1) Where do you get your web page pictures?

I get my pictures from my collection of magazines, books, etc that are Back to the Future related. Over the years, I've accumulated quite a few things. The Back to the Future Japanese programs, which I bought through "BTTF.COM", have had the most unique stuff in them. They were a bit spendy and are printed in entirely Japanese, but pictures are worth a thousand words. When I have some time and bordom, I scan some new pictures and scatter them throughout my web site.

2) Why don't you really publish your stories?

I'm very flattered with this question, which I get asked through both e-mail and in person by people I know. The answer, in a nutshell -- I don't wanna get sued. It's not that I don't want to be published -- it's been my life's dream to be a published novelist and I'm currently pitching original stories to publishers right now -- but I did not create the characters. Therefore, I would have to deal with massive red tape. It may be possible, since there are book series for Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Alien, "The X-Files," "Babylon 5," etc, but I don't even know where to begin in inquiring about something like that! I'm shocked that no one has ever tried Back to the Future as a book series before... but maybe they have tried and run into a brick wall. Copyrights are very intimidating (and complicated) things. Regardless, the stories on the 'net reach a wide audiance and seem to be enjoyed and I can deal with that as being the best reward. :-)

3) Why don't you write a story where Doc and Marty hang out with characters from [insert name of another series here]?

I knew someone in my freshman year in high school who wrote a Back to the Future Part IV with Marty and Doc running into Bill & Ted from Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure. I never got a chance to read the story, as the guy was a senior and graduated before I could work up the nerve to ask, but the very idea struck me as odd. Then, when I was 18, I finally had the opportunity to read Mary Jean Holmes' BTTF stories. Several of her Back to the Future stories -- "OUTATIME" and "The Times They Are A'Changin'," "Back to Neverland" -- had our heros from BTTF interacting with characters from the universes of "Quantum Leap" , Ghostbusters and Hook, respectively. The stories came off quite well with the merger -- but I am a fan of Back to the Future only and would do other genres a great disservice if I mucked around in 'em.

4) How/When did you become a BTTF fan and get on the fan club staff?

See this web page for the answer.

5) Do you think of the BTTF cartoon series as a direct continuation of the series?

Um, that depends. I started my first BTTF story in August 1992, when I was 13, and had seen the cartoon series. At the time, my BTTF story was to "bridge the gap between the movies and the cartoon series." So, naturally, the Jules and Verne in my stories were written to be just like their cartoon counterparts. When I'd decided to revise all my stories in the summer of '96, I'd already written everything up to "The Pair O' Docs." And seeing how Jules and Verne figured in nearly every story, going back and changing their personalities would have been a royal pain -- plus, I had grown used to the way they were and enjoyed the characters. I could relate to both of them, if certain parts of my personality were magnified a bunch. So, definitiely, the cartoon series influenced me with that area.

From the cartoon series, I also took away some of the Brown homestead layout and inventions like the language translators -- but many of the "cartoony" things that occured in that show I avoided. So, to an extent, I kind of see the cartoon series as a continuation. But my stories wouldn't merge flawlessly with them and kind of took off in a slightly different direction from BTTF3 then the animated series did. They're seperate from them, though my stories and the animated series agreed on certain aspects.

One final note in regards to the Brown homestead -- in the 9th grade, I was forced to take a school bus to my high school, and the way the route was set up my freshman year took me up the hill near my house into this ritzy neighborhood. One house always caught my immediate attention, even at 7A.M. It was set away from the others, in the midst of a green field. The house was brand new, but resembled nothing less than a two story farm house, painted in white with red and dark green trim. I thought it was the most accurate building I'd ever seen for Doc Brown's house in the present, matching exactly what I had imagined, and took a bunch of photographs of it a few years later for inspiration and description purposes. (I've toyed with putting them on the 'net, but decided if the owners of the house happened to see that, they might freak!)

6) Why haven't you updated your web page for a while?

Usually, I just get busy from school, work, and the other fun twists of life. I mean, I do have a life beyond what's on this webpage. :-)

7) Your stories are great. Can I put them up on my own web site?

Um, depends on what you mean by that question. First off, I'm glad people actually ask me this before doing it. I appreciate it. And I'm flattered by the question. So my answer is this: I don't mind people having links to my stories, but I really don't want the stories recreated in their full text on other web sites. I spent months of trial and error when I was learning web page stuff in trying to find the best way to display my stories. I'm a perfectionist, and I also feel presentation is super important. If the writing is difficult to read, i.e. no paragraph breaks, on a dark background, etc, people won't spend the time reading it. That's actually my number one pet peeve with a lot of Internet writing -- it's hard to read. I spend hours transferring my text to HTML and am super anal about it, too. I have a distinctive, continuous style with the stories, like how I have different font sizes and styles for different parts, a white background, the way I seperate POVs and chapters, etc.

So I really don't want people to display the stories on their pages in their own way. The stories -- all my stories, for that matter -- are my babies, and I'm really protective about them. Months of work and research go into each one. I would rather people link to the pages I have up already. If they want to resummerize the stories and link their summaries directly to the stories I have up already, instead of bypassing my own summaries and notes, I suppose that might be acceptable, although I'm not wild about that idea. But I would prefere no one duplicate the stories on their own pages.

8) Why do you stop writing BTTF stories?

I never entirely stop. Often times when there are long gaps I'm either revising the old stuff to make it better or working on my original fiction novels that I'm trying to publish. (I have a young adult series that I'm particularly occupied with.) The thing is, no matter how long I stop, I seem to always go back to BTTF. I've been writing this fan fiction for ten years, now, so it's not really something that's going away any time soon; I'm still getting new ideas. I sometimes think it never will, entirely, though other obligations and projects might curtail my production frequency.

9) Can I use your story/character in my own BTTF fanfic?

This is a question more people assume than ask. For years I let it slide, but my silence seemed to be a sort of warped approval, and I finally decided to put my foot down. People assume the answer is yes, but it is actually no. "But," you may say, "since you borrowed the characters from the world of BTTF, why can't I?" There's nothing stopping you from writing stories about Marty, Doc, Clara, etc. But having Jules and Verne being like my Jules and Verne, using the same "rules" and addresses and clearly fabricated things that were not used at all in the films/animated series/screenplays, and using original characters that I created, like the infamous "Doc B" from "The Pair O' Docs" (and, yes, I created him; all that was established about him in the films was that in 1985A, Doc Brown was committed. For all we know, he could've been a fine, sane, misunderstood guy. The quirks I added were of my own creation) -- all of that is a no no. These stories are my characters and vision, and I'd prefer to keep it limited to myself. I have yet to read the fanfic of someone who tried to sandwich a story of there's in my universe and had it done in a way that followed certain traits and decisions I'd made for characters.

By creating your own fanfic universe, without "borrowing" from mine, you have so much creative freedom! You can choose the personalities from scratch of Jules and Verne! You can have Doc and his family move ahead of time from 1985, or not move back at all! You can have Marty be a famous rock star! Using my universe would limit you too much, and it would only annoy me if you weren't doing things "right." I have a very strong streak of stubbornness in me, not unlike Doc or Marty, and compromising my "vision" on a story is the number one thing I refuse to budge on.

So, again, do not use the characters/characterizations/character spins I created, nor storylines or referencing storylines I've done. Please respect my wishes. I just want to encourage people to use their own imaginations and, in doing that, I think you'll get more out of the experiance. Thank you.