Crappy Writer (Stewart) and Rosie: interviewing and in love

Volare Putkin is on her laptop in the corner, creating stories about Kate Girardi’s (Ella Stuart Cartwright) demise through openbook (the fictitious online journal).  She’s also updating her website (Sapphire Orifice) with hiatus news.

King Pin of the Sapphire Scripting Team is nowhere to be found.  He’s had “enoooo of interviewin’” Rosie Jones about ZOMG! The Northern Fangirls.  He can’t think of “enuff times to bring ‘is own work into it, lass!” so he’s left his ‘orange boy/understudy writer’ Crappy in charge of completing the interview.

Rosie Jones is thrilled.  Finally, she can finish this interview, get back home and clean the house again.  Or is it cook dinner?  Or maybe ferry the kids to school, social occasions and after school activities?  Something like that.  She evidently doesn’t get out much!

*some mild novel spoilers contained in this interview*

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Crappy: Please let me know if you’re missing King Pin or Volare, Rosie.  I can always have them brought back into the interview, you know.

Volare:  (looks up from Sapphire Orifice) I’m still here!  I’ll have you BOTH know that I’m the only one in this room who knows the fate of Kate Girardi.  I can tell you like that (she clicks her python-like fingernails in the air) and you will both be spoiled about season 2.

Crappy: (doesn’t ignore her) That’s not actually true, Volare!  Rosie knows.  She knew before you.

Volare: Pfft.  Don’t go on with all that SHE CREATED YOU crap.  Look at her messy hair and crow’s feet.  She’s not the Lord herself!  Next she’ll be telling us she created Lady Ga Ga.

Rosie: (laughs) Well I didn’t do that. I wish I had.  She’s pretty awesome.

Volare: We’re going to invite her to guest star during season 2 of Sapphire. She will take over the role of resident bad guy, in place of the DarkDemon of Detroit.

Rosie: (concerned) Ah, no.  The DarkDemon of Detroit might have a continuing role, Volare.  BUT, I love the idea of writing The Ga Ga into the Sapphire script.  Leave that one with me.

Volare: (huffs) You have no say, Rosie Jones.  All you do is write The Fangirls Series!  When will you get it through your thick Australian head that you DO NOT WRITE Sapphire?

Rosie: Volare!  Darling Volare.  Sapphire IS part of The Fangirls series.  When are you going to start to—

Crappy: So Rosie?  I want to ask you about the theme of ‘ZOMG! The Northern Fangirls’.  There’s a recurring theme from the original, I found, and I wonder why you’ve touched on this element again.

Rosie: I guess there’s two recurring themes, Stewart.  There’s obsession, and this book attempts to present two extremes of obsession for a television show/TV star/rock band by looking at the two main fangirl characters.  Julia’s obsession is beyond anything we see with Dee or Maddie Rhodes.  Grace’s obsession is close, but falls within ‘normal’ range, while Julie REALLY struggles to disassociate the object of her obsessions — Peterson Collier as Davis Merrit — from real life people she might have met through the internet (like Dee).

Crappy: Does this happen in fandom?  Where a person could be so obsessed with a fictional character or an actor they hardly know that they can’t relate to a real person?  Even if that real person is inside their computer?

Rosie: It does happen.  There can be a ‘falling out’ of fandom friends because someone has said something about an actor.  So here, we see Dee inadvertently upset Julia by suggesting something about Peterson Collier.  Of course, Julia thinks the actor Peterson is a personal friend of hers, so she fights his battle for him and falls out with Dee.

Crappy: Has that happened to you in fandom?  Have you lost online friends because of what you’ve said about fictional characters and/or actors?

Rosie: Yes.  It does happen, especially when one is prone to having a large opinion and an even larger mouth.

Crappy: (laughs) The other recurring theme in the series is that of stalking.  Dealt with a little differently in ‘ZOMG! The Northern Fangirls’ compared to Grace’s stalking at the hands of her beloved neighbour (NOT) Hans?

Rosie: Yep.  Hans was used as the ‘neighbour who stalked’ to demonstrate that not all malignant forces are found online.  Sometimes we get paranoid that the people we meet inside our computer MIGHT be heinous freaks, but for Grace, that was MUCH closer to her home.  For Dee and Julia, well we realize something else again.

Crappy: Why did you use the theme of ‘stalker, anonymity and deception’ again?

Rosie: To create total chaos for Dee and force her to change her life’s direction.  By comparison, Grace did not change ONE bit.  She simply used the situation to her advantage.  And the stalker theme is employed to flick out the nuances of Julia’s character.  I hope it works.

Crappy: I liked it.

Volare: I hated it.  She can’t write for shi—

Crappy: SO Rosie?  Where to from here?  Are you writing the next Deleted Scenes and the final novel of the series yet?  Or are you doing something different.

Rosie: (in love with Crappy Writer because he is so interested in her favourite topic: HER) Having a break from Fangirls, Stewart.  Writing a very local TV pilot that I hope my niece will help pitch — she’s a freelance production specialist — and another novel at the moment unrelated to online life.

Crappy: Okay.  Sounds like you’re busy.  Good luck with finding an agent …

Volare: Finding an agent!  You’ve gotta be kidding me! I was the one who offered to help you with that. I’m a leading US publicist, with contacts as far-reaching as you’ve had bad hair days!

Rosie: Thanks, but no thanks, Volare.  We couldn’t work together.  You’d get too far inside my head …

And on that unusual note, the Fangirl Series interviews are completed (for the time being).  If you’d like to meet these characters in more detail, please purchase the books through Lulu or Amazon.