2014 Writing Meme
Originally found this on
seascribe's journal a year ago. Decided to do it again, because I'm bored.
Stories written in
January
1. Star Trek TOS, Episode 18: Arena - If you can call it a story. Technically, it's not. It's a recap/parody. I'm putting it here anyway because it's a fanwork with words and it took a lot of time. ~ 4.800 words
2. else the cold creeps in - due South, gen, PG. Canon-AU that has Fraser and the Rays work together after the show and fail miserably to make things work out between the three of them. ~ 4.600 words
3. Time and Distance - Sanctuary, gen, G. Drabble about Helen's time waiting her way back to the present. ~ 200 words
February - April
Posted a couple of fanworks, but no stories.
May
4. Days - Final Fantasy XIII Universe, Serah/Snow, Fang/Vanille, G. Everyone after the End of Lightning Returns. There are babies, though not the way everyone expected there would be, and the fourth wall is pretty thin in some places. ~ 5.100 words
5. Seventeen Months Gone - Assassin's Creed, gen, G. In which my total inability to think of something good for a Bingo-prompt led to Shaun Hastings being bitchy on a beach. ~ 1.000 words
6. The Shadow - Thief, gen, PG. Takes Karras from the old games and throws him into the setting of the remake to see how he likes it. ~ 1.100 words
June
7. Pandora - Supernatural, gen, PG. Gadreel stream-of-consciousnessing his way through some issues I had with the way his storyline played out. ~ 1.000 words
8. Ground Floor - Supernatural, gen, PG-13. Random piece of disconnected plot written as a frame for one single line that wouldn't leave me alone. ~ 900 words
9. The Cosmos Cares Nothing For Us - Assassin's Creed, gen, PG. Unexpected inspiration struck me in the form of one of those Softer World remixes and demanded I write a story about Lucy and the paths she chose in her life. ~ 3.600 words
July - September
Nothing. I moved, got a new job, not in that order. Weak excuses, I know.
October
10. Because We're All Dead In Here - Supernatural, gen, PG13. A ghost story from the point of view of the ghosts, with Sarah Blake, Kevin, and Sam starring in the role of the ghosts. ~ 2.000 words
November
I did write in November. Did do NaNo and wrote more than 50.000 words. Did not finish the story yet, though, and when I do, it will not be posted here. It's German, anyway.
December
11. Disaster Tourism - Doctor Who (Shalka!Universe), gen with Doctor/Master elements, G. Alison in the TARDIS with two difficult Time Lords and a lot of cats. Written for the Classic Who, Big Finish, and EU Secret Santa, for superpunksuperfunk on tumblr. ~1.100 words
12. With a Gun and a Pack of Sandwiches and Nothing - True Detective, gen, R. Christmas present for nightrider101, in which Marty and Rust hang out in Florida in 2012, solve crimes and have very different opinions on what to do with their past. ~ 8.000 words
This year I wrote and posted:
- about 33.400 words, 12 stories in 9 fandoms.
While by the number of stories it looks like I wrote more than last year, by wordcount it was actually a lot less. In fact, I posted about twenty percent of the words I posted last year, and even the 53.000 unposted words of German story and the unfinished due South fic that is sitting on my laptop don't make that look much better. Still this year felt a lot more active than the last. I also posted a bunch of works that were not writing related and therefore don't feature into this.
I didn't have one all-consuming main fandom at any point of this year, so I spread my creative output across a lot of fandoms, which was nice in a way but didn't leave me with a deep connection to any of those fandoms, even the ones I was already established in.
Looking back, did you write more fic than you thought you would this year, less, or about what you'd predicted?
I wrote more stories than last year which is what I expected as last year's output was miserable. Fewer words, though. In a way, that's satisfying, as writing shorter stories has been something I struggled with for a few years and it was actually one of my goals for this one.
What pairing/genre/fandom did you write that you would never have predicted in January?
Sanctuary. I liked the show but never was part of the fandom and never saw myself writing for it. Final Fantasy XIII - not necessarily the fandom but the focus of the story, in any case. Thief has been an old love of mine since I was a teenager, but the story took me by surprise. And Scream of the Shalka I only watched in November, True Detective was unknown to me until the end of the year, so I definitely didn't see those two coming,
What's your own favorite story of the year? Not the most popular, but the one that makes you happiest?
That's a tough one to answer, as there are a lot of fics I am weirdly satisfied with, all of them among the ones that took me by surprise. If I have to pick one, though, it might be Days, for a lot of small details, or The Shadow. The jury's still out on the True Detictive one.
Did you take any writing risks this year? What did you learn from them?
Taking up the writing project in German was a risk, and it taught me that my embarrassment factor is still enourmous when the idea of my family reading my stuff is involved. Other than that, I tried not to give the reader too much information but to keep the writing within the pov of the narrating character. It ocassionally went wrong, as readers tend to assume all narrators to be reliable.
From my past year of writing, what was....
My best story of this year:
Hard to tell. There are many that I actually like, which is unusual. Is there any single one that I consider better writing than the others, though? Or even just generally good writing. I don't know. They are all short and generally all over the place.
If I have to give one I'll say Time and Distance, because it's a drabble and it's as a drabble should be: short, compact, telling everything it wants to say in very few words,
My most popular story of this year:
I don't think I've had a popular story this year. By number of comments it would be else the cold creeps in, but most of that is discussion. Still, it was probably the one that got a most of reaction from the readers. By way of kudos it was Pandora.
Story of mine most under-appreciated by the universe, in my opinion: All of them? More specifically Days, The Shadow, and The Cosmos Cares Nothing For Us, which received a fair number of kudos for what they are, in relation to the number of hits, but not a single comment, and considering those were all stories I felt strongly about and would have loved to get some feedback on, that was pretty frustrating. Time and Distance and Seventeen Months Gone also got no comments, but there I didn't expect any, and the writing experience was quite a different one. One comment went to Disaster Tourism, and that comment doesn't actually seem to have much to do with the story. It's frustrating because it was a gift for someone and it would have been nice if that person had read and liked it, but I guess that's on me. With a Gun and a Pack of Sandwiches and Nothing received two comments, both of them very good, and a lot of kudos. Here my issue is that I felt very insecure about the fic and the long silence seemed to prove me right.
Most fun story to write: The Star Trek Recap, unsurprisingly, and With a Gun and a Pack of Sandwiches and Nothing, nervewrecking as that was.
Story with the single sexiest moment: Nothing at all has changed in that since last year. No sexiness in my fics, at all. At best, they brush the surface of "cuddly".
Most "Holy crap, that's wrong, even for you" story: There is a scene in Because We're All Dead In Here which paints a very ugly picture of Dean. It didn't feel wrong, though. Canon pretty much went there.
Story that shifted my own perceptions of the characters: I wouldn't say it shifted my perception, but The Cosmos Cares Nothing For Us had me take a much closer look at Lucy than I ever did before and forced me to put my impressions into words.
Hardest story to write: The German one. Other than that, else the cold creeps in. I struggled with that a lot, and nothing ever went the way I wanted it to.
Biggest Disappointment: The lack of feedback. I will not lie and pretend I'm above that. I wrote a lot of stories and posted a lot of art that I knew would not get a lot of attention, but the overwhelming silence that I received on basically everything I did for most of the year really got to me. Posting stuff without receiving any reaction at all starts to feel like talking to a wall after a while, and you can do that only for so long before you start to feel like an idiot.
Biggest Surprise: Few pairings in my stories, and most of the ones I included were het.
Most Unintentionally Telling Story: The German one. :D
Fic-writing goals for 2015: Finish my first genprompt-bingo card. Not many fields left, so that should be possible. Finish The German One, and soon. Grow up some and stop being upset about lack of feedback, or just stop posting fics if I find I can't. Keep exploring mutliple fandoms. Maybe write that long and creepy-ish True Detective fic that keeps haunting my imagination.