2014: a writing round-up
Dec. 31st, 2014 07:42 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenayGanked from sineala last year, and repeated due to cool questions :-).
This year I wrote and posted:
237,120 words in 30 fics for several fandoms, most falling under the Marvel Cinematic Universe somewhere, apart from my Yuletide fics. This is less than last year's total, but if you add in the ~140k of original fiction that I've written, my tally for words for the year is ridiculous. I'm pretty proud of what I've achieved this year.
Overall Thoughts:
It's been a good year. My published fic tally is down from last year, but I did write a lot of original fiction--one of my 2014 goals--and the fic I published is all stuff that I like and feel proud of. At the end of the day, feeling pleased with what I did is much more important than the volume of what I posted.
Looking back, did you write more fic than you thought you would this year, less, or about what you'd predicted?
Definitely more, but in different areas from what I thought I'd write. I didn't expect to write so much original fiction, and I didn't expect to write some of the big AUs I took on.
What pairing/genre/fandom did you write that you would never have predicted in January?
Steve/Bucky. I had no idea that I'd end up writing any fics for that pairing because I'd been pretty solidly OTP in my m/m writing. Darcy/Sif was also unexpected, and probably wouldn't have happened without the push from the femslash ficathon.
What's your own favorite story of the year? Not the most popular, but the one that makes you happiest?
Winter Solidier's Redemption. It felt easy in a way that not many fics do, so it just flowed out without me having to push for the words. Some of the scenes were so intense to write because I got completely caught up in the story and didn't come up for air for hours, which I always regard as a good sign.
Plus, I got to write a massive airship battle, which was ridiculous fun.
Did you take any writing risks this year? What did you learn from them?
I wrote a story that was totally outside my comfort zone, A Thousand Miles and Poles Apart. There was no big adventure plotline, it was all about characters and feelings and how that impacts on the characters' lives. It was 46k of movie making and people being crap at relationships and nearly ruining everything before they figure out what they're doing. The fic contained way more sex than I usually put on the page, the plot revolved around people making bad decisions because they're afraid of something, and it was a tangled and messy relationship story in a way that I don't usually touch.
Oh, and I also had to plot out a movie and I took the risk of adding in scenes from the movie into the story, due to the parallels and to give readers a flavour of how the movie and the people making it were all tied together.
So, structurally and in just about every way, this fic was way outside my comfort zone, and it was a big writing risk for me. What did I learn? That I can write stories like that and make them work, which I didn't expect.
And that people are very invested in watching a movie about gay spies reluctantly falling for each other while saving the world :-D
From my past year of writing, what was....
My best story of this year:
It's really hard to pick one of my babies, because I'm pleased with how they all turned out. The two fics I wrote for Marvel Big Bang, which I've already discussed, are probably my best fic writing of the year for different reasons: Winter Soldier's Redemption, and A Thousand Miles and Poles Apart.
My most popular story of this year:
Hands down, A Thousand Miles and Poles apart. I published it on November 10th, and it's already outstripped everything else I wrote all year in terms of hits, bookmarks, comments, and kudos. By a significant margin. The fic that I thought was going to be my least popular fic ever, might turn out to be my most popular. Which shows how good I am at predicting responses!
Story of mine most under-appreciated by the universe, in my opinion:
Winter Soldier's Redemption. Apparently Bucky/Steve readers aren't into steampunk AUs.
Most fun story to write:
Don't Look (Don't Stop Looking). It was pure fun to write from start to beginning, and I cackled out loud at some of the situations I put Clint in.
Story with the single sexiest moment:
Despite the porn levels of A Thousand Miles and Poles Apart, it's probably either most of Don't Look, or the interrupted tail porn in Better the Devil You Know. Sexy isn't always about the explicitness, I've learned.
Most "Holy crap, that's wrong, even for you" story:
I don't think there actually was one this year. Must do better next year :-)
Story that shifted my own perceptions of the characters:
A Thousand Miles and Poles Apart, for a lot of reasons. Also, a short I wrote called The Lies Behind the Masks. Both of those fics made me think about the characters in new ways, for different reasons.
Hardest story to write:
Here There Be Dragons. Not because that fic itself was the hardest to write, it was quite fun, but it was my second attempt at writing a fic for the inaugural AoS Big Bang. I wrote 22k of high school AU fic and, with four weeks to the rough draft deadline, scrapped the lot because it was terrible and the plot was so broken it couldn't be fixed. The HS AU was hard to write and I realised, only just in time, that the reason it wasn't working was because the characters didn't fit the plot I was trying to write and that's why it was like pulling teeth. So I had to come up with something new that actually worked, just as a lot of big changes were happening on the source show. I did it, and I'm happy with the result, but writing the first fic was a miserable experience and writing the second fic was a huge pressure thing to get the rough draft done on time.
Biggest Disappointment:
I can honestly say, again, there wasn't one.
Biggest Surprise:
The reaction to A Thousand Miles and Poles Apart. I was genuinely shocked by the wonderful feedback I got, and by the number of people who really want to watch the movie I invented for it :-)
Most Unintentionally Telling Story:
I'm not sure there is one this year. Readers are free to disagree! I'm pretty sure that all my most personal and meta feelings went into the original novel I'm just finishing.
Fic-writing goals for 2015:
1. Princess Amerikate (a Princess Diaries fusion AU, with a Kate Bishop/America Chavez romance).
2. The Beauty and the Beast (late 80s TV show version) fusion AU I've been plotting for Clint/Coulson. With Clint as the VIncent analogue, to subvert the trope slightly.
3. Sequel to Clockwork Murders.
3. At least one of the above will be my Marvel Big Bang entry this year :-D
4. Send an original novel out to agents.
5. Write another original novel.
6. Have fun with everything I write
sineala last year, and repeated due to cool questions :-).This year I wrote and posted:
237,120 words in 30 fics for several fandoms, most falling under the Marvel Cinematic Universe somewhere, apart from my Yuletide fics. This is less than last year's total, but if you add in the ~140k of original fiction that I've written, my tally for words for the year is ridiculous. I'm pretty proud of what I've achieved this year.
Overall Thoughts:
It's been a good year. My published fic tally is down from last year, but I did write a lot of original fiction--one of my 2014 goals--and the fic I published is all stuff that I like and feel proud of. At the end of the day, feeling pleased with what I did is much more important than the volume of what I posted.
Looking back, did you write more fic than you thought you would this year, less, or about what you'd predicted?
Definitely more, but in different areas from what I thought I'd write. I didn't expect to write so much original fiction, and I didn't expect to write some of the big AUs I took on.
What pairing/genre/fandom did you write that you would never have predicted in January?
Steve/Bucky. I had no idea that I'd end up writing any fics for that pairing because I'd been pretty solidly OTP in my m/m writing. Darcy/Sif was also unexpected, and probably wouldn't have happened without the push from the femslash ficathon.
What's your own favorite story of the year? Not the most popular, but the one that makes you happiest?
Winter Solidier's Redemption. It felt easy in a way that not many fics do, so it just flowed out without me having to push for the words. Some of the scenes were so intense to write because I got completely caught up in the story and didn't come up for air for hours, which I always regard as a good sign.
Plus, I got to write a massive airship battle, which was ridiculous fun.
Did you take any writing risks this year? What did you learn from them?
I wrote a story that was totally outside my comfort zone, A Thousand Miles and Poles Apart. There was no big adventure plotline, it was all about characters and feelings and how that impacts on the characters' lives. It was 46k of movie making and people being crap at relationships and nearly ruining everything before they figure out what they're doing. The fic contained way more sex than I usually put on the page, the plot revolved around people making bad decisions because they're afraid of something, and it was a tangled and messy relationship story in a way that I don't usually touch.
Oh, and I also had to plot out a movie and I took the risk of adding in scenes from the movie into the story, due to the parallels and to give readers a flavour of how the movie and the people making it were all tied together.
So, structurally and in just about every way, this fic was way outside my comfort zone, and it was a big writing risk for me. What did I learn? That I can write stories like that and make them work, which I didn't expect.
And that people are very invested in watching a movie about gay spies reluctantly falling for each other while saving the world :-D
From my past year of writing, what was....
My best story of this year:
It's really hard to pick one of my babies, because I'm pleased with how they all turned out. The two fics I wrote for Marvel Big Bang, which I've already discussed, are probably my best fic writing of the year for different reasons: Winter Soldier's Redemption, and A Thousand Miles and Poles Apart.
My most popular story of this year:
Hands down, A Thousand Miles and Poles apart. I published it on November 10th, and it's already outstripped everything else I wrote all year in terms of hits, bookmarks, comments, and kudos. By a significant margin. The fic that I thought was going to be my least popular fic ever, might turn out to be my most popular. Which shows how good I am at predicting responses!
Story of mine most under-appreciated by the universe, in my opinion:
Winter Soldier's Redemption. Apparently Bucky/Steve readers aren't into steampunk AUs.
Most fun story to write:
Don't Look (Don't Stop Looking). It was pure fun to write from start to beginning, and I cackled out loud at some of the situations I put Clint in.
Story with the single sexiest moment:
Despite the porn levels of A Thousand Miles and Poles Apart, it's probably either most of Don't Look, or the interrupted tail porn in Better the Devil You Know. Sexy isn't always about the explicitness, I've learned.
Most "Holy crap, that's wrong, even for you" story:
I don't think there actually was one this year. Must do better next year :-)
Story that shifted my own perceptions of the characters:
A Thousand Miles and Poles Apart, for a lot of reasons. Also, a short I wrote called The Lies Behind the Masks. Both of those fics made me think about the characters in new ways, for different reasons.
Hardest story to write:
Here There Be Dragons. Not because that fic itself was the hardest to write, it was quite fun, but it was my second attempt at writing a fic for the inaugural AoS Big Bang. I wrote 22k of high school AU fic and, with four weeks to the rough draft deadline, scrapped the lot because it was terrible and the plot was so broken it couldn't be fixed. The HS AU was hard to write and I realised, only just in time, that the reason it wasn't working was because the characters didn't fit the plot I was trying to write and that's why it was like pulling teeth. So I had to come up with something new that actually worked, just as a lot of big changes were happening on the source show. I did it, and I'm happy with the result, but writing the first fic was a miserable experience and writing the second fic was a huge pressure thing to get the rough draft done on time.
Biggest Disappointment:
I can honestly say, again, there wasn't one.
Biggest Surprise:
The reaction to A Thousand Miles and Poles Apart. I was genuinely shocked by the wonderful feedback I got, and by the number of people who really want to watch the movie I invented for it :-)
Most Unintentionally Telling Story:
I'm not sure there is one this year. Readers are free to disagree! I'm pretty sure that all my most personal and meta feelings went into the original novel I'm just finishing.
Fic-writing goals for 2015:
1. Princess Amerikate (a Princess Diaries fusion AU, with a Kate Bishop/America Chavez romance).
2. The Beauty and the Beast (late 80s TV show version) fusion AU I've been plotting for Clint/Coulson. With Clint as the VIncent analogue, to subvert the trope slightly.
3. Sequel to Clockwork Murders.
3. At least one of the above will be my Marvel Big Bang entry this year :-D
4. Send an original novel out to agents.
5. Write another original novel.
6. Have fun with everything I write
no subject
Date: 2014-12-31 06:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-01-06 12:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-01-01 12:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-01-06 12:26 am (UTC)But if I actually want to try out this 'being a published author' thing, I probably have to be able to write that many words in order to publish regularly and not entirely give up fanfic.
no subject
Date: 2015-01-06 01:05 pm (UTC)