Hello! *waves enthusiastically*
Wow! Awesome questions - don't mind the rambling answers!
1. Okay. This is tough. With four stories published, I've tried my hand at three different eras, and it's difficult to choose just one. Post Hogwarts can be fun, because you have established characters with semi-established endings, so you simply fill in the blanks for yourself. Marauders' Era I think will always have a special place in my heart because it was the first era I ever read and for which I wrote, but the problem is, you know how it ends for these guys, and it's a tiny bit sad, so for me, writing with these characters is always a bittersweet experience. Next Gen might be a bit of a winner for me right now, simply because as an author who's a bit of a stickler for canon, there's a lot of scope with characters, settings, plots, etc. I can make these characters do practically anything I want and not hurt myself by mucking up canon. So I guess... Next Gen wins for me!
2. Ooh! Another difficult one! I make it a point to only write characters I like, because I find it super difficult to write characters I don't like. Sirius is definitely more fun to write than Millie (from Like a House on Fire), simply because Millie is quite different from the way I am, and Sirius thinks more along the lines of the way I think. Ellie is also a lot of fun to write (from Not Normal), simply because we share a lot in common. But right now, I think I'm enjoying writing Regulus Black the most (he appears in Not Normal) just because he's quite different from any other character I've written so far, and he just has so much potential!
3. Haha! This character was thought up quite a few years before I wrote her down, so she has quite a few elements of what I was and aspired to be when I was a younger and different person. I think she's partly inspired by Luna (but just a little), but mostly, I wanted a sort of normal girl (sort of being the key phrase here) who could hold her own against the legendary Sirius Black. You have no idea how much I adore Sirius (or maybe you do), but when I started writing the story, I didn't want any of my fangirling to trickle into my female lead. Her character's obviously changed over the years, but yeah.Sirius is actually a lot of inspiration for her character design. My Sirius has always been quite fleshed out in my head, with very few changes, so I looked at specific traits of his, and either matched or mismatched them for Millie. They're not supposed to fit quite so perfectly as say, James and Lily do.
4. I moved to the country in the year that the first HP movie came out, so I was thrown right into the hype of it all! I went to see the first film in the cinemas, and got so scared by the ending (I was pretty young, and I really didn't know what to expect) that I was terrified of reading the books! But the year after that, my grade 2 teacher decided to start reading the first book to us in class, but I moved schools before we finished it, so I just HAD to finish the book by myself! And from there, my love affair for the series began!
5. The books, definitely, but I seriously enjoy the movies as well! I think they're super important parts of the fandom, and have gone a long way in boosting the popularity of the series. Also, it's a great way to be introduced to British cinema and its wonderful actors!
6. I'd like to selfishly say Sirius, but in all honesty, I get why he had to go. This is really difficult, actually. Hmm... I'd probably have to go with Remus in the end, because that's a choice that's selfish as well as selfless. There are very few good father figures in the series (only one comes to mind at the moment, and that's Arthur), and I think Remus was shaping up to be one of them. He was pretty decent towards Harry, but he always hated himself so much for being a werewolf. I think fatherhood would have gone a long way to help him with this, and I just think he'd have been an awesome dad!
7. Favourite bits would have to be when Remus, Sirius and the Trio are all chilling up in the Shrieking Shack, trying to work out what on earth's going on. For me, this was the first hint of a bigger world out there, than what we just read in Harry's adventures, and that was super exciting! Least favourite bit - I can't remember where it is exactly, but it was in the fifth book, and Harry's yelling at Snape for some angsty reason. There's a lot of caps lock, and I remember reading it for the first time and feeling really uncomfortable and embarrassed on behalf of Harry, for some reason!
8. I think the films are great! Sure, they aren't perfect, but I think they did a bang up job overall. My least favourite film had to be GoF, because it was really disjointed for me. I think the slower pacings for OotP and HBP couldn't be helped, because the books themselves were also slower paced. My favourite film is PoA, just because it's such a wonderful change from the first two films - the music especially, as well as the use of lots of big open spaces for scenes was beautiful! And Harry's hair, of course! I love the actors and actresses who portrayed the characters, although I was always a little disappointed in the way the films portrayed Ginny. She's such an awesome character, and I think that awesomeness didn't come through that well, making her relationship with Harry seem really weird and sudden. One of the controvertial things I do love that they added, but wasn't there as much in the books was the Harmony ship. I think it was great that they explored that possibility, because it could've happened!
I've written such long answers here! Hope you don't mind, but I loved doing this! Thanks for the amazeballs questions!
