2019 in fic
Last year I posted 18 stories totaling 29,285 words, which is approximately half of the previous year’s output in words, and the story count is only as high as it is because drabbles. I suspect this is because I moved to a new house (which we had built) in April, and the massive timesink that is preparing to move, moving, unpacking, and figuring out a new place pretty much ate my life until early fall...at which point I went to visit family and then on vacation for a total of a month without my laptop.
I didn’t really have a main fandom; the only fandom I wrote more than one story for was A Song of Ice and Fire with two fics, plus one for Game of Thrones, though the division between these fandoms is kind of murky, and all of these stories could be considered both book and show fandom - at any rate, that’s three stories. I wrote two for the Strange the Dreamer series by Laini Taylor, and a single story for each of the other fandoms (well, two fandoms got a half-story each, because crossover.) Eight new fandoms for me this year, including all four of my Yuletide stories.
As usual, all stories were written for fanwork exchanges. (I did add some words to my still-unposted Witcher WIP, which is not for an exchange, but as I didn’t post it, it doesn’t count.)
Statistics:
stories: 18
fandoms: 16-ish
new-to-me-fandoms: 8
crossovers: 1
fusions: 1 (sort of)
AUs: 1 canon divergence, 1 mermaids, 1 selkies.
remixes: 1
poems: 1
gen: 10
het: 2
m/m: 3
f/f: 2
multi: 1 (contains m/f, m/m, m/m/f)
This is the sixth year in a row that a plurality of my stories are gen, and for the first time, it’s actually a majority.
G rated: 10
T rated: 7
Unrated: 1
2019 was apparently my first pornless year. Well, maybe there were others back when I wasn’t writing much fic. The single unrated fic, I don’t know why that was unrated - it’s Cthulhu Mythos poetry and probably it should be G except kids would probably just go “huh?” at it.
drabbles (100 words exactly, I will die on that hill): 4
ficlets (under 1000 words, excluding drabbles): 3, including a double-drabble of 200 words exactly
short stories (1001-10,000 words): 11
My longest story this year was 4721 words (“One Day in Velen”) which is less than half the wordcount of 2018’s longest story.
Most of my stories were in past tense and third person, as usual. One is in present tense; one is in the form of a commercial; one is in the form of a memo; and again, poetry, how to classify?
By AO3 stats for 2019: 29,285 words written, 789 kudos received, 65 comment threads, 54 bookmarks, and 4226 hits. Kudos are up and hits are down, but that’s likely due to the influence of one outlier, discussed below.
Monthly list, with links:
February
One Day in Velen | The Witcher, Geralt, T, 4721 words (Past Imperfect Future Unknown PH)
Knives Set Aside | AsoIaF, Jaqen/Arya, G, 2282 words (Chocolate Box)
Strange Alchemy | Strange the Dreamer series, Thyon/Ruza, G, 825 words (Chocolate Box treat)
March
The First Water Dancer | AsoIaF, Arya and Syrio Forel, G, 2572 words (Worldbuilding Exchange)
Intelligence Test | 11Foot8 Bridge, G, 100 words (Multifandom Drabble)
Commercial Enterprise | Allstate Insurance “Mayhem” Commercials/Stargate Atlantis, G, 100 words (Multifandom Drabble)
A Foreign Tongue | Strange the Dreamer series, Thyon/Ruza, G, 200 words (Multifandom Drabble PH)
Shoggoth Fever | Cthulu Mythos, unrated, 100 words (Multifandom Drabble treat)
at the end | The Last Kingdom, Thyra, T (and character death), 100 words (Multifandom Drabble treat)
August
Down to a Sunless Sea (Freshwater Mix) | Marco Polo (TV), Jingim/Kokachin/Marco Polo, T, 1277 words (Remix Madness)
October
Out of Armor | Dragon Age: Inquisition, Female Cadash, G, 1821 words (Trick or Treat)
Beneath the Skin | The Eagle, Marcus & Esca, G, 1025 words (Trick or Treat treat)
Out of Armor | Game of Thrones, Jaime/Brienne, T, 649 words (Shipoween PH)
November
there’s no past there’s no future and no fear | Westworld, Armistice/Clementine, T, 1911 words (Femslashex PH)
December
Octo-Heist in Space | Octo-Heist in Progress, T, 4623 words (Yuletide)
The Lingering Taste of Paradise | Black Coffee (Music Video), Man/Barista, 2436 words (Yuletide treat)
It Really Must be End Times | The Dark Crystal: AoR, Naia/Tavra, G, 1891 words (Yuletide PH)
Two Things | Gideon the Ninth, Jeannemary, T, 2652 words (Yuletide PH)
A selection of meme questions:
My favorite story this year:
This is always hard to choose! Probably a tie between "One Day in Velen" (I love the Groundhog Day trope) and "The First Water Dancer" (I’m proud of that worldbuilding).
Most popular story:
I’ve mentioned it here before, but I’m entirely boggled by how "Knives Set Aside" (which has the most hits, kudos, and bookmarks of my 2019-posted stories), posted on February 14th for Chocolate Box, rocketed through my statistics to become my 18th most kudosed work at the end of March, my 11th most kudosed work at the end of May, and as of now it has the fourth highest number of kudos of my nearly 300 works. I mean, the longer a story is around the more kudos it accumulates, but my most popular story of 2018 is only at position #28! (It was at #31 at the end of 2018.) I was initially a little weirded out because the vast majority of KSA’s kudos are guest kudos, but looking at other Jaqen H’ghar/Arya Stark fic with about the same kudos count, most of them also have mostly guest kudos, so I think it’s a function of the pairing audience. (Someone suggested that due to antis, people don’t want to be seen nonymously liking fic for a pairing which is underage in canon, but still, this is post-canon and G-rated!)
Most popular by comments was "Two Things", which got ten comments before the end of the year, which (for me) is huge for a Yuletide fic.
Story most underappreciated by the universe, in my opinion:
Actually I think they were all appreciated by their intended audiences, though some of the audiences are...small. Maybe "Out of Armor" (the DA fic) was the most underappreciated, because Dragon Age is a huge fandom! But the number of people interested in gen Female Cadash & Original Male Character...not so much, apparently. (But the recipient liked it! And a few others did, too!) I only got a single comment on "Octo-Heist in Spac"e, but I wrote it specifically for the recipient, so really, that comment was all that mattered.
Most fun to write:
"Shoggoth Fever". Cthulhu poetry as written by John Masefield!
Hardest to write:
"there’s no past there’s no future and no fear" - I started a completely different fic and then realized it ran up against the recipient’s DNW of violence, which...is hard to avoid when you’re writing about Armistice (who is an outlaw and a sharpshooter!). I also feel like it was hard for me to come up with the proper scope of the story I wanted to tell, and I’m not entirely sure I succeeded.
Easiest to write:
"The Lingering Taste of Paradise", which I wrote over a frenzied two days but had been contemplating for months.
Biggest disappointment:
Same as last year: That I didn't finish the gift fic I've been casually working on since LAST summer in time to post it before Yuletide. Also that I didn't write as much as I really wanted to.
Biggest surprise:
The whole "Knives Set Aside" boatload of guest kudos thing I mentioned above.
Favorite title:
"Octo-Heist in Space", which I came up with before I wrote the actual story. "Knives Set Aside" also pleases me for its assonance and the aptness of the metaphor, which grew naturally out of the story. I’m also rather enamored of "Strange Alchemy", which is a bit of a pun due to the fic being for the Strange the Dreamer series, but as Lazlo Strange doesn’t actually appear in the story, it’s kind of a cheating pun.
Stupidest title-related thing:
This is not in the meme questions, but I am putting it here because in retrospect I have to mention my boneheaded decision to give two stories the same title ("Out of Armor"). It fit both of them! But it made a mess of my statistics because when I got my kudos email I couldn’t tell which story it was for! Fortunately (for some value of “fortunately”) both stories sunk like stones, and so I am getting kudos for neither any more, and so I don’t get confused…
Favorite opening line:
There were two things Jeannemary Chatur wanted: to fight for the Emperor Undying by the side of her necromancer, and for the stupid pimple on her chin to go away already. ("Two Things")
Favorite closing line:
Is it cheating to choose TIBI SIGNA STELLARUM NIGRARUM ET BUFANIFORMIS SADOQUAE SIGILIM ("Shoggoth Fever")? Probably. (It’s the dedication from De Vermiis Mysteriis.) Most of my closing lines don’t make sense out of context. But I guess the sharpest one is from another drabble: Would it be Hel’s realm, or the Christian heaven, that welcomed her soul? ("at the end")
Favorite line from anywhere:
Kylan shook his head, smiling. “This is like a bad joke. A Vapran, a Drenchen, and a Spriton walk into a bar...” ("It Really Must be End Times")
Did I write more, less, or about what I’d expected?
Less (alas). Life, it gets in the way.
Pairing/genre/fandom that I wrote that I never would have predicted in January?
Most of them, TBQH! Several of my stories were for canons I only got into this year, and though I’d seen both Westworld and Marco Polo, I didn’t really think I had anything to say about them...until I did.
Story that could have been better?
I am not completely happy with there’s no past there’s no future and no fear, but I’m not really sure what it needed (other than a whole new story?!)
Writing risks this year, and lessons learned:
I don’t think I really did anything too different this year. I guess my lesson is that I need to write more and flex my writing muscles more?
Leitmotif of the year and the story that demonstrates it the best:
The fact that I have two stories titled “Out of Armor” is probably an indication that my fic this year tends to deal with people showing their vulnerability or opening up to others, or appreciating and respecting others’ vulnerabilities. “Beneath the Skin” is maybe the most obvious.
My writing plans from last year’s post, and how they panned out:
I still haven’t finished the Ciri/Cerys story for
leyna’s artwork! This year, for sure. The resurgence in Witcher fandom due to the Netflix show can only help. I did say I planned on signing up for fewer exchanges, and just writing treats and pinch hits, and that did happen and worked out well.
What’s next for 2020?
The Ciri/Cerys story! Other than that, I dunno. Crossposted from isis at Dreamwidth where there are
comments. | Comment at Dreamwidth
I didn’t really have a main fandom; the only fandom I wrote more than one story for was A Song of Ice and Fire with two fics, plus one for Game of Thrones, though the division between these fandoms is kind of murky, and all of these stories could be considered both book and show fandom - at any rate, that’s three stories. I wrote two for the Strange the Dreamer series by Laini Taylor, and a single story for each of the other fandoms (well, two fandoms got a half-story each, because crossover.) Eight new fandoms for me this year, including all four of my Yuletide stories.
As usual, all stories were written for fanwork exchanges. (I did add some words to my still-unposted Witcher WIP, which is not for an exchange, but as I didn’t post it, it doesn’t count.)
Statistics:
stories: 18
fandoms: 16-ish
new-to-me-fandoms: 8
crossovers: 1
fusions: 1 (sort of)
AUs: 1 canon divergence, 1 mermaids, 1 selkies.
remixes: 1
poems: 1
gen: 10
het: 2
m/m: 3
f/f: 2
multi: 1 (contains m/f, m/m, m/m/f)
This is the sixth year in a row that a plurality of my stories are gen, and for the first time, it’s actually a majority.
G rated: 10
T rated: 7
Unrated: 1
2019 was apparently my first pornless year. Well, maybe there were others back when I wasn’t writing much fic. The single unrated fic, I don’t know why that was unrated - it’s Cthulhu Mythos poetry and probably it should be G except kids would probably just go “huh?” at it.
drabbles (100 words exactly, I will die on that hill): 4
ficlets (under 1000 words, excluding drabbles): 3, including a double-drabble of 200 words exactly
short stories (1001-10,000 words): 11
My longest story this year was 4721 words (“One Day in Velen”) which is less than half the wordcount of 2018’s longest story.
Most of my stories were in past tense and third person, as usual. One is in present tense; one is in the form of a commercial; one is in the form of a memo; and again, poetry, how to classify?
By AO3 stats for 2019: 29,285 words written, 789 kudos received, 65 comment threads, 54 bookmarks, and 4226 hits. Kudos are up and hits are down, but that’s likely due to the influence of one outlier, discussed below.
Monthly list, with links:
February
One Day in Velen | The Witcher, Geralt, T, 4721 words (Past Imperfect Future Unknown PH)
Knives Set Aside | AsoIaF, Jaqen/Arya, G, 2282 words (Chocolate Box)
Strange Alchemy | Strange the Dreamer series, Thyon/Ruza, G, 825 words (Chocolate Box treat)
March
The First Water Dancer | AsoIaF, Arya and Syrio Forel, G, 2572 words (Worldbuilding Exchange)
Intelligence Test | 11Foot8 Bridge, G, 100 words (Multifandom Drabble)
Commercial Enterprise | Allstate Insurance “Mayhem” Commercials/Stargate Atlantis, G, 100 words (Multifandom Drabble)
A Foreign Tongue | Strange the Dreamer series, Thyon/Ruza, G, 200 words (Multifandom Drabble PH)
Shoggoth Fever | Cthulu Mythos, unrated, 100 words (Multifandom Drabble treat)
at the end | The Last Kingdom, Thyra, T (and character death), 100 words (Multifandom Drabble treat)
August
Down to a Sunless Sea (Freshwater Mix) | Marco Polo (TV), Jingim/Kokachin/Marco Polo, T, 1277 words (Remix Madness)
October
Out of Armor | Dragon Age: Inquisition, Female Cadash, G, 1821 words (Trick or Treat)
Beneath the Skin | The Eagle, Marcus & Esca, G, 1025 words (Trick or Treat treat)
Out of Armor | Game of Thrones, Jaime/Brienne, T, 649 words (Shipoween PH)
November
there’s no past there’s no future and no fear | Westworld, Armistice/Clementine, T, 1911 words (Femslashex PH)
December
Octo-Heist in Space | Octo-Heist in Progress, T, 4623 words (Yuletide)
The Lingering Taste of Paradise | Black Coffee (Music Video), Man/Barista, 2436 words (Yuletide treat)
It Really Must be End Times | The Dark Crystal: AoR, Naia/Tavra, G, 1891 words (Yuletide PH)
Two Things | Gideon the Ninth, Jeannemary, T, 2652 words (Yuletide PH)
A selection of meme questions:
My favorite story this year:
This is always hard to choose! Probably a tie between "One Day in Velen" (I love the Groundhog Day trope) and "The First Water Dancer" (I’m proud of that worldbuilding).
Most popular story:
I’ve mentioned it here before, but I’m entirely boggled by how "Knives Set Aside" (which has the most hits, kudos, and bookmarks of my 2019-posted stories), posted on February 14th for Chocolate Box, rocketed through my statistics to become my 18th most kudosed work at the end of March, my 11th most kudosed work at the end of May, and as of now it has the fourth highest number of kudos of my nearly 300 works. I mean, the longer a story is around the more kudos it accumulates, but my most popular story of 2018 is only at position #28! (It was at #31 at the end of 2018.) I was initially a little weirded out because the vast majority of KSA’s kudos are guest kudos, but looking at other Jaqen H’ghar/Arya Stark fic with about the same kudos count, most of them also have mostly guest kudos, so I think it’s a function of the pairing audience. (Someone suggested that due to antis, people don’t want to be seen nonymously liking fic for a pairing which is underage in canon, but still, this is post-canon and G-rated!)
Most popular by comments was "Two Things", which got ten comments before the end of the year, which (for me) is huge for a Yuletide fic.
Story most underappreciated by the universe, in my opinion:
Actually I think they were all appreciated by their intended audiences, though some of the audiences are...small. Maybe "Out of Armor" (the DA fic) was the most underappreciated, because Dragon Age is a huge fandom! But the number of people interested in gen Female Cadash & Original Male Character...not so much, apparently. (But the recipient liked it! And a few others did, too!) I only got a single comment on "Octo-Heist in Spac"e, but I wrote it specifically for the recipient, so really, that comment was all that mattered.
Most fun to write:
"Shoggoth Fever". Cthulhu poetry as written by John Masefield!
Hardest to write:
"there’s no past there’s no future and no fear" - I started a completely different fic and then realized it ran up against the recipient’s DNW of violence, which...is hard to avoid when you’re writing about Armistice (who is an outlaw and a sharpshooter!). I also feel like it was hard for me to come up with the proper scope of the story I wanted to tell, and I’m not entirely sure I succeeded.
Easiest to write:
"The Lingering Taste of Paradise", which I wrote over a frenzied two days but had been contemplating for months.
Biggest disappointment:
Same as last year: That I didn't finish the gift fic I've been casually working on since LAST summer in time to post it before Yuletide. Also that I didn't write as much as I really wanted to.
Biggest surprise:
The whole "Knives Set Aside" boatload of guest kudos thing I mentioned above.
Favorite title:
"Octo-Heist in Space", which I came up with before I wrote the actual story. "Knives Set Aside" also pleases me for its assonance and the aptness of the metaphor, which grew naturally out of the story. I’m also rather enamored of "Strange Alchemy", which is a bit of a pun due to the fic being for the Strange the Dreamer series, but as Lazlo Strange doesn’t actually appear in the story, it’s kind of a cheating pun.
Stupidest title-related thing:
This is not in the meme questions, but I am putting it here because in retrospect I have to mention my boneheaded decision to give two stories the same title ("Out of Armor"). It fit both of them! But it made a mess of my statistics because when I got my kudos email I couldn’t tell which story it was for! Fortunately (for some value of “fortunately”) both stories sunk like stones, and so I am getting kudos for neither any more, and so I don’t get confused…
Favorite opening line:
There were two things Jeannemary Chatur wanted: to fight for the Emperor Undying by the side of her necromancer, and for the stupid pimple on her chin to go away already. ("Two Things")
Favorite closing line:
Is it cheating to choose TIBI SIGNA STELLARUM NIGRARUM ET BUFANIFORMIS SADOQUAE SIGILIM ("Shoggoth Fever")? Probably. (It’s the dedication from De Vermiis Mysteriis.) Most of my closing lines don’t make sense out of context. But I guess the sharpest one is from another drabble: Would it be Hel’s realm, or the Christian heaven, that welcomed her soul? ("at the end")
Favorite line from anywhere:
Kylan shook his head, smiling. “This is like a bad joke. A Vapran, a Drenchen, and a Spriton walk into a bar...” ("It Really Must be End Times")
Did I write more, less, or about what I’d expected?
Less (alas). Life, it gets in the way.
Pairing/genre/fandom that I wrote that I never would have predicted in January?
Most of them, TBQH! Several of my stories were for canons I only got into this year, and though I’d seen both Westworld and Marco Polo, I didn’t really think I had anything to say about them...until I did.
Story that could have been better?
I am not completely happy with there’s no past there’s no future and no fear, but I’m not really sure what it needed (other than a whole new story?!)
Writing risks this year, and lessons learned:
I don’t think I really did anything too different this year. I guess my lesson is that I need to write more and flex my writing muscles more?
Leitmotif of the year and the story that demonstrates it the best:
The fact that I have two stories titled “Out of Armor” is probably an indication that my fic this year tends to deal with people showing their vulnerability or opening up to others, or appreciating and respecting others’ vulnerabilities. “Beneath the Skin” is maybe the most obvious.
My writing plans from last year’s post, and how they panned out:
I still haven’t finished the Ciri/Cerys story for
leyna’s artwork! This year, for sure. The resurgence in Witcher fandom due to the Netflix show can only help. I did say I planned on signing up for fewer exchanges, and just writing treats and pinch hits, and that did happen and worked out well.
What’s next for 2020?
The Ciri/Cerys story! Other than that, I dunno. Crossposted from isis at Dreamwidth where there are
comments. | Comment at Dreamwidth