2014 fic year in review
Two years ago, after a two-year fannish slump, I wrote over 100K words, and figured I was back in fandom for good. That didn't quite happen, as unhappy conflicts with others led to my mostly abandoning my new fandom in 2013 and writing pretty much nothing that year other than for Yuletide. But that Yuletide was a good one - that's when I got into the Raven Cycle - and since then, my writing's been on a slow but steady upswing.
February
Turnabout is Fair (and Balanced) Play | Anthropomorfic, MSNBC/Fox News, M, 108 words, poem (porn battle)
May
Superhero in Disguise (the Pen is Mightier than the Battlestar Remix) | Battlestar Galactica, Louis Hoshi, G, 4874 words (remix)
Sons from the Sea | Outcast, Beric & Jason, G, 5147 words (Sutcliff Swap)
October
Visitations | A Song of Ice and Fire, Margaery, G, 3734 words (Trick or Treat)
an apple, cleft in two | A Song of Ice and Fire, Sansa & Arya, T, 3289 words (Trick or Treat)
An Unexpected Journey | Pirates of the Caribbean, Will Turner, G, 474 words (Trick or Treat)
Love is a Cannibal With Extremely Acute Vision | Raven Cycle, Gansey/Blue, T, 621 words (Trick or Treat)
December
Boring Side Effect | Raven Cycle, Kavinsky/Noah, E, 1663 words (kinkmeme)
A Strange, Wild Kingdom | Raven Cycle, Ronan/Adam and ensemble, T, 7507 words (Yuletide)
In Your Dreams | Raven Cycle, Ronan/Adam, E, 2876 words (Yuletide)
As Simple As | Turn, Abe, Ben/Caleb, G, 1664 words (Yuletide)
Only from the heart can you touch the sky | Eternal Sky, Ümmühan, G, 2186 words (Yuletide)
The Course of Human Events | Outlander series, Jamie & Jenny, G, 3865 words (Yuletide)
Open your heart to what the gods have to say | Vikings, Ragnar/Lagertha/Athelstan, E, 2073 words (Yuletide)
The Song of Rappaccini | Rappacini's Daughter, Giovanni/Beatrice, G, 162 words, poem (Yuletide Madness)
Sonnet for George Finch | Himalayan Mountain Climbers RPF, George Finch, G, 111 words, poem (Yuletide Madness)
Totals sliced in various ways:
I wrote 16 works in 12 fandoms: 3 poems, 2 ficlets (<1K), and 11 short stories, for a total wordcount of 40,354 words. Over half of that was in Yuletide.
All stories were written for either exchanges or prompts.
The fandom I wrote the most in this year was Raven Cycle, with 4 stories and 12,667 words. The only other fandom I wrote multiple stories in was A Song of Ice and Fire (2 stories). New fandoms for me this year were Outcast, BSG, Turn, Eternal Sky (for which I wrote the first story on AO3), and the three poem sources.
Most of my stories (8) were gen this year, with 1 het, 4 slash, 1 MMF threesome, 1 with nonhuman characters (anthropomorfic), and 1 with both het and nonhuman elements (Gansey/Blue, The Pig [Gansey's car]/Gansey). Most of my stories were rated G and would not make my grandmother blush, but I did write 3 explicit stories and one slightly racy (M) story.
Not counting the poems (which are complicated to categorize), all my stories save one were written in past tense. All are in third person.
Picking and choosing from my old meme list of questions, because some just don't seem to apply and others seem redundant. And others strike me as not really that interesting, at least not this year, and if they're not interesting to me they are certainly even less interesting to everyone else!
My favorite stories this year:
Sons From the Sea
an apple, cleft in two
A Strange, Wild Kingdom
Only from the heart can you touch the sky
Sonnet for George Finch
What's the story that makes you happiest?
an apple, cleft in two is a story I'd thought about writing (in some form) for a while, and the idea of Sansa and Arya coming to a detente, after they've both gone through so much and been so changed, really makes me happy.
Most popular story:
Open your heart to what the gods have to say. Because OT3 porn. Also, because moderately popular fandom, and because Yuletide. (Also, I think it's quite good!)
Story most underappreciated by the universe, in my opinion:
Boring Side Effect. I mean, okay, it's minor character noncon, but it does have a twist ending. I was surprised at how ignored it was, because I reposted a bunch of my old HP stories to AO3 and the nastiest noncon was the most popular.
Most fun story to write:
I enjoyed writing all the poems, but perhaps the most fun was Turnabout is Fair (and Balanced) Play.
Story with single sexiest moment:
I really like the build-up and boom of the climax of A Strange, Wild Kingdom. But I find Ronan's outburst of profanity in In Your Dreams at his climax way sexy, too.
Story with single sweetest moment:
The endings of Sons From the Sea and an apple, cleft in two are both very strongly emotional reunions between people who thought they'd never see the other again - who thought the other dead. They both make me feel happy in my heart!
Hardest story to write:
Oddly, none of them were all that hard! Maybe Sonnet for George Finch, because argh rhyme and scansion and meaning! I also did a ludicrous amount of research for Sons From the Sea.
Easiest story to write:
I wrote Open your heart to what the gods have to say in less than 24 hours, which is some kind of record for me. So maybe that's easy?
Story that made you cry/saddest story:
I don't think I wrote anything really sad this year.
"Holy crap, that's wrong even for you" story:
Boring Side Effect. Ghost rape /o\
Biggest disappointment:
That I still have not finished (or even worked on, this year) my long-overdue charity story.
Biggest surprise:
That I managed to write so much for Yuletide!
Favorite title:
Turnabout is Fair (and Balanced) Play, because it's both a reference to the role reversal in the poem, and a reference to Fox News.
Looking back, did you write more stories than you thought you would this year, fewer than you thought, or about what you predicted?
I wrote more, especially toward the end of the year!
What pairing/genre/fandom did you write that you would never have predicted in January 2012?
I didn't think I'd write Battlestar Galactica, especially not minor character gen, but then I picked up a Remix pinch hit, so, yay. I also had not even heard of Turn last year; and of course the two Madness poems were in new-to-me fandoms as well.
Story that could have been better?
I think if I hadn't been up against deadline for Yuletide, The Course of Human Events could have been longer and more richly detailed.
Did you take any writing risks this year? What did you learn from them?
I had to force myself to not overthink A Strange, Wild Kingdom; the books have a lot of weird plotholes and things that make little sense, and I told myself I did not need to hold myself to any stricter standards than canon! I learned that it's perfectly reasonable to focus on the bits of story you want to tell and handwave the rest, or at least that most readers will let you do this.
Leitmotif of the year and the story that demonstrates it the best:
Identity issues, I think. Depending on what you count, at least two and possibly four stories depend on a character being something other/more/changed compared to what others expected or thought. (I still wrote a bunch of ghost stories this year, though. I have not abandoned that trope!) The story an apple, cleft in two is probably the best example.
What's next for 2015?
I still have that charity story hanging over my head (the sequel to Clarke's Law). It's nearly finished, I think; I just need to figure out how to wrap it up. For Raven Cycle, I have the beginnings of a Niall/Ronan story written, and (don't tell anyone) an OT5 soulbond idea, and a few other bits and pieces of story ideas. I want to do Sutcliff Swap again. I would like to finish the Eagle Western AU I have a few thousand words of, and that Frontier Wolf hockey AU I have vague ideas for. I'd like to write more stories for the Eternal Sky trilogy, and possibly for Turn and Vikings, as the new seasons come out in the spring.
Crossposted from isis at Dreamwidth where there are
comments. | Comment at Dreamwidth
February
Turnabout is Fair (and Balanced) Play | Anthropomorfic, MSNBC/Fox News, M, 108 words, poem (porn battle)
May
Superhero in Disguise (the Pen is Mightier than the Battlestar Remix) | Battlestar Galactica, Louis Hoshi, G, 4874 words (remix)
Sons from the Sea | Outcast, Beric & Jason, G, 5147 words (Sutcliff Swap)
October
Visitations | A Song of Ice and Fire, Margaery, G, 3734 words (Trick or Treat)
an apple, cleft in two | A Song of Ice and Fire, Sansa & Arya, T, 3289 words (Trick or Treat)
An Unexpected Journey | Pirates of the Caribbean, Will Turner, G, 474 words (Trick or Treat)
Love is a Cannibal With Extremely Acute Vision | Raven Cycle, Gansey/Blue, T, 621 words (Trick or Treat)
December
Boring Side Effect | Raven Cycle, Kavinsky/Noah, E, 1663 words (kinkmeme)
A Strange, Wild Kingdom | Raven Cycle, Ronan/Adam and ensemble, T, 7507 words (Yuletide)
In Your Dreams | Raven Cycle, Ronan/Adam, E, 2876 words (Yuletide)
As Simple As | Turn, Abe, Ben/Caleb, G, 1664 words (Yuletide)
Only from the heart can you touch the sky | Eternal Sky, Ümmühan, G, 2186 words (Yuletide)
The Course of Human Events | Outlander series, Jamie & Jenny, G, 3865 words (Yuletide)
Open your heart to what the gods have to say | Vikings, Ragnar/Lagertha/Athelstan, E, 2073 words (Yuletide)
The Song of Rappaccini | Rappacini's Daughter, Giovanni/Beatrice, G, 162 words, poem (Yuletide Madness)
Sonnet for George Finch | Himalayan Mountain Climbers RPF, George Finch, G, 111 words, poem (Yuletide Madness)
Totals sliced in various ways:
I wrote 16 works in 12 fandoms: 3 poems, 2 ficlets (<1K), and 11 short stories, for a total wordcount of 40,354 words. Over half of that was in Yuletide.
All stories were written for either exchanges or prompts.
The fandom I wrote the most in this year was Raven Cycle, with 4 stories and 12,667 words. The only other fandom I wrote multiple stories in was A Song of Ice and Fire (2 stories). New fandoms for me this year were Outcast, BSG, Turn, Eternal Sky (for which I wrote the first story on AO3), and the three poem sources.
Most of my stories (8) were gen this year, with 1 het, 4 slash, 1 MMF threesome, 1 with nonhuman characters (anthropomorfic), and 1 with both het and nonhuman elements (Gansey/Blue, The Pig [Gansey's car]/Gansey). Most of my stories were rated G and would not make my grandmother blush, but I did write 3 explicit stories and one slightly racy (M) story.
Not counting the poems (which are complicated to categorize), all my stories save one were written in past tense. All are in third person.
Picking and choosing from my old meme list of questions, because some just don't seem to apply and others seem redundant. And others strike me as not really that interesting, at least not this year, and if they're not interesting to me they are certainly even less interesting to everyone else!
My favorite stories this year:
Sons From the Sea
an apple, cleft in two
A Strange, Wild Kingdom
Only from the heart can you touch the sky
Sonnet for George Finch
What's the story that makes you happiest?
an apple, cleft in two is a story I'd thought about writing (in some form) for a while, and the idea of Sansa and Arya coming to a detente, after they've both gone through so much and been so changed, really makes me happy.
Most popular story:
Open your heart to what the gods have to say. Because OT3 porn. Also, because moderately popular fandom, and because Yuletide. (Also, I think it's quite good!)
Story most underappreciated by the universe, in my opinion:
Boring Side Effect. I mean, okay, it's minor character noncon, but it does have a twist ending. I was surprised at how ignored it was, because I reposted a bunch of my old HP stories to AO3 and the nastiest noncon was the most popular.
Most fun story to write:
I enjoyed writing all the poems, but perhaps the most fun was Turnabout is Fair (and Balanced) Play.
Story with single sexiest moment:
I really like the build-up and boom of the climax of A Strange, Wild Kingdom. But I find Ronan's outburst of profanity in In Your Dreams at his climax way sexy, too.
Story with single sweetest moment:
The endings of Sons From the Sea and an apple, cleft in two are both very strongly emotional reunions between people who thought they'd never see the other again - who thought the other dead. They both make me feel happy in my heart!
Hardest story to write:
Oddly, none of them were all that hard! Maybe Sonnet for George Finch, because argh rhyme and scansion and meaning! I also did a ludicrous amount of research for Sons From the Sea.
Easiest story to write:
I wrote Open your heart to what the gods have to say in less than 24 hours, which is some kind of record for me. So maybe that's easy?
Story that made you cry/saddest story:
I don't think I wrote anything really sad this year.
"Holy crap, that's wrong even for you" story:
Boring Side Effect. Ghost rape /o\
Biggest disappointment:
That I still have not finished (or even worked on, this year) my long-overdue charity story.
Biggest surprise:
That I managed to write so much for Yuletide!
Favorite title:
Turnabout is Fair (and Balanced) Play, because it's both a reference to the role reversal in the poem, and a reference to Fox News.
Looking back, did you write more stories than you thought you would this year, fewer than you thought, or about what you predicted?
I wrote more, especially toward the end of the year!
What pairing/genre/fandom did you write that you would never have predicted in January 2012?
I didn't think I'd write Battlestar Galactica, especially not minor character gen, but then I picked up a Remix pinch hit, so, yay. I also had not even heard of Turn last year; and of course the two Madness poems were in new-to-me fandoms as well.
Story that could have been better?
I think if I hadn't been up against deadline for Yuletide, The Course of Human Events could have been longer and more richly detailed.
Did you take any writing risks this year? What did you learn from them?
I had to force myself to not overthink A Strange, Wild Kingdom; the books have a lot of weird plotholes and things that make little sense, and I told myself I did not need to hold myself to any stricter standards than canon! I learned that it's perfectly reasonable to focus on the bits of story you want to tell and handwave the rest, or at least that most readers will let you do this.
Leitmotif of the year and the story that demonstrates it the best:
Identity issues, I think. Depending on what you count, at least two and possibly four stories depend on a character being something other/more/changed compared to what others expected or thought. (I still wrote a bunch of ghost stories this year, though. I have not abandoned that trope!) The story an apple, cleft in two is probably the best example.
What's next for 2015?
I still have that charity story hanging over my head (the sequel to Clarke's Law). It's nearly finished, I think; I just need to figure out how to wrap it up. For Raven Cycle, I have the beginnings of a Niall/Ronan story written, and (don't tell anyone) an OT5 soulbond idea, and a few other bits and pieces of story ideas. I want to do Sutcliff Swap again. I would like to finish the Eagle Western AU I have a few thousand words of, and that Frontier Wolf hockey AU I have vague ideas for. I'd like to write more stories for the Eternal Sky trilogy, and possibly for Turn and Vikings, as the new seasons come out in the spring.
Crossposted from isis at Dreamwidth where there are
comments. | Comment at Dreamwidth