End of Year Writing Meme 2014

[thisbluespirit]

I didn't do this last year, because I'd written so many short ficlets and it'd be annoying, but this year, even though I've still written mostly very short things (and therefore quite a lot), I decided I would, anyway. Maybe I should do one for 2013 anyway, as well... Thanks to aralias for the handy template.

Stats:

List of Completed Fics:
Outcomes of War (Enemy at the Door, Major Richter, trope_bingo)
Baby Don't Get Hooked on Me (Public Eye, Frank Marker/Helen Mortimer)
Til My Fingers Bleed (DW/Kaldor City, Leela & Poul, 500 Prompts/ hc_bingo)
Human Development (Children of the Damned, David Neville/Colin Webster, hc_bingo)
Little Things (DW/Matilda, Seven & Ace, dw_straybunnies)
Not Bad For a First Attempt (Convenient Marriage - Heyer, Horry/Rule)
Flowers in the Ashes (Downton/House of Eliott, Sybil & Evie, 500 Prompts)
Something in the Atmosphere (Spooks, Harry, 500 Prompts)
Light to Travel By (The Waves of Time Remix) (DW, Remix Redux 2014)
Winter Where You Are (Public Eye/DW/Sapphire & Steel, Spooks, Helen Mortimer)
Between Strangers (Public Eye, Frank Marker/Helen Mortimer, unconventionalcourtship
Star Ship (ST: Voyager, Janeway/Voyager, 500 Prompts)
This Single World Is Double Till I Die (OUaT, Emma Swan/Regina Mills, trope_bingo)
Tinder Box (OUaT, Regina & Rumplestiltskin, 500 Prompts)
Take the Second Path (OUaT, Emma Swan/Regina Mills)
Worlds of Her Own (OUaT, Belle)
The Silence in Between (Public Eye, Frank Marker/Helen Mortimer)
Cellmates (Spooks/DW, Jo Grant & Jo Portman, 500 prompts)
Secrets Are a Tricky Thing (Spooks, Ruth Evershed/Tom Quinn, Obscure & British)
Something's Out There (DW, First Doctor, 500 prompts)
Shelved (or The Whistle Stop Library Tour of the Universe) (OUaT/DW, Belle/Eleven/Clara)
Night Lights (House of Eliott, Bea/Jack, 500 prompts/hc_bingo)
No Bones Broken, No Harm Done (Public Eye, Frank Marker/Helen Mortimer, hc_bingo)
Expert Opinion (DW/Blake's 7, Servalan & The Master, 500 prompts)
It Ends Tonight (The Last Best Dress Rehearsal) (DW, Eleventh Doctor & The Master(s), 500 prompts)
Stars in Their Courses (Espionage, hc_bingo)
Star Sleepers (DW, First Doctor, 500 prompts)
Light on a Hill (Spooks, Ruth Evershed/Tom Quinn, hc_bingo)
Loose Ends (or Five Times Pieces of Silver Changed Hands) (Power Game, Various, 500 Prompts)
The Devil's Harvest (DW, Six & Clara, hc_bingo/ dw_allsorts)
Like A House on Fire (DW/B7, Dayna & Ace, 500 prompts)
Something in the Wiring (S&S, Silver, Sapphire, Steel, hc_bingo)
Ar Haner Nos yn Glir y Daeth (Upon the Midnight Clear) (Hinterland, Tom Mathias & Mared Rhys, Yuletide)
Paper Trail (S&S, Sapphire/Silver/Steel, Yuletide)
Backstitch in Gold (House of Eliott, Bea & Evie, Yuletide)
Improbable Angels (Press Gang, Lynda Day & Bill Sullivan, Yuletide)
Ladies in Waiting (The Hardest Part) (Elizabeth of York & Margaret Beaufort, Yuletide)
The Quality of Mercy (Is Most Definitely Strained) (B7, Avon/Servalan, Yuletide)
Extract from the Memoirs of a Credit Snake (I Claudius RPF, Yuletide)
How To Make A Chocolate Cake (The Secret's in the Ingredients) (DW, Six & Evelyn, Yuletide)

Plus a few original short pieces for runaway_tales:
Lead Me On (Anna & Michael Seaton)
Ring Out The Changes (Anna & Charles Terrell)
(No) More Than Love (Charles Terrell/'Alice')
Errors, Corrections (Charles Terrell)
The More Things Change (Anna, Charles Terrell, Edward Woodfield)
Fighting Folly (Ella Gabell & Clive Procter)


(Gosh, doing this meme is a good reason to write less/write longer fic next year... *collapses*)

Total number: 40+

Total word count: I don't do maths like that for fun. ;-p


Ship/character breakdown:

'Ships -
* Frank Marker/Helen Mortimer (Public Eye) x4
* Emma Swan/Regina Mills (OUaT) x2
* Ruth Evershed/Tom Quinn (Spooks) x2

Characters -
* Frank Marker x5
* Helen Mortimer x5

* First Doctor x3
* Sapphire x3
* Steel x3
* Clara Oswald x3
* Regina Mills x3

* Ace x2
* Connie (Spooks) x2
* Emma Swan x2
* Belle x2
* Ruth Evershed x2
* Tom Quinn x2
* Ian Chesterton x2
* Barbara Wright x2
* Eleventh Doctor x2
* Evangeline Eliott x2
* Beatrice Eliott x2
* Jack Maddox x2
* Servalan x2
* The Master (Delgado) x2
* Sixth Doctor x2
* Silver x2


Specifics:

Best/worst title?

Is it bad that I find this hard to decide? Probably "This Single World Is Double Till I Die" for a Regina/Emma soulbond fic. For things that aren't quotes, though, I did spend ages getting my Remix title right: "Light To Travel By (The Waves of Time Remix)", then my 2014 habit of being silly with brackets: "It Ends Tonight (The Last Best Dress Rehearsal)" (no idea why/how but I liked it), and "The Quality of Mercy (Is Most Definitely Strained)". In simple but fits the fic perfectly, "Outcomes of War" for a Five Times mostly AU-what-happened-to-Major-Richter fic and "No Bones Broken, No Harm Done" for Public Eye.

As for worst, there were a few where I lazily just used the prompt itself from 500 prompts and dw_allsorts, and also "Fighting Folly" and probably "Take the Second Path".


Best/worst summary?

Hmm, I always think my summaries are okay, but now I look at them, none of them are very exciting. Probably because there are a lot of vignettes and therefore exciting would be misleading? Anyway, maybe my unconventionalcourtship summary:

Trying to sell encyclopedias in the middle of the worst winter of the century wasn’t the best idea to begin with. And now Frank Marker's wound up trying to rescue a single mother and her baby who’ve been abandoned at a bus stop, and all he’s got to hand is a car that won’t go and several dozen copies of The A-Z of Everything...

I also quite like the one from This Single World is Double Till I Die:

"You can’t force a happy ending, not even when you live by the logic of fairy tales."

Also the Remix one:

"When you're a time traveller, sometimes it's hard to tell if it's the past that haunts the present, or the future that haunts the past."


As for worst, I don't know, but I just noticed that this one probably doesn't even quite make sense: "Harry's avoiding the subject, or more than one..." (Something in the Atmosphere.)


Best/worst first line?

I hate this first line business - I seem to have a trick of writing a short statement + clarification as the paragraph goes on, which is fine, but not if people want an exciting first line.

However, I do like the first line from "Light on a Hill":

It turned out that the way to survive an apocalyptic event came down to blind chance, not training but – as Malcolm said – that was only what they should have expected.

And I seem to have managed some decent ones for Yuletide:

At least once a week, sometimes more often, the Head of Security and Operations in the New Federated Republic leaves the sunlit corridors of power and goes down into the depths of the building to make love to his darker side. (The Quality of Mercy (Is Most Definitely Strained).)

Mr Sullivan isn’t Lynda Day’s guardian angel except in her more random dreams. (Improbable Angels)

Tom Mathias crouches down beside the body of a young man: a student, lying there sodden, pale and unquestionably deceased on the uneven sand and pebbles of the beach. (Ar Haner Nos yn Glir y Daeth (Upon the Midnight Clear).)


Hmm, for worst, it's probably more the whole paragraph than the first line, but this seriously needs reworking. (I was very tired and I tried and tried with it, and eventually just posted, because it was for a bingo square in an obscure fandom, but, yeah, it does need scratching out and rewriting):

When Denis leaves her, it hurts, but it’s when he comes back, years after, that Helen realises how much they were strangers all along. She knows him now and all he is, better than before (understanding came both gradually over time and suddenly in retrospect) but he only proves that he doesn’t know her any more; that in many ways he never did.

Ack.


Best/worst last line?

Also difficult. I think next time I'm going to alter these to first and last paragraphs, because that's what counts, isn't it? Sentences exist in relationship to each other. Mind, apparently I like my last lines more than my first lines, because this was harder to narrow down.

She wasn’t immune to flattery, either. (How To Make a Chocolate Cake)


One day soon, he will have to kill her. (The Qaulity of Mercy)


He makes his apologies to the tree, and leaves. (It Ends Tonight. And, yes, I know, sorry-but-not-sorry. ;-p)


She’s fine, she’s always fine, but particularly so this evening. (The Silence In Between)


He doesn’t believe he cares any more. (Human Development)


And if, afterwards, she smiled too much and hoped too hard, that was only the risk you took in being alive, and always so much better than any of the alternatives. (Baby Don't Get Hooked On Me)


And in the 'worst' category, I still kind of hate this one: “No, Dr Procter, we bloody well make it so.” (Fighting Folly)


General questions:

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

I made no predictions, meme. I think slightly more, because that 9000+ word Public Eye AU was not supposed to happen, and at the start of the year I was wondering if I'd even sign up for Yuletide, not thinking I'd write 7 treats.


What pairing/genre/fandom did you write that you would never have predicted last year?

Well, I think Frank/Mrs Mortimer was already inevitable by the end of 2013, so that's not a shock... but writing that M&B parody AU pre-canon snowed in fic was. I don't think I'd have expected Emma/Regina, either, and I couldn't have imagined writing Hinterland at all. And I certainly had no idea I'd ever write fic about the snake in the credits of I, Claudius. I also didn't think I'd be signed up for runaway_tales and writing original fic from an isurrendered prompt. Plus, Not Bad For A First Attempt was a double drabble I actually only wrote to cover a wrangling error. As ever, the year was full of surprises!


What's your favorite story this year? Not the most popular, but the one that makes you the happiest.

Hmm, difficult. Okay: Outcomes of War because I needed Enemy at the Door fic. I wanted somebody else to write it, but if they didn't, then I had to. I felt much better afterwards, except for the depressing bit where hardly anybody else reads things so obscure.

Between Strangers was fun to do & it was the first time in a long while I'd been able to write something as long as that & even do tiny bits of research. It wasn't good for me, but it was okay!

Light on a Hill because I've been dying to read or write something with Tom/Ruth + apocalypse for real - ever since 2003! I'm only sorry that I waited till Spooks fandom had mostly dissipated & especially that belantana had gone by the time I finally delivered. But still, I was pleased with it and Pers liked it too!

(No) More Than Love - the first bit of original fic I'd written in forever. I liked this piece, but just writing my own characters again rather than somebody else's makes me so much happier. I love fanfic, but it's just not the same.

Ar Haner Nos yn Glir y Daeth (Upon the Midnight Clear) - I was so happy to write Aber-fic with a good excuse!


Okay, NOW your most popular story.

By hits: This Single World Is Double Till I Die (Emma/Regina, 1025 hits.) Oh, yes, the strange Emma/Regina fic I thought I'd post. After all, no one would notice... Turns out a lot of people follow the Emma/Regina tag on AO3. Whoops.

Kudos: Take The Second Path (Emma/Regina, 60 kudos). As I said, a lot of people follow that tag. They like the fic better when you do a happy ending, though.

Comments: The Devil's Harvest (17 comments, 8 threads; Clara & Six, for dw_allsorts). Since I don't count strange anonymous masses of hits and kudos as 'real' in my mind, this one is the winner, which I hadn't realised.

(If I factor in LJ comments, then Star Sleepers has 12 individual threads & wins.)


Story most underappreciated by the universe?

Human Development

The only fic genuinely read by nobody except me. Or at least nobody who read it and liked it. I don't think, though, I can call it under-appreciated since I wrote random slash for an obscure & rather dull film from 1963 for characters played by Alan Badel and Alfred Burke. I think that's about the reaction I deserved. But it did get me a bingo square.


Story that could have been better?

All of them!


Sexiest story?

And after managing S&S fics in 2013 that people even said were sexy, I gave up and fell back to incurably gen. I don't think any of these are sexy in the least, but you can tell me if I'm wrong. There's an implied sex scene in Human Development, I suppose, so maybe that. But probably not.


Saddest story?

Oh, my, well I was a barrel of laughs at some points of the year & it shows, although definitely better than last year. Outcomes of War, I think. At least, I killed off Major Richter three times and I think I even made myself cry while writing it. Luckily, I only depressed about one other person with it; the readership's not wide in non-existent fandoms.


Most fun?

Probably Shelved (the sort of Eleven/Clara/Belle libraries trip).


Story with single sweetest moment?

Probably my overly cute Espionage fic Stars in Their Courses (which was about a spy accidentally kidnapping a ten year old girl and it was all far too cute, except I ate it all up much too happily. /o\)


Hardest story to write?

Between Strangers, because it's the longest thing I've done. I enjoyed it, but it was a bit much to cope with.

Something in the Wiring was also difficult - I actually started it with Copper, rather than Silver & then changed it, because it struck me it'd work as well either way, and so what was the point of wilfully using an original character instead of one people might like to read about? But then it threw everything off once I did it. I do quite like it again now, but it bugged me for ages, because Elements are all different & there were still things in it that were because of Copper & I knew that even if no one else did. Now I've forgotten all that, it works again.


Easiest/most fun story to write?

Shelved, tied with The Last Best Dress Rehearsal, both of which came at me and I wrote very quickly, but I think the first, because I just sat down and typed it up without even doing a long-hand version, which is unheard of since I've been ill.


Did any stories shift your perceptions of the characters?

Hmm, not really? I mean maybe, but not that I can remember.


Most overdue story?

Little Things, which I'd actually written in 2012 or something, from a dw_straybunnies prompt but never typed up. There were one or two others like that, including a couple that I originally started for trope_bingo in 2013 and then only typed up/finished this year.


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

I signed up for Remix Redux! I'd never officially done Remix before, and that's a bit scary, because you have to spark off someone else's story and there is no guarantee that you will. But I was lucky enough to get livii, whose fic I love & enjoyed it. I hope to sign up again...


What are your fic writing goals for next year?

I'd like to write some more stories, be pleased with them, and even have some people read them and like them too. I hope that should be doable, but even if not, last year started badly and ended well, fic-wise, so that's good.

Comments

[aralias]

so many fics! we done :D :D also - even if i dont know the fandoms, it makes me feel very happy to see you writing fics for things that are very old and that you like and think need fic. that is how fandom should work (well, ideally you'd have thousands of people commenting on your public eye - but if not, at least you wrote fic and good fic!). also - i was dead impressed by how many yuletide things you wrote :D christmas wouldn't be christmas without lots of good fics.

i like all your last lines, but i still really really like this one: He makes his apologies to the tree, and leaves. ;)

[thisbluespirit]

Aw, thanks! And, yes, why don't people read all my fic for really obscure things? So wrong! ;-p

i like all your last lines, but i still really really like this one: He makes his apologies to the tree, and leaves.

:-D

[john_amend_all]

I do do arithmetic like that for fun, so I make it 46 fics for a total of 84028 words :-)

[thisbluespirit]

/o\ Thanks! I said 40+ because there were also some fandom stocking ficlets as well, although that was before I remembered the runaway_tales things, so probably actually 50+.

[mab_browne]

Even if they're shorties, that's still a lot of fic. Well done. :-)

[thisbluespirit]

Thank you!

[paranoidangel]

I've always found remixing to be fun - it's easier than having to think up a plot anyway :) And there's always dw_remix, where you can choose who to remix, so you can have a story in mind.

even have some people read them and like them too

The trouble with that is you have to write popular things to get people to read them.

[thisbluespirit]

I've only done one Remix so far, and one in 2012, I think it was, for Remix Madness, and I did actually find them both quite easy and enjoyable - but I'm not sure if that was just beginner's luck. And, LOL, no, making choices is the worst! So stressful! At least if I get assigned something awful, I can just grumble, which you can't if you chose the wrong thing. ;-) But, yeah, I'm definitely hoping to do Remix again, and I would like to do dw_remix, but it depends how well I feel - that last one was a little too close to Yuletide for me as I am/was then.

The trouble with that is you have to write popular things to get people to read them.

No worries! I just write some more Emma/Regina for OUaT! That seems to do the trick.

[paranoidangel]

dw_remix was supposed to finish before Yuletide got started, but it feels like it gets earlier every year! (not that I'm complaining about having more time to write)

[thisbluespirit]

Oh, I know, it's just that at the moment, I often get a little mentally exhausted after a fic exchange, so it's safest for me to allow about a month between one finishing and one starting, whichever ones I do. Of course, the better I get, the less any of that will matter. (And I can't wait!!)

[daybreak777.livejournal.com]

Wow, you wrote 40 things! That's pretty amazing.

[thisbluespirit]

Thank you! I suppose I feel a bit dissatisfied, because I'd rather have been able to write less but longer, more complex fics - but that is silly, really. :-)

[liadt]

40+ = loads! Well done:) A03 told me how many words I wrote when I clicked the stats button. No maths needed:)

I think I read the 'Children of the Damned' fic so that's one reader!

Making yourself happy by writing fic cos there is none and then feeling sad because no one else will read it is a weird feeling. People are consuming the wrong stuff!

I like 'No Bones Broken...' best titlewise.

[thisbluespirit]

Hmm, I thought AO3 only gives the total word count? Oh, could I filter it down to a year? I probably could? I didn't think of that. Though some of them were LJ only, so I'd still have had to do some maths.

Making yourself happy by writing fic cos there is none and then feeling sad because no one else will read it is a weird feeling.

The brain doesn't really properly comprehend why people don't read it, yes.

My favourite is definitely "This Single World Is Double Till I Die", but I am fond of No Bones Broken...; it seems right for Public Eye. <3

[a-phoenixdragon.livejournal.com]

I love this meme!! And it only goes to prove how very hard you rock! Dude...

*Is boggled*

[thisbluespirit]

LOL, Thank you!

*hugs you*

[persiflage-1.livejournal.com]

I LOVE Light on a Hill - let's be accurate here!! :D

It's definitely my fave of all your fics I've read this year. And yes, I'm a bad friend - I've not read everything!

[thisbluespirit]

Aw, thanks! And it was nice to write something we both like, instead of me always wandering off into the realms of the truly obscure! Besides, you've read loads of these, even some of the obscure stuff, and while there are reasons - medical reasons, even - you can't call yourself a bad friend for that, when I don't know if I've even read one of your fics this year, which is awful. (There's a resolution for next year! Read some safe-for-me Pers-fic! ♥)

Maybe we'll even meet in a fandom somewhere once more? ;-)

[persiflage-1.livejournal.com]

Well, to be fair, I don't often write safe-for-you fic! I think my first AoS one - 5 Times Coulson comforted Skye - is the only "safe" one so far - though I've got some safe ficlets I'll be posting next week for the RomFest.

I don't hold it against you that you don't read explicit fic.

[thisbluespirit]

Yes, I've been behind you with AoS as well. I shall have to go look that one out, then - safe-for-me, I'm now up to date with the fandom, and while I'm not shipping those two exactly, I adore their relationship; they're my favourites!

I don't hold it against you that you don't read explicit fic.

Hee, just as well, really! ♥

[persiflage-1.livejournal.com]

I confess I fell for them hard from the very first episode - all of Coulson's flirting, with the flying car and everything.

Well I've never forgotten your reaction to accidentally reading the Three/Liz/Martha fic I wrote - although I still don't know why you read it when it was clearly marked as NSFW!

[thisbluespirit]

:-)

Ha, yes. Well, sometimes headers are too obvious to read for people of little brain, like me. Like the way far too many people fail to read huge signposts, and push doors clearly marked 'pull'. Including me, sometimes. ;lol:

[oonaseckar.livejournal.com]

Why put those signs up anyhow? They are clearly only designed to frustrate people of an unconsciously contrary and perverse disposition. How is anyone's id supposed not to announce you ain't the boss of me and push with brute force?

[persiflage-1.livejournal.com]

*giggles*

[clocketpatch]

SO MUCH FIC!

I am in awe of the fic production of you and several others.

For sexiest fic... I thought that The Quality of Mercy was in a twisted, A/S way. And I thought there was a kiss in it? But I might be getting it confused with an actual episode now, because that kiss in Deathwatch seared into my brain apparently.

[thisbluespirit]

It feels like too much and not enough at the same time. I want to grumble about all I can't do, but then I have a ridiculous number of unsatisfactory ficlets I have written, so I can't.

I did wonder about The Quality of Mercy, because, well, Avon/Servalan, but I didn't think it was - that's why I said people will have to tell me! I'm not the bext judge. So, yay, it is; it counts! (There was a kiss. It was Avon/Servalan. After Deathwatch, random kissing always has to happen between them. I was most displeased that S4 did not provide in that respect.)

[flowsoffire.livejournal.com]

Yay, writing memes :) They're always quite interesting.

*hugs*

[thisbluespirit]

Thank you! :-)

[oonaseckar.livejournal.com]

Wow, what a writing year you've had! And, oops, I remember It Ends Tonight only too well. Not only because it's a lovely fic, but because I had to read it three times to get the pun.

Duh.

[thisbluespirit]

I think I didn't even realise I'd written the pun for a minute or two, until I did, and then left it, because why not?

Thanks. :-)