Year-End Fic Meme
(ganked from mardia, because my usual meme will just make it so much more obvious that I stopped writing halfway through the year...)
This year I wrote:
hitched my apple wagon to your star: The Hobbit, fem!Fili/Kili
old dogs, new tricks: Women's Football RPF, Berta Carles/Ani Escribano
the wheels on the bus go round and round: Tennis RPF, Rafael Nadal/Novak Djokovic (technically I didn't write this in 2013 but this is when I posted it, so...)
radical reference: Football RPF, Victor Valdes/Andres Iniesta
passion of the pistol: Tennis RPF, Flavia Pennetta/Francesca Schiavone
quis custodiet ipsos custodes: Hannibal, Hannibal Lecter/Will Graham (co-written with my long-distance life partner aramley)
encara em bull la sang: Football RPF, Victor Valdes/Andres Iniesta
jeu décisif: Tennis RPF, Rafael Nadal/Novak Djokovic
the real hockey widows of new jersey: Hockey RPF, Danny Briere/Claude Giroux
Bourbon and Boys Give Me the Blues: Hart of Dixie, Wade Kinsella/Lemon Breeland
Looking back, did I write more fic than I thought I would this year, less, or about what I'd predicted? So much less, jesus. I kept to my "post something every month" resolution until about halfway through the year, but then I crashed and burned. I don't know if I'll ever be as productive again as I was when I first fell in love with tennis and football fandom -- I really miss that feeling. I've tried out a whole bunch of fandoms this year (including writing for a fandom that I am literally not in, in the sense of never having actually seen canon, haha whoops?) and none of them have really stuck, much as I would have liked them to. (Call me, Spartacus fandom!) I guess we'll see, as far as hockey fandom goes. And maybe this year's NWSL season or the World Cup will get me back into football fandom with my prior all-consuming passion! I REALLY MISS FEELING MOTIVATED TO WRITE.
What pairing/genre/fandom did I write that I would never have predicted in January? MOTHERFUCKING HOCKEY FANDOM, I SWEAR TO GOD.
What's my own favorite story of the year? Not the most popular, but the one that makes me happiest? You know, maybe Old Dogs, New Tricks takes the prize. It was kind of stressful to be writing about a cast of characters that I knew absolutely nobody would have any background knowledge of, but almost freeing at the same time. I'm really glad I finished the story, and I like rereading it.
What is my most popular story? Real Hockey Widows, hands down. Motherfucking hockey fandom. (Although both Hitched My Apple Wagon and Quis Custodiet gave me a brief hint of what it's like to write in a bigger fandom before that.)
Did I take any writing risks this year? What did I learn from them? Not... really? Unless you count writing in new fandoms, which has taught me that I need a lot of emotional investment and interaction in a fandom to get me off my butt enough to start writing something, let alone finish it. (Let me tell you about all my abandoned WIPs. Let me tell you about all the times I have come up with a great fic idea for a picture on Tumblr and never thought about it again.)
Do I have any fanfic or profic goals for the New Year? Write more! Finish WIPs! Actually complete the challenges I sign up for! JUST WRITE.
From my past year of writing, what was...
Story Most Underappreciated by the Universe: Passion of the Pistol. Okay, it's not the greatest writing in the universe, but come on, lesbian spy AU! My beautiful, beautiful Flavia! But ain't nobody out there reading about women's tennis, let me tell you that.
Most Fun: Most fun subject matter? Real Hockey Widows still cracks me up, I'm not going to lie. My artistic vision~~~ of Claude Giroux getting shit-faced on Trader Joe's Two-Buck Chuck in the kitchen with Sylvie gives me life. I can literally hear PK holding forth on figures of speech and oral sex and Carey getting overly defensive about his hypothetical ability to give a decent blowjob. As far as the actual writing process goes, definitely Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes. I hadn't co-written since middle school and it was so much fun to be able to just hand the iPad over to aramley whenever I ran out of gas and say "your turn!" Let's do that some more this year. <333
Biggest Disappointment: I wish I'd written more, and I wish I'd finished more of the things I started. I'm pretty happy with the things that did actually see the light of day, though!
Biggest Surprise: Hockey fandom. Okay, no, but really -- maybe that weird month-long period where I was SUPER INTO THE HOBBIT, both that it happened and that it ended so quickly. I still don't really know what happened there. I enjoyed the fic I wrote and some of the fic I read but yeah that was really weird.
Story that shifted my own perceptions of the characters: Bourbon and Boys! I am for the most part a Wade-and-Lemon-BroTP and a Wade/Lemon/George OT3 shipper, so writing just the two of them on their own gave me a chance to think about how they would work as a couple on their own.
Most unintentionally revealing story: I feel like Quis Custodiet says more about both me and aramley than should really be available publicly on the the internet.
Best Opening Line: Word in the break room was that the new part-timer, who was notable mainly for his ability to bring shy children out of their shells and his extensive collection of hideous cardigans, had been picked up after closing last night by a tattooed skinhead on a motorcycle.
Best Closing Line: She thought that maybe it would be a happy new year, after all.
Best line from anywhere: "Yeah, but it's a metaphor, like, it's not the actual jockstrap, the jockstrap is being a shitty cook or never remembering anniversaries or being bad at oral, or whatever."
This year's theme and the story that demonstrates it most: I think the theme of the year for me is actually LADIES, as sad as it is to say that when only half of the fics I posted this year even featured ladies (60% if you count the dog in the Hannibal fic, which you shouldn't). But I did think a lot more about women in my fandoms this year and I tried to write about some of them, with varying levels of success. I got a lot of comments on Real Hockey Widows about how much people liked that I had included Sylvie and given her a positive characterization, which was really nice since the main reason I ever got around to writing it was that I was so fed up with the usual misogynistic bullshit about her in fic, when she showed up at all. (Okay, the main reason was that I was extremely bored at work, but the misogyny was a part of it, too.) Old Dogs, New Tricks is a more ladies-centric fic (duh, all but one of the characters is a lady) but Real Hockey Widows was much more conscious of it. I hope to continue this theme with renewed dedication in the new year! LADIES <333
Next up: a long-overdue personal update and some recs! I'm very very slowly working my way through the Yuletide fic I downloaded before reveals, but I promised khoshgeleh_16 I'd rec her my favorites of the hockey exchange, and I've already picked my way through that.
This year I wrote:
hitched my apple wagon to your star: The Hobbit, fem!Fili/Kili
old dogs, new tricks: Women's Football RPF, Berta Carles/Ani Escribano
the wheels on the bus go round and round: Tennis RPF, Rafael Nadal/Novak Djokovic (technically I didn't write this in 2013 but this is when I posted it, so...)
radical reference: Football RPF, Victor Valdes/Andres Iniesta
passion of the pistol: Tennis RPF, Flavia Pennetta/Francesca Schiavone
quis custodiet ipsos custodes: Hannibal, Hannibal Lecter/Will Graham (co-written with my long-distance life partner aramley)
encara em bull la sang: Football RPF, Victor Valdes/Andres Iniesta
jeu décisif: Tennis RPF, Rafael Nadal/Novak Djokovic
the real hockey widows of new jersey: Hockey RPF, Danny Briere/Claude Giroux
Bourbon and Boys Give Me the Blues: Hart of Dixie, Wade Kinsella/Lemon Breeland
Looking back, did I write more fic than I thought I would this year, less, or about what I'd predicted? So much less, jesus. I kept to my "post something every month" resolution until about halfway through the year, but then I crashed and burned. I don't know if I'll ever be as productive again as I was when I first fell in love with tennis and football fandom -- I really miss that feeling. I've tried out a whole bunch of fandoms this year (including writing for a fandom that I am literally not in, in the sense of never having actually seen canon, haha whoops?) and none of them have really stuck, much as I would have liked them to. (Call me, Spartacus fandom!) I guess we'll see, as far as hockey fandom goes. And maybe this year's NWSL season or the World Cup will get me back into football fandom with my prior all-consuming passion! I REALLY MISS FEELING MOTIVATED TO WRITE.
What pairing/genre/fandom did I write that I would never have predicted in January? MOTHERFUCKING HOCKEY FANDOM, I SWEAR TO GOD.
What's my own favorite story of the year? Not the most popular, but the one that makes me happiest? You know, maybe Old Dogs, New Tricks takes the prize. It was kind of stressful to be writing about a cast of characters that I knew absolutely nobody would have any background knowledge of, but almost freeing at the same time. I'm really glad I finished the story, and I like rereading it.
What is my most popular story? Real Hockey Widows, hands down. Motherfucking hockey fandom. (Although both Hitched My Apple Wagon and Quis Custodiet gave me a brief hint of what it's like to write in a bigger fandom before that.)
Did I take any writing risks this year? What did I learn from them? Not... really? Unless you count writing in new fandoms, which has taught me that I need a lot of emotional investment and interaction in a fandom to get me off my butt enough to start writing something, let alone finish it. (Let me tell you about all my abandoned WIPs. Let me tell you about all the times I have come up with a great fic idea for a picture on Tumblr and never thought about it again.)
Do I have any fanfic or profic goals for the New Year? Write more! Finish WIPs! Actually complete the challenges I sign up for! JUST WRITE.
From my past year of writing, what was...
Story Most Underappreciated by the Universe: Passion of the Pistol. Okay, it's not the greatest writing in the universe, but come on, lesbian spy AU! My beautiful, beautiful Flavia! But ain't nobody out there reading about women's tennis, let me tell you that.
Most Fun: Most fun subject matter? Real Hockey Widows still cracks me up, I'm not going to lie. My artistic vision~~~ of Claude Giroux getting shit-faced on Trader Joe's Two-Buck Chuck in the kitchen with Sylvie gives me life. I can literally hear PK holding forth on figures of speech and oral sex and Carey getting overly defensive about his hypothetical ability to give a decent blowjob. As far as the actual writing process goes, definitely Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes. I hadn't co-written since middle school and it was so much fun to be able to just hand the iPad over to aramley whenever I ran out of gas and say "your turn!" Let's do that some more this year. <333
Biggest Disappointment: I wish I'd written more, and I wish I'd finished more of the things I started. I'm pretty happy with the things that did actually see the light of day, though!
Biggest Surprise: Hockey fandom. Okay, no, but really -- maybe that weird month-long period where I was SUPER INTO THE HOBBIT, both that it happened and that it ended so quickly. I still don't really know what happened there. I enjoyed the fic I wrote and some of the fic I read but yeah that was really weird.
Story that shifted my own perceptions of the characters: Bourbon and Boys! I am for the most part a Wade-and-Lemon-BroTP and a Wade/Lemon/George OT3 shipper, so writing just the two of them on their own gave me a chance to think about how they would work as a couple on their own.
Most unintentionally revealing story: I feel like Quis Custodiet says more about both me and aramley than should really be available publicly on the the internet.
Best Opening Line: Word in the break room was that the new part-timer, who was notable mainly for his ability to bring shy children out of their shells and his extensive collection of hideous cardigans, had been picked up after closing last night by a tattooed skinhead on a motorcycle.
Best Closing Line: She thought that maybe it would be a happy new year, after all.
Best line from anywhere: "Yeah, but it's a metaphor, like, it's not the actual jockstrap, the jockstrap is being a shitty cook or never remembering anniversaries or being bad at oral, or whatever."
This year's theme and the story that demonstrates it most: I think the theme of the year for me is actually LADIES, as sad as it is to say that when only half of the fics I posted this year even featured ladies (60% if you count the dog in the Hannibal fic, which you shouldn't). But I did think a lot more about women in my fandoms this year and I tried to write about some of them, with varying levels of success. I got a lot of comments on Real Hockey Widows about how much people liked that I had included Sylvie and given her a positive characterization, which was really nice since the main reason I ever got around to writing it was that I was so fed up with the usual misogynistic bullshit about her in fic, when she showed up at all. (Okay, the main reason was that I was extremely bored at work, but the misogyny was a part of it, too.) Old Dogs, New Tricks is a more ladies-centric fic (duh, all but one of the characters is a lady) but Real Hockey Widows was much more conscious of it. I hope to continue this theme with renewed dedication in the new year! LADIES <333
Next up: a long-overdue personal update and some recs! I'm very very slowly working my way through the Yuletide fic I downloaded before reveals, but I promised khoshgeleh_16 I'd rec her my favorites of the hockey exchange, and I've already picked my way through that.