Meme: Year End Summary - 2011

[argentum_ls]

Total Word Count in 2011 = ~74,000



Crossovers and Fusions

"X: Tomorrow People" (Teen Wolf/Tomorrow People)
"X: Highlander" (Teen Wolf/Highlander)
"X: Forever Knight" (Teen Wolf/Forever Knight)
"A Million and Six Times Better" (Teen Wolf fusion with Phineas and Ferb) - for AU Bingo
"First Impressions" (Leverage/Highlander) - for comment_fic
"Death Defiant" (chapters 1-6) (Teen Wolf/Highlander)

Do Over

"Bright Spots" - for yuletide

Highlander

"Privacy Settings" - for comment_fic

Phineas and Ferb

"Nothing Doing" - for comment_fic

Teen Wolf

"For the Asking" (dubiously being included because it was a rewrite of someone else's work)
"Basics"
"Proud of You"
"Habit Forming"
"Unexpecting" (WIP)
"Untitled Ficlet" - for comment fic meme on teenwolfslash
"Shadowed"
"Variable" - for comment fic meme
"Encircle" - for comment fic meme
"Lull" - for comment fic meme
"If Not One Thing" - for AU Bingo
"Tell Me, Show Me"
"Duality" - for AU Bingo
"In Spiritu" - for AU Bingo and Halloween Fest on FF.net
"The Deal" - for AU Bingo
"Edges"
"Reservation" - for the teenwolfxchange
"Out" - for the Fall Fandom Free-for-All
"Resonances" - for yuletide
"Zero Sum" "The Measure of Ourselves" - for Teen Wolf Big Bang (not yet posted)

Overall Thoughts:

It's good to be back.

My best stories of this year:

"Habit Forming" and "Proud of You" - These were written in parallel. I'd add a little to one story, then go add a little to the other. Both of these were my first serious entries back into fanfic. "Habit Forming" was my first attempt to write slash ever. It failed miserably at that, but I'm very pleased with the humor piece that resulted. "Proud of You" was a serious dramatic piece and I feel I successfully achieved with it all the things I set out to do.

My favorite story of this year:

"Death Defiant" - I had so much fun writing this story and was surprised at every turn with the story that was appearing under my fingers. I set out to write a story of between 3-5,000 words and ended up with over 16,000.

Story of mine most under appreciated by the universe:

"Death Defiant" - The way ff.net is set up, the story is buried in a section that most people don't check and seems to be categorized in a way to discourage people from reading it. It gets a lot more hits on AO3, and would appear to be the most popular of my stories from comment count, but that's really the result of two very dedicated readers.

Most fun story to write:

I could say "Death Defiant" again, but I'll shake up the entry by going for "If Not One Thing." The story is short and was very quick and easy to write. I also love how it ends.

Story with the sexiest moments:

Either "Tell Me, Show Me" or "Edges."

Most "Holy crap, that's wrong, even for you" story:

"A Million and Six Times Better." - I think the entry is intending to identify strangeness in relation to sex, but for me, writing a Teen Wolf (an MTV show aimed at teenagers that's about one a half steps removed from soft core gay porn half the time) fusion with Phineas and Ferb (a children's cartoon that has an astounding amount of gay subtext, especially for a children's cartoon) is my holy crap moment. These two shows should not go together, and yet they did. Quite well, I think.

Story that shifted my perceptions of the characters:

None. If I don't know who the characters are before I start writing, I can't write the story at all.

Hardest story to write:

"Resonances" - By far. I even had to bring in a lot of outside help on this one to try to figure out how to write it. The two characters in the ship are two characters I cannot see together at all, so I had to figure out how to construct a story that would bypass that. Several thousand words were thrown out in the process of getting this story down.

Biggest disappointment:

"Unexpecting" - I wanted to write this story so badly. After coming out of the success of "Proud of You," where I wrote ~1000 a day for a week and posted as I wrote (something I'd never done before), I thought I could do it again with "Unexpecting." Instead, I got two parts into it and haven't been able to get a third part pulled together. The story has been stagnant on my harddrive for almost six months now.

Biggest surprise:

Every story after "Habit Forming." I even put a note on that one saying that I was out ideas and probably wouldn't be writing again until the second season premiered. Seventeen stories later....

"Bright Spots" was also a big surprise. I'd wanted to write a fanfic for Do Over since the show was on in 2002, but never could come up with anything. While browsing Yuletide letters, I looked at one that included this show among the requests. The author mentioned that she liked future fic. Three hours later, "Bright Spots" existed in full. The fact that one pretty generic phrase could lead to this fic continues to shock me.

Most unintentionally telling story:

I don't think any story is unintentionally telling. Every story draws on me and my life in some way.

Looking back, did you write more fic than you thought you would this year, less, or about what you'd predicted?

Way, way more. Up until June of 2011, I had been out of fandom for years and had no inkling that I'd ever be getting back into it. Then Teen Wolf came on.

What pairing/genre/fandom did you write that you would never have predicted in January 2011?

Technically, all of them. As mentioned, in January 2011 I had no idea that I'd start writing fanfic again.

If we move the date to, say, July 2011, then: Derek/Jackson. Hands down. As a rule, I don't 'ship. I'm potentially open to all 'ships, though I prefer the ones the canon gives me because I like canon-based stories most of all. Even so, I can't mentally get Derek and Jackson together. The requester of this pairing cited a lot of UST between them. Apparently, I'm the only one in the fandom who doesn't see it.

Did you take any writing risks this year? What did you learn from them?

Completely. I made my first venture into writing both het and slash.

I learned that I don't like writing these genres. This is probably because I haven't yet been able to develop my writerly intuitions about what works and what doesn't and I feel completely helpless every time I set out to write either kind of story.

I also wrote my first fusion, a genre which I hadn't even known existed until recently.

I still think fusions are unbelievably silly, but I wouldn't rule out the possibility of another attempt down the road.

Do you have any fanfic or profic goals for the New Year?

Do NaNoWriMo properly this year. My house rule for NaNo has always been no fanfic. In 2011, I got about 10 days into my profic project and tossed it out the window to work on fanfic. While I got a lot written (including the first 11,000 words of "Death Defiant"), I feel I wasted the professional development opportunity and sacrificed responsibilities in my work life for a less-than-acceptable reason.

I'd like to thank the academy...

legendarytobes who caught me right as I was getting so fed up with the state of TW fandom that I was about to quit, and who talked me off the ledge.

fountainxxpenny who gave me additional encouragement to keep writing, who betas as necessary, who continues to encourage my venture into het writing, and who has provided a lot of feedback and sounding board help toward other writing projects that would likely still be stuck without her.

Other people who helped significantly with the writing or provided encouraging feedback include cbassluv, emocezi, and boy_on_strings.

Everyone who's ever commented on one of my stories, with extra big thanks to anyone who has commented on more than one story.

Comments

[legendarytobes.livejournal.com]

Yay claps

[fountainxxpenny.livejournal.com]

Right back at you, gurl

[bethskink.livejournal.com]

Awe! That was amazing, and lovely. Yay for you. :)