2009 fic in review meme
The end-of-year fic writing meme everybody's doing...
The 2009 list:
- "Aerilon Girls Are Easy" (Battlestar Galactica; Kara/Lee)
- "Where Soul Meets Body" (Battlestar Galactica; Kara/Lee)
- "Strength of the Mind" (Star Trek XI; Spock/Kirk/Uhura)
- "Boys Will Be Boys" (Twilight; Jacob/Bella)
- "The Persistence of Gravity" (Twilight; Sam/Leah)
- 4 drabbles for the Twilight uncanon pairings meme:
• "The Garage" (Jacob/Quil/Embry)
• "The Importance of Being Edward" (Carlisle/Edward)
• "Red Wedding" (Carlisle/Rosalie)
• "Fair Arrangement" (Paul/Angela/Jacob)
- The final chapter of "What Music They Make" (Twilight; Jacob/Bella, Edward/Bella)
- "The Golden Phase of Dying Leaves" (Twilight; Jacob/Bella)
My favorite story this year (of my own):
If I count "What Music They Make" as part of this year since I finally finished it, that one, since it's hard not to have a special attachment to something I put an assload of work into over a period of more than a couple years. Otherwise I really like "Aerilon Girls Are Easy."
My best story this year:
Possibly "The Persistence of Gravity." It's totally got some big flaws, but it grew into so much more than I ever thought it was going to be when I started writing it about a year and a half ago. The whole meaning of the title even ended up being more complicated and multi-layered than I consciously planned. In a lot of ways it seems more like an original story than any other fic I've ever done since it involved developing two background characters much more than they're ever fleshed out in the series, and if I may say so myself I think I did a surprisingly decent job making them seem like very real people in a real relationship, which meant I got unexpectedly really invested in them and felt kind of like stabbing myself by the time I got to the tragedy, LOL.
My not-best story this year:
Though I do still like the story, in a way that's hard to explain I have a lot of problems with "The Golden Phase of Dying Leaves." It originated from the Death Cab track on the New Moon soundtrack and trying to apply the idea of how nothing is permanent to Jacob/Bella even though the lyrics seem more obviously applicable to Edward/Bella, and I think having that idea as a constant reference actually ended up being kind of limiting and made the themes in the fic somewhat heavy-handed. Especially in Bella's whole inner monologue in the final scene. Ideally those are the kind of ideas you should be able to show instead of have to explain so blatantly.
Most successful story:
Incidentally, maybe "The Golden Phase of Dying Leaves."
Story most under-appreciated by the universe, in my opinion:
"The Persistence of Gravity." I expected the whole time I was writing it that there was never going to be a big audience for a Sam/Leah story, but I ended up pretty proud of it and can't help wishing it could be more widely acknowledged.
Most fun story:
"The Importance of Being Edward." Because it's fucking Twilight pre-slash, that I wrote, LOL. And it's called "The Importance of Being Edward."
Also, lots of parts of "Aerilon Girls" were tons of fun to write. Because...Pilots. With stuffed animals. And getting in fights as usual. And Kara wearing Lee's shirt in a *ahem* completely practical context. Hee.
Sexiest story:
"Fair Arrangement," I think, even with its 200-word limit. Two wolf boys, one girl, on a blanket on the beach? I should think so.
Hardest story to write:
"Strength of the Mind" because that shit was kind of fucked up and I decided to take it too seriously and try to realistically portray how it would fuck people up.
Writing technique or style you’ve done well:
Ummm idefk. I didn't exactly try anything really new as far as my style this year.
Something you’d like to work on in future:
Being more succinct, as always. Thinking more about writing things in a descriptive style that seems appropriate for what character's perspective it's from, even if it's not in 1st person.
Looking back, did you write more fic than you thought you would this year, less, or about what you'd predicted?
Not really as much as I would like to have done. But I did a lot of work on things that I simply haven't started posting yet, so the amount of stories on the list above isn't exactly a complete reflection of my productivity this year. Still, kind of lame.
Did you take any writing risks this year?
It's funny because now that I look back on it, at the time I wrote "Aerilon Girls" it had the most extensive and integral sex scene I've ever included in a fic, and it seems like after that point I became a lot more liberal about including fairly detailed to very detailed sex in a lot of the fic I wrote the rest of the year depening on how it served the story. LOL. That wasn't so much about taking risks as just making choices to broaden my experience and try to get the hang of doing something kind of new and different for me.
And also writing a lot of drabbles. I usually hate writing on a word-count limit because the whole "try to do more with less" exercise is exactly my weakness because I'm just not good at it. But I surprisingly ended up having a whole lot of fun with the Twilight uncanon drabble-a-thon writing ships I would usually never write just for the hell of it.
Do you have any goals for the New Year?
*sigh* Actually making plans as far as what I'm going to accomplish fic-writing-wise never seems to work out well. I mean, so far this year I've already written totally random Sherlock Holmes fic in response to an errant comment at the SH kink meme and have also started something for this prompt, when that's DEFINITELY a fandom I never would have foreseen I'd be writing for now, so already I've put more on my overloaded plate.
One thing I am trying to make a goal of is to let this whole year through the summer when Eclipse will come out an extensive last hurrah in Twilight fandom before I finally move on. I'll always enjoy hanging out in sortofbeautiful and stuff and probably occasionally keep reading stuff for a long time, but I've just decided to try to intensively work on my many Twilight WIPs this year and get at least most of them done instead of drawing out the process a really long time like I did with "What Music They Make" and "Persistence."
Also, I've got a pretty damn epic Heroes fic that's been in the works for a while which I'm determined not to abandon, and a few ST things I planned to do a long time ago...
So in other words, FINISH SHIT I'VE STARTED.
The 2009 list:
- "Aerilon Girls Are Easy" (Battlestar Galactica; Kara/Lee)
- "Where Soul Meets Body" (Battlestar Galactica; Kara/Lee)
- "Strength of the Mind" (Star Trek XI; Spock/Kirk/Uhura)
- "Boys Will Be Boys" (Twilight; Jacob/Bella)
- "The Persistence of Gravity" (Twilight; Sam/Leah)
- 4 drabbles for the Twilight uncanon pairings meme:
• "The Garage" (Jacob/Quil/Embry)
• "The Importance of Being Edward" (Carlisle/Edward)
• "Red Wedding" (Carlisle/Rosalie)
• "Fair Arrangement" (Paul/Angela/Jacob)
- The final chapter of "What Music They Make" (Twilight; Jacob/Bella, Edward/Bella)
- "The Golden Phase of Dying Leaves" (Twilight; Jacob/Bella)
My favorite story this year (of my own):
If I count "What Music They Make" as part of this year since I finally finished it, that one, since it's hard not to have a special attachment to something I put an assload of work into over a period of more than a couple years. Otherwise I really like "Aerilon Girls Are Easy."
My best story this year:
Possibly "The Persistence of Gravity." It's totally got some big flaws, but it grew into so much more than I ever thought it was going to be when I started writing it about a year and a half ago. The whole meaning of the title even ended up being more complicated and multi-layered than I consciously planned. In a lot of ways it seems more like an original story than any other fic I've ever done since it involved developing two background characters much more than they're ever fleshed out in the series, and if I may say so myself I think I did a surprisingly decent job making them seem like very real people in a real relationship, which meant I got unexpectedly really invested in them and felt kind of like stabbing myself by the time I got to the tragedy, LOL.
My not-best story this year:
Though I do still like the story, in a way that's hard to explain I have a lot of problems with "The Golden Phase of Dying Leaves." It originated from the Death Cab track on the New Moon soundtrack and trying to apply the idea of how nothing is permanent to Jacob/Bella even though the lyrics seem more obviously applicable to Edward/Bella, and I think having that idea as a constant reference actually ended up being kind of limiting and made the themes in the fic somewhat heavy-handed. Especially in Bella's whole inner monologue in the final scene. Ideally those are the kind of ideas you should be able to show instead of have to explain so blatantly.
Most successful story:
Incidentally, maybe "The Golden Phase of Dying Leaves."
Story most under-appreciated by the universe, in my opinion:
"The Persistence of Gravity." I expected the whole time I was writing it that there was never going to be a big audience for a Sam/Leah story, but I ended up pretty proud of it and can't help wishing it could be more widely acknowledged.
Most fun story:
"The Importance of Being Edward." Because it's fucking Twilight pre-slash, that I wrote, LOL. And it's called "The Importance of Being Edward."
Also, lots of parts of "Aerilon Girls" were tons of fun to write. Because...Pilots. With stuffed animals. And getting in fights as usual. And Kara wearing Lee's shirt in a *ahem* completely practical context. Hee.
Sexiest story:
"Fair Arrangement," I think, even with its 200-word limit. Two wolf boys, one girl, on a blanket on the beach? I should think so.
Hardest story to write:
"Strength of the Mind" because that shit was kind of fucked up and I decided to take it too seriously and try to realistically portray how it would fuck people up.
Writing technique or style you’ve done well:
Ummm idefk. I didn't exactly try anything really new as far as my style this year.
Something you’d like to work on in future:
Being more succinct, as always. Thinking more about writing things in a descriptive style that seems appropriate for what character's perspective it's from, even if it's not in 1st person.
Looking back, did you write more fic than you thought you would this year, less, or about what you'd predicted?
Not really as much as I would like to have done. But I did a lot of work on things that I simply haven't started posting yet, so the amount of stories on the list above isn't exactly a complete reflection of my productivity this year. Still, kind of lame.
Did you take any writing risks this year?
It's funny because now that I look back on it, at the time I wrote "Aerilon Girls" it had the most extensive and integral sex scene I've ever included in a fic, and it seems like after that point I became a lot more liberal about including fairly detailed to very detailed sex in a lot of the fic I wrote the rest of the year depening on how it served the story. LOL. That wasn't so much about taking risks as just making choices to broaden my experience and try to get the hang of doing something kind of new and different for me.
And also writing a lot of drabbles. I usually hate writing on a word-count limit because the whole "try to do more with less" exercise is exactly my weakness because I'm just not good at it. But I surprisingly ended up having a whole lot of fun with the Twilight uncanon drabble-a-thon writing ships I would usually never write just for the hell of it.
Do you have any goals for the New Year?
*sigh* Actually making plans as far as what I'm going to accomplish fic-writing-wise never seems to work out well. I mean, so far this year I've already written totally random Sherlock Holmes fic in response to an errant comment at the SH kink meme and have also started something for this prompt, when that's DEFINITELY a fandom I never would have foreseen I'd be writing for now, so already I've put more on my overloaded plate.
One thing I am trying to make a goal of is to let this whole year through the summer when Eclipse will come out an extensive last hurrah in Twilight fandom before I finally move on. I'll always enjoy hanging out in sortofbeautiful and stuff and probably occasionally keep reading stuff for a long time, but I've just decided to try to intensively work on my many Twilight WIPs this year and get at least most of them done instead of drawing out the process a really long time like I did with "What Music They Make" and "Persistence."
Also, I've got a pretty damn epic Heroes fic that's been in the works for a while which I'm determined not to abandon, and a few ST things I planned to do a long time ago...
So in other words, FINISH SHIT I'VE STARTED.