End-of-Year Writing Meme
This is mostly the same meme I did last year, taken, mixed and adapted from a variety of memes and people.
Total number of posted stories in 2015: 11 (yeah, that could have been better)
I kept track of my writing in a spreadsheet again, thanks to
inkingitout and the fabulous
kate, so have some word count statistics:
Total word count (posted): 72,101
Total word count (written): 185,668
Highest monthly word count (posted): 52,593 (October)
Highest monthly word count (written): 50,985 (October)
Most words written in a day: 5,172 (23rd October)
Fewest words written in a day: 3 (2nd September)
Fandoms written in:
Doctor Who/Torchwood (4), Grimm (2), Legend of the Seeker (1), Once Upon a Time in Wonderland (1), Original (1), Rotkäppchen/Little Red Riding Hood (1), Christabel (1)
Though the Little Red fic is basically an original fic as well, since it uses neither the characters nor the world of the original, just the archetypes and the motifs ...
Fandoms I wouldn't have expected to write this year:
Little Red Riding Hood was a last-minute addition to my
femslashex offers - it's not the sort of thing I would have expected to write. But I think it went pretty well, all in all. :)
Looking back, did you write more fic than you thought you would this year, less, or about what you'd predicted?
Just as last year, though for different reasons: less than I thought at the start of the year; far more than I came to think by about the middle of the year.
As usual, I had big hopes at the start of the year - but unlike 2014, those went down the drain right away, and I never quite got off the ground. Then I got ill and wrote next to nothing for several months. By that point I expected nothing more from the rest of the year - a few exchange fics and nothing else.
And then, in July, I did Camp NaNo, discovered the magic of writing sprints, and wrote like a fiend for a few months. Only, of course, to drop right back into a black hole at the end of October. But, um, my monthly word counts for this year look like this:
So, no matter what things looked like in the middle, I ended up not just reaching my
inkingitout pledge (which was 100,000 words), but exceeding it by far.
What's your own favorite story of the year?
That would be the WIP of Doom, otherwise known as Glass on the Ground. It's a massive Grimm season 5 AU, plotted and written (well, the rough draft) before any spoilers for the season came out, and I got up to chapter 9 before I ran into a snag with the rewriting and editing, took a break, and then ... well. Here we are. I've figured out how to continue, and I'm going to do my damnedest to finish this thing as quickly as I can. I love it, and I want it to be finished.
I'm really happy with the way this has turned out, including all the things that ended up much closer to canon than I thought they would be. That is to say, I started out with what I thought was a very plausible and likely speculation, but I didn't get serious about writing it until the point where spoilers and interviews and so on made it sound like the show would end up going in a very different direction.
Well, surprise - the different direction is there, of course, but so many of the things I extrapolated from the ending of season 4 did end up similar to what I had envisioned, and I think that's brilliant. Particularly since a) I like what the show ended up doing (minor caveats aside), but b) the show's version in no way undermines my own story or makes it less enjoyable to me. (I was afraid that would happen, at a certain point.)
I love that one to pieces, and I'm very sad I couldn't manage to finish it in 2015.
My best story of this year:
I think that's Glass on the Ground as well (see above).
My most popular story of this year:
Most popular by AO3 hit count: Glass on the Ground (Grimm, Nick/Renard/Juliette), or for single-chapter fics, Thin Lines (Doctor Who, Twelve/Jack)
Most popular by AO3 kudos: Glass on the Ground (again), or for single-chapter fics, Thin Lines (again)
Most popular by AO3 bookmarks: oh shock, it's Glass again! or, surprisingly, for single-chapter fics, The Path of Wolves (Little Red Riding Hood, Red/Wolf femslash)
Most popular by comments (AO3, LJ, Teaspoon): Glass, by a large margin, or The Path of Wolves (again)
Story of mine most under-appreciated by the universe, in my opinion:
All of them? As usual? *g*
Seriously, though - while I can't say I expected more comments or kudos than I got, my Yuletide fic Make Answer to the Clock is for a fairly well-known poem, Coleridge's Christabel, and I thought that would at least get it more hits. Of course fewer hits mean a pretty amazing hits:kudos ratio, so I'm not complaining. Just a bit surprised, and since I really like how this story turned out, I'm going to nominate it for "most under-appreciated". *g*
Otherwise I'd have to say Glass again, because WIP or no, other WIPs in this fandom get far more hits, comments and kudos. Of course, other WIPs in this fandom aren't for a teeny-tiny OT3 that has a total of 8 works on AO3, two of which are mine. *g*
Most fun story to write:
I didn't really get to the fun place with the writing, this year - everything was hard work. (Well, everything I actually ended up posting.) What was fun was that for a while there, the words were flowing so easily, it was like magic. I want that back, dammit.
Sexiest story/story with the single sexiest moment:
I didn't really write a "sexy story" this year, so we'll have to go with sexy moments. Hm, let's say Thin Lines (Doctor Who, Twelve/Jack), when Jack says, "If you stay, I'm going to hurt you."
Or the first chapter of Glass, in the build-up to ill-advised grief-fuelled drunken sex, Nick's and Renard's hands inadvertently touching when Nick reaches for Renard's glass.
Pick your poison. :)
Hardest story to write:
Glass, seeing as how it's still not finished. Or rather, Glass Chapter 10, which is the one I got stuck on. The sequence of events was perfectly clear - hell, everything was perfectly clear in theory, after I'd settled on some basic changes early in November, but I just couldn't make it sound right on the page. It too me nearly two months to figure out how to make it work, and I'm still not sure why it was so hard.
(Of course, by that point I was right in the middle of the Christmas/Yuletide rush, so, no time to actually write. But with the holidays behind me, I'll get right back to it.)
Did you take any writing risks this year?
For the first time, I posted a WIP (that is, Glass, AGAIN). I had a rough draft of the complete story when I started, but there was a lot of editing and rewriting to do, and I did it chapter by chapter, posting as I went. For nine chapters and about 50,000 words, that worked out just fine, and then ... *sighs*
I can't quite call it a success, considering, but I don't regret it. Of course half the problem was that I was trying really hard to finish the whole thing before season 5 started, at which I failed spectacularly, but at least I stopped at a reasonably good stopping point, and the season didn't actually interfere with my fic, even though I'd expected that it would. So it's not as bad as it could be, and if I can get it finished reasonably quickly now, I think it still worked out well enough.
The next time I try something like this, I won't do it on such a tight deadline, though. I really exhausted myself in October, and that doesn't have to happen again.
Do you have any fanfic or profic goals for the New Year?
A few: keep up the write-every-day project, finish Glass, write more (and finish more) than last year. That's plenty, right?
Stories I haven't yet written, but intend to:
That Grimm season 4 AU epic I actually mentioned in this meme last year! I fell out of writing (well, writing more than alibi sentences, anyway) for too long this year to tackle it, and by the time I got back into writing, Glass was more immediate and more urgent, and looked more finishable. But I still intend to tackle that AU next hiatus.
Also, there are a few Doctor Who/Torchwood ones that I've been meaning to write or finish for ages.
And some original fic. Fingers crossed.
I'd like to thank the academy...
People I coudldn't have done without: fluffyllama, wojelah, navaan, seshat_maat and everyone at my NaNo cabin (which is in fact still going strong, over on slack). Thank you so much, all of you! You're the bestest. ♥ ♥ ♥
Total number of posted stories in 2015: 11 (yeah, that could have been better)
I kept track of my writing in a spreadsheet again, thanks to
inkingitout and the fabulous
kate, so have some word count statistics:
Total word count (posted): 72,101
Total word count (written): 185,668
Highest monthly word count (posted): 52,593 (October)
Highest monthly word count (written): 50,985 (October)
Most words written in a day: 5,172 (23rd October)
Fewest words written in a day: 3 (2nd September)
Fandoms written in:
Doctor Who/Torchwood (4), Grimm (2), Legend of the Seeker (1), Once Upon a Time in Wonderland (1), Original (1), Rotkäppchen/Little Red Riding Hood (1), Christabel (1)
Though the Little Red fic is basically an original fic as well, since it uses neither the characters nor the world of the original, just the archetypes and the motifs ...
Fandoms I wouldn't have expected to write this year:
Little Red Riding Hood was a last-minute addition to my
femslashex offers - it's not the sort of thing I would have expected to write. But I think it went pretty well, all in all. :)
Looking back, did you write more fic than you thought you would this year, less, or about what you'd predicted?
Just as last year, though for different reasons: less than I thought at the start of the year; far more than I came to think by about the middle of the year.
As usual, I had big hopes at the start of the year - but unlike 2014, those went down the drain right away, and I never quite got off the ground. Then I got ill and wrote next to nothing for several months. By that point I expected nothing more from the rest of the year - a few exchange fics and nothing else.
And then, in July, I did Camp NaNo, discovered the magic of writing sprints, and wrote like a fiend for a few months. Only, of course, to drop right back into a black hole at the end of October. But, um, my monthly word counts for this year look like this:
So, no matter what things looked like in the middle, I ended up not just reaching my
inkingitout pledge (which was 100,000 words), but exceeding it by far.
What's your own favorite story of the year?
That would be the WIP of Doom, otherwise known as Glass on the Ground. It's a massive Grimm season 5 AU, plotted and written (well, the rough draft) before any spoilers for the season came out, and I got up to chapter 9 before I ran into a snag with the rewriting and editing, took a break, and then ... well. Here we are. I've figured out how to continue, and I'm going to do my damnedest to finish this thing as quickly as I can. I love it, and I want it to be finished.
I'm really happy with the way this has turned out, including all the things that ended up much closer to canon than I thought they would be. That is to say, I started out with what I thought was a very plausible and likely speculation, but I didn't get serious about writing it until the point where spoilers and interviews and so on made it sound like the show would end up going in a very different direction.
Well, surprise - the different direction is there, of course, but so many of the things I extrapolated from the ending of season 4 did end up similar to what I had envisioned, and I think that's brilliant. Particularly since a) I like what the show ended up doing (minor caveats aside), but b) the show's version in no way undermines my own story or makes it less enjoyable to me. (I was afraid that would happen, at a certain point.)
I love that one to pieces, and I'm very sad I couldn't manage to finish it in 2015.
My best story of this year:
I think that's Glass on the Ground as well (see above).
My most popular story of this year:
Most popular by AO3 hit count: Glass on the Ground (Grimm, Nick/Renard/Juliette), or for single-chapter fics, Thin Lines (Doctor Who, Twelve/Jack)
Most popular by AO3 kudos: Glass on the Ground (again), or for single-chapter fics, Thin Lines (again)
Most popular by AO3 bookmarks: oh shock, it's Glass again! or, surprisingly, for single-chapter fics, The Path of Wolves (Little Red Riding Hood, Red/Wolf femslash)
Most popular by comments (AO3, LJ, Teaspoon): Glass, by a large margin, or The Path of Wolves (again)
Story of mine most under-appreciated by the universe, in my opinion:
All of them? As usual? *g*
Seriously, though - while I can't say I expected more comments or kudos than I got, my Yuletide fic Make Answer to the Clock is for a fairly well-known poem, Coleridge's Christabel, and I thought that would at least get it more hits. Of course fewer hits mean a pretty amazing hits:kudos ratio, so I'm not complaining. Just a bit surprised, and since I really like how this story turned out, I'm going to nominate it for "most under-appreciated". *g*
Otherwise I'd have to say Glass again, because WIP or no, other WIPs in this fandom get far more hits, comments and kudos. Of course, other WIPs in this fandom aren't for a teeny-tiny OT3 that has a total of 8 works on AO3, two of which are mine. *g*
Most fun story to write:
I didn't really get to the fun place with the writing, this year - everything was hard work. (Well, everything I actually ended up posting.) What was fun was that for a while there, the words were flowing so easily, it was like magic. I want that back, dammit.
Sexiest story/story with the single sexiest moment:
I didn't really write a "sexy story" this year, so we'll have to go with sexy moments. Hm, let's say Thin Lines (Doctor Who, Twelve/Jack), when Jack says, "If you stay, I'm going to hurt you."
Or the first chapter of Glass, in the build-up to ill-advised grief-fuelled drunken sex, Nick's and Renard's hands inadvertently touching when Nick reaches for Renard's glass.
Pick your poison. :)
Hardest story to write:
Glass, seeing as how it's still not finished. Or rather, Glass Chapter 10, which is the one I got stuck on. The sequence of events was perfectly clear - hell, everything was perfectly clear in theory, after I'd settled on some basic changes early in November, but I just couldn't make it sound right on the page. It too me nearly two months to figure out how to make it work, and I'm still not sure why it was so hard.
(Of course, by that point I was right in the middle of the Christmas/Yuletide rush, so, no time to actually write. But with the holidays behind me, I'll get right back to it.)
Did you take any writing risks this year?
For the first time, I posted a WIP (that is, Glass, AGAIN). I had a rough draft of the complete story when I started, but there was a lot of editing and rewriting to do, and I did it chapter by chapter, posting as I went. For nine chapters and about 50,000 words, that worked out just fine, and then ... *sighs*
I can't quite call it a success, considering, but I don't regret it. Of course half the problem was that I was trying really hard to finish the whole thing before season 5 started, at which I failed spectacularly, but at least I stopped at a reasonably good stopping point, and the season didn't actually interfere with my fic, even though I'd expected that it would. So it's not as bad as it could be, and if I can get it finished reasonably quickly now, I think it still worked out well enough.
The next time I try something like this, I won't do it on such a tight deadline, though. I really exhausted myself in October, and that doesn't have to happen again.
Do you have any fanfic or profic goals for the New Year?
A few: keep up the write-every-day project, finish Glass, write more (and finish more) than last year. That's plenty, right?
Stories I haven't yet written, but intend to:
That Grimm season 4 AU epic I actually mentioned in this meme last year! I fell out of writing (well, writing more than alibi sentences, anyway) for too long this year to tackle it, and by the time I got back into writing, Glass was more immediate and more urgent, and looked more finishable. But I still intend to tackle that AU next hiatus.
Also, there are a few Doctor Who/Torchwood ones that I've been meaning to write or finish for ages.
And some original fic. Fingers crossed.
I'd like to thank the academy...
People I coudldn't have done without: fluffyllama, wojelah, navaan, seshat_maat and everyone at my NaNo cabin (which is in fact still going strong, over on slack). Thank you so much, all of you! You're the bestest. ♥ ♥ ♥