Writing Meme
Dec. 30th, 2018 10:18 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
potentiality_26As promised, here's my writing meme. It borrows from a couple I've seen floating around on tumblr and another from elrhiarhodan, with some questions of my own thrown in as well.
Longest: Wasting Time (Thorne, Phil/Tom) Phil gets a boyfriend. Tom gets a clue.
At 15k, "Wasting Time" isn't particularly long for me (I may have written slightly more than I did last year, but they were on average significantly shorter fics), but since pretty much everything in this fandom is just a labor of love for me I'm still proud of it.
Shortest: I wrote quite a few 200 word prompt fics this year, mostly F/F, so there's no single shortest fic, but check out my Double Drabble tag for 2018 if you're interested.
Did you write for any new fandoms?
Their Finest, Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, Star Wars, The Exorcist, Atomic Blonde, New Tricks, Legends of Tomorrow, Broadchurch, Ocean's 8, Sherlock Holmes. Oooh, ten.
Did you abandon any old ones? Is there a reason why?
Not really. In fact, I wrote new fics for three fandoms that I had previously fallen out with: Wild Wild West, The Musketeers, Kingsman.
Are there any fandoms you didn’t expect to write for but did? What about fandoms you expected to write for but didn’t?
I was definitely surprised to write for the above fandoms. I suppose I hoped to write more in some of the big fandoms that have had new installments recently, like Fantastic Beasts or Pacific Rim, but none of those movies really thrilled me, and I naturally gravitate toward medium to small (to minuscule) fandoms, sometimes in spite of myself. The head wants comments and attention, but the heart apparently has other plans.
What were your most popular fics this year, and how would you estimate that? By comments, kudos, hits, or some combination of the three?
Most kudos (and hits): Eighth Time's the Charm (Ocean's 8, Lou/Debbie) Two thieves. One bed.
Most comments (and number two by kudos): A Room for the Night (Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, Childermass/Segundus) After a trying day, Childermass and Segundus secure a room at an inn. Things transpire.
Number two by both hits and comments: Baby It's Cold Outside (Cormoran Strike, Robin/Cormoran) After Warmth, one thing leads to another.
Interestingly, though "Eighth Time's the Charm" has roughly twice as many kudos and roughly twice as many hits as "A Room for the Night", it also has less than half as many comments. I've noticed that the JSAMN fandom is a really sweet and responsive one, and the fics I write for it tend to feel more popular than fics in comparatively larger fandoms because everyone is just so excited for content. Not quite sure what's up with "Baby It's Cold Outside". It's number seven when sorted by kudos. It is generally a low kudos-to-hits ratio sort of fandom, though.
What were your least popular fics this year?
Gifts (Identity, gen) It's John's birthday.
Permutations (New Tricks, Fisher/Strickland, Fisher/Ross) In Stephen Fisher's hospital room after 'Part of a Whole.'
"Permutations" in particular deserves what it gets. I picked a non-existent ship in an already tiny fandom because I guess that's how I roll. You know that post that went around tumblr talking about what kind of boats different ships are and how some aren't even boats, they're life rafts and pool noodles? This one's a pool noodle. And Identity is an even tinier fandom. Of the seven fics on AO3, five are mine and one was misfiled by somebody using fandom tags to identify themes in what appears to be an original fiction.
Is there a fic you wish would get more attention?
Midnight Clarity (Sherlock Holmes, Holmes/Watson) After John Norton's second arrest, things aren't yet back to normal.
To be clear, I didn't expect more of this fic than I've gotten and the response has been very sweet. Howard Holmes is a small branch (more a twig, really) of the larger Sherlock Holmes fandom, but it happens to have one of my favorite interpretations of Holmes and Watson and it's a shame that it doesn't get more love.
Is there a fic that surprised you, either with how popular or how unpopular it was?
Proxy (Wild Wild West, Artie/Jim, Jim/OFC, OFC/OFC) After 'The Night of Pistoleros,' Jim makes do.
I started writing for this fandom again after several years away because they were rerunning it on TV and I happened to see this episode. Maybe it was the timing or maybe I was missed, but it's fascinating to me that a short, angsty unrequited love fic was so well received. It has the most comments of the four fics I wrote for the fandom this year, and the second most comments of any WWW fic I've written.
Is there a fic you were surprised to find yourself writing?
A Most Remarkable Case (Sherlock Holmes, Holmes/Watson) In the aftermath of the Abbey Grange case, Holmes and Watson make an agreement- but all is not as it seems.
Sherlock Holmes is an institution and I've been reading fic for it for more than a decade without writing any. But I got into it more broadly this year after rereading the series while rewatching the Granada TV show, so I guess it was finally time.
Were any fics you wrote this year particularly difficult? Were any particularly easy?
Hardest: By the Sound of Your Name (Kingsman, Harry/Merlin) This is not a ghost story.
Technically this was a particularly difficult fic from 2017. I had a draft and a plan to post it that October, but something about it just wasn't working for me. Then the sequel happened, and i was over the fandom as a whole for a long time. I guess "over it" was what I needed to be, because about a year later I saw it in my WIP folder, got annoyed, reread it, and decided it was fine.
Easiest: Sweet (Legends of Tomorrow, Gideon/Rip) How Rip started baking in 'Doomworld.'
I haven't spent much time in this fandom, but in spite of that (or maybe because of it) this fic just rolled out really smoothly and I'm pretty happy with it. Short and- er- sweet.
What was your funniest fic this year? Your saddest? Your hottest?
Funniest: Bump in the Night (Cormoran Strike, Robin/Cormoran) Strike and Robin take a scary- but silly- case.
It's not all that funny. I didn't really write anything notably funny this year, or notably sad. Bittersweet, certainly (Permutations and By the Sound of Your Name definitely fit that bill. Proxy too).
Also bittersweet: The Storm (Their Finest, Catrin/Phyl) A storm and a revelation.
And just bitter: Break (Thorne, gen) Dave after Sarah's memorial service.
Hottest: Words, Words, Words (The Exorcist, Marcus/Tomas) A game of scrabble.
Yes. With five explicit works and three mature ones this year, I have decided that the hottest was the teen rated one with the knee touching between two priests who have a lot of Emotions.
Do you have a favorite?
To Make Dream Truths, and Fables Histories (Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, Childermass/Segundus) Segundus' attempt to cure a toothache with magic goes somewhat awry.
Really proud of the fic, really love the fandom, great experience all around.
Did you write anything really self-indulgent?
This is probably A Most Remarkable Case again. I love misunderstandings and miscommunication in fics, both to read and to write, and this one is... truly egregious. I went to town.
Also pretty self-indulgent: Little Pieces (Kingsman, Gazelle/Roxy) The beginning of a beautiful partnership.
It's a series of drabbles and ficlets for the pairing, not worrying to much about realism, chronology, or... anything, basically? It's been a lot of fun to write.
Did you get out of your comfort zone at all?
I suppose I did with all the 200 word fics I wrote. I wanted to experiment with a shorter medium and with pairings I might not think about enough to come up with anything longer, and that's exactly what I did.
Did anything in particular- a new fandom, a fellow writer, etc.- influence your style this year? Do you think you’ve learned anything?
Between Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell and Sherlock Holmes, and the Raffles fics I've started, I've been writing even more than in period settings. It's a bit self-indulgent, since I love the long sentences and more elevated style of language, but hopefully it's a learning experience too
Do you have any writing goals for next year?
I suppose I'll try to get over fifty.
Tagging:regshoe and leahclaire who expressed an interest, but I hope anyone who thinks this looks interesting tries it out and passes it on. Also, I put these questions together because they were the ones I felt like answering- feel free to add or subtract as appeals to you!
We'll see what next year brings!
elrhiarhodan, with some questions of my own thrown in as well. How many fics did you write this year? How many words?
46 fics and 98,789 words.
Is that more or less than you imagined you would?
It's one fic more than I wrote last year, and definitely a lot, so objectively speaking it's more than I expected. That said, I did notice a few weeks ago that I was nearly to fifty, and I hoped I would get there by the end of the year. Since then I've made peace with the fact that my distractable ass is probably not going to finish anything else in the next day and a half. January is hereby dubbed "Christmas residue month" over here.
Longest: Wasting Time (Thorne, Phil/Tom) Phil gets a boyfriend. Tom gets a clue.
At 15k, "Wasting Time" isn't particularly long for me (I may have written slightly more than I did last year, but they were on average significantly shorter fics), but since pretty much everything in this fandom is just a labor of love for me I'm still proud of it.
Shortest: I wrote quite a few 200 word prompt fics this year, mostly F/F, so there's no single shortest fic, but check out my Double Drabble tag for 2018 if you're interested.
Did you write for any new fandoms?
Their Finest, Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, Star Wars, The Exorcist, Atomic Blonde, New Tricks, Legends of Tomorrow, Broadchurch, Ocean's 8, Sherlock Holmes. Oooh, ten.
Did you abandon any old ones? Is there a reason why?
Not really. In fact, I wrote new fics for three fandoms that I had previously fallen out with: Wild Wild West, The Musketeers, Kingsman.
Are there any fandoms you didn’t expect to write for but did? What about fandoms you expected to write for but didn’t?
I was definitely surprised to write for the above fandoms. I suppose I hoped to write more in some of the big fandoms that have had new installments recently, like Fantastic Beasts or Pacific Rim, but none of those movies really thrilled me, and I naturally gravitate toward medium to small (to minuscule) fandoms, sometimes in spite of myself. The head wants comments and attention, but the heart apparently has other plans.
What were your most popular fics this year, and how would you estimate that? By comments, kudos, hits, or some combination of the three?
Most kudos (and hits): Eighth Time's the Charm (Ocean's 8, Lou/Debbie) Two thieves. One bed.
Most comments (and number two by kudos): A Room for the Night (Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, Childermass/Segundus) After a trying day, Childermass and Segundus secure a room at an inn. Things transpire.
Number two by both hits and comments: Baby It's Cold Outside (Cormoran Strike, Robin/Cormoran) After Warmth, one thing leads to another.
Interestingly, though "Eighth Time's the Charm" has roughly twice as many kudos and roughly twice as many hits as "A Room for the Night", it also has less than half as many comments. I've noticed that the JSAMN fandom is a really sweet and responsive one, and the fics I write for it tend to feel more popular than fics in comparatively larger fandoms because everyone is just so excited for content. Not quite sure what's up with "Baby It's Cold Outside". It's number seven when sorted by kudos. It is generally a low kudos-to-hits ratio sort of fandom, though.
What were your least popular fics this year?
Gifts (Identity, gen) It's John's birthday.
Permutations (New Tricks, Fisher/Strickland, Fisher/Ross) In Stephen Fisher's hospital room after 'Part of a Whole.'
"Permutations" in particular deserves what it gets. I picked a non-existent ship in an already tiny fandom because I guess that's how I roll. You know that post that went around tumblr talking about what kind of boats different ships are and how some aren't even boats, they're life rafts and pool noodles? This one's a pool noodle. And Identity is an even tinier fandom. Of the seven fics on AO3, five are mine and one was misfiled by somebody using fandom tags to identify themes in what appears to be an original fiction.
Is there a fic you wish would get more attention?
Midnight Clarity (Sherlock Holmes, Holmes/Watson) After John Norton's second arrest, things aren't yet back to normal.
To be clear, I didn't expect more of this fic than I've gotten and the response has been very sweet. Howard Holmes is a small branch (more a twig, really) of the larger Sherlock Holmes fandom, but it happens to have one of my favorite interpretations of Holmes and Watson and it's a shame that it doesn't get more love.
Is there a fic that surprised you, either with how popular or how unpopular it was?
Proxy (Wild Wild West, Artie/Jim, Jim/OFC, OFC/OFC) After 'The Night of Pistoleros,' Jim makes do.
I started writing for this fandom again after several years away because they were rerunning it on TV and I happened to see this episode. Maybe it was the timing or maybe I was missed, but it's fascinating to me that a short, angsty unrequited love fic was so well received. It has the most comments of the four fics I wrote for the fandom this year, and the second most comments of any WWW fic I've written.
Is there a fic you were surprised to find yourself writing?
A Most Remarkable Case (Sherlock Holmes, Holmes/Watson) In the aftermath of the Abbey Grange case, Holmes and Watson make an agreement- but all is not as it seems.
Sherlock Holmes is an institution and I've been reading fic for it for more than a decade without writing any. But I got into it more broadly this year after rereading the series while rewatching the Granada TV show, so I guess it was finally time.
Were any fics you wrote this year particularly difficult? Were any particularly easy?
Hardest: By the Sound of Your Name (Kingsman, Harry/Merlin) This is not a ghost story.
Technically this was a particularly difficult fic from 2017. I had a draft and a plan to post it that October, but something about it just wasn't working for me. Then the sequel happened, and i was over the fandom as a whole for a long time. I guess "over it" was what I needed to be, because about a year later I saw it in my WIP folder, got annoyed, reread it, and decided it was fine.
Easiest: Sweet (Legends of Tomorrow, Gideon/Rip) How Rip started baking in 'Doomworld.'
I haven't spent much time in this fandom, but in spite of that (or maybe because of it) this fic just rolled out really smoothly and I'm pretty happy with it. Short and- er- sweet.
What was your funniest fic this year? Your saddest? Your hottest?
Funniest: Bump in the Night (Cormoran Strike, Robin/Cormoran) Strike and Robin take a scary- but silly- case.
It's not all that funny. I didn't really write anything notably funny this year, or notably sad. Bittersweet, certainly (Permutations and By the Sound of Your Name definitely fit that bill. Proxy too).
Also bittersweet: The Storm (Their Finest, Catrin/Phyl) A storm and a revelation.
And just bitter: Break (Thorne, gen) Dave after Sarah's memorial service.
Hottest: Words, Words, Words (The Exorcist, Marcus/Tomas) A game of scrabble.
Yes. With five explicit works and three mature ones this year, I have decided that the hottest was the teen rated one with the knee touching between two priests who have a lot of Emotions.
Do you have a favorite?
To Make Dream Truths, and Fables Histories (Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, Childermass/Segundus) Segundus' attempt to cure a toothache with magic goes somewhat awry.
Really proud of the fic, really love the fandom, great experience all around.
Did you write anything really self-indulgent?
This is probably A Most Remarkable Case again. I love misunderstandings and miscommunication in fics, both to read and to write, and this one is... truly egregious. I went to town.
Also pretty self-indulgent: Little Pieces (Kingsman, Gazelle/Roxy) The beginning of a beautiful partnership.
It's a series of drabbles and ficlets for the pairing, not worrying to much about realism, chronology, or... anything, basically? It's been a lot of fun to write.
Did you get out of your comfort zone at all?
I suppose I did with all the 200 word fics I wrote. I wanted to experiment with a shorter medium and with pairings I might not think about enough to come up with anything longer, and that's exactly what I did.
Did anything in particular- a new fandom, a fellow writer, etc.- influence your style this year? Do you think you’ve learned anything?
Between Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell and Sherlock Holmes, and the Raffles fics I've started, I've been writing even more than in period settings. It's a bit self-indulgent, since I love the long sentences and more elevated style of language, but hopefully it's a learning experience too
Do you have any writing goals for next year?
I suppose I'll try to get over fifty.
Tagging:
regshoe and leahclaire who expressed an interest, but I hope anyone who thinks this looks interesting tries it out and passes it on. Also, I put these questions together because they were the ones I felt like answering- feel free to add or subtract as appeals to you! We'll see what next year brings!
no subject
Date: 2019-01-02 07:41 pm (UTC)Have you found yourself (as I have) having to look up a bunch of word origin dates? I keep second guessing myself about modern word usage, even though I know it's not that big of a deal, but trying to write in period vernacular feels fine until I hit a specific phrase that I have to write around, lol.
no subject
Date: 2019-01-03 03:38 am (UTC)Heh, yeah, in comparison to some JSAMN is a really nice sized fandom.
Usually I just go with what feels right, but I definitely do sometimes have a moment of, "Wait a minute, I bet that word wasn't used like that yet." I've learned a fair bit of etymology that way, lol.