Year-End Writer's Meme 2013
A little bit early with it, but I thought I'd do this before the holiday!
Total Number of Completed Stories: As of this writing, 39. It may still be an even 40 if I get more time to write before the New Year!
Overall Thoughts: I had a really, really rough year - especially the first half. My father had a series of strokes late last year and was in and out of hospitals for months. He had three peaceful, happy months at home before he passed away in May - but even those months had their problems, as I had a car accident in March. Needless to say, my writing (and the promise of going to Munich to see the GazettE in September) was what kept me going, and still keeps me going during my ups and downs.
Looking back, did you write more fic than you thought you would this year, less, or about what you'd predicted? A bit less - but then again, at the beginning of the year I couldn’t have predicted what would happen.
What pairing/genre/fandom did you write that you would never have predicted in January? SCREW! I had been kindasorta a fan for awhile - I’d just listened to the music - but this summer, I started actually paying attention to their videos/photos after I read the absolutely adorable Aoi/Kazuki interview (“I love you!” “I’M NOT GAY!”) and fell head over heels with the couple. That led to . . . Byou. Holy canned corn, where has this fangirl-ruining bastard been all my life? Needless to say, he earned a starring role in several fics.
What's your own favorite story of the year? Not the most popular, but the one that makes you happiest? There’s two favorites: A Fairy’s Tale and Part Of Your World. Both of them were longer fics and supernatural AUs in which Kai was some sort of legendary creature (a fairy in the former, a merfolk in the latter). Both of them were long, intense, satisfying experiences to write, and I was very pleased with the end results.
Did you take any writing risks this year? What did you learn from them? I didn’t do anything particularly risky, though I did experiment with some unusual pairings, with mixed results.
Do you have any fanfic or profic goals for the New Year? To continue the porn star AU series that I started with The Camera Eye! I got a little sidetracked from that, and I want to get back to it.
From my past year of writing, what was...
My best story of this year: See the favorite stories above - I really think they came out well, and I’m proud of them.
My most popular story of this year: Boyfriend Material, an Aoi/Ruki fic I did in February, going by the comments on LJ. (Aoi X Ruki and Aoi X Kazuki always seem to be popular pairings.)
Most fun story to write: Tweetless. Going back and forth between the two pairings as each tried to keep the other from knowing they were fooling around (since Ruki and Aoi had both pledged no sex until they got some songs written) was a lot of fun.
Story with the single sexiest moment: Stripteased - Aoi giving a stripping master class to Kazuki, leading to the two of them having sex. Because it’s Aoi and Kazuki plus stripping, so how could it not be sexy? XD (Honorable mention: The Kai/Uruha vampire sex with feeding and bloodplay from Written In Blood.)
Story with the single funniest moment: Teaser, Pleaser - Aoi teasing Kazuki by deliberately getting his name wrong over and over. “Kazoo? Kazootle? Kazoogle?”
Story that shifted my own perceptions of the characters: Bunny-chan and Koneko-kun was a role reversal of the way I usually write Aoi and Ruki - Ruki was very dominant there, Aoi submissive, so it meant bringing out sides of both of them I don’t normally work with. (It’s definitely a trick to make Aoi be submissive and yet still be, well, Aoi).
Hardest story to write: Part of Your World originated from a fanfic challenge on the uruai community which was, well, challenging. I was told that my theme would be postapocalyptic and given a picture of what looked like a world covered by water, save for what looked like walls around a human settlement. Well, I was stumped. How the hell was I going to make an Uruha/Kai romance work in the middle of a terrible Kevin Costner movie? And then, my mind somehow made the connection between “endless water” and “The Little Mermaid,” and the story fell into place from there.
Biggest Disappointment: Kink Bingo. Last year, that writing challenge was a godsend to me - my two cards gave me a ton and a half of ideas, and pushed and challenged me in ways that I hadn’t been since I started writing. If I’d been able to do one of these year-end memes last year (I didn’t have time), I would have been singing the praises of Kink Bingo throughout. I was SO looking forward to it this year, and then . . . they took out most of the yaoi-friendly prompts, in the name of being “more inclusive.” But rather than substituting gender-neutral prompts for them, they put in a bunch that were definitely female-specific (i.e., queening). They also changed a bunch of other, formerly very inspirational prompts to be a lot more generic and a lot less inspirational. Needless to say, I was disappointed as hell (and from what I heard from other people, I wasn’t alone). Fortunately, ldybastet started an alternative challenge called Penisy Kinks Bingo that was specifically designed to be yaoi-friendly, and I’ve gotten quite a few fics out of it - but yeah, seriously disappointed at what happened with the original challenge.
Biggest Surprise: How well Byou/Ruki worked as a couple. It was something I tried out as a one-time thing (in Matchmaker, Matchmaker - because, come on, they’re just asking to be paired, given that they’re the two most orally fixated humans on the planet). I ended up using it in several more fics. I just love how they play off each other - Byou being slyly seductive, Ruki being the diva who isn’t going to let this bastard get the upper hand - except they’re getting the upper hand on each other all the time. Like Kai and Shou, they’re a seeming mismatch at first glance that works because they’re more evenly matched than you’d think they’d be.
Total Number of Completed Stories: As of this writing, 39. It may still be an even 40 if I get more time to write before the New Year!
Overall Thoughts: I had a really, really rough year - especially the first half. My father had a series of strokes late last year and was in and out of hospitals for months. He had three peaceful, happy months at home before he passed away in May - but even those months had their problems, as I had a car accident in March. Needless to say, my writing (and the promise of going to Munich to see the GazettE in September) was what kept me going, and still keeps me going during my ups and downs.
Looking back, did you write more fic than you thought you would this year, less, or about what you'd predicted? A bit less - but then again, at the beginning of the year I couldn’t have predicted what would happen.
What pairing/genre/fandom did you write that you would never have predicted in January? SCREW! I had been kindasorta a fan for awhile - I’d just listened to the music - but this summer, I started actually paying attention to their videos/photos after I read the absolutely adorable Aoi/Kazuki interview (“I love you!” “I’M NOT GAY!”) and fell head over heels with the couple. That led to . . . Byou. Holy canned corn, where has this fangirl-ruining bastard been all my life? Needless to say, he earned a starring role in several fics.
What's your own favorite story of the year? Not the most popular, but the one that makes you happiest? There’s two favorites: A Fairy’s Tale and Part Of Your World. Both of them were longer fics and supernatural AUs in which Kai was some sort of legendary creature (a fairy in the former, a merfolk in the latter). Both of them were long, intense, satisfying experiences to write, and I was very pleased with the end results.
Did you take any writing risks this year? What did you learn from them? I didn’t do anything particularly risky, though I did experiment with some unusual pairings, with mixed results.
Do you have any fanfic or profic goals for the New Year? To continue the porn star AU series that I started with The Camera Eye! I got a little sidetracked from that, and I want to get back to it.
From my past year of writing, what was...
My best story of this year: See the favorite stories above - I really think they came out well, and I’m proud of them.
My most popular story of this year: Boyfriend Material, an Aoi/Ruki fic I did in February, going by the comments on LJ. (Aoi X Ruki and Aoi X Kazuki always seem to be popular pairings.)
Most fun story to write: Tweetless. Going back and forth between the two pairings as each tried to keep the other from knowing they were fooling around (since Ruki and Aoi had both pledged no sex until they got some songs written) was a lot of fun.
Story with the single sexiest moment: Stripteased - Aoi giving a stripping master class to Kazuki, leading to the two of them having sex. Because it’s Aoi and Kazuki plus stripping, so how could it not be sexy? XD (Honorable mention: The Kai/Uruha vampire sex with feeding and bloodplay from Written In Blood.)
Story with the single funniest moment: Teaser, Pleaser - Aoi teasing Kazuki by deliberately getting his name wrong over and over. “Kazoo? Kazootle? Kazoogle?”
Story that shifted my own perceptions of the characters: Bunny-chan and Koneko-kun was a role reversal of the way I usually write Aoi and Ruki - Ruki was very dominant there, Aoi submissive, so it meant bringing out sides of both of them I don’t normally work with. (It’s definitely a trick to make Aoi be submissive and yet still be, well, Aoi).
Hardest story to write: Part of Your World originated from a fanfic challenge on the uruai community which was, well, challenging. I was told that my theme would be postapocalyptic and given a picture of what looked like a world covered by water, save for what looked like walls around a human settlement. Well, I was stumped. How the hell was I going to make an Uruha/Kai romance work in the middle of a terrible Kevin Costner movie? And then, my mind somehow made the connection between “endless water” and “The Little Mermaid,” and the story fell into place from there.
Biggest Disappointment: Kink Bingo. Last year, that writing challenge was a godsend to me - my two cards gave me a ton and a half of ideas, and pushed and challenged me in ways that I hadn’t been since I started writing. If I’d been able to do one of these year-end memes last year (I didn’t have time), I would have been singing the praises of Kink Bingo throughout. I was SO looking forward to it this year, and then . . . they took out most of the yaoi-friendly prompts, in the name of being “more inclusive.” But rather than substituting gender-neutral prompts for them, they put in a bunch that were definitely female-specific (i.e., queening). They also changed a bunch of other, formerly very inspirational prompts to be a lot more generic and a lot less inspirational. Needless to say, I was disappointed as hell (and from what I heard from other people, I wasn’t alone). Fortunately, ldybastet started an alternative challenge called Penisy Kinks Bingo that was specifically designed to be yaoi-friendly, and I’ve gotten quite a few fics out of it - but yeah, seriously disappointed at what happened with the original challenge.
Biggest Surprise: How well Byou/Ruki worked as a couple. It was something I tried out as a one-time thing (in Matchmaker, Matchmaker - because, come on, they’re just asking to be paired, given that they’re the two most orally fixated humans on the planet). I ended up using it in several more fics. I just love how they play off each other - Byou being slyly seductive, Ruki being the diva who isn’t going to let this bastard get the upper hand - except they’re getting the upper hand on each other all the time. Like Kai and Shou, they’re a seeming mismatch at first glance that works because they’re more evenly matched than you’d think they’d be.