Year in Review fic meme, 2011
The Review Meme is very late - but I thought since it was already really damn late, I’d leave posting this until after the fest reveals. This bit of navel-gazing tends to be more useful to the writer than readers, I think; but I do find it very useful.
2011’s wordcount was 104 600. Not bad: still down from 2009’s ~131 000, but in the same area as 2010’s ~107 000, and 2010 didn’t involve a dissertation. FYI, the wordcount includes ‘real’ posts to LJ and original work as well as fanfic.
Hopefully I’ll do better in 2012. Either way, as I said last year: keeping track of this stuff, and giving myself a target, it reminds me that writing being really fun doesn’t make it a bad indulgence you should ignore in favour of your friends, and that writing being really hard doesn’t make it a chore you should ignore in favour of your friends.
Favorite story this year: Inherently Superior. That’s such a bizarre fic but it also makes so much sense to me that purebloods would have Muggle!kinks, so I’m glad I wrote it. Also, it is why I love established-relationship!kink with the passion of a thousand burning suns, because Draco trusts Ron so deeply in that one and it’s adorable and the only way the porn could happen.
Dark horse pick would be Firepower, the tiny drabble I wrote for
daiseechain where Donna and the Doctor fight a dragon. I was so pleased with how my Donna!voice turned out.
Best story this year: Undoubtedly Sanctuary, the fic I wrote for Kinky Kristmas. Having
r_grayjoy and
eeyore9990 thoroughly beta it resulted in definite improvement, as you might expect. Plus I think I’m getting better at the whole three-way-character-dynamic thing - each character having a distinct relationship with both the other people as well as a group dynamic.
Glow was my best drabble, I think. Apparently I have yet to stop writing Ron/Draco drabbles about Why I Ship Them.
Most underappreciated by the universe: Fifty-First Century Girl. Obviously it’s Doctor Who femmeslash about two characters who haven’t met in canon, so I wasn’t expecting lots of attention for it - and all the comments I got were lovely and fun so I’m not miffed. Still, by far the least appreciated.
Most fun story: Unexpected. Ron/Draco where Draco wears Muggle clothes and girl’s knickers for Ron’s birthday and everyone gets together at the pub and Ron tells heinous lies about how birthday spanking works. That was a lot of fun.
Of the drabbles, it’s Creature of the Night, in which Ron is a vampire :)
Sexiest story: Choices. This is such a subjective pick, especially this year, but for me personally the Snaco caning is always going to win in the Sexy stakes. Even more so when it has Snape being all intense.
New fandom/pairing/genre/kink: AHAHAHA.
As ever, there were plenty. My most notable new ‘fandom’ is probably the fic I wrote for
son_of_darkness, What’s Mine Is Yours, which was a foursome fic (a couple and friends) set in an original universe belonging to some friends of mine. That was a lot of new stuff at once.
Beyond that there was Fifty-First Century Girl, which was a new pairing (Amy/Martha) and my first ‘proper’ fic in the fandom, as well as the first time I’ve written two married people (not married to each other) shagging in a happy open-relationships way. Plus Sanctuary, which was my first threesome fic and my first Bill fic and weirdly, considering how much I love reading it, my first attempt at comfort!sex. Every other time I’ve written fucked-up people having sex, they’ve been taken advantage of!
Fandom/pairing/genre/kink you never thought you’d write: Errrrm. I wouldn’t have thought I’d write Bill/Harry/Draco with Harry as the guest star, or in need of comforting. I didn’t expect this much Neville/Draco. There wasn’t really anything that surprising this year, mostly because I am aware of my own habits when it comes to writing a bunch of random rarepairs doing kinky stuff.
"Holy crap, that's wrong even for you”: Pleasures of the Flesh. Cos that was very deliberate indulgence in the non-con and gagging and forced orgasm and that, and ended on the implication Narcissa would be having Harry too. Like, the brief flashes of ‘see Lucius attempt to regain his self-identity and go crazy at the idea of being sullied by Harry’ were quickly buried by ‘see Harry try not to cry as Lucius bad-touches him.’
Story that shifted my own perceptions of the characters: Bah. This question is always so hard. I think Pleasures of the Flesh sort of did it, because that was partly an exercise in writing old-school Lucius/Harry while acknowledging the beating canon!Lucius got. Also, Twilight; it’s a cute Neville/Draco and it has a moment where Neville thinks about how he can’t hate Draco’s parents, and it was just working out for myself if and why and how I thought Neville would be able to accept them.
Hardest story to write: Definitely
son_of_darkness, What’s Mine Is Yours. THAT WAS SO HARD. Writing fic about OCs for the friends who created those OCs is nervewracking, because what if you get them horribly OOC? Also, these are characters who I understand through RPing, and I didn’t anticipate how much of a difference that made when writing them in prose, just interacting in person and fucking. It was fun in the end though, once I just let rip and started throwing random kinks in there and not caring that the IC banter was throwing off the sexy vibe.
You can tell how self-indulgent I was being by the end, though. Because that coda SHOULD NOT BE THERE. Why is that there? IT HAS NO PURPOSE IN THE STORY. I literally just kept writing because I wanted Finn and Chloe to have a scene together. It’s a good thing I clawed it back before they met Ella, because I would write a million words of the Finn-and-Chloe-and-Ella show.
Easiest story to write: Twilight; it’s just a little ficlet but it flowed so easily, the atmosphere was instantly clear in my mind and I knew what I wanted to do with it. Also the idea of Neville as connected to earth and Draco as connected to air is sort of less cliched than the usual Gryffindor = fire, Slytherin = water connection, and it makes sense and I find it romantic. So the whole thing just flowed.
Or my ficlet Interesting Scars, which is full of one of my favourite things to write: Harry’s year just hanging out and Draco being an adorable fail as he tries to impress.
Biggest disappointment: I think I could’ve done something more interesting with Greenfingers, but at the same time it was a birthday fic for
secretlypadfoot and she seemed pleased with it, so I can’t be too disappointed in myself.
Biggest surprise: That I didn’t post any Thor fic, because I’m still reading tons of it. Or actually, the fact that the fic which got the biggest response I’ve ever had?
300 words of Livejournal/Dreamwidth/Insanejournal meta-smut. I just. What.
Story with single sweetest moment:This hasn’t been a big year for sweet moments, but Greenfingers was entirely made of fluff:
Draco laid his arm over Neville’s back in a way that definitely wasn’t cuddling. “I always thought I hated nice men.”
Neville raised his head, finally, his dark eyes piercing and liquid as a blackbird’s. “Funny how things work out. I always thought I’d want someone loyal -- someone reliable.”
Draco felt his face crumple into a scowl, and then Neville added, “I was right, too.”
The story that made you cry: I still have yet to cry because of my own fic, and I wrote very little angst. Memorium was a rather sad little drabble.
Story I want remembered: The Language of Power. It was the Parselsmut fic every H/D writer has to do, but I did it in an unusual fashion, and it’s always a nice moment when you find a (relatively) new twist on a fandom chestnut: in this case, Harry speaking Parseltongue during sex... and Draco finding Parseltongue a terrifying reminder of Voldemort.
This was originally posted at http://www.dreamwidth.org/12345.html. Comment wherever you like :)
2011’s wordcount was 104 600. Not bad: still down from 2009’s ~131 000, but in the same area as 2010’s ~107 000, and 2010 didn’t involve a dissertation. FYI, the wordcount includes ‘real’ posts to LJ and original work as well as fanfic.
Hopefully I’ll do better in 2012. Either way, as I said last year: keeping track of this stuff, and giving myself a target, it reminds me that writing being really fun doesn’t make it a bad indulgence you should ignore in favour of your friends, and that writing being really hard doesn’t make it a chore you should ignore in favour of your friends.
Favorite story this year: Inherently Superior. That’s such a bizarre fic but it also makes so much sense to me that purebloods would have Muggle!kinks, so I’m glad I wrote it. Also, it is why I love established-relationship!kink with the passion of a thousand burning suns, because Draco trusts Ron so deeply in that one and it’s adorable and the only way the porn could happen.
Dark horse pick would be Firepower, the tiny drabble I wrote for
daiseechain where Donna and the Doctor fight a dragon. I was so pleased with how my Donna!voice turned out.
Best story this year: Undoubtedly Sanctuary, the fic I wrote for Kinky Kristmas. Having
r_grayjoy and
eeyore9990 thoroughly beta it resulted in definite improvement, as you might expect. Plus I think I’m getting better at the whole three-way-character-dynamic thing - each character having a distinct relationship with both the other people as well as a group dynamic.
Glow was my best drabble, I think. Apparently I have yet to stop writing Ron/Draco drabbles about Why I Ship Them.
Most underappreciated by the universe: Fifty-First Century Girl. Obviously it’s Doctor Who femmeslash about two characters who haven’t met in canon, so I wasn’t expecting lots of attention for it - and all the comments I got were lovely and fun so I’m not miffed. Still, by far the least appreciated.
Most fun story: Unexpected. Ron/Draco where Draco wears Muggle clothes and girl’s knickers for Ron’s birthday and everyone gets together at the pub and Ron tells heinous lies about how birthday spanking works. That was a lot of fun.
Of the drabbles, it’s Creature of the Night, in which Ron is a vampire :)
Sexiest story: Choices. This is such a subjective pick, especially this year, but for me personally the Snaco caning is always going to win in the Sexy stakes. Even more so when it has Snape being all intense.
New fandom/pairing/genre/kink: AHAHAHA.
As ever, there were plenty. My most notable new ‘fandom’ is probably the fic I wrote for
son_of_darkness, What’s Mine Is Yours, which was a foursome fic (a couple and friends) set in an original universe belonging to some friends of mine. That was a lot of new stuff at once.
Beyond that there was Fifty-First Century Girl, which was a new pairing (Amy/Martha) and my first ‘proper’ fic in the fandom, as well as the first time I’ve written two married people (not married to each other) shagging in a happy open-relationships way. Plus Sanctuary, which was my first threesome fic and my first Bill fic and weirdly, considering how much I love reading it, my first attempt at comfort!sex. Every other time I’ve written fucked-up people having sex, they’ve been taken advantage of!
Fandom/pairing/genre/kink you never thought you’d write: Errrrm. I wouldn’t have thought I’d write Bill/Harry/Draco with Harry as the guest star, or in need of comforting. I didn’t expect this much Neville/Draco. There wasn’t really anything that surprising this year, mostly because I am aware of my own habits when it comes to writing a bunch of random rarepairs doing kinky stuff.
"Holy crap, that's wrong even for you”: Pleasures of the Flesh. Cos that was very deliberate indulgence in the non-con and gagging and forced orgasm and that, and ended on the implication Narcissa would be having Harry too. Like, the brief flashes of ‘see Lucius attempt to regain his self-identity and go crazy at the idea of being sullied by Harry’ were quickly buried by ‘see Harry try not to cry as Lucius bad-touches him.’
Story that shifted my own perceptions of the characters: Bah. This question is always so hard. I think Pleasures of the Flesh sort of did it, because that was partly an exercise in writing old-school Lucius/Harry while acknowledging the beating canon!Lucius got. Also, Twilight; it’s a cute Neville/Draco and it has a moment where Neville thinks about how he can’t hate Draco’s parents, and it was just working out for myself if and why and how I thought Neville would be able to accept them.
Hardest story to write: Definitely
son_of_darkness, What’s Mine Is Yours. THAT WAS SO HARD. Writing fic about OCs for the friends who created those OCs is nervewracking, because what if you get them horribly OOC? Also, these are characters who I understand through RPing, and I didn’t anticipate how much of a difference that made when writing them in prose, just interacting in person and fucking. It was fun in the end though, once I just let rip and started throwing random kinks in there and not caring that the IC banter was throwing off the sexy vibe.
You can tell how self-indulgent I was being by the end, though. Because that coda SHOULD NOT BE THERE. Why is that there? IT HAS NO PURPOSE IN THE STORY. I literally just kept writing because I wanted Finn and Chloe to have a scene together. It’s a good thing I clawed it back before they met Ella, because I would write a million words of the Finn-and-Chloe-and-Ella show.
Easiest story to write: Twilight; it’s just a little ficlet but it flowed so easily, the atmosphere was instantly clear in my mind and I knew what I wanted to do with it. Also the idea of Neville as connected to earth and Draco as connected to air is sort of less cliched than the usual Gryffindor = fire, Slytherin = water connection, and it makes sense and I find it romantic. So the whole thing just flowed.
Or my ficlet Interesting Scars, which is full of one of my favourite things to write: Harry’s year just hanging out and Draco being an adorable fail as he tries to impress.
Biggest disappointment: I think I could’ve done something more interesting with Greenfingers, but at the same time it was a birthday fic for
secretlypadfoot and she seemed pleased with it, so I can’t be too disappointed in myself.
Biggest surprise: That I didn’t post any Thor fic, because I’m still reading tons of it. Or actually, the fact that the fic which got the biggest response I’ve ever had?
300 words of Livejournal/Dreamwidth/Insanejournal meta-smut. I just. What.
Story with single sweetest moment:This hasn’t been a big year for sweet moments, but Greenfingers was entirely made of fluff:
Draco laid his arm over Neville’s back in a way that definitely wasn’t cuddling. “I always thought I hated nice men.”
Neville raised his head, finally, his dark eyes piercing and liquid as a blackbird’s. “Funny how things work out. I always thought I’d want someone loyal -- someone reliable.”
Draco felt his face crumple into a scowl, and then Neville added, “I was right, too.”
The story that made you cry: I still have yet to cry because of my own fic, and I wrote very little angst. Memorium was a rather sad little drabble.
Story I want remembered: The Language of Power. It was the Parselsmut fic every H/D writer has to do, but I did it in an unusual fashion, and it’s always a nice moment when you find a (relatively) new twist on a fandom chestnut: in this case, Harry speaking Parseltongue during sex... and Draco finding Parseltongue a terrifying reminder of Voldemort.
This was originally posted at http://www.dreamwidth.org/12345.html. Comment wherever you like :)