Writing Meme 2013
Jan. 2nd, 2014 12:10 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerBecause all the cool kids are doing it: yearly writing meme!
This year I wrote and posted:
38 stories in 23 fandoms for 103,646 words
Overall Thoughts:
This was a good writing year, both in terms of total output and in terms of hitting last year’s goals. In January 2013, I wrote that I wanted to “write a long fic or two. By which I mean ‘over 10,000 words,’” and indeed, I wrote two such fics this year, both of which I’m pretty happy with: Loyalty for Felicity and The Unlikely Traitor.
(And an honorable mention should go here to The Threefold Tie, which only clocked in around ~8500, but probably would have been longer if I hadn’t been in such a godawful mental place when I was writing it.)
I don’t think it’s an accident that both of them, even in their titles, reference issues of loyalty: that is clearly one of my themes.
Looking back, did you write more fic than you thought you would this year, less, or about what you'd predicted?
I think I actually predicted I’d hit 100,000 words? I wrote about half that last year, but I only started writing in August, so it seemed like a good guess for a full year’s work.
What pairing/genre/fandom did you write that you would never have predicted in January?
The Lost Prince. It’s a long-forgotten and deeply flawed early twentieth century novel, so who knew there would be an audience for it?
What's your own favorite story of the year? Not the most popular, but the one that makes you happiest?
Oh, this is a hard question. I am fortunate in that I can go back and read my old stories for pleasure and amusement, so I love most of them (although of course occasionally there are times when I reread and think “The hell, self, why did you post this?”).
But I’m tremendously fond of the Diptych in Amber dyad I wrote for Blood Feud, (I and II), because they really do work like a diptych: they strengthen and illuminate each other, and become more interesting viewed in conjunction. Also, I think they’re atmospheric, which is something I admire tremendously but have trouble writing myself.
Did you take any writing risks this year? What did you learn from them?
I posted a number of WIPs before I actually finished them. This is a great way to motivate myself to finish something longer, and I think it also strengthens audience involvement, particularly if the fic is something plotty. It can be a really great experience, and I have another fic idea that I’m planning to post this way. (Lucrezia Borgia, Vampire Hunter!)
But I learned that I really, really, really need to know how the fic is going to end before I start posting it, because if I don’t know how it will end then it probably never will. Instead the posted work in progress will simply hang accusingly over my soul forever and forevermore. (Hello, Lives of Quiet Desperation!)
From my past year of writing, what was....
My best story of this year:
Oh, this is a hard question. Maybe Wings, the Eagle story where Esca has wings… I think the metaphorical and the literal worked together really, really well in that story, and I’m almost certain that if I try to write a sequel I will end up spoiling it.
My most popular story of this year:
By hit count, the Les Mis WIP of death, “Lives of Quiet Desperation.” By reader response, though, definitely The Unlikely Traitor, the Lost Prince fic about loyalty, betrayal, politics and derring-do.
Story of mine most under-appreciated by the universe, in my opinion:
Angels and Demons. Enjolras/Grantaire fandom is huge, so I thought more people would read this...but I think Enjolras/Grantaire fandom and I have very different ideas about what makes Enjolras & Grantaire interesting, because almost no one did.
Most fun story to write:
Doppelganger! The story where Merida meets her Disney princess redesign. It was great fun taking the totally cracky premise and making it make sense in-universe.
Story with the single sexiest moment:
This is a toss-up between Nymphs and Bacchantes, the Ginevra/Lucy Villette fic, and Et Ne Nos Inducas, the Vikings flogging fic.
Most "Holy crap, that's wrong, even for you" story:
I suspect the entirety of my Vikings output falls under this heading...
Story that shifted my own perceptions of the characters:
In Vino Veritas, the Garrow’s Law story about Silvester. I kind of despised Silvester before I wrote the story, and...I still kind of despise him, because he treats the law as a game and barely noticed that it destroys the lives of real people, but he’s much more complex and has a much more complex relationship with Garrow than I realized.
Hardest story to write:
The Threefold Tie. God, it was like pulling teeth. Marcus’s POV didn’t come as naturally as Cottia’s or Esca’s (the only chapter that really flowed was the final one, which is mostly Cottia and Esca talking, and I think it really shows), and I remember it taking forever to write, although AO3 says it only took three weeks.
Biggest Disappointment:
The Les Mis stories, I think, because the only one people cared about was the abysmal modern college/coffeeshop AU (I am pretty sure the mere description proves that I am the disease that is eating fandom). I thought that nearly everything else I wrote for Les Mis was better in every conceivable way, particularly the Requiem duology about Eponine & Cosette.
But hey, the existence of this unfinished modern college/coffeeshop AU should serve to keep me humble, right?
Biggest Surprise:
The existence of The Lost Prince fandom. Oh, and the continuing popularity of my Protector of the Small fics: both Unorthodox Liaisons and A Loyal Man and True have had surprising legs. People have been not only reading, but commenting on them months after I posted.
Most Unintentionally Telling Story:
I don’t think any of them were particularly telling this year.
Fic-writing goals for 2014:
I would like to write more multi-chaptered fics, because I think plotting and pacing are the things I really need to work on (and perhaps also atmosphere, but that’s necessary in a long fic, too).
In particular, I want to finish “Lucrezia Borgia, Vampire Hunter.” Because the world clearly needs a story about cross-dressing Lucrezia Borgia hunting the catacombs under Rome to find her brother Cesare and save him from his vampire lover.
This year I wrote and posted:
38 stories in 23 fandoms for 103,646 words
Overall Thoughts:
This was a good writing year, both in terms of total output and in terms of hitting last year’s goals. In January 2013, I wrote that I wanted to “write a long fic or two. By which I mean ‘over 10,000 words,’” and indeed, I wrote two such fics this year, both of which I’m pretty happy with: Loyalty for Felicity and The Unlikely Traitor.
(And an honorable mention should go here to The Threefold Tie, which only clocked in around ~8500, but probably would have been longer if I hadn’t been in such a godawful mental place when I was writing it.)
I don’t think it’s an accident that both of them, even in their titles, reference issues of loyalty: that is clearly one of my themes.
Looking back, did you write more fic than you thought you would this year, less, or about what you'd predicted?
I think I actually predicted I’d hit 100,000 words? I wrote about half that last year, but I only started writing in August, so it seemed like a good guess for a full year’s work.
What pairing/genre/fandom did you write that you would never have predicted in January?
The Lost Prince. It’s a long-forgotten and deeply flawed early twentieth century novel, so who knew there would be an audience for it?
What's your own favorite story of the year? Not the most popular, but the one that makes you happiest?
Oh, this is a hard question. I am fortunate in that I can go back and read my old stories for pleasure and amusement, so I love most of them (although of course occasionally there are times when I reread and think “The hell, self, why did you post this?”).
But I’m tremendously fond of the Diptych in Amber dyad I wrote for Blood Feud, (I and II), because they really do work like a diptych: they strengthen and illuminate each other, and become more interesting viewed in conjunction. Also, I think they’re atmospheric, which is something I admire tremendously but have trouble writing myself.
Did you take any writing risks this year? What did you learn from them?
I posted a number of WIPs before I actually finished them. This is a great way to motivate myself to finish something longer, and I think it also strengthens audience involvement, particularly if the fic is something plotty. It can be a really great experience, and I have another fic idea that I’m planning to post this way. (Lucrezia Borgia, Vampire Hunter!)
But I learned that I really, really, really need to know how the fic is going to end before I start posting it, because if I don’t know how it will end then it probably never will. Instead the posted work in progress will simply hang accusingly over my soul forever and forevermore. (Hello, Lives of Quiet Desperation!)
From my past year of writing, what was....
My best story of this year:
Oh, this is a hard question. Maybe Wings, the Eagle story where Esca has wings… I think the metaphorical and the literal worked together really, really well in that story, and I’m almost certain that if I try to write a sequel I will end up spoiling it.
My most popular story of this year:
By hit count, the Les Mis WIP of death, “Lives of Quiet Desperation.” By reader response, though, definitely The Unlikely Traitor, the Lost Prince fic about loyalty, betrayal, politics and derring-do.
Story of mine most under-appreciated by the universe, in my opinion:
Angels and Demons. Enjolras/Grantaire fandom is huge, so I thought more people would read this...but I think Enjolras/Grantaire fandom and I have very different ideas about what makes Enjolras & Grantaire interesting, because almost no one did.
Most fun story to write:
Doppelganger! The story where Merida meets her Disney princess redesign. It was great fun taking the totally cracky premise and making it make sense in-universe.
Story with the single sexiest moment:
This is a toss-up between Nymphs and Bacchantes, the Ginevra/Lucy Villette fic, and Et Ne Nos Inducas, the Vikings flogging fic.
Most "Holy crap, that's wrong, even for you" story:
I suspect the entirety of my Vikings output falls under this heading...
Story that shifted my own perceptions of the characters:
In Vino Veritas, the Garrow’s Law story about Silvester. I kind of despised Silvester before I wrote the story, and...I still kind of despise him, because he treats the law as a game and barely noticed that it destroys the lives of real people, but he’s much more complex and has a much more complex relationship with Garrow than I realized.
Hardest story to write:
The Threefold Tie. God, it was like pulling teeth. Marcus’s POV didn’t come as naturally as Cottia’s or Esca’s (the only chapter that really flowed was the final one, which is mostly Cottia and Esca talking, and I think it really shows), and I remember it taking forever to write, although AO3 says it only took three weeks.
Biggest Disappointment:
The Les Mis stories, I think, because the only one people cared about was the abysmal modern college/coffeeshop AU (I am pretty sure the mere description proves that I am the disease that is eating fandom). I thought that nearly everything else I wrote for Les Mis was better in every conceivable way, particularly the Requiem duology about Eponine & Cosette.
But hey, the existence of this unfinished modern college/coffeeshop AU should serve to keep me humble, right?
Biggest Surprise:
The existence of The Lost Prince fandom. Oh, and the continuing popularity of my Protector of the Small fics: both Unorthodox Liaisons and A Loyal Man and True have had surprising legs. People have been not only reading, but commenting on them months after I posted.
Most Unintentionally Telling Story:
I don’t think any of them were particularly telling this year.
Fic-writing goals for 2014:
I would like to write more multi-chaptered fics, because I think plotting and pacing are the things I really need to work on (and perhaps also atmosphere, but that’s necessary in a long fic, too).
In particular, I want to finish “Lucrezia Borgia, Vampire Hunter.” Because the world clearly needs a story about cross-dressing Lucrezia Borgia hunting the catacombs under Rome to find her brother Cesare and save him from his vampire lover.
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