and my readers) politely ignore what no longer fits (Julian's backstory) and keep the rest (the mysteries, the Gidari, the other events).
My second Trek story was something I wrote for the PocketBooks Strange New Worlds contest last year. It's a
sequel to "The Quickening" from DS9's fourth season. I didn't win, which is why I can put the story up
here. It's called Healer, and it just won second place for Best Deep Space
Nine Story in the 1998 Alt.StarTrek.Creative.All-Ages Tribble Awards. In addition, I was honored to be tied with Terrie Drummonds for Best Deep Space Nine Author in the same awards.
I also wrote another short story as a sequel to someone else's. Valerie Shearer wrote a what-if about a different
ending to "Doctor Bashir, I Presume" where it was found out that Bashir was illegally genetically enhanced
as a child. Her story, The Exile, sparked a scene--unusual for me since
it's non-canon--in my brain. So I wrote a sequel to hers, The Doctor. My next big novel-sized story took over a year to write and was actually finished in September 1997. But I was
hoping to submit it to PocketBooks. I found out though that it's too long to even be considered. So...I posted
it to alt.startrek.creative, and I've also posted it here to my site. Shall I whet your appetite? A Klingon ship with Cardassian registry runs at the station and then veers off toward
Earth. The Defiant must follow, unknowingly carrying a changeling infiltrator. Just as the ship nears Earth,
it changes course and heads right for the sun: a trip that takes it four centuries into the past. The Defiant,
again, must follow, to insure the timeline is secure. Don't let that fool you. It's not what the story is about.
Two hints: the title--Oswiecim,
and the year they go back to--1943. (And it was annouced as the winner for alt.startrek.creative's Best DS9
Story for 1998 and an Honorable Mention from Fan Q 1999.)
Pain of Memory is a story inspired by my grandparents.
I had the thought: What would be harder? To lose one's mind all at once and not realize what's gone, or to gradually
lose it, therefore retaining some but knowing what you've lose? This story is an attempt to explore the latter
theme.
I wrote First Consideration in 1998, for a fanzine entitled "Beyond the Wire, Vol. 1".
It was published by the Doctor's Exchange (the official Siddig El Fadil/Alexander Siddig fan club) and the Official Andy Robinson Fan Club
and edited by Gayle Stever and Terry Rillera. I had to wait a year to post it, but that year is up, and now so is the story.
It won second place in the Best DS9 General Story (formerly Best DS9 Story) category on Alt.StarTrek.Creative's 1999 Awards and it was
recently voted Story of the Month for June 2001 by The Darkness Within.
Faith is a new story I started a long, long
time ago. In fact, I'm still writing it. But it's spawned into three separate but
very tightly related stories. The first two are done. The first part is titled Hope, while the second is called Forgiveness. The third part, Peace, may still be awhile coming. Sorry, but I am working on it.
I wrote A Clever Plan in 2001, for a fanzine entitled "Salutatorian 3". It was produced by the official Siddig El Fadil/Alexander Siddig fan club and edited by Joan Marie Verba. I had to wait a little while to post it, but that time is up, and now so is the story. It's set after What You Leave Behind, the series finale and my previous stories have no bearing on this one.
I'm honored to have been voted 2nd Place Best MIS Author in the 2000 Alt.StarTrek.Creative Awards. MIS
is a category for stories that combine Star Trek series, cross-over Star Trek with other series, or just start
new series of their own, among other things. Faith, Part I: Hope took the
1st Place prize for Best MIS Combined story, as it combined TNG and DS9. I'm honored to have won that award as
well. Thanks to all my supporters.
Stories available in print! Oswiecim, If It's Not One Thing....,
Healer and Pain of Memory are all presently available in print. For details, click
here.. I'm working on two other stories now, but they won't be done for some time. I'm a busy person with unfortunately little time to write.
In the meantime, you can discuss these stories or fanfic or writing in general on The Comm Line, my new message board.
And there are still plenty of places to find good stories. Here are some of my favorites:
Visit theAlt.StarTrek.Creative web site for more stories of every kind. Or try Alt.StarTrek.Creative.All-Ages for stories safe for the whole family. (This site has moved. I'll update the link when I find it again. Darrel Beach's Starbase 7M24 Writer's CornerFanfiction.Net is a wonderful site for all kinds of fan fiction, not just Trek, with the ability to search by author, category, etc. And reviews of stories!
The Best of Trek Fanfic Site collects only selected stories, which the maintainers consider the best of Trek.
This and That A site with a lot of stuff, including DS9 stories.
I haven't read any stories here , but their banner was just too much fun to pass up. These stories are based on Section 31.