Year in Review 2004
I belatedly did one of those recent writing memes over in my pro lj, and in the midst thought of doing a wordcount tally for the year, pro vs. fanfic. And once I did the annoying part of collecting all the stories I did this year, I figured I might as well do the Year in Review meme. Also, I've gotten around to updating my fanfic site with a bunch of things I hadn't put up yet -- the last four stories I've posted here, and the M&C and LAC short-shorts I wrote for fan_the_vote way back when.
Total: 61,507 words in 18 stories in 7 fandoms.
Stories Written (fandoms listed in reverse chronological order)
Wodehouse
Jeeves and the Blessed Indiscretion, 4,255 words
Tombstone
Blood and Whiskey, 3,972
Spiderman
Sea Change, 1,405
Stargate
A Lapse of Gravity, 4,335
Compromised, 1,004
Gladiator
Campaign, 3,282
One of a Thousand Roads, 2,248
Waking from a Dream, 1,026
L.A. Confidential
Partnership, 4,079
Games Men Play, 1,510
Payback, 6,006
Listening In, 2,711
Collaboration, 2,042
Something Borrowed, 875
Miscellaneous Shorts
Master & Commander
The World Turned Upside Down (Five Things That Never Happened, part five), 19,082
Influence, 721
Miscellaneous Shorts, 2,954
Actually, I should probably just take those last three categories and list them as my Russell Crowe period, a la Picasso's Blue period or something.
And also:
Vids Made (all available at http://www.intimations.org/vidding/)
Jig of Life, Witchblade
The Mountain (with melina123), LOTR
Drop Dead Gorgeous, Smallville
Duende, Master & Commander
My Favorite: It's almost always the last thing I've written, in the moment -- the one still carrying that rosy glow of yay-it's-done! -- but overall I think I'm going to go with Partnership. It's kind of bizarre, really, how Exley/White grabs me. They're not nice guys, not likeable at all, and the politics of their world & time are pretty repugnant. Their intensity is what compels, and the way they're incomplete apart and so perfect together. This story is also just the right length for me to reread in basically no time, so from a purely utilitarian point of view, I can indulge in it whenever I want without a time committment. It's like baby carrots! (The logic of this works in my head, but possibly you have to be here.)
My Best: The World Turned Upside Down. I'm really proud of this. If I could publish a fanfic story, this is the one I'd choose. I toyed with the idea of filing off the serial numbers, but in the end I just don't think it works properly *except* as fanfic -- it needs the canon to be set against.
Story Most Underappreciated by the Universe: This isn't underappreciated at all -- I've gotten wonderful feedback on it -- but the story I would most love people to read, who wouldn't ordinarily read the fandom or even the Western genre, is the Tombstone story I wrote for Yuletide this year, Blood and Whiskey.
I wasn't interested in Westerns at all before working on this story, and I've actively avoided Western movies/books in the past under the assumption that I don't like that kind of thing. I watched Tombstone only so I could appreciate gwyn_r and feochadn's vid "Never Left" (available on their first DVD collection), and honestly I thought it was a pretty awful movie. With a boatload of slash, but Doc and the Earps' performances deserved a much better script.
But while doing research for the story, I really fell in love with Wyatt Earp's voice. He's got a really wonderful and compelling narrative voice -- it conveys his character straight through the choice of language, the cadences, and it's the same kind of pleasure I find in reading Patrick O'Brian. So I think folks who've liked my M&C work would enjoy it also, and also think they would be likely to give it a miss under the same assumptions I had myself.
Most Fun: I think I'll go with Drop Dead Gorgeous, the Smallville vid. I literally made it in three days in a mad pre-VividCon frenzy, and it was just pure silly fun.
Most Disappointing: Waking from a Dream, no question. This is the sequel to One of a Thousand Roads, which I'm really proud of. I really wanted to continue in that universe, to play with the idea more, but the sequel just didn't go anywhere nearly as interesting as the original. I like to post the failures anyway, if they're complete, so I put it out, but I think of this as something that I might hypothetically overwrite one day with something better.
Most Sexy: Partnership, again -- the original, not the expanded version I made for the Fandom Election. It's the not-having-sex that does it. *g*
Hardest to Write: My Yuletide pinch-hit, Jeeves and the Blessed Indiscretion. yahtzee63 was working on her fabulous Yuletide story, Wooster's School for Wayward Girls and in the course of research brought one of the books over to my place, back early in December. I -- who had never read Wodehouse except for flambeau's fanfic -- picked it up and glanced through, went oh, fun! and got a collection to take along on vacation with me. Then when it popped up in a pinch-hit, I blithely nabbed it, all foolishly pleased by the opportunity to play with the new fandom, and OMG it killed me dead.
Thankfully cesperanza managed to help me wrestle the PURE EVIL (from BEYOND THE GRAVE! *sepulchral tones*) that is Wodehouse into submission. And now I'm quite happy with the story. But I had a few bad days there moaning to anyone who would give me even the least bit of sympathy, ie, almost nobody, since most of them were also doing Yuletide pinch-hits and occupied with their own misery.
Total: 61,507 words in 18 stories in 7 fandoms.
Stories Written (fandoms listed in reverse chronological order)
Wodehouse
Jeeves and the Blessed Indiscretion, 4,255 words
Tombstone
Blood and Whiskey, 3,972
Spiderman
Sea Change, 1,405
Stargate
A Lapse of Gravity, 4,335
Compromised, 1,004
Gladiator
Campaign, 3,282
One of a Thousand Roads, 2,248
Waking from a Dream, 1,026
L.A. Confidential
Partnership, 4,079
Games Men Play, 1,510
Payback, 6,006
Listening In, 2,711
Collaboration, 2,042
Something Borrowed, 875
Miscellaneous Shorts
Master & Commander
The World Turned Upside Down (Five Things That Never Happened, part five), 19,082
Influence, 721
Miscellaneous Shorts, 2,954
Actually, I should probably just take those last three categories and list them as my Russell Crowe period, a la Picasso's Blue period or something.
And also:
Vids Made (all available at http://www.intimations.org/vidding/)
Jig of Life, Witchblade
The Mountain (with melina123), LOTR
Drop Dead Gorgeous, Smallville
Duende, Master & Commander
My Favorite: It's almost always the last thing I've written, in the moment -- the one still carrying that rosy glow of yay-it's-done! -- but overall I think I'm going to go with Partnership. It's kind of bizarre, really, how Exley/White grabs me. They're not nice guys, not likeable at all, and the politics of their world & time are pretty repugnant. Their intensity is what compels, and the way they're incomplete apart and so perfect together. This story is also just the right length for me to reread in basically no time, so from a purely utilitarian point of view, I can indulge in it whenever I want without a time committment. It's like baby carrots! (The logic of this works in my head, but possibly you have to be here.)
My Best: The World Turned Upside Down. I'm really proud of this. If I could publish a fanfic story, this is the one I'd choose. I toyed with the idea of filing off the serial numbers, but in the end I just don't think it works properly *except* as fanfic -- it needs the canon to be set against.
Story Most Underappreciated by the Universe: This isn't underappreciated at all -- I've gotten wonderful feedback on it -- but the story I would most love people to read, who wouldn't ordinarily read the fandom or even the Western genre, is the Tombstone story I wrote for Yuletide this year, Blood and Whiskey.
I wasn't interested in Westerns at all before working on this story, and I've actively avoided Western movies/books in the past under the assumption that I don't like that kind of thing. I watched Tombstone only so I could appreciate gwyn_r and feochadn's vid "Never Left" (available on their first DVD collection), and honestly I thought it was a pretty awful movie. With a boatload of slash, but Doc and the Earps' performances deserved a much better script.
But while doing research for the story, I really fell in love with Wyatt Earp's voice. He's got a really wonderful and compelling narrative voice -- it conveys his character straight through the choice of language, the cadences, and it's the same kind of pleasure I find in reading Patrick O'Brian. So I think folks who've liked my M&C work would enjoy it also, and also think they would be likely to give it a miss under the same assumptions I had myself.
Most Fun: I think I'll go with Drop Dead Gorgeous, the Smallville vid. I literally made it in three days in a mad pre-VividCon frenzy, and it was just pure silly fun.
Most Disappointing: Waking from a Dream, no question. This is the sequel to One of a Thousand Roads, which I'm really proud of. I really wanted to continue in that universe, to play with the idea more, but the sequel just didn't go anywhere nearly as interesting as the original. I like to post the failures anyway, if they're complete, so I put it out, but I think of this as something that I might hypothetically overwrite one day with something better.
Most Sexy: Partnership, again -- the original, not the expanded version I made for the Fandom Election. It's the not-having-sex that does it. *g*
Hardest to Write: My Yuletide pinch-hit, Jeeves and the Blessed Indiscretion. yahtzee63 was working on her fabulous Yuletide story, Wooster's School for Wayward Girls and in the course of research brought one of the books over to my place, back early in December. I -- who had never read Wodehouse except for flambeau's fanfic -- picked it up and glanced through, went oh, fun! and got a collection to take along on vacation with me. Then when it popped up in a pinch-hit, I blithely nabbed it, all foolishly pleased by the opportunity to play with the new fandom, and OMG it killed me dead.
Thankfully cesperanza managed to help me wrestle the PURE EVIL (from BEYOND THE GRAVE! *sepulchral tones*) that is Wodehouse into submission. And now I'm quite happy with the story. But I had a few bad days there moaning to anyone who would give me even the least bit of sympathy, ie, almost nobody, since most of them were also doing Yuletide pinch-hits and occupied with their own misery.