www.basic-nstynct.com

Domain: www.basic-nstynct.com
Established: May 2000

I first discovered my love for story telling when I was in the seventh grade. It was the days of New Kids On The Block and I was head over heels in love with Joey McIntyre. I had then, as all seventh graders do, a set of "best friends." But Kelly, was my very best friend and she, conveniently, was in love with Donnie. I knew nothing of fan fiction. Thought nothing of writing novels or even reading them at this point in my life. My world revolved around Bop Magazine, the fact that Kelly's brother's friend drove the NKOTB tour bus and that I got to occasionally sit around in a pair of Joey's pants. Yes. His actual pants. They left a lot of shit on that bus.

One afternoon as I lay on the floor of Kelly's bedroom with one foot on either side of the door sized poster hanging on the back of my friends bedroom door I proceeded to tell her about the dream I'd had the night before. I had in fact dreamed of NKOTB but not to the extent to which I told her about it. Her reaction was fantastic and I loved it. She wanted to hear another "dream" but since I hadn't technically had the first, I certainly didn't have a second. Then came her wise suggestion. "So make one up."

I did. She did. For the next several months almost all we did while we were alone was tell each other our "dreams." We'd stay up the entire night on the phone while everyone else slept making up what I now know is fan fiction about "doing it" with New Kids on the Block. I had a gutter mind even then. How nice.

But the days of NKOTB came to an end, I grew up and life moved on.

When I was 22 I decided I wanted to move to Orlando. At the time I knew of NSYNC and was a fan. My favorite boy was once again the Joey of the group and I'd met a girl or two online at yahoo clubs and at some chat somewhere that Joey had participated in. I'd started one of those Yahoo! Clubs with another girl (Becca) that I'd met and we called it, Mature NSYNC Lovers, or MNL for short. It was a blast. Those were the days, man. At this club I also met someone who was to become a very close friend and who would be the person to introduce me to fan fiction.

NSYNC fan fiction started for me out of frustration. I loved to read and I wanted to write a novel. I'd started several but because I knew next to nothing about the world I didn't have enough to fill the pages. I knew about the characters I wanted to create and the relationships I wanted to build but I just didn't know enough about their worlds to make it all seem real.

I had decided that I wanted to move to Orlando and so in my mind (as I've always done) I played out scenarios. What if this happened, what if that happened? Finally one afternoon I decided to hell with novels, I'm going to write about someone I know. So my first fan fiction (about NSYNC) was born. It was about me working for Disney and meeting Joey (and the others who cared about them?) at a concert they were going to do at MGM Studios (at this time I had no idea that eventually I'd be working in the special events department and doing almost this very thing but... maybe it was a sixth sense). Somehow Joey got hurt. Or maybe I got hurt. I can't remember now, but someone went to visit someone else in the hospital and yadda yadda yadda me and Joey Fatone lived happily ever after.

I wrote tons of them. I filled spiral notebook after spiral notebook with them. Literally hundreds of stories almost entirely about me and how I would meet Joey once I was in O-Town living the high life. (Boy was I naive!)

I moved to Orlando in April of 1999. I didn't have a computer at home and it was torture. My world existed online. My friends were there, the fandom was there for me. So I'd go online at work while no one was looking and e-mail and post in my club. Then one day, I believe it was about October of '99, the aforementioned friend forwards me an e-mail. She says to me, you've got to read this story I've been reading. We'd seen and made fun of other NSYNC stories we'd seen where this kid would meet Justin at Disney World or an amusement park and they'd hold hands and the world was all sunshine and light and oh my god what crap. I knew that fan fiction existed but that childish crap that was out there was not a world I wanted to participate in. I was 23 for cripes sake. I'd nearly been married twice and when I thought about spending time with Joey or Justin or JC, it wasn't skipping through the Magic Kingdom holding hands let me tell you.

So I open this e-mail and the chapter she'd sent me was LONG. I mean LONG, LONG. I knew I couldn't read it at work and I didn't have a computer at home so I waited until everyone else left the office and went and found the story and printed all the chapters out to date. I was sweating bullets the entire time too that someone somehow was going to find out.

So I took the story home with me, sat it aside and didn't think about it. I don't know how long I had it, maybe just a few days, when I ended up cleaning my room. I'm always cleaning my room. You'd think as an adult I'd grow out of this stage and just keep the damn thing clean but I'm 28 now and it hasn't happened yet. I'm still hoping though. Anyway, when I clean, I always get distracted. I play with things as I come across them. And I came across this printed out stack of paper. I started skimming and goodness but what did I stumble across but sex. SEX! In the story! Good sex too! So I went back to the beginning and started over and read everything I had. The next day when I was at work I e-mailed the author. That story was Lustful Memoirs and the author was Gina.

I can't explain to you the happiness I felt. There was someone out there that felt the same way as me. That wanted to jump Justin's bones or at least write about it! My world had changed. This was the beginning of me writing my stories online for someone else to read. I started writing my first long fan fiction story called "Jamie" and I began to build my site. Basic-'NStynct was born in May of 2000. Because the original graphic was me trying to make this picture I had of Justin look like the Basic Instinct movie poster I had the clever (insert eye roll here) idea to name the site Basic 'Nstynct (because you know, everything was cooler when you could drop a letter and put that little ' in front of it and I was definitely cool). To begin with the site was on geocities and it had about three stories on it and yeah... it was the joy of my life.

The first story, Jamie, was about Joey and this chick Ashley he meets and accidentally gets pregnant. It was packed full of sex. Joey was having sex, Justin was having sex, hell, even Lance was having sex. God it was a terrible story, but it was my first and I was proud. (No, you wont find it here. I'm not one for self humiliation when I can avoid it).

A lot has changed since those days. Yahoo! Clubs became Yahoo! Groups that sucked. The days of EZBoard had arrived. Friends that had been around since the beginning came and went. The website grew and I shared my space with various people: Becca, Maddie, A~, Bella, Nina, Carrie, Jamie to name a few. Gina had her own site then joined mine, left and went back to her own and after it's all said and done, we've ended up here together again. She's my editor, my crutch and most of all my friend. I couldn't do this without her. She's one of the very first people I met online and one of the very, very few of the "originals" that I still talk to.

So many people have come in and out of my life during this adventure. I remember them all and miss the ones who've gone away. They will always hold a very special place in my heart. I've had enemies too. The Basic 'NStynct message board was born and died. Slash appeared and grew and grew until it's practically taken over the fandom. Live Journal is here now and with it, a whole new set of friends and enemies and drama.

This web site, this hobby and these people have been such a monumental part of my life over the past five years. Writing has grown from something I do because I can to something I do because I have to. I love it. It frustrates me, depresses me, elates me and fills me up with so many things.

Maybe I should let it end. Maybe it probably is time but I'm not ready yet. I'm still here and I'm still writing and I'm not planning to go away anytime soon. Even if nobody comes, even if nobody reads.

To those of you who have come, who've read, who've written. To those of you who have been my friend, who've gone away, who are still here. To Joey, Justin, JC Lance and Chris. Thank you for being a part of my life, for being a part of the one thing I really felt successful in, for making me feel loved and smart and special. Not one of you will truly ever know how big a role you played in my life.

I love you and I'm not finished yet. Because regardless of who's together and who's apart, who's solo and who's not its still whole in my heart and that's all that really matters isn't it?

~ Shellie