#the reason i write so many ficlets is to take a break from this behemoth

[msnihilist]

I might have to make my Ben 10 """oneshot""" a multi-chapter fic, because it's 8.5k words and I'm still in the pre-game.

[luthienebonyx]

2019 Writing review

Gacked (because I’ve been posting on dreamwidth and I’m feeling fannishly old-fashioned) with a tweak or two, from @nire-the-mithridatist and @agirlnamedkeith

Total number of completed stories: 25 (not including various ficlets and prompt fills that have been collected together as one work)

Total number of WIPs started this year and still WIPs: 3

Total word count: 227,381 published words

Fandoms written in: The break-down of my writing fandoms for the year goes like this:

1. Frederica - Georgette Heyer: one 100 word drabble 2. A Countess Below Stairs - Eva Ibbotson: one 13,727 word Yuletide fic 3. Game of Thrones: 27 works totalling 214,004 words 

Looking back, did you write more fic than you thought you would this year, less, or about what you’d expected? Let’s put it this way: in 2018 I posted NOTHING. Apart from a brief burst of activity from late 2016 to mid 2017, I had written NO fanfic in four years. I’d reached the point where I thought I might not ever write fanfic again. 

I expected this year to be the same as last year in terms of fic. I wrote a hundred word drabble last January, and I thought that would be it. And it was, until Game of Thrones finished at the end of May. I started writing the day after the finale aired, because I couldn’t NOT write, and I’ve barely stopped since. 

I’ve written ALMOST (hey, I’m a writer, not a mathematician) a quarter of a million words in seven months. This has never happened to me before in the 20 years since I first started writing fanfic. I’ve never been well enough to do that before. I’ve never written anything like that much in a year, let alone in seven months. But right about the time I started writing again, I also made a few small, but what turned out to be hugely significant changes to my treatment regime. It turns out that when I”m feeling really inspired AND health crashes don’t get in the way of my writing momentum... I just keep going.

What’s your own favorite story of the year? I don’t think I can pick just one. There’s a couple that are favourites for different reasons.  More Than a Memory is special because it was the story that broke my writing drought and wouldn’t let me stop until it was done. I’m also very fond of Beloved, because it’s a particular type of story similar to others that I’ve written in the past, and I was glad to find I hadn’t lost my touch with that sort of thing. And I’ll also include the Aussie Coffee ‘verse in this list, because right now it’s very close to being the longest thing I’ve ever written, and I’m just amazed that I’ve been able to write something like that at all. And there’s my Regency, You I Know, which is the story of my heart that I’ve been wanting to write, in whatever fandom, for YEARS... Am I allowed to have four favourites? Too bad. I do.

Did you take any writing risks this year? I’m never entirely sure what a writing risk is. I’ve written so many things over the years that could be seen as risky from some perspectives that I don’t really think like that. I just write. I suppose starting out in a new fandom writing a story where one half of the main pairing was dead was maybe a little risky. I was honestly surprised that anyone read More Than a Memory, given the premise. I’m not sure that I’d call the Aussie Coffee ‘verse a risk, exactly, but it certainly turned out to be a bit like my own personal accidental Everest. I thought I was writing a series of loosely connected ficlets, but they turned out to be an epic length modern AU instead. The risk with that one is that I did it without a firm outline - at least at first. Once I got a little way into it, I realised what it was and hammered out the shape of it in my head - guided by Writer’s Month prompts, since that’s what it had originally been intended for - but it still feels a little like I’m writing by the seat of my pants.

Do you have any fanfic or profic goals for the new year? 

Fanfic goals:

1. Finish the Aussie Coffee ‘verse (by the end of January if I can possibly manage it). 2. Finish Life’s Not a Song, my Sansa bystander POV fic. (Remember that one? Anyone? My health crashed for most of November and that fic was one of the casualties. I WILL finish it, though.) 3. Once those first two are out of the way, focus on my Regency AU, You I Know, which has been waiting for months now as the Aussie Coffee ‘verse accidentally turned into a behemoth.

Profic goals: Maaaaaaaybe adapt the Aussie Coffee ‘verse into an original novel. We’ll see. @undun-duz is keen to provide art to go with it, which would be fabulous.

Best story of the year? I... don’t know? Maybe Beloved. Yeah, probably Beloved.

Most popular story of the year? By hits, kudos and bookmarks, More Than a Memory. By comments and subscriptions, You I Know. But if you treat the Aussie Coffee ‘verse as one entity, then it has more hits, kudos and comments than anything else.

Story of mine most under-appreciated by the universe, in my opinion: My fic usually gets plenty of attention, so I don’t really feel like I should be saying that anything is under-appreciated. I feel that maybe some people have grown bored with the Aussie Coffee ‘verse - though, that said, there are also people who are incredibly enthusiastic about it. Readership dropping off as it goes along is the way it goes for most long stories, though, so it’s not anything unusual. I THINK all of it, including the pacing, will make more sense once the final instalments have been written. The plot is about to hit the home straight, so hopefully people will enjoy how the storyline unfolds from here on in.

Most fun story to write: I think the two that made me cackle the most while I was writing were Coffee on the Rocks, which was the very first Coffee ‘verse fic, and After Party, which was my story inspired by the dress that Gwen wore to the Emmys. Oh, and the first chapter of the most recent Coffee ‘verse fic, The Last Day of Christmas, which features the pole.

Most unintentionally telling story: The Aussie Coffee ‘verse, in the sense that it’s set a lot closer to home than anything else I’ve ever written - not just that it’s set in Australia, but that it’s set in the Australia that I know. And it also features bits and pieces of memories from when I was growing up, too. There’s very little of that sort of thing in any of the other fic I’ve written over the years.

Biggest disappointment: That I couldn’t finish Christmas Day in the Coffee ‘verse before actual Christmas Day! It ended up taking 33,000 words over three months to get through Christmas Day. At least I got it done before New Year.

Biggest surprise: That I wrote ALMOST A QUARTER OF A MILLION WORDS in seven months. That one will be very hard to beat ever again.