This history isn't only just some winner's distant memory
Perpetually behind on everything, so it stands to reason I'm doing this 2011 Fic Recap in February 2012! Stolen from, like, everyone.
What pairing/genre/fandom did you write that you would never have predicted in January 2011?
I did think I'd be writing in U2 fandom, thanks to the Concert That Rocked 360 Degrees, so that wasn't a surprise, but I didn't think I'd write a threesome in Guy Gavriel Kay fandom, so thanks, lareinenoire :) I also didn't think I'd be writing breath control play, and it's all fieryrogue's fault.
Did you take any writing risks this year? What did you learn from them?
I think 2011 felt like The Year of Risks. I dipped my toe in other fandoms: Inception/Inception RPF, U2 RPF, Duran Duran RPF, Lions of Al-Rassan. I wrote more kink - magic realism mpreg and strippers as well as breath-play. I wrote some explicit het! (I also wrote paitac some ridiculous Justin Bieber self-insert fic...)
Do you have any fanfic or profic goals for the New Year?
Currently, sadly, my well feels dry as dry. I would love to make some Guy Gavriel Kay NYR fic, and a sequel to the Inception fic, and I have an early Bono/Edge/Ali story planned, but these days all I want to do is curl up with a good book. And Dexter, as it happens.
What's your own favorite story of the year? Not the most popular, but the one that makes you happiest?
This Loud Christmas Carol: Cook/Archuleta, adult, which I wrote in a blaze of 11,000 words over 5 days for maerhys. I was in Utah at the time, and Archie's mission statement and being in his home state just shook something loose for me. Also: I love writing timeskips and ghost narrators and had a lot of fun with the Christmas Carol framing device! And thusly, this story is my current happy place. <3
My Best Story:
The Adventures of the Boy David and Captain Cook. Cook/Archie, 18,000 words, PG-13. Peter Pan AU, with assorted Disney characters. It was a stretch for me to write in Wendy Darling's teenage perspective, but I really liked how it turned out. It was my most plot-driven, thematic story this year; randomnoob bore the brunt of my kvetching and keeping all my plot points straight!
(Additionally, I have finally finished the explicit, plot-what-plot outtake I made to reward myself for writing 18,000 PG-13-rated plotty words :))
Story Most Underappreciated By The Universe:
Three Lions: Lions of Al-Rassan, Ammar/Rodrigo/Jehane, explicit. There were three of them, three lions, who had loved each other in Al-Rassan before the sun set. It's a tiny book fandom, so it's not surprising the story hasn't got more love, but I adore this book and loved making this anyway.
Most Fun:
This Lewd Morning: AIS7, Dave/Kyle, Dave/Monty, Dave/Andy, Dave/Neal, explicit. Cook has sex with the Anthemic (separately) in one night without them knowing about each other. Written for carolion's Anthemic kinkmeme, which is always a lot of fun :)
Most Disappointing:
Four Dreams: Inception/Inception RPF, Cobb/Tom Hardy, Eames/Joe Gordon-Levitt, Arthur/Ellen Page, Ariadne/Leonardo diCaprio, adult. Actors!AU.
The Inception fandom is so experimental and innovative, and I was nervous writing for it. I like the quirky, strange-pairinged story I ended up writing, but I do think I could have done more with it? And so, I might be a quarter way through a sequel, from the actors' side of things. Tom's dreaming, and in his dreams he's dancing with a chap that looks like Dominic Cobb, etc etc :)
Most Sexy:
Uh, possibly 'Til the Lines Blur: Cook/Archuleta, explicit? Dave makes Archie lose his breath. Breath control play, belt bondage, what it says on the tin, what fieryrogue wanted to read, IDEK.
Hardest To Write:
Sew It Up (But You Can Still See the Tear): U2 RPF, Bono/Edge, adult. Bono says sorry.
Overall, I had a year of quite hard writing - I had to rewrite much of Counting Down To Zero - but the one I found hardest was this relatively linear U2 story. It had three betas! - U2 fic veterans inklingfair and my lovely leici, with whom I share AIS7/Anthemic fandom, and Irish language consultant duckgirlie. I wrote, and rewrote, and fretted, over this tiny story in the large and intimidating U2 fandom.
Most Unintentionally Telling:
Counting Down To Zero, Cook/Archuleta, adult, written for the cookleta remix challenge. I love to remix, and found I had a lot to say about privacy laws and soul-mates and communication, and how love can change and endure over time, within the framework of soverignthorn's original TiMer!AU.
And, well, I was having some issues with communication in my own marriage at the time I wrote it. But love is a choice, as I conclude in the story; whom we love, and how we love them, is up to us. (And that's the story I'm clinging to.)
Choice Lines:
From Three Lions: There was nothing fraternal in the way ibn Khairan followed his hand with his lips, and Jehane bet Ishak slid from his lap into Belmonte's and put her physician's fingers into his hair and her cool mouth against his, and Rodrigo closed his arms around them both as if they might yet hold off the dark for a while, all three of them.
From The Grass Won't Pay No Mind: She's calling out to him, words he can't hear but can feel against his collarbone, his skin, the ink on his skin.
From Four Dreams: He sees the boy called Neil as a palimpsest over the adult Arthur - how Arthur has never shown more than an eyelid's flicker of desire, or moved in this loping, hip-swaying, provocative way. How Eames has never seen the bare, vulnerable flesh under the sharp grey tweed. But now Eames sees those things are there inside Arthur, just below the mysterious surface of this skin.
From Sew It Up: Edge paused by the threshold of their room, where the grey morning heralded storms up ahead, and more if they didn’t navigate this small, true thing very carefully.
“Go,” Edge said, and Bono sighed.
From In the Alleyway: Angel danced like Arch sang, free and unashamed, a million miles away from the teenager who'd taken his first dance lessons with Paula Abdul. As Arch took center stage, he wondered if Paula would approve of Angel's technique. He kind of thought she might, if the shock didn't kill her first.
From The Adventures of the Boy David and Captain Cook: The story said he was the boy who'd never grow up. The story said the Captain would always be his hated nemesis. But the story can't be true forever. Boys grow up, they become men, they fall in love, and love is just hate in reverse.
From Counting Down To Zero: Cook runs his fingers along David's cheekbone. The new scar on his wrist from where his TiMER was removed is raised and red and itches like crazy, but he knows he did the right thing.
He doesn't need a piece of clockwork to tell him what he already knows is true.
What pairing/genre/fandom did you write that you would never have predicted in January 2011?
I did think I'd be writing in U2 fandom, thanks to the Concert That Rocked 360 Degrees, so that wasn't a surprise, but I didn't think I'd write a threesome in Guy Gavriel Kay fandom, so thanks, lareinenoire :) I also didn't think I'd be writing breath control play, and it's all fieryrogue's fault.
Did you take any writing risks this year? What did you learn from them?
I think 2011 felt like The Year of Risks. I dipped my toe in other fandoms: Inception/Inception RPF, U2 RPF, Duran Duran RPF, Lions of Al-Rassan. I wrote more kink - magic realism mpreg and strippers as well as breath-play. I wrote some explicit het! (I also wrote paitac some ridiculous Justin Bieber self-insert fic...)
Do you have any fanfic or profic goals for the New Year?
Currently, sadly, my well feels dry as dry. I would love to make some Guy Gavriel Kay NYR fic, and a sequel to the Inception fic, and I have an early Bono/Edge/Ali story planned, but these days all I want to do is curl up with a good book. And Dexter, as it happens.
What's your own favorite story of the year? Not the most popular, but the one that makes you happiest?
This Loud Christmas Carol: Cook/Archuleta, adult, which I wrote in a blaze of 11,000 words over 5 days for maerhys. I was in Utah at the time, and Archie's mission statement and being in his home state just shook something loose for me. Also: I love writing timeskips and ghost narrators and had a lot of fun with the Christmas Carol framing device! And thusly, this story is my current happy place. <3
My Best Story:
The Adventures of the Boy David and Captain Cook. Cook/Archie, 18,000 words, PG-13. Peter Pan AU, with assorted Disney characters. It was a stretch for me to write in Wendy Darling's teenage perspective, but I really liked how it turned out. It was my most plot-driven, thematic story this year; randomnoob bore the brunt of my kvetching and keeping all my plot points straight!
(Additionally, I have finally finished the explicit, plot-what-plot outtake I made to reward myself for writing 18,000 PG-13-rated plotty words :))
Story Most Underappreciated By The Universe:
Three Lions: Lions of Al-Rassan, Ammar/Rodrigo/Jehane, explicit. There were three of them, three lions, who had loved each other in Al-Rassan before the sun set. It's a tiny book fandom, so it's not surprising the story hasn't got more love, but I adore this book and loved making this anyway.
Most Fun:
This Lewd Morning: AIS7, Dave/Kyle, Dave/Monty, Dave/Andy, Dave/Neal, explicit. Cook has sex with the Anthemic (separately) in one night without them knowing about each other. Written for carolion's Anthemic kinkmeme, which is always a lot of fun :)
Most Disappointing:
Four Dreams: Inception/Inception RPF, Cobb/Tom Hardy, Eames/Joe Gordon-Levitt, Arthur/Ellen Page, Ariadne/Leonardo diCaprio, adult. Actors!AU.
The Inception fandom is so experimental and innovative, and I was nervous writing for it. I like the quirky, strange-pairinged story I ended up writing, but I do think I could have done more with it? And so, I might be a quarter way through a sequel, from the actors' side of things. Tom's dreaming, and in his dreams he's dancing with a chap that looks like Dominic Cobb, etc etc :)
Most Sexy:
Uh, possibly 'Til the Lines Blur: Cook/Archuleta, explicit? Dave makes Archie lose his breath. Breath control play, belt bondage, what it says on the tin, what fieryrogue wanted to read, IDEK.
Hardest To Write:
Sew It Up (But You Can Still See the Tear): U2 RPF, Bono/Edge, adult. Bono says sorry.
Overall, I had a year of quite hard writing - I had to rewrite much of Counting Down To Zero - but the one I found hardest was this relatively linear U2 story. It had three betas! - U2 fic veterans inklingfair and my lovely leici, with whom I share AIS7/Anthemic fandom, and Irish language consultant duckgirlie. I wrote, and rewrote, and fretted, over this tiny story in the large and intimidating U2 fandom.
Most Unintentionally Telling:
Counting Down To Zero, Cook/Archuleta, adult, written for the cookleta remix challenge. I love to remix, and found I had a lot to say about privacy laws and soul-mates and communication, and how love can change and endure over time, within the framework of soverignthorn's original TiMer!AU.
And, well, I was having some issues with communication in my own marriage at the time I wrote it. But love is a choice, as I conclude in the story; whom we love, and how we love them, is up to us. (And that's the story I'm clinging to.)
Choice Lines:
From Three Lions: There was nothing fraternal in the way ibn Khairan followed his hand with his lips, and Jehane bet Ishak slid from his lap into Belmonte's and put her physician's fingers into his hair and her cool mouth against his, and Rodrigo closed his arms around them both as if they might yet hold off the dark for a while, all three of them.
From The Grass Won't Pay No Mind: She's calling out to him, words he can't hear but can feel against his collarbone, his skin, the ink on his skin.
From Four Dreams: He sees the boy called Neil as a palimpsest over the adult Arthur - how Arthur has never shown more than an eyelid's flicker of desire, or moved in this loping, hip-swaying, provocative way. How Eames has never seen the bare, vulnerable flesh under the sharp grey tweed. But now Eames sees those things are there inside Arthur, just below the mysterious surface of this skin.
From Sew It Up: Edge paused by the threshold of their room, where the grey morning heralded storms up ahead, and more if they didn’t navigate this small, true thing very carefully.
“Go,” Edge said, and Bono sighed.
From In the Alleyway: Angel danced like Arch sang, free and unashamed, a million miles away from the teenager who'd taken his first dance lessons with Paula Abdul. As Arch took center stage, he wondered if Paula would approve of Angel's technique. He kind of thought she might, if the shock didn't kill her first.
From The Adventures of the Boy David and Captain Cook: The story said he was the boy who'd never grow up. The story said the Captain would always be his hated nemesis. But the story can't be true forever. Boys grow up, they become men, they fall in love, and love is just hate in reverse.
From Counting Down To Zero: Cook runs his fingers along David's cheekbone. The new scar on his wrist from where his TiMER was removed is raised and red and itches like crazy, but he knows he did the right thing.
He doesn't need a piece of clockwork to tell him what he already knows is true.