Fic Meme!
Well, it's after Christmas, so that means it's END-OF-THE-YEAR FIC ROUNDUP MEME TIME! Snagged from orange_crushed of the past.
Favorite Story: WHY IS THE HARDEST QUESTION FIRST? This sort of changes often, and I am a serial re-reader of my own work, so I dunno. I won't let myself say Feeling Electric, partly because that's egotistical even for me, but mostly because the honest truth is while they're what I'm most proud of as a writer, they're not my favorite to read. I'm definitely partial to all of my serious Pete's World stories, in all eras. The whole lot of them are my favorites. If I had to pick one, I'd say the layers between them / Contact binary, but that's liable to change at any moment.
Most Fun Story: It's a toss-up between Static and So We Sailed On To The Sun, because both were just about me diving into the nerdy-ass shit I love and permitting myself to muck about. On the one hand, I got to rewrite the Dalek/Cyberman bitchfight as a bickering puppet show between a Darth Vader bobblehead and a Klingon action figure. On the other hand, I got to combine Angel with Doctor Who, and putting those voices together was SO much fun. I'm still very proud of the dialogue and characterization in that piece.
Hardest To Write: I can't say much about it, because the Author Reveals haven't gone up yet, but definitely the fic I wrote for dwsanta. I had high expectations for myself and wanted to really please and impress my recipient, and the prompt I was given and story I chose to tell (and the characters I told it with) were decidedly outside of my comfort zone.
Easiest To Write: Remnants. I knew exactly what I wanted to say from the second I read Mary's prompt, and I said it. Yes, it's short, but it accomplishes my goal concisely. No more or less than I imagined it would be.
Biggest surprise: Probably the biggest surprise is Will That Be All?, for the sheer fact that it's not Doctor Who. I'm not really one to experiment with new fandoms or pairings once I've gotten established, but Tony/Pepper kinda swept me off my feet for a bit. I'm glad I broadened my horizons enough to try it. (And lol, I still have another half-complete Iron Man fic waiting on the hard drive; fail, self.)
This year's theme and the story that demonstrates it most: Um, is "Rose Tyler is a BAMF, the Doctor is lovely, and theirs is a forever love" a theme? No? Damn. But I guess the thing that really stands out in my work is the persistence of true love. Not the inevitability, but the inspiration. Loving other people makes us better. It makes us stronger and more capable and more motivated; makes us both selfish and selfless at the same time, and there is nothing more gloriously human. No character embodies that better than Rose Tyler, and so the fic I think demonstrates it most is Climbing Back. It's the slightly more hopeful cousin of Baying at the Moon, and I think it really captures how fierce love is the most powerful ally a person can have.
What's next for 2011: Hopefully, I'll keep up with the Doctor Who stuff, though probably not as voraciously as I did. I've got several Tangled pieces in the works that should be out relatively soon, and a great deal of unposted Secret Diary of a Call Girl material that I can't decide if I should expand upon or just leave as-is. Either way, I'm sure there'll be more of that once the new series starts. I dunno. A bit of Easy A? The next big fandom time commitment I want to make is Battlestar Galactica, but I was sure I'd get to that in 2010 and that didn't happen. We'll see.
Favorite Story: WHY IS THE HARDEST QUESTION FIRST? This sort of changes often, and I am a serial re-reader of my own work, so I dunno. I won't let myself say Feeling Electric, partly because that's egotistical even for me, but mostly because the honest truth is while they're what I'm most proud of as a writer, they're not my favorite to read. I'm definitely partial to all of my serious Pete's World stories, in all eras. The whole lot of them are my favorites. If I had to pick one, I'd say the layers between them / Contact binary, but that's liable to change at any moment.
Most Fun Story: It's a toss-up between Static and So We Sailed On To The Sun, because both were just about me diving into the nerdy-ass shit I love and permitting myself to muck about. On the one hand, I got to rewrite the Dalek/Cyberman bitchfight as a bickering puppet show between a Darth Vader bobblehead and a Klingon action figure. On the other hand, I got to combine Angel with Doctor Who, and putting those voices together was SO much fun. I'm still very proud of the dialogue and characterization in that piece.
Hardest To Write: I can't say much about it, because the Author Reveals haven't gone up yet, but definitely the fic I wrote for dwsanta. I had high expectations for myself and wanted to really please and impress my recipient, and the prompt I was given and story I chose to tell (and the characters I told it with) were decidedly outside of my comfort zone.
Easiest To Write: Remnants. I knew exactly what I wanted to say from the second I read Mary's prompt, and I said it. Yes, it's short, but it accomplishes my goal concisely. No more or less than I imagined it would be.
Biggest surprise: Probably the biggest surprise is Will That Be All?, for the sheer fact that it's not Doctor Who. I'm not really one to experiment with new fandoms or pairings once I've gotten established, but Tony/Pepper kinda swept me off my feet for a bit. I'm glad I broadened my horizons enough to try it. (And lol, I still have another half-complete Iron Man fic waiting on the hard drive; fail, self.)
This year's theme and the story that demonstrates it most: Um, is "Rose Tyler is a BAMF, the Doctor is lovely, and theirs is a forever love" a theme? No? Damn. But I guess the thing that really stands out in my work is the persistence of true love. Not the inevitability, but the inspiration. Loving other people makes us better. It makes us stronger and more capable and more motivated; makes us both selfish and selfless at the same time, and there is nothing more gloriously human. No character embodies that better than Rose Tyler, and so the fic I think demonstrates it most is Climbing Back. It's the slightly more hopeful cousin of Baying at the Moon, and I think it really captures how fierce love is the most powerful ally a person can have.
What's next for 2011: Hopefully, I'll keep up with the Doctor Who stuff, though probably not as voraciously as I did. I've got several Tangled pieces in the works that should be out relatively soon, and a great deal of unposted Secret Diary of a Call Girl material that I can't decide if I should expand upon or just leave as-is. Either way, I'm sure there'll be more of that once the new series starts. I dunno. A bit of Easy A? The next big fandom time commitment I want to make is Battlestar Galactica, but I was sure I'd get to that in 2010 and that didn't happen. We'll see.