Specs
Lady Black Death
On Tue, 7 Jan 1997 Te...@worldnet.att.net wrote:
> Forgive me for asking what to all of you must be the obvious, but
> since I'm new to the "group" (actually this whole internet thing),What
> is a spec?
Hello and welcome to the net. ;) Spec is a phrase coined by our lovely
Maharet, Mick Coleman, when she wrote Memnoch, a Speculative Story. It
was the very first fan fiction posted to the group. Since then, there
have been literally hundreds of Specs posted. They are archived at:
Which is a fairly amazing place to be. Right now we're up to around 30
megs of specs. Enjoy!
Lisa
Lady Black Death
"I spend every Halloween weekend in the company of creatures far more
dangerous than vampires, werewolves and goblins. I spend it with
writers." - Shawna McCarthy, editor, "Realms of Fantasy"
Now booking for New Orleans Tours - Mail me for details! :)
I've got a homepage now! http://www.cris.com/~amadeo
Laura Troise
On Wed, 8 Jan 1997, Lady Black Death wrote:
> Hello and welcome to the net. ;) Spec is a phrase coined by our lovely
> Maharet, Mick Coleman, when she wrote Memnoch, a Speculative Story. It
> was the very first fan fiction posted to the group. Since then, there
> have been literally hundreds of Specs posted. They are archived at:
Ok, lemme preface this by saying I love Mick. I think the woman is an
amazing writer and Hell, I even did a series with her at one point (still
am, if you count the Dagger of the Mind RPG). But I am also a HUGE fan of
giving credit where it is due and since this is the second time this week
I've seen someone say this, my sense of honor is making me post a public
correction just to set the record straight.
Mick did not start the specs. Susan Kretschmer did. Back in late 1994
she posted a message on the group saying that she had written a few
chapters about what she thought Memnoch the Devil would be about and would
anyone on the group be interested in reading it? We said we would and she
posted a couple of chapters worth of writing, which later became the
infamous long lost beginning chapters of Memnoch the Spec (you'll notice
that in the spec as it is now, it actually has no real beginning).
Some brainstorming about where to take the story from where Susie left off
ensued on the group. After some time it needed an ending, and I suggested
one (this is the part of the spec that can also be considered long lost
since it was never posted again). That is when Mick came in in a more
official writing capacity because she asked if she could take the outlined
ending that I wrote and flesh it out. (Just to give you an idea of how
long ago this was, when she posted it my first thought was "Wow, that's
pretty good for a guy." ;) ).
So Memnoch as done by abar had a beginning (Susie) a middle (abar) and an
end (me and Mick). Susie and Mick joined forces to take the outline abar
had made and work their magic on it. I put my energy into writing Sins of
the Past, which as most of you know is the sequal to it.
As for the name of Specs, most of this occured on my Christmas vacation so
I could not keep up with the group that well and had to rely on my abar
friends to e-mail me with the latest goings on. The short version of what
happened was that other people began to post their own stories and there
was some worry about how stories could be posted to the group without
being rude about it (there was more to it than that, of course, but this
is the short version as I said).
This is when the name "Specs" came up, which stand for "Speculative
Fiction" which came from the roots of MtS as it was written by everybody
on abar speculation about what it could be about and what might happen
next.
Now my memory of this specific thing is *very* fuzzy, particularly due to
the fact that I was getting most of the information second hand as I said,
but I *was* keeping in close contact with Mick and Susie (I had to be sure
that SotP worked with what they were writing) and I am fairly certain that
Susie came up with the name Specs. I remember getting a letter from her
telling me that a name needed to be chosen for the purposes of killfiles
and that "specs" had been chosen based on her advice.
Of course, it could have been that someone else chose the name and she was
just reporting that to me, but I remember Susie was very paranoid (she
even admitted this herself) about making sure the posting of specs didn't
cause any trouble and for a while she was our resident expert on how that
could be done on all fronts. So while someone else could have done it, at
least in terms of who had what experience, it makes more sense that it was
Susie.
Susie, of course, later fell into some bad personal problems and vanished
from the face of the internet earth, thus bringing an end to the writing
of MtS as well. But if you want to pay homage to the person who truly
started it all, she's the one to look to. Everybody else, me and Mick
included, just followed in her footsteps. =)
Laura Ann (aka Mrs. Wicked One)
----
"And he is *so* cute! He's like if Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt had a baby!"
"Wow, I didn't even know they were seeing each other." SSR
--****--
The Anne Rice and alt.books.anne-rice FAQs can be found at:
http://www.eskimo.com/~talset & http://www.geocities.com/BourbonStreet/2591
Or e-mail me and ask nicely =)
S. A. Buday
On Fri, 10 Jan 1997, Laura Troise wrote:
> As for the name of Specs, most of this occured on my Christmas vacation so
> I could not keep up with the group that well and had to rely on my abar
> friends to e-mail me with the latest goings on. The short version of what
> happened was that other people began to post their own stories and there
> was some worry about how stories could be posted to the group without
> being rude about it (there was more to it than that, of course, but this
> is the short version as I said).
Yes, Mick, Susie, Drake, Josh and I were playing pingpong with "what ifs"
in story form (which were rather silly) and then out of the blue, Mick
wrote this *gorgeous* ending with Lestat toasting Juliano and declaring
love for Louis and we all pretty much pack up our bags and told her and
Susie to write the thing under threat of death if they didn't.
> This is when the name "Specs" came up, which stand for "Speculative
> Fiction" which came from the roots of MtS as it was written by everybody
> on abar speculation about what it could be about and what might happen
> next.
>
> Now my memory of this specific thing is *very* fuzzy, particularly due to
> the fact that I was getting most of the information second hand as I said,
> but I *was* keeping in close contact with Mick and Susie (I had to be sure
> that SotP worked with what they were writing) and I am fairly certain that
> Susie came up with the name Specs. I remember getting a letter from her
> telling me that a name needed to be chosen for the purposes of killfiles
> and that "specs" had been chosen based on her advice.
Actually, either Susie or Mick thought up Speculation Fiction, I coined
the term Spec because I was too lazy to write out the whole word ;)
I also coined Silly Spec when I started the Lestat vs the Borg series.
I'm very proud of this, as you can probably imagine.
-Stephanie- Mrs. Brat Queen-Wicked One
--
"Know thyself? If I knew myself, I'd run away." --Goethe
Lady Black Death
On Fri, 10 Jan 1997, Laura Troise wrote:
> On Wed, 8 Jan 1997, Lady Black Death wrote:
>
> > Hello and welcome to the net. ;) Spec is a phrase coined by our lovely
> > Maharet, Mick Coleman, when she wrote Memnoch, a Speculative Story. It
> > was the very first fan fiction posted to the group. Since then, there
> > have been literally hundreds of Specs posted. They are archived at:
>
> Mick did not start the specs. Susan Kretschmer did. Back in late 1994
Whoops. See, this dates me. The lovely Susan did start them, and I
simply forgot. It's just a bit before my time. Sorry! And thanks for
catching the error, LA. :)
Laura Troise
On Fri, 10 Jan 1997, Lady Black Death wrote:
> On Fri, 10 Jan 1997, Laura Troise wrote:
> >
> > Mick did not start the specs. Susan Kretschmer did. Back in late 1994
>
> Whoops. See, this dates me. The lovely Susan did start them, and I
> simply forgot. It's just a bit before my time. Sorry! And thanks for
> catching the error, LA. :)
No harm done. It was actually something of a scary trip down memory lane
("1994?? THAT long ago? Holy----")
Ahem. I'm fine now, really.