Writing Year in Review--2015
I only wrote seven stories in 2015--way down from the previous year. Editing, stress, sickness and home repairs took over my life in the second half of the year. I even had to bail on Yuletide. It was also the year that I found some of my stories stolen by an ebook publisher who was selling fanfic by the hundreds. Not a good year, 2015. Not at all.
What's the story that makes you happiest?
The Pendragon-Gorlois Family Reunion (The Historically Inaccurate Remix). I not only turned a drabble into a rather long short story of 13K, but I really think that it sounds like Good Omens.
Most popular story?
By hits: The Pendragon-Gorlois Family Reunion (The Historically Inaccurate Remix), with 801 hits.
By kudos: The Pendragon-Gorlois Family Reunion (The Historically Inaccurate Remix), with 66 kudos. It just barely edged out my Emelan story, A Square Peg at Lightsbridge, which had 63.
By bookmarks: Dances, Dulcimers and Marginalia Dragons, a story about the pre-Hogwarts wizarding world featuring a Jewish witch and a deaf witch who could not speak, with 22 bookmarks.
By comments: The Pendragon-Gorlois Family Reunion (The Historically Inaccurate Remix), with 23 comments.
Story most underappreciated by the universe?
From Under a Sinople Sky, which is based on English folklore but is basically original fic. Other stories got fewer hits, but I was hoping that the fairy tale crowd would like the story more than it did.
Most fun story to write?
Probably Portal Authority, my Marvel Cinematic Universe/Discworld crossover. It was fun having Steve Rogers meet the Witches of Lancre.
Hardest story to write:
Three Things That Never Happened to the Muster-Roll Soldiers. I suffered from serious anxiety while writing that...and the fact that I had a low-grade fever due to infection didn't help. Once I finished writing, I effectively collapsed from illness and a near-meltdown for the next week and a half, alternating between sleeping twelve to fourteen hours a day and being ill in the bathroom. I never even managed to respond to my recipient's comments (which were immensely flattering and which made me feel infinitely better when I read them). And the more time that passed, the less possible replying to the comments seemed to be.
Truest story of the year:
I don't know what that means. A Square Peg at Lightsbridge had Tris Chandler meeting the Emelan version of one of my law school professors, however.
"Holy crap, that's wrong even for you" story:
Portal Authority, in which I paired up Steve Rogers and Esme Weatherwax....for the length of a dance, anyway.
Favourite title:
Oh, God. Titles. I hate titles so much. Probably From Under a Sinople Sky, because I got to use a word that means both red and green.
Looking back, did you write more stories in 2015 than you thought you would, fewer than you thought you would, or about what you predicted?
Far fewer. I wrote fifteen stories in 2014; in 2015, I managed less than half of that.
What pairing/genre/fandom did you write that you would never have predicted in January 2015?
Nothing was that astonishing, really.
Story that could have been better?
Three Things That Never Happened to the Muster-Roll Soldiers. I wanted so badly for that to be a "five things" story and for it to be wildly popular with Shakespeare fandom. I failed on both counts.
Did you take any writing risks in 2015? What did you learn from them?
Little Elegy, a story told by an alien that is an underwater plant. I'm not sure if I learned anything from this, but writing about a being that had few of our senses and a body very little like human ones was an experiment.
What's next for 2016?
People have said that they would like me to expand on A Square Peg at Lightsbridge. I also want to continue a Chronicles of Narnia AU (which does not yet have a title) in which Aravis and Hwin are the main characters, Rabadash is a mortal enemy of Aravis's father, Lasaraleen is a secret agent in the employ of the Tisroc, Bree is a bardic horse at Caer Paravel, and Shasta never existed at all. And I want to complete an AU that I started for Yuletide but that I could not finish in time. Finally, I want to write a novella based on my favorite fairy tale by the end of February/the beginning of March.
What's the story that makes you happiest?
The Pendragon-Gorlois Family Reunion (The Historically Inaccurate Remix). I not only turned a drabble into a rather long short story of 13K, but I really think that it sounds like Good Omens.
Most popular story?
By hits: The Pendragon-Gorlois Family Reunion (The Historically Inaccurate Remix), with 801 hits.
By kudos: The Pendragon-Gorlois Family Reunion (The Historically Inaccurate Remix), with 66 kudos. It just barely edged out my Emelan story, A Square Peg at Lightsbridge, which had 63.
By bookmarks: Dances, Dulcimers and Marginalia Dragons, a story about the pre-Hogwarts wizarding world featuring a Jewish witch and a deaf witch who could not speak, with 22 bookmarks.
By comments: The Pendragon-Gorlois Family Reunion (The Historically Inaccurate Remix), with 23 comments.
Story most underappreciated by the universe?
From Under a Sinople Sky, which is based on English folklore but is basically original fic. Other stories got fewer hits, but I was hoping that the fairy tale crowd would like the story more than it did.
Most fun story to write?
Probably Portal Authority, my Marvel Cinematic Universe/Discworld crossover. It was fun having Steve Rogers meet the Witches of Lancre.
Hardest story to write:
Three Things That Never Happened to the Muster-Roll Soldiers. I suffered from serious anxiety while writing that...and the fact that I had a low-grade fever due to infection didn't help. Once I finished writing, I effectively collapsed from illness and a near-meltdown for the next week and a half, alternating between sleeping twelve to fourteen hours a day and being ill in the bathroom. I never even managed to respond to my recipient's comments (which were immensely flattering and which made me feel infinitely better when I read them). And the more time that passed, the less possible replying to the comments seemed to be.
Truest story of the year:
I don't know what that means. A Square Peg at Lightsbridge had Tris Chandler meeting the Emelan version of one of my law school professors, however.
"Holy crap, that's wrong even for you" story:
Portal Authority, in which I paired up Steve Rogers and Esme Weatherwax....for the length of a dance, anyway.
Favourite title:
Oh, God. Titles. I hate titles so much. Probably From Under a Sinople Sky, because I got to use a word that means both red and green.
Looking back, did you write more stories in 2015 than you thought you would, fewer than you thought you would, or about what you predicted?
Far fewer. I wrote fifteen stories in 2014; in 2015, I managed less than half of that.
What pairing/genre/fandom did you write that you would never have predicted in January 2015?
Nothing was that astonishing, really.
Story that could have been better?
Three Things That Never Happened to the Muster-Roll Soldiers. I wanted so badly for that to be a "five things" story and for it to be wildly popular with Shakespeare fandom. I failed on both counts.
Did you take any writing risks in 2015? What did you learn from them?
Little Elegy, a story told by an alien that is an underwater plant. I'm not sure if I learned anything from this, but writing about a being that had few of our senses and a body very little like human ones was an experiment.
What's next for 2016?
People have said that they would like me to expand on A Square Peg at Lightsbridge. I also want to continue a Chronicles of Narnia AU (which does not yet have a title) in which Aravis and Hwin are the main characters, Rabadash is a mortal enemy of Aravis's father, Lasaraleen is a secret agent in the employ of the Tisroc, Bree is a bardic horse at Caer Paravel, and Shasta never existed at all. And I want to complete an AU that I started for Yuletide but that I could not finish in time. Finally, I want to write a novella based on my favorite fairy tale by the end of February/the beginning of March.