The flight to London was just as I had remembered it from years ago ... long and boring. Myr wouldn't spring for First Class, so I was stuck in Coach. I've gotta talk to him about that. Anyway, Gatwick had changed. It was much bigger than I remember. The train ride to Victoria Station was different too. I had remembered seeing the rural English countryside last time. Now it was all built up. The cabby gave me a strange look when I gave him the prearranged address for my meeting. He was concerned because the address was on the run down side of town. I assured him that I would be fine. The ride that followed saw clean streets and neat shops turn into vacant buildings, boarded up shops and, well, trash. The cabby pulled to a stop and announced our arrival. I look warily out the window. Hesitantly, I stepped from the protection of the cab onto the sidewalk. I paid the cabby and he disappeared around the corner. Looking up and down the street, I realized that I was alone. The meow of a cat sent my heart up into my throat. Yeah, I was a bit nervous. The sound of someone approaching caused me to wheel around and look in the direction of the footsteps. A lone dark figure approached. He stopped in front of a door several yards away and opened it. Then he looked in my direction and motioned me over. I carefully started toward him.

"You're Jevic, right?" The lungful of air that I had been unconsciously holding whooshed out.

Yeah, are you Dean? He nodded and indicated I should go inside. He followed and closed the door behind us. The interior of the room was immediately familiar. After all, I had seen the movie literally dozens of times.

This is the Leaky Cauldron?

"Right again."

But how ...

"Let's just say I have connections." He grabbed a chair and sat down and pointed the other chair, inviting me to join him. I sat down heavily.

Thanks for agreeing to this interview, Dean.

"It's my pleasure."

When did you first start writing Midlands of Nowhere?

"Autumn of '97 if I remember correctly."

That means you were, ah ...

"Thirteen at the time. I had the handle NitWit13 on IRC."

Where did you get the idea?

"It was all based around MMMBop and a discussion that myself and a couple of friends were having."

And this was your first story?

"Yeah, of any consequence. It was a bit mad really."

Did you always want to write or did it just hit you one day?

"When you're too young to be knowing what you really want and too old to be a little kid, something has to give. In my case it was the ability to bottle things up, so I started writing. I'd always loved literature (more contemporary than classical) and did well at English in school. I got my GCSE with I was thirteen; however it was the first time I'd ever done anything that (A) wasn't being marked by a teacher, (B) was never going to be SEEN by anyone I knew, much less a member of staff, and (C) expressed anything more than slightly personal. Re-reading that first chapter of Midlands of Nowhere is painful now - it was so BAD!"

That was 8 years ago. Give yourself a break. Did you work from an outline and the waking up from the dream at the end ... was that planned or was it a convenient way to end the story?

"Having never written anything longer than a couple of pages, I just dove straight into it. No one will believe me when I say this, but absolutely none of it was planned in any part of the Midlands of Nowhere saga. And the waking up? It was an easy cop-out to end the story. Some bits were planned to an extent, but never more than a chapter or so ahead. I have a very bad memory and I'm even worse at writing ideas down, so planning went out the window and hence I just winged it."

I guess you were describing your school?

"Yeah. My English teacher always used to tell us to "Write what you know" and if you do, it becomes all the more engaging."

So how is Lee? Are you two still together?

"There was the odd shaky patch here and there, but we're just as much in love as we ever were."

I guess most people go through some rough times now and then. Tell me about your website. It was on-line and then it wasn't.

"OK, long story short. The site was pulled when Lee and I realized I was spending far too much time concerning myself with others as opposed to him and me. E-mail volume was such that it would take a couple of hours every night to plough through and, during those couple of hours, I can now see the wedge being driven further and further home between Lee and myself.. Hindsight is always 20/20, right?"

I think that's going to hit home with a lot of people, and not just writers, but readers as well. I've caught myself totally wrapped up in a story only to turn around and find that Jeff has gone to bed without me. So you pulled your website because it was interfering with your relationship with Lee?

"Yes, absolutely. Although, sentimental bugger that he is, Lee saved a snapshot of it before we pulled it."

So I take it there's a whole lot more to just posting stories on the Internet?

"We very nearly lost each other over it. I got my ego stroked so much by people e-mailing me about the stories I forgot that the love of my life needed the attention I was expending on loads of comparative strangers. There were certain people with which I became friends who wanted to do a lot more than talk and, understandably, it disquieted Lee."

I can understand that! Do you remember when it was that you pulled the site?

"Not sure actually, summer 2000 rings a bell. Anyhoo, years later I decided to write again but with a promise to Lee - Lee first, me second, everyone else - a distant third."

Dean, you're writing again?!?! That's awesome! I guess you have some friends over at MeTA4? I found your stories there.

"Yeah, ummm, I was wondering how long it'd be before anyone kinda spotted that link. Let me explain MeTA4. It's a group of writers including Lee, myself and a couple of others who simply didn't know how to go about nailing a story together. It transpires that they had some great ideas, but they were without structure. Myself, having to write for TV as I do now (gasp!) had got used to working with others, so we kinda figured why not? The downside of this is that the writing process is very much geared to a 'when everyone is free' type thing, so it can be a little slow sometimes."

You write for TV! Must be a cool job.

"A word from someone who knows, AVOID TV LIKE THE PLAGUE, unless you're a sadomasochistic bastard who loves to see their work ripped to shreds by a committee. You learn not to be precocious about your work very quickly.

What do you write for TV?

"I mainly write the odd advertising spot here and there - a lot of corporate work too. Far too much corporate, actually. Although I'm mainly tied up as a video editor now. As with all production budgets, they've been squeezed to borderline-extinction and so a multi-faceted guy generally works better than a single tasker. What's the saying - 'Jack of all trades, master of none.' We do some feature work here and there. I had to do a day's edit on Deathwatch and ended up doing the Electronic Press Kit too."

So what are you working on, new story wise? Will we see another adventure with Tay Hanson?

"Maybe, although in a sense the concept is a tad moot given that he's gone all hetro on us. I figure I owe it to him to respect him and his family. He is a dad now, after all. It's actually funny, the idea of Tay at Hogwarts was raised, but "The Corps" pretty well has that covered. Ace story, BTW."

So you've started writing?

"Yeah, quite a lot. There's a whole bunch of stuff at MeTA4 that's got a lot of me in it. Not 100% me I hasten to add, but people have said the style's there. There's also a good twenty or so half-started, half finished and otherwise half-arsed attempts of stories in varying stages of disrepair that I either started or scribbled down in a moment of inspiration, only to never return to them. To give you an idea, when I was browsing through it the other day I couldn't even remember writing half of it, never mind knowing where I was going with it. I'm a magpie like that. I save random sentences if I think they're good and there's quite a library of them now. Here's an example (no one has ever seen this before now) ..."

"Quite what I thought about on those lovely summer evenings as I skated around our village I can't quite remember. It just seemed wonderfully relaxing to do so, swaying gently from side to side as I wafted down the road."

"Everything just seemed so good. The breeze was light, warm and refreshing. The grass was green and the skies were a dazzling blue. Thin wispy clouds meandered across the sky in nondescript patterns only they understood."

"I coasted up to the old rickety fence at the end of our lane and looked out over the vast green fields of the Derbyshire Dales, the luscious grass inheriting an effervescent golden glow from the low sun. Life surely couldn't get much better than this."

Cool. Very descriptive. So the MeTA4 website is a collaboration effort, yourself and Lee included?

"Totally. Lee coded most of it. I helped. Davin does a lot of the proofreading and so on."

So Davin does proofreading for you too? He does all my work. He's very picky.

"The boy is so anal it has to be seen to be believed, but as they say 'To strive for excellence leads up to find a better way.' That better way was Davin."

Couldn't have said it better myself. So both you and Lee had a hand in writing "Rising of the Dark?"

"Yeah. The idea was actually dreamt up by Lee's little brother. I can't really take the credit for the base concept, that's down to Florian. I'd say about 80% of the words are mine, the others contributing whenever and wherever they want to. Generally I felt it unfair to credit it as mine. It's very much a hybrid work."

How's the response to "Rising" been? Cool story by the way.

"Cheers! It's nowhere near Midlands of Nowhere level, prolly because there's a lot less sex. Our reader (sic) has been very kind to us, though. It's posted to Nifty, FanFiction and MeTA4."

So do you like to write just fanfic type stories or do other types appeal to you?

"Hehe ... I guess I've been typecast. I do write non fan-fiction, but not a lot of it has been released yet. In fact there's a whole shedload (some of it 'G' rated!) that has yet to surface including a kid's story. I'm thinking about releasing it under the Creative Commons license. If people like it, they can use it."

Sorry to typecast you, but one Hanson story and one Harry Potter story and people are gonna assume, so I had to ask.

"It's a fair assumption mate. You can only go by what you've seen. Only reasonable to do so."

What do you think it is that draws people to your writing?

"People keep telling me it's the detail in the stories that interests them - the anecdotes etc."

"That's what I've been hearing as well ... you're very descriptive in your writing. Like the camping trip ... is that something they really do at your school?"

"Yeah - very much so. The whole place closes down once a year and ships the entire student body off into the back of beyond..."

You wrote about abseiling (rappelling) in your story. Have you ever tried it?

"Yeah, the school I went to was well into outward-bound type stuff. The whole thing about how a staff member parked a Transit van? All true. I have vivid memories of being about forty foot under the Derbyshire Peak in a pothole to have an OED staff member shout "YOU'RE ALL GOING TO DIE!" in a maniacal voice before covering the entrance again for ten minutes. Character building, don't you know."

Tell me about the big Ford Transit from the story. Wasn't it purple?

"Dorf the Transit, I'm afraid to say, was a figment of my imagination. I still want to build that one day though. My (and Lee's) obsession with deeply silly cars is still alive and well though. If it has less than six cylinders I don't wanna know."

OK, then tell me about Lee's go-kart.

"Ahhh, THE go-kart. Or the silly 4x4? Or the quad? (I did mention we were into silly cars.) Well, the go-kart is made from a five-bar iron gate and a VW beetle and a pair of little garret turbochargers."

A beetle?!? Turbochargers?!? Good God!

"That's what the clutch said about ten minutes into the maiden voyage. Beefed-up clutch and a new pedal arrangement later it kept going. It has to have a separate oil system for the turbos as the beetle's puny little oil pump couldn't even attempt to keep those bearings cool. I can guarantee it's about the only intercooled go-kart you'll ever find."

You just celebrated your 21st birthday last month! Congrats! Did you do anything special?

"As I said, I'm boring. We decided to have a nice quiet family meal, which was promptly gatecrashed by a few of our mates. Thankfully far too much food had been cooked and so it actually turned into a really fun evening. This is gonna sound so mushy, but as long as I have Lee's love I'll want for nothing. Except perhaps a Dodge Viper, with a supercharger."

Dean, you're pretty young to know as much as you do about computers ... let alone writing for TV ... how'd you do that? And Lee wrote the code for the MeTA4 site! Awesome! Self-taught or school?

"Someone once said 'I'd rather be lucky than good' - I think that just about sums me up. I had a really good run of luck - some of Lee's dad's contacts, some friends of friends and so on. Lee on the other hand is just good but hates academia - no qualifications - just pure, raw talent and a nack for making stuff 'just work'."

What do you two like to do when you have free time?

"Free time? I've heard of it before but never actually experienced it..."

So, Dean, is there anything you want to get off your chest. Anything you want to say to all those fans of yours?

"Err - hi? I dunno, really... People have told me that there are various rumors flying around. To set the record straight a tad: 1 - I'm still very much alive. 2 - I did not move to Holland or Romania or something. 3 - Lee and I are still together, somehow. And finally, I guess, thanks for reading!!"

So you and Lee live together now?

"Yeah - not a mansion or anything (one-bedroom terraced house to be precise) but it's ours."

I'm really happy for both of you and thanks for clearing up what happened to you.

"No probs - nice to clear the air, actually."

There was a whole lot of laughing during the interview and it was good to meet Dean. Now that I find myself back on this huge steel tube hurtling though the air at 550 miles per hour, I can't help but think about the impact writing a story had on Dean and Lee. It's easy to get wrapped up in the whole thing. I know that for a fact.

"Oh, excuse me. Can I have another Jack and Coke please? And, easy on the Coke this time. You do take credit cards, right?"

It's an 8 hour flight. Hehehe ... boy, Myr is gonna love this bar tab.