Meme: 2009 Writing Round-up

[brighteyedjill]

This end-of-year writing meme inspired by folkhore!


This has been a pretty prolific year for me, writing-wise. I’ve found new life in my old fandom, branched out into a new fandom and dabbled in a few others. I’ve written some new pairings (Sylar/Luke, Kirk/McCoy/Spock), explored new depravities (thanks, kink memes!), and sold myself for charity. I’ve gotten to know my old LJ friends better, and made new friends as well. Here’s what I did:


4 fandoms (plus two more fusion fandoms), 39 fics, 210,643 words


January 4987 words, 2 fics, 1 fandom
Lot’s Wife Heroes. 1469
Tabula Rasa Heroes. 3518

February 7563 words, 2 fics, 1.5 fandoms
Serenity (excerpts) Heroes (w/ Firefly/Serenity fusion). 7105
Unspoken Heroes. 458
+ Commentaries

March (month of the kink meme!) 19,688, 10 fics, 1 fandom
Whetsone Heroes. 3488
Where You Lay Down, There’s My Bed Heroes. 4026.
Don’t Forget Who’s Taking You Home. Heroes. 879
In the Stacks. Heroes. 832.
Leverage. Heroes. 1809
Resisting Arrest. Heroes. 2019.
Advantage. Heroes. 907.
Kiddie Table. Heroes. 1250.
Role Reversal. Heroes. 1755
What You Don’t Know. Heroes. 2723
+ Commentaries

April 11,238, 6 fics, 1 fandom
Battlefield. Heroes. 379.
Wedding Present. Heroes. 1088.
A Choice Vintage. Heroes. 3733.
Auction Day. Heroes. 1641.
Preserving the Bloodline. Heroes. 1503.
Liberty. Heroes. 2903.
+ Commentaries

May 7 fics, 3 fandoms, 40,868 words
My Brothers’ Keepers (with jaune_chat. Heroes/Supernatural. 60,000 (of which I’ll count 30,000 as my contribution, for estimation purposes, though I bet Chat wrote more than half)
What I Say, When I Say Anything At All. Star Trek. 853.
A Level Course and True. Star Trek. 3577.
Proving Ground. Heroes. 4736.
This Property is Condemned. Heroes. 4202.
Ready for the Bad Things to Come. Heroes. 1395.
Good Man. Star Trek. 1136

June 3 fics, 2 fandoms, 8367 words
Two Untitled Kink Fics. Heroes. 4247
Za Vas Vsyekh (or, The Dangers of Toasting on the Enterprise). Star Trek. 4120.


July 2 fics, 1 fandom, 6876 words
Heat Transfer. Heroes. 5215.
Or the Fool Who Follows Him. Heroes. 1661.

August 4 fics, 4.5 fandoms, 16,784 words
Behind Clouds, Sun Shines (The Legends Remix). Heroes. (w/ I Am Legend fusion). 6016.
Sanctuary. Pretender. 7768.
Commanding Officer. Supernatural/Heroes. 1884.
Proxy. Star Trek/Heroes. 1116.

September 4 fics, 2 fandoms, 19,750 words
Par Avion, à Mon Amour. Heroes. 15,000
Intuition. Heroes/Star Trek. 1151.
Proper Motivation. Star Trek. 1221
Disciplinary Action. Star Trek. 2378.

October
This is the month of which we shall not speak.

November 1 fic, 1 fandom, 57,000 words
We Have Loved the Stars Too Fondly to be Fearful of the Night. Star Trek. 57,000.

December 4 fics, 3 fandoms, 17,522 words
The Conscience of the Kirk, or How to Stop a Pathetically Self-Destructive Man . Star Trek/Heroes. 9743 words.
Balance of Terror (and Zombies) with jaune_chat. Star Trek/Supernatural. 6200 words (of which I’ll count 3100 as my contribution, although again I suspect Chat did the lion’s share of the work).
The Pros and Cons of Sharing a Room with Your Twin. Heroes. 2412. (Not technically written in December, but I didn’t get around to reposting it until then, so we’ll count it.
Exchange Fic Posted But Yet To Be Revealed. Star Trek. 2267.


Looking back, did I write more fic than I thought I would this year, less, or about what I'd predicted?
About the same. I penned a few epic-length stories, in great Big Bang tradition, but I also had several slow months because of busy, busy real life scheduling and a self-imposed fandom hiatus for part of the year. Still, I don’t think I ever went very long without writing something. Even my month of no published fic was spent writing one of my big bangs, so… Yeah. I wrote pretty consistently all year long.


What pairing/genre/fandom did I write that I would never have predicted in January?
Pretender! If eldrichhobbit hadn’t bought me for Sweet Charity, I would never in a million years have come up with a Pretender plot bunny. Also, I may have predicted liking the new Star Trek crew, but I wouldn’t have thought I’d get into Sulu/Chekov (the sweetest of pairings ever!) or McCoy/Chekov.


What's my own favorite story of the year? Not the most popular, but the one that makes me happiest?
We Have Loved the Stars Too Fondly to be Fearful of the Night. I am a sucker for slave fic and angst, and this gave me ample opportunity to put characters in compromising situations. I just want to snuggle with this fic.


What is my most popular story?
By number of comments, it’s Za Vas Vsyekh (or, The Dangers of Toasting on the Enterprise). Those Sulu/Chekov shippers are loyal and liberal with their comments! The Star Trek fandom is lots bigger than Heroes right now, so I suppose they’ll always have strength in numbers.



Did I take any writing risks this year? What did I learn from them?
Fanfic wise, I wrote some really filthy and depraved stuff, but no one disowned me, yay! In real life, I took a writing class on writing sex. I was super nervous to go to the class, but I actually enjoyed it and think I learned a lot. I also learned that I am way more comfortable writing about sex than most people… Hm… Wonder why that could be?


Do I have any fanfic or profic goals for the New Year?
I’m thinking of taking another writing class, since the last one worked out so well. Although probably nothing could top Writing Sex. (heh… top sex…). My goal is to scale back on fic commitments that stress me out. For example, I should try not to compulsively sign up for every fic exchange I see. If I need inspiration, well, there’s always a kink meme going on somewhere.


From my past year of writing, what was...
My Best Story:
Best like has the most artistic merit? I want to say Where You Lay Down, There’s My Bed, and not just because it features prostitute!Peter. I think it has a nice structure, and I was pretty pleased with the style.


Story Most Underappreciated by the Universe:
I wouldn’t say anything I write is underappreciated. I just throw things into the interwebs, and if other people like them, huzzah. But if I had to pick something I think didn’t get much traction, it would have to be either My Brothers’ Keepers or We Have Loved the Stars . Maybe it’s something about really looong fics. It’s hard to let go of them after living with them for three months!


Most Fun:
I was going to say one of the kink meme fics, but then I realized that Balance of Terror (and Zombies) was pretty freaking fun. Writing James T. Kirk with Supernatural-style Yellow Fever was just too delicious. Plus I always love collaborating with jaune_chat


Most Disappointing:
Par Avion, à Mon Amour. I started this fic almost three years ago, but I was never able to make it as awesome as a WWII AU deserves to be. I’m still not happy with the ending, but I also didn’t know what to do to fix it. *pets fic* Poor fic.


Most Sexy:
It’s no secret that I love sub!Peter like burning, and I think that What You Don’t Know is my favorite example of someone (Adam) playing sub!Peter like a master, with an added bonus of angsty!Nathan. As a runner-up I’d like to site Proper Motivation, since the Mirror!verse in its entirety has become sort of a bullet-proof kink for me.


Story that made me cry:
I’m not much of a crier, but Liberty had me wibbling. Luke’s low self esteem in general makes me wibbly.


Story with the sweetest moment:
Speaking of low self esteem, This Property is Condemned has this moment:
“I’m going to find him,” he said intently. “The one who touched you before. I’m going to find him, and I’m going to slit his throat, and you’re going to watch.”

Luke thought that must be the most romantic thing anyone had ever said to him.
Which I think is pretty sweet. If there’s a runner-up, it’s Chekov’s toast to Sulu in Za Vas Vsyekh (or, The Dangers of Toasting on the Enterprise).


"Holy crap, that's wrong, even for you" story:
Ya’ll are used to terrible Arthur/Peter or Linderman/Peter stuff from me, but it’s not so bad in fandoms like Heroes or SPN where incest is fairly common. But then I had to go and get all incestuous in Star Trek less than a month after its release. Luckily, most people didn’t take offense at Good Man. But I think the one that came the closest to squicking me was Ready for the Bad Things to Come. I just don’t like bad things happening to Nathan.


This year's theme and the story that demonstrates it most:
I think this year’s theme is characters not believing they’re worthy of love. Guess it comes from writing a lot of Nathan, Luke, Kirk, and McCoy. And if that’s so, then This Property is Condemned would be the case in point.


Most Unintentionally Telling:
Hm. Uh… I don’t know what any of these fics reveals about me, necessarily. I guess the fact that the vast majority of what I write involves a) angst and b) porn could probably mean something, but I’m not sure what. If you have sussed out something insightful about me from what I write, you’ll tell me, won’t you?


Okay, now YOU do the meme!

Comments

[rubynye.livejournal.com]

This was really nifty to read!

Incidentally, you have "Good Man" listed as Heroes when it's Star Trek.

[brighteyed-jill.livejournal.com]

Oops! Fixed now. Just got too used to typing "Heroes" after everything, I guess. And I'm heading over to read yours, too. Looks like you have some fun additional categories!

[takhallus.livejournal.com]

Off to do the meme now but this was really interesting, and you don't know how happy I was when I realised you were writing in McCoy/Chekov. When I get into a new ship I always worry that I'll love the concept but that the writing might not be up to scratch, and so I love your Trek fic.

[brighteyed-jill.livejournal.com]

Do the meme!

Star Trek is funny because I think people stick more to their OTP than Heroes fandom. I felt there was a lot of rare pairing love and multiple pairing love, but ships seem a bit more segregated in Trek fandom. Or am I imagining that?

Anyway, I'm glad we both write McCoy/Chekov, because... because... well, because it's hot, damnit!

[no-ones-sleep.livejournal.com]

I´m late to comment, but I just thought "I need to read a Heroes fanfiction that is really well written... hey, I´ll go to Brighteyed-jill". So here I am, and so I thought that now I´m here I might read what you thought about your year as well. And I am sooooo delighted! You have always been a role model for me, and I couldn´t decide whether you are intimidating or encouraging me with your awesome writing. Now I read that indeed you took a writing class- how great is that! You probably need that for your job as well, but to see that you actually invest so much for your fantasy/your dreams- THAT definitely motivates me as well to do something. Thank you and happy writing! (Spock was my first love back in the seventies, but Peter has taken over completely, so please don´t forget us Peter-hungry addicts writer-wise ;-)!)

[brighteyed-jill.livejournal.com]

Well thanks for dropping by! I hope I'm not intimidating. I like reading all sorts of stuff, including other LJ authors I admire, because I think it adds fuel to the creative fire. And yes, I totally took a writing class, and was very glad I did so. If you get the chance to take one that fits your interests, I highly recommend it!