End of Year Writing Meme
A meme resurrected this January by complexlight for reviewing the year in writing. I've only done the writing-specific questions from the meme here as I use my LJ purely for writing. But thank you for this meme! Interesting to think about.
Your main fandom of the year?
Lewis. And as a little prelude:
I hadn't done creative writing before Lewis so I'm entirely grateful to this fandom and the lovely people within it for bringing me to writing and all the pleasures I get from it. For their wonderful stories that just enticed me in so I found myself trying it in the first place! For the feedback and encouragement given in general in this fandom on posted stories and also the concrit in the beta process that makes all the difference in developing writing skills and gaining confidence - it's been a steep learning curve and I so appreciate the time and patient input given by wendymr, complexlight and lindenharp - which has been a huge help. Gaining confidence to just try and write as I want to write especially through wendymr offering to beta for me after the first couple of stories I posted - and then encouraging me to write with more confidence - that was a big revelation.
Writing Summary:
Number of Words posted:Comes out at about 250,000.
Number of Stories posted: 27, counting a fic posted on the Lewis_Challenge Community for the Secret Santa Exchange. (and including one drabble and one double one and one multi-authored commentfic). I roughly tended towards increasingly longer stories as the year progressed.
Number of Plot Bunnies contemplated:
A lot. There are currently 17 fics sitting in my WIP folder (and there are other unwritten plot bunnies) Some of them I don't think will see the light of day as I started/wrote them back this time last year while lurking away and when I hadn't psyched myself up to post. (I don't quite have a year in posting writing to review but near enough!) And I find my style has changed over the year and the way I want to try and write the characters has changed too, making some of the story ideas not quite work for me anymore. Five stories I'm actively working on and some other earlier ideas I really hope to develop and complete - I find that new plots come along and I feel the urge to write those instead - so there are stories that keep getting bumped back down the list that I have been trying to get back to for months!
Favourite:
Most under-appreciated by the universe:
I think An Interview with Sergeant Hathaway would best fit the bill here for this question as it's less appreciated in general than other fics - but then I really liked how some people liked it and took the time to comment. Especially when they enjoyed the humour in on the humourous sections which I did enjoy writing. While I'm not sure the overall tone of is what I was after - I think there is less optimism and care coming across in it than I'd have liked to get coming through - I remember that at the time it did serve a useful purpose for me in finding the way I wanted to write.
Most fun to write:
Clandestine Liasons was a very cheering fic to write as it tries to tell a story throughout one day purely through dialogue (or illicit IM messages) and it was certainly fun for me to do that much dialogue and bickering just between Lewis and Hathaway. In terms of enjoyment, I enjoyed writing The Gaps You Leave Behind so very much - particularly once I got the boys out of the station and in the one hotel room and could look at what was happening between them. And I have a sincere love of writing conference fic!
Most intense fic:
Suspended due to the subject matter. It wasn't difficult to write as a story but I wanted to treat the topic with due care and a significant part of the fic is a conversation between James and Robbie which was intense to write so so writing its immediate aftermath.
Saddest fic:
I don't really write sad fic but if something, some pain, seems to be there, I'm often driven to write about ways in which events could open things up for a character so that some resolution can be found. So Suspended again. I wouldn't have posted it if I hadn't found a way to move events forward after stirring them up for James - moving forward in time and setting the events of the fic and the flashback in it (and it's consequences) within a context where recovery would take place.
Funniest fic:
Would have to go for Clandestine Liaisons - as it's my only crackfic posted to date :).
Fic that shifted my own perception of the characters:
The Things We Do For Each Other. It was the first time I tried giving a bit of history/background to Hathaway and I got increasingly into thinking about both their characters after that.
Hardest to Do:
Night Watch. It was partly the time of year when it was being written. Partly that I took one earlier non-posted work which was largely just a light grumpy-inspector/ mutinous-sergeant piece and made it into a fic which turned out twice the length and involved a progression of their relationship and subsequently various developments in Robbie's thoughts. And the way I wrote had changed. So it was like trying to marry two stories written in rather different styles into one narrative!
Biggest personal disappointment in regards to writing:
There are parts of stories I'm not too happy with - but at least identifying them is a step in learning to do this better. I can certainly see where different things need to be done better if I knew how to do them! But writing serves a lot of different purposes for me so I'm happy enough to write as I am for now and slowly try to improve various things over time, through asking for concrit during the writing process, slowly introducing different elements and building to trying different POV's etc and hopefully reading more about the craft of writing over the coming year. Writing has brought me an outlet in many, many ways and it's brought me into contact with friends in this fandom who make a big difference in everyday life. So while there are many things I'd like to be able to do better in the actual stories! overall I find I just can't really associate this whole writing lark with disappointment ;)
Your main fandom of the year?
Lewis. And as a little prelude:
I hadn't done creative writing before Lewis so I'm entirely grateful to this fandom and the lovely people within it for bringing me to writing and all the pleasures I get from it. For their wonderful stories that just enticed me in so I found myself trying it in the first place! For the feedback and encouragement given in general in this fandom on posted stories and also the concrit in the beta process that makes all the difference in developing writing skills and gaining confidence - it's been a steep learning curve and I so appreciate the time and patient input given by wendymr, complexlight and lindenharp - which has been a huge help. Gaining confidence to just try and write as I want to write especially through wendymr offering to beta for me after the first couple of stories I posted - and then encouraging me to write with more confidence - that was a big revelation.
Writing Summary:
Number of Words posted:Comes out at about 250,000.
Number of Stories posted: 27, counting a fic posted on the Lewis_Challenge Community for the Secret Santa Exchange. (and including one drabble and one double one and one multi-authored commentfic). I roughly tended towards increasingly longer stories as the year progressed.
Number of Plot Bunnies contemplated:
A lot. There are currently 17 fics sitting in my WIP folder (and there are other unwritten plot bunnies) Some of them I don't think will see the light of day as I started/wrote them back this time last year while lurking away and when I hadn't psyched myself up to post. (I don't quite have a year in posting writing to review but near enough!) And I find my style has changed over the year and the way I want to try and write the characters has changed too, making some of the story ideas not quite work for me anymore. Five stories I'm actively working on and some other earlier ideas I really hope to develop and complete - I find that new plots come along and I feel the urge to write those instead - so there are stories that keep getting bumped back down the list that I have been trying to get back to for months!
Favourite:
Most under-appreciated by the universe:
I think An Interview with Sergeant Hathaway would best fit the bill here for this question as it's less appreciated in general than other fics - but then I really liked how some people liked it and took the time to comment. Especially when they enjoyed the humour in on the humourous sections which I did enjoy writing. While I'm not sure the overall tone of is what I was after - I think there is less optimism and care coming across in it than I'd have liked to get coming through - I remember that at the time it did serve a useful purpose for me in finding the way I wanted to write.
Most fun to write:
Clandestine Liasons was a very cheering fic to write as it tries to tell a story throughout one day purely through dialogue (or illicit IM messages) and it was certainly fun for me to do that much dialogue and bickering just between Lewis and Hathaway. In terms of enjoyment, I enjoyed writing The Gaps You Leave Behind so very much - particularly once I got the boys out of the station and in the one hotel room and could look at what was happening between them. And I have a sincere love of writing conference fic!
Most intense fic:
Suspended due to the subject matter. It wasn't difficult to write as a story but I wanted to treat the topic with due care and a significant part of the fic is a conversation between James and Robbie which was intense to write so so writing its immediate aftermath.
Saddest fic:
I don't really write sad fic but if something, some pain, seems to be there, I'm often driven to write about ways in which events could open things up for a character so that some resolution can be found. So Suspended again. I wouldn't have posted it if I hadn't found a way to move events forward after stirring them up for James - moving forward in time and setting the events of the fic and the flashback in it (and it's consequences) within a context where recovery would take place.
Funniest fic:
Would have to go for Clandestine Liaisons - as it's my only crackfic posted to date :).
Fic that shifted my own perception of the characters:
The Things We Do For Each Other. It was the first time I tried giving a bit of history/background to Hathaway and I got increasingly into thinking about both their characters after that.
Hardest to Do:
Night Watch. It was partly the time of year when it was being written. Partly that I took one earlier non-posted work which was largely just a light grumpy-inspector/ mutinous-sergeant piece and made it into a fic which turned out twice the length and involved a progression of their relationship and subsequently various developments in Robbie's thoughts. And the way I wrote had changed. So it was like trying to marry two stories written in rather different styles into one narrative!
Biggest personal disappointment in regards to writing:
There are parts of stories I'm not too happy with - but at least identifying them is a step in learning to do this better. I can certainly see where different things need to be done better if I knew how to do them! But writing serves a lot of different purposes for me so I'm happy enough to write as I am for now and slowly try to improve various things over time, through asking for concrit during the writing process, slowly introducing different elements and building to trying different POV's etc and hopefully reading more about the craft of writing over the coming year. Writing has brought me an outlet in many, many ways and it's brought me into contact with friends in this fandom who make a big difference in everyday life. So while there are many things I'd like to be able to do better in the actual stories! overall I find I just can't really associate this whole writing lark with disappointment ;)