Writing Wrap Up for 2018
I knew it had been a while since I'd done one of these, because I'd been so upset with myself about not having much output the last few years. Um. It's been five years. Yeah. On the upside, I was really intent on writing more in 2018, and I actually did. This is about the only thing I can say for 2018, but small victories, yo.
January
Alphabet Soup Poetry, Batfamily, JayDick, PG-13, 2,592 words
February
Try Not to Sing Out of Key, GW, 3x4, G, 3,491 words
Singing in the Dead of Night, MCU, Clint/Sam, NC-17, 10,943 words
March
Five Times Holmes Hurt Himself and One Time Watson Was Injured, SH (Downey films), Sherlock Holmes/John Watson/Mary Morstan, NC-17, 8,096 words
CAT: The Dog Kind, TW, Sterek, PG-13, 2,647 words
April
Getting the Super-Secret Boyband Back Together, MCU, Tony/Steve/Bucky, Sam/Shuri, Clint/Natasha, NC-17, 44,485 words (this feels like cheating, since not all of these were written this year, but I don't know how many were)
May
Mouth of Cerberus, TW, Sterek, R, 5,360 words
Three Wishes, Wynonna Earp, Xavier Dolls/Wynonna Earp/Doc Holliday, R, 6,477 words
June
Tell It to Me Slowly (I Really Want to Know), Dickens-verse, Neal/Ezra, PG-13, 7,283 words
July
When All Is Said and Done, Batfamily, JayDick, R, 4,870 words
The Body Politic, Batfamily, G, 2,353 words
Sensory Endings, Batfamily, G, 1,910 words
Sculpted by the Sculptor, Batfamily, JayDick, R, 819 words
August
Someone You Have to Let In, Batfamily, JayDick, BatLantern, NC-17, 65,175 words
October
A Little Past Stockholm, DC Comics, Dick Grayson/Midnighter/Apollo, NC-17, 8,339 words
November
Winds from the North, DC Comics, Dick Grayson/Midnighter/Apollo, PG-13, 1,714 words
Beginner's Holiday, DC Comics, Dick Grayson/Midnighter/Apollo, PG-13, 3,428 words
Go West, Young Man, DC Comics, Dick Grayson/Midnighter/Apollo, NC-17, 2,187 words
December
My Own Vineyard (I Did Not Guard), Kings, David/Jack, R, 2,302 words
We Buy Ugly Houses, Batfamily, JayTim, PG-13, 3,743 words
To Sum Up, Turner Series - Cat Sebastian, Courtenay/Julian Medlock, NC-17, 1,365 words
Destination Position, Chess the musical, Anatoly/Svetlana, pre-threesome, G, 1,902 words
Book Covers, Deadpool movies, pre-Yukio/Ellie, G, 1,417 words
First Time for Everything, Turner Series - Cat Sebastian, Georgie/Lawrence, G, 1,995 words
No Trap Needed, DC Comics, Jason Todd/Roy Harper, G, 1,899 words
Play This Out, MCU, R, 2,319 words
Statistics:
Number of fics: 26
Collective word count: ~161,023 (I estimated what I wrote of 'Boyband' this year to be about the last 14k)
Shortest fic: 819
Longest fic: 65,175
Slash: 14
Gen: 3
Het: 0
Femslash: 1
Threesome/moresome/some type of mix: 8
G: 7
PG-13: 6
R: 6
NC-17: 7
And the part where I answer questions about what I'm thinking about my own writing.
Favorite of the year: Someone You Have to Let In. Aside from being possibly the only fic I wrote purely for my own purposes this year (e.g., not for an exchange, auction, etc.,) it was the first fic I started in DC, and I think we all know how that feels, that first fic in a new fandom. It took quite a while and it fought me at times, but I still wanted to hug it to my chest and coo at it when it was done, and I think that's the mark of a fic you really enjoyed writing.
Best of the year: Five Times Holmes Hurt Himself and One Time Watson Was Injured As per normal, I have a hard time answering this. I didn't think anything I wrote this year was particularly standout, if I'm being honest. That isn't being self-deprecating, being completely truthful, I'm just glad I WROTE and wrote a decent amount this year. It was definitely a moment of just getting back on the frigging horse. But this is a hard fandom to write in, in part because of the language/flow of the movies, and in part because I don't write regularly in it, and I still think this ended up well constructed and true to the source, and in that sense, I think it was probably my strongest piece of the year.
Most underappreciated: We Buy Ugly Houses. I get that batfamily isn't exactly a teeming fandom, and all, but this fic is fluff, which is objectively and categorically what fandom reads the most of, JayTim is decently popular within the fandom, and honestly, it's a cute story. It's not gonna change anyone's life, but I feel like more people would have enjoyed it if they'd given it a shot.
Most fun to write: To Sum Up, no shit, for reals, I had just been WAITING for Yuletide in the hopes of writing these two, and then there was a prompt that led me to this, which, I have SUCH a writing-on-people kink, and yeah, I just. It was the first treat I wrote and so, so much fun.
Sexiest fic: Go West, Young Man. Hands Down. And close runner up for most fun, truth be told. Dick as a saloon girl, yo.
"Holy crap, that's wrong even for you": Let's be honest: when you've (1) crucified characters (twice), (2) brain-damaged characters by way of being sliced open by their dead lover's bone fragments, (3) written child-hooker fic, (4) and other stuff, for the past twenty years, this is a hard category to fulfill, and I just didn't this year. Call me a failure if you must. (Altho, I guess if you consider JayDick or JayTim to be incest, this is the first time I've written incest. Of course, I don't consider it to be, so for me, that doesn't really count. And I'm also pretty into the idea that unless incest is producing children or is non-consensual, it's really more a taboo than anything that's seriously a problem.)
Fic that shifted my own preconceptions of the characters: Destination Position I had to really THINK about who Svetlana is to write this, which is something I don't feel the musical prompts you to do all that much, and that was both intriguing and refreshing.
Hardest to write: Getting the Super-Secret Boyband Back Together. I stopped writing it for a reason. And I had to fight against a LOT of negative emotions just to get myself to deal with it, plus the awareness that since Black Panther had come out in the interim, I was going to get bullshit about the Sam/Shuri pairing, despite making it clear that she was not based on movie!Shuri. So, yeah, this one was a fight all the way, but I was 100% committed to making it across the finish line.
Biggest disappointment: Play This Out. Thankfully, other people, including the recip, liked this fic, but I just could not get worked up for it, and it felt like I was phoning it in, which I HATE.
Biggest surprise: Winds from the North. When I started writing these three, I barely had enough for a Yuletide treat, which is how I'm pretty sure this all got off the ground. Then, you know, people liked it and I was like "well, maybe..." and then the DCBB happened and I cajoled Crow over to my side, fell in love, and the rest of this series just started tumbling out.
Most telling: Sensory Endings, probably?
Another treat, with my thing for touch-starvation and pain and loneliness and feral characters on full display.
January
Alphabet Soup Poetry, Batfamily, JayDick, PG-13, 2,592 words
February
Try Not to Sing Out of Key, GW, 3x4, G, 3,491 words
Singing in the Dead of Night, MCU, Clint/Sam, NC-17, 10,943 words
March
Five Times Holmes Hurt Himself and One Time Watson Was Injured, SH (Downey films), Sherlock Holmes/John Watson/Mary Morstan, NC-17, 8,096 words
CAT: The Dog Kind, TW, Sterek, PG-13, 2,647 words
April
Getting the Super-Secret Boyband Back Together, MCU, Tony/Steve/Bucky, Sam/Shuri, Clint/Natasha, NC-17, 44,485 words (this feels like cheating, since not all of these were written this year, but I don't know how many were)
May
Mouth of Cerberus, TW, Sterek, R, 5,360 words
Three Wishes, Wynonna Earp, Xavier Dolls/Wynonna Earp/Doc Holliday, R, 6,477 words
June
Tell It to Me Slowly (I Really Want to Know), Dickens-verse, Neal/Ezra, PG-13, 7,283 words
July
When All Is Said and Done, Batfamily, JayDick, R, 4,870 words
The Body Politic, Batfamily, G, 2,353 words
Sensory Endings, Batfamily, G, 1,910 words
Sculpted by the Sculptor, Batfamily, JayDick, R, 819 words
August
Someone You Have to Let In, Batfamily, JayDick, BatLantern, NC-17, 65,175 words
October
A Little Past Stockholm, DC Comics, Dick Grayson/Midnighter/Apollo, NC-17, 8,339 words
November
Winds from the North, DC Comics, Dick Grayson/Midnighter/Apollo, PG-13, 1,714 words
Beginner's Holiday, DC Comics, Dick Grayson/Midnighter/Apollo, PG-13, 3,428 words
Go West, Young Man, DC Comics, Dick Grayson/Midnighter/Apollo, NC-17, 2,187 words
December
My Own Vineyard (I Did Not Guard), Kings, David/Jack, R, 2,302 words
We Buy Ugly Houses, Batfamily, JayTim, PG-13, 3,743 words
To Sum Up, Turner Series - Cat Sebastian, Courtenay/Julian Medlock, NC-17, 1,365 words
Destination Position, Chess the musical, Anatoly/Svetlana, pre-threesome, G, 1,902 words
Book Covers, Deadpool movies, pre-Yukio/Ellie, G, 1,417 words
First Time for Everything, Turner Series - Cat Sebastian, Georgie/Lawrence, G, 1,995 words
No Trap Needed, DC Comics, Jason Todd/Roy Harper, G, 1,899 words
Play This Out, MCU, R, 2,319 words
Statistics:
Number of fics: 26
Collective word count: ~161,023 (I estimated what I wrote of 'Boyband' this year to be about the last 14k)
Shortest fic: 819
Longest fic: 65,175
Slash: 14
Gen: 3
Het: 0
Femslash: 1
Threesome/moresome/some type of mix: 8
G: 7
PG-13: 6
R: 6
NC-17: 7
And the part where I answer questions about what I'm thinking about my own writing.
Favorite of the year: Someone You Have to Let In. Aside from being possibly the only fic I wrote purely for my own purposes this year (e.g., not for an exchange, auction, etc.,) it was the first fic I started in DC, and I think we all know how that feels, that first fic in a new fandom. It took quite a while and it fought me at times, but I still wanted to hug it to my chest and coo at it when it was done, and I think that's the mark of a fic you really enjoyed writing.
Best of the year: Five Times Holmes Hurt Himself and One Time Watson Was Injured As per normal, I have a hard time answering this. I didn't think anything I wrote this year was particularly standout, if I'm being honest. That isn't being self-deprecating, being completely truthful, I'm just glad I WROTE and wrote a decent amount this year. It was definitely a moment of just getting back on the frigging horse. But this is a hard fandom to write in, in part because of the language/flow of the movies, and in part because I don't write regularly in it, and I still think this ended up well constructed and true to the source, and in that sense, I think it was probably my strongest piece of the year.
Most underappreciated: We Buy Ugly Houses. I get that batfamily isn't exactly a teeming fandom, and all, but this fic is fluff, which is objectively and categorically what fandom reads the most of, JayTim is decently popular within the fandom, and honestly, it's a cute story. It's not gonna change anyone's life, but I feel like more people would have enjoyed it if they'd given it a shot.
Most fun to write: To Sum Up, no shit, for reals, I had just been WAITING for Yuletide in the hopes of writing these two, and then there was a prompt that led me to this, which, I have SUCH a writing-on-people kink, and yeah, I just. It was the first treat I wrote and so, so much fun.
Sexiest fic: Go West, Young Man. Hands Down. And close runner up for most fun, truth be told. Dick as a saloon girl, yo.
"Holy crap, that's wrong even for you": Let's be honest: when you've (1) crucified characters (twice), (2) brain-damaged characters by way of being sliced open by their dead lover's bone fragments, (3) written child-hooker fic, (4) and other stuff, for the past twenty years, this is a hard category to fulfill, and I just didn't this year. Call me a failure if you must. (Altho, I guess if you consider JayDick or JayTim to be incest, this is the first time I've written incest. Of course, I don't consider it to be, so for me, that doesn't really count. And I'm also pretty into the idea that unless incest is producing children or is non-consensual, it's really more a taboo than anything that's seriously a problem.)
Fic that shifted my own preconceptions of the characters: Destination Position I had to really THINK about who Svetlana is to write this, which is something I don't feel the musical prompts you to do all that much, and that was both intriguing and refreshing.
Hardest to write: Getting the Super-Secret Boyband Back Together. I stopped writing it for a reason. And I had to fight against a LOT of negative emotions just to get myself to deal with it, plus the awareness that since Black Panther had come out in the interim, I was going to get bullshit about the Sam/Shuri pairing, despite making it clear that she was not based on movie!Shuri. So, yeah, this one was a fight all the way, but I was 100% committed to making it across the finish line.
Biggest disappointment: Play This Out. Thankfully, other people, including the recip, liked this fic, but I just could not get worked up for it, and it felt like I was phoning it in, which I HATE.
Biggest surprise: Winds from the North. When I started writing these three, I barely had enough for a Yuletide treat, which is how I'm pretty sure this all got off the ground. Then, you know, people liked it and I was like "well, maybe..." and then the DCBB happened and I cajoled Crow over to my side, fell in love, and the rest of this series just started tumbling out.
Most telling: Sensory Endings, probably?
Another treat, with my thing for touch-starvation and pain and loneliness and feral characters on full display.