Happy New Year! Belated 2007 round-up
Disorganised as usual, I completely failed to manage a round-up of 2007 before the year actually ended, never mind a New Year post within sneezing distance of the start of 2008. Oh well - a belated Happy New Year, everyone! I hope that everyone had a good time over the holiday period and 2008 is treating people well so far.
I've had a ridiculously long time off over Christmas - I spent a full week at my mum's house, then came back home, celebrated New Year here and then had the pleasure of parenthetical's company for the rest of the week (a joy which will get a post all of its own). There was much eating and drinking and lazing around, which makes me feel slightly guilty (because ZOMG should be doing things!) but ultimately that is what holidays are for, ne? Tomorrow I have to start working like a madwoman again, it was probably wise to rest while the opportunity was there. I've not been around on LJ much, so apologies if I've missed anything.
Not a lot else to say about the holidays, apart from the fact I had a lovely time and was spoilt rotten. Fandom-wise, parenthetical wrote me the hilarious Pop Secret from my prompt of 'popcorn'. I was sort of expecting schmoop and tree-decorating and... well, that is not precisely what I got. Featuring befuddled!Dean and a sneaky, evil Sam of the kind I like the most, along with lots of food and a dash of sex *loves on her* I also posted some Christmas presents for my flist - various icons and multi-fandom drabbles - so if you missed them then check out my Christmas post for some goodies :D
2007 was quite a strange year. Overall it was mostly a pretty good year for me, but it seems to have sucked so badly for so many people that the feeling of being glad to see the back of it has kind of rubbed off on me. On the whole, though, I think it brought positive things in my life. I started a PhD and a new job, and I'm pretty proud of what I have achieved in both, but particularly in my job. PhD-wise, there's still a long way to go, but I laid a solid enough foundation last year to allow me to make some serious progress this year. It was my first year living in the North since I left for university in 1999, and I've really loved being back here. There's something about being close to the place of one's birth that is special - I feel as if I fit into my surroundings in a way I don't elsewhere, even in places I've felt very settled. In addition to that feeling of rightness, I'm living right at the heart of things here, close enough to walk to most of the interesting things there are to see and do, which makes me really happy. I spent two years living out in darkest suburbia, and while I'm not really known for my eagerness to be out and about all the time, it feels good to know I can step out and see a bit of life from time to time.
One of the most exciting aspects of 2007 for me was my participation in fandom. Although I've had my toe dipped in one fandom or another since about 2004, it was not until late 2006 that I started writing fic, and being a producer instead of a consumer has really changed my whole experience of fandom. I've had a vague aspiration to write ever since childhood, but I never really found anything I actually wanted to write about until parenthetical introduced me to Firefly and I started writing fic. I completed NaNo for the first time in 2006, and I'd say that 2007 was the first year I've ever thought of myself as 'a writer'. When I realise that, it feels quite staggering, because writing has become such a fundamental part of my life. Although there have been long dry spells this year when I really struggled to write anything, there's never been a time when writing was out of my mind - I'm chewing over fic ideas or stylistic issues all the time. Writing gives a purposefulness to my free time which I really enjoy, even though there is a lot of time when I'm weeping and wailing and gnashing my teeth about how hard it is, and producing fic which other people actually want to read gives me a huge sense of achievement. The experience of posting fic publicly has also given me much more confidence in regard to participating in fandom in other ways. I comment more on other peoples' writing, I feel more inclined to weigh in on meta discussions, and I've dabbled in other fannish-related things such as icon-making and coding.
The other big fannish activity in my life is of course the complement to writing, beta-reading. In fannish terms, I aspired to be a beta-reader before I ever thought of being a writer, and the extent to which that ambition has been fulfilled quite amazes me. I'm lucky enough to have an amazing mutual beta relationship with parenthetical, who in addition to being a great friend and a great writer is a very experienced and dedicated beta-reader. I've also had a great time working with the lovely aynslee, who I greatly admire and respect both as a writer and as a beta. In addition, I've had the opportunity to do a little bit of betaing for several other great writers, some of whom I admire so much I still can't quite believe they'll even deign to speak to me, never mind trust me with their fics. I truly enjoy betaing, and definitely get as much out of it as I get from writing. There's a huge level of trust inherent in trusting someone to beta your story, so I feel hugely privileged when asked to beta and always try to do they best I possibly can. In the process of trying to articulate exactly why I have an issue with x, y or z, or why I think something works particularly well, I frequently learn a great deal more about language and writing. So, thank you to everyone who's betaed for me, and those of you who have trusted me to beta their writing.
The thing that makes all my fannish activities so rewarding is community. Ever since I discovered online fandom, I've gloried in the way it brings people together. Now that I'm participating more actively, that aspect of fandom has been magnified for me a hundredfold. I've met so many interesting and wonderful people, and been touched and amazed by their kindnesses towards me. I don't think I would have had the courage to go on writing if not for the encouragement I got for my early fics, which were weak to say the least, and I especially value the way Firefly fandom welcomed me in when I was new and scared. More than that, though, I appreciate the friendships I gained through fandom in the course of 2007 - both the ever-deepening one with parenthetical and the newer ones with sarahetc, stormkpr, aynslee, oxoniensis, and many others (I just know I'll have forgotten to name someone really important, but no one is unappreciated, believe me).
It seems appropriate, given all of this, to join in the fic round-up meme. Quite a few of the people I've seen do this commented on how few fics they wrote in 2007 and then posted lists of 80 or more. In the light of that, my total of 20 seems tiny, but given that I wrote 7 in 2006 and none at all in the years before that, I think it's not too shabby. In fact, I'm pleasantly surprised at quite how many there are on this list. Looking back at these fics, I'm also proud of how I have progressed as a writer in the course of this year. Often when I look at my own writing I despair at how very far it is from what I want it to be, but compiling this list I was struck by how much closer I have come to my idea of 'good' since I started. I'm still nowhere near as good as I would like to be (and probably never will be), but seeing that progression gives me the sense that I can keep on improving if I work at it. I've included all the fics actually posted in 2007 (minus a few drabbles too small for consideration) - some were written at the tail-end of 2006, and there are several fics I wrote in 2007 but have not yet posted, so I figure this way is the easiest. In total, I have 4 Firefly, 12 Supernatural, 2 J-squared, and 2 Harry Potter fics. Counting up the total wordcount is way too much effort, but Imperfectly and Phoenix are about 20k and 30k respectively, so I'm guessing it's at least 80k.
Fic posted 2007, in order of posting
So What? (Supernatural; implied Sam/Dean)
The Outback Steakhouse totally is a gourmet restaurant, bitch (Supernatural)
Imperfectly (Supernatural futurefic; Sam/Dean)
The Tianjin Job (Firefly; Zoe/Wash)
Sammy is a sly dog (Supernatural; Sam/Dean)
Hasioa chu: the taming force (small restraint) (Firefly; Jayne)
No such thing as alien sex-pollen (Supernatural; Sam/Dean)
Research projects (Supernatural; Weechesters)
Eric Kripke is an evil fucker (which is why we love him so) (Supernatural RPS; Jared/Jensen)
Kripke's evil knows no bounds (unless you count the handcuffs) (Supernatural RPS; Jared/Jensen)
Vernal Rites (Supernatural)
Mixing Memory and Desire (Harry Potter; Sirius/Remus)
Shih: the army (group action) (Firefly; Zoe)
Fidelius (The Naming of Things) (Harry Potter; Harry/Neville) - remix of Fidelius by neko_chelle
Overwhelm (Supernatural; Sam/Dean) - with parenthetical
Phoenix (Supernatural; Sam/Dean) - with parenthetical
Some urgency fantastic (Supernatural; Sam/Jess)
Chien: gradual progress, growth (Firefly; Zoe)
Stay (Supernatural; Sam/Dean)
For Your Life (Supernatural; Sam/Dean)
Of all of those, I don't think there are any which I totally cringe to look at - there's at least something I like about each one. I still feel a great affection for Imperfectly, which was the main fic I wrote over NaNo 2006 (all the editing went on in 2007) even though I'd write it completely differently if I were to do it again now. I'm pleased with Some urgency fantastic, which gave me agonies in the writing but which I think is probably my most successful porny piece to date, insofar as I managed to convey some of the emotions underlying the sex relatively successfully. I'm also proud of Chien, because it's built on a concept which is potentially very cheesy and (I think) I managed to make it work. Of all the fic I worked on this year, though, Phoenix is definitely the one which I think really stands out. A large part of that is due to the fact it was co-written with parenthetical, whose great writing enlivened the fic and inspired me, but I know that we genuinely collaborated, so I don't discount my own input. I love the casefile and the original characters, and the emotional territory it covered for the Winchesters. I also love the fact that we worked on it and polished it so intensively - it really is the best we could possibly make it. I try to always get my fic to as high a standard as possible, but working with parenthetical really raised the bar, and certainly we've never given quite the same level of obsessive attention to anything else. Every chapter had a minimum of 6 editing rounds, and although we nearly went insane from the stress it really paid off. I know I'll be always be proud to say I wrote that fic, without any of the caveats I normally feel about my own writing.
ETA Gosh, almost forgot my other little writing project this year. parenthetical and I have had lots of fun writing things which are totally not goddamn poems, definitely not, on behalf of Sam and Dean. It's mostly a thing to amuse us, but the not-poems are all up at our comm pillow_book. Sam appears to have written 44 in the course of 2007, OMG! *feels productive*
Wow, that was an excessively long bout of rambling. So much for 2007. In 2008, I'm hoping to raise the game both in my writing and in my academic work. I'm not a big fan of New Year's resolutions, but I did like this idea, which came to me via technosage:
The reason most resolutions don't work is that they address only one level of your life. The DO level. It’s the DO-HAVE-BE model. “I will DO this thing.” (i.e., Lose weight) “So I can HAVE this other thing” (Self-Esteem) and I can BE this thing. (Confident.)
The average New Year’s Resolution doesn’t address the core of the issue - the “BE” level.
The best order for creating positive changes in your life is the BE-DO-HAVE model. This means you start from the BE level. When you begin changing on the BE level of your life, then the DO level and the HAVE level follow more easily.
When you start only on the DO level, then all the blocks on the BE level will often become the obstacles you can’t overcome. So instead, pick a word, just one, and definitely no more than three, to be a touchstone for you in the coming year. A word that guides your actions. "Release" - if you need to get rid of clutter in your mind and in your home, have relationships that aren't working or extra pounds you want to be free of, for example.
The concept of a touchstone word for the year really appeals to me, as I think it's something one could return to again and again, whereas the problem with New Year's resolutions is that it is easy to let them slip, and then there seems no point in returning to them. This way, there's no specific goal, but rather a general ethos. I seem to spend a lot of time thinking about what I should be doing, without getting around to doing it, so I'm choosing the word dedicate. Primarily I think of this in the sense of being dedicated to my work - committing to my goals rather than just thinking about them - but the various other aspects of the word also have a lot of significance to different parts of my life. As a spur to the writing part of dedication, I'm planning to write at least a drabble each week, to keep me out of the 'woe is me, I should be writing' headspace (I'm viewing this as a tool to help me achieve my aims rather than a resolution as such). Given that, if anyone feels like giving me a few prompts then that would be awesome (thank you to oxoniensis, who has already given me some AWESOME ones). I don't promise to write to them, but there is a reasonable chance you will get a drabble, at least.
This post seems to have morphed into a giant monster of doom, so the only other thing I shall say is see my shiny new layout! New layout for a new year, oh yes! It is the first time i have ever really customised my journal, and I'm quite pleased with the results. I owe parenthetical a massive debt of thanks for all her help with it, for lo! She did my coding! She even figured out the code for putting the navigation links up in the sidebar, because she is a genius. *loves on her*
I hope all of you have had a good 2008 so far! *wishes you all good things for the coming year*
I've had a ridiculously long time off over Christmas - I spent a full week at my mum's house, then came back home, celebrated New Year here and then had the pleasure of parenthetical's company for the rest of the week (a joy which will get a post all of its own). There was much eating and drinking and lazing around, which makes me feel slightly guilty (because ZOMG should be doing things!) but ultimately that is what holidays are for, ne? Tomorrow I have to start working like a madwoman again, it was probably wise to rest while the opportunity was there. I've not been around on LJ much, so apologies if I've missed anything.
Not a lot else to say about the holidays, apart from the fact I had a lovely time and was spoilt rotten. Fandom-wise, parenthetical wrote me the hilarious Pop Secret from my prompt of 'popcorn'. I was sort of expecting schmoop and tree-decorating and... well, that is not precisely what I got. Featuring befuddled!Dean and a sneaky, evil Sam of the kind I like the most, along with lots of food and a dash of sex *loves on her* I also posted some Christmas presents for my flist - various icons and multi-fandom drabbles - so if you missed them then check out my Christmas post for some goodies :D
2007 was quite a strange year. Overall it was mostly a pretty good year for me, but it seems to have sucked so badly for so many people that the feeling of being glad to see the back of it has kind of rubbed off on me. On the whole, though, I think it brought positive things in my life. I started a PhD and a new job, and I'm pretty proud of what I have achieved in both, but particularly in my job. PhD-wise, there's still a long way to go, but I laid a solid enough foundation last year to allow me to make some serious progress this year. It was my first year living in the North since I left for university in 1999, and I've really loved being back here. There's something about being close to the place of one's birth that is special - I feel as if I fit into my surroundings in a way I don't elsewhere, even in places I've felt very settled. In addition to that feeling of rightness, I'm living right at the heart of things here, close enough to walk to most of the interesting things there are to see and do, which makes me really happy. I spent two years living out in darkest suburbia, and while I'm not really known for my eagerness to be out and about all the time, it feels good to know I can step out and see a bit of life from time to time.
One of the most exciting aspects of 2007 for me was my participation in fandom. Although I've had my toe dipped in one fandom or another since about 2004, it was not until late 2006 that I started writing fic, and being a producer instead of a consumer has really changed my whole experience of fandom. I've had a vague aspiration to write ever since childhood, but I never really found anything I actually wanted to write about until parenthetical introduced me to Firefly and I started writing fic. I completed NaNo for the first time in 2006, and I'd say that 2007 was the first year I've ever thought of myself as 'a writer'. When I realise that, it feels quite staggering, because writing has become such a fundamental part of my life. Although there have been long dry spells this year when I really struggled to write anything, there's never been a time when writing was out of my mind - I'm chewing over fic ideas or stylistic issues all the time. Writing gives a purposefulness to my free time which I really enjoy, even though there is a lot of time when I'm weeping and wailing and gnashing my teeth about how hard it is, and producing fic which other people actually want to read gives me a huge sense of achievement. The experience of posting fic publicly has also given me much more confidence in regard to participating in fandom in other ways. I comment more on other peoples' writing, I feel more inclined to weigh in on meta discussions, and I've dabbled in other fannish-related things such as icon-making and coding.
The other big fannish activity in my life is of course the complement to writing, beta-reading. In fannish terms, I aspired to be a beta-reader before I ever thought of being a writer, and the extent to which that ambition has been fulfilled quite amazes me. I'm lucky enough to have an amazing mutual beta relationship with parenthetical, who in addition to being a great friend and a great writer is a very experienced and dedicated beta-reader. I've also had a great time working with the lovely aynslee, who I greatly admire and respect both as a writer and as a beta. In addition, I've had the opportunity to do a little bit of betaing for several other great writers, some of whom I admire so much I still can't quite believe they'll even deign to speak to me, never mind trust me with their fics. I truly enjoy betaing, and definitely get as much out of it as I get from writing. There's a huge level of trust inherent in trusting someone to beta your story, so I feel hugely privileged when asked to beta and always try to do they best I possibly can. In the process of trying to articulate exactly why I have an issue with x, y or z, or why I think something works particularly well, I frequently learn a great deal more about language and writing. So, thank you to everyone who's betaed for me, and those of you who have trusted me to beta their writing.
The thing that makes all my fannish activities so rewarding is community. Ever since I discovered online fandom, I've gloried in the way it brings people together. Now that I'm participating more actively, that aspect of fandom has been magnified for me a hundredfold. I've met so many interesting and wonderful people, and been touched and amazed by their kindnesses towards me. I don't think I would have had the courage to go on writing if not for the encouragement I got for my early fics, which were weak to say the least, and I especially value the way Firefly fandom welcomed me in when I was new and scared. More than that, though, I appreciate the friendships I gained through fandom in the course of 2007 - both the ever-deepening one with parenthetical and the newer ones with sarahetc, stormkpr, aynslee, oxoniensis, and many others (I just know I'll have forgotten to name someone really important, but no one is unappreciated, believe me).
It seems appropriate, given all of this, to join in the fic round-up meme. Quite a few of the people I've seen do this commented on how few fics they wrote in 2007 and then posted lists of 80 or more. In the light of that, my total of 20 seems tiny, but given that I wrote 7 in 2006 and none at all in the years before that, I think it's not too shabby. In fact, I'm pleasantly surprised at quite how many there are on this list. Looking back at these fics, I'm also proud of how I have progressed as a writer in the course of this year. Often when I look at my own writing I despair at how very far it is from what I want it to be, but compiling this list I was struck by how much closer I have come to my idea of 'good' since I started. I'm still nowhere near as good as I would like to be (and probably never will be), but seeing that progression gives me the sense that I can keep on improving if I work at it. I've included all the fics actually posted in 2007 (minus a few drabbles too small for consideration) - some were written at the tail-end of 2006, and there are several fics I wrote in 2007 but have not yet posted, so I figure this way is the easiest. In total, I have 4 Firefly, 12 Supernatural, 2 J-squared, and 2 Harry Potter fics. Counting up the total wordcount is way too much effort, but Imperfectly and Phoenix are about 20k and 30k respectively, so I'm guessing it's at least 80k.
Fic posted 2007, in order of posting
So What? (Supernatural; implied Sam/Dean)
The Outback Steakhouse totally is a gourmet restaurant, bitch (Supernatural)
Imperfectly (Supernatural futurefic; Sam/Dean)
The Tianjin Job (Firefly; Zoe/Wash)
Sammy is a sly dog (Supernatural; Sam/Dean)
Hasioa chu: the taming force (small restraint) (Firefly; Jayne)
No such thing as alien sex-pollen (Supernatural; Sam/Dean)
Research projects (Supernatural; Weechesters)
Eric Kripke is an evil fucker (which is why we love him so) (Supernatural RPS; Jared/Jensen)
Kripke's evil knows no bounds (unless you count the handcuffs) (Supernatural RPS; Jared/Jensen)
Vernal Rites (Supernatural)
Mixing Memory and Desire (Harry Potter; Sirius/Remus)
Shih: the army (group action) (Firefly; Zoe)
Fidelius (The Naming of Things) (Harry Potter; Harry/Neville) - remix of Fidelius by neko_chelle
Overwhelm (Supernatural; Sam/Dean) - with parenthetical
Phoenix (Supernatural; Sam/Dean) - with parenthetical
Some urgency fantastic (Supernatural; Sam/Jess)
Chien: gradual progress, growth (Firefly; Zoe)
Stay (Supernatural; Sam/Dean)
For Your Life (Supernatural; Sam/Dean)
Of all of those, I don't think there are any which I totally cringe to look at - there's at least something I like about each one. I still feel a great affection for Imperfectly, which was the main fic I wrote over NaNo 2006 (all the editing went on in 2007) even though I'd write it completely differently if I were to do it again now. I'm pleased with Some urgency fantastic, which gave me agonies in the writing but which I think is probably my most successful porny piece to date, insofar as I managed to convey some of the emotions underlying the sex relatively successfully. I'm also proud of Chien, because it's built on a concept which is potentially very cheesy and (I think) I managed to make it work. Of all the fic I worked on this year, though, Phoenix is definitely the one which I think really stands out. A large part of that is due to the fact it was co-written with parenthetical, whose great writing enlivened the fic and inspired me, but I know that we genuinely collaborated, so I don't discount my own input. I love the casefile and the original characters, and the emotional territory it covered for the Winchesters. I also love the fact that we worked on it and polished it so intensively - it really is the best we could possibly make it. I try to always get my fic to as high a standard as possible, but working with parenthetical really raised the bar, and certainly we've never given quite the same level of obsessive attention to anything else. Every chapter had a minimum of 6 editing rounds, and although we nearly went insane from the stress it really paid off. I know I'll be always be proud to say I wrote that fic, without any of the caveats I normally feel about my own writing.
ETA Gosh, almost forgot my other little writing project this year. parenthetical and I have had lots of fun writing things which are totally not goddamn poems, definitely not, on behalf of Sam and Dean. It's mostly a thing to amuse us, but the not-poems are all up at our comm pillow_book. Sam appears to have written 44 in the course of 2007, OMG! *feels productive*
Wow, that was an excessively long bout of rambling. So much for 2007. In 2008, I'm hoping to raise the game both in my writing and in my academic work. I'm not a big fan of New Year's resolutions, but I did like this idea, which came to me via technosage:
The reason most resolutions don't work is that they address only one level of your life. The DO level. It’s the DO-HAVE-BE model. “I will DO this thing.” (i.e., Lose weight) “So I can HAVE this other thing” (Self-Esteem) and I can BE this thing. (Confident.)
The average New Year’s Resolution doesn’t address the core of the issue - the “BE” level.
The best order for creating positive changes in your life is the BE-DO-HAVE model. This means you start from the BE level. When you begin changing on the BE level of your life, then the DO level and the HAVE level follow more easily.
When you start only on the DO level, then all the blocks on the BE level will often become the obstacles you can’t overcome. So instead, pick a word, just one, and definitely no more than three, to be a touchstone for you in the coming year. A word that guides your actions. "Release" - if you need to get rid of clutter in your mind and in your home, have relationships that aren't working or extra pounds you want to be free of, for example.
The concept of a touchstone word for the year really appeals to me, as I think it's something one could return to again and again, whereas the problem with New Year's resolutions is that it is easy to let them slip, and then there seems no point in returning to them. This way, there's no specific goal, but rather a general ethos. I seem to spend a lot of time thinking about what I should be doing, without getting around to doing it, so I'm choosing the word dedicate. Primarily I think of this in the sense of being dedicated to my work - committing to my goals rather than just thinking about them - but the various other aspects of the word also have a lot of significance to different parts of my life. As a spur to the writing part of dedication, I'm planning to write at least a drabble each week, to keep me out of the 'woe is me, I should be writing' headspace (I'm viewing this as a tool to help me achieve my aims rather than a resolution as such). Given that, if anyone feels like giving me a few prompts then that would be awesome (thank you to oxoniensis, who has already given me some AWESOME ones). I don't promise to write to them, but there is a reasonable chance you will get a drabble, at least.
This post seems to have morphed into a giant monster of doom, so the only other thing I shall say is see my shiny new layout! New layout for a new year, oh yes! It is the first time i have ever really customised my journal, and I'm quite pleased with the results. I owe parenthetical a massive debt of thanks for all her help with it, for lo! She did my coding! She even figured out the code for putting the navigation links up in the sidebar, because she is a genius. *loves on her*
I hope all of you have had a good 2008 so far! *wishes you all good things for the coming year*