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Annual bit of naval gazing coming up. Last year's is here.

Stats

List of Completed Fics:
Omitting any tiny meme ficlets and also my Runaway Tales. (I have, I believe, going by my tag count, written 56 of them this year, varying in length from nearly 10,000 (two fics only) to a few drabbles and tiny ficlets, so my fanfic count has naturally gone down since 2014.)


Fancy Dress Escapade (AAL! Adam, Georgie, 710 words.)
Under Observation (New Tricks, Brian, Esther, 680 words, for [community profile] fandom_stocking)
In a Hole (OUaT, Emma & Regina, 800 words, for [community profile] fandom_stocking.)
Rewards of Battle (Shadow of the Tower, Henry/Elizabeth, 669 words, for [community profile] fandom_stocking.)
Tea Break (Doctor Who, Eight & Clara, 916 words, for dw_allsorts)
Salt of the Earth (Doctor Who, Martha Tyler, Jack Harkness, Twelfth Doctor, OCs, 4153 words, for dw_guestfest & dw_allsorts)
Ship of Ghosts (Doctor Who, Jackson, Orfe, Tala, Herrick, Fourth Doctor, 1312 words, for dw_guestfest & dw_allsorts)
Unrelated (The Loop the Loop to Affinity Remix) (Doctor Who, Delgado Master/River, Missy, 2971 words, for Remix Redux.)
In the Blood (Dracula 1968, Mina/Lucy, 920 words, for hc_bingo)
Criss-Cross My Heart and Hope to Die (The Lattice Top Rebake) (Angel/Pushing Daisies, Angel, Olive, Ned, Emerson,1327 words. For Remix Madness.)
No Apologies (AAL! Adam & Georgie, 1263 words.)
Best Out of Twelve (Zodiac, Esther/Grad, 539 words, for the Obscure & British Commentfest).
Opening Gambit (Spooks, Zaf/Jo, 595 words.)
Illogical Explanations (Jonathan Creek, Jonathan & Maddy, 213 words.)
Points of View (Enemy at the Door, Philip & Olive, 597 words.)
April Shower (S&S, Sapphire, Silver, Steel, 1025 words, for the 500 prompts meme)
After the Moment (S&S/Doctor Who, Silver/The Moment, 346 words, for the 500 prompts meme).
Rescuer in Red (Doctor Who, Martha/Clara, 833 words, for the 500 prompts meme.)
All the Hounds of Hell (Doctor Who/Hist RPF, Ace, Seven, Henry VII, 2735 words, for hc_bingo)
Cause for Concern (Hist RPF/SotT, Margaret Beaufort & Elizabeth of York, 895 words, written from a Tumblr prompt)
Quest Object (Doctor Who, Harry, Sarah, & Four, 3854 words, for dw_allsorts and who_at_50 and hc_bingo)
Coldharbour (Hist RPF/SotT, Henry/Elizabeth, 1665 words, for a Tumblr prompt)
Friendly Warning (Doctor Who, Twelve & Ian, drabble)
Waiting for the Stars to Fall (Forsyte Saga, Fleur/Michael, 856 words, for hc_bingo)
The Maze of Terror (AAL! Adam, Georgie & Simms, 7274 words, for Yuletide)
Fading Fast (Spooks, Ruth, Harry, Beth, 409 words, for the 500 prompts meme)
A Matter of Common Sense (Reluctant Widow, Elinor/Carlyon, 445 words, for Yuletide Madness)
The Lower Atherton Mystery (The Moonstone, Sergeant Cuff, 1541 words, for Yuletide)

Total number: 28


Ship/character breakdown:

I have been a flighty butterfly, so, these are the only ships and characters appearing more than once:

Henry VII/Elizabeth of York x2

Adam Adamant x3
Georgina Jones x3
Henry VII x3
Elizabeth of York x3
Clara Oswald x2
Twelfth Doctor x2
Fourth Doctor x2
Silver x2



Specifics:

Best/worst title?

Salt of the Earth for my Mrs Tyler fic for dw_guestfest. The reasons for which will be obvious to anyone who's watched Image of the Fendahl. I was completely stuck for a title for ages, and then suddenly was hit by the obviousness of that one. (For those who haven't, rock salt is used as a means of fighting evil, and Mrs Tyler is exactly the 'salt of the earth' type. But it just tied everything together very nicely.)

Also I'm pretty proud of my punning Remix title: Unrelated (The Loop the Loop to Affinity Remix). It's a good Remix title and it plays on my fic and lines and themes from dancingsalome's fic that I was remixing.


As for the worst, In a Hole was all I could think of for a fandom_stocking Emma & Regina ficlet. I was very tired!


Best/worst summary?

I think most of them are pretty pedestrian, so here's about the best I managed in 2015...

Salt of the Earth: Martha Tyler lives on a time rift, sees things no one else does, and fights evil with rock salt. It’s been that way all her life.

Unrelated: It takes time to achieve perfection. Several times, in fact. Both the Master and River Song know this a little too well.



Best/worst first line?

I'm thinking of deleting these questions. How terrible all my first and last lines are seems to be something I should stop showing off in public. Anyway, these seem fairly decent. The worst ones can just be buried or fixed sometime; I don't see the need to inflict them on me or anyone else.


A Matter of Common Sense: “I daresay that you would see nothing especially romantic about a sunset,” said Elinor, in a tone of one resigned to much ill-usage, her suitor having responded to an encouraging comment about how pleasant the weather was with a prosaic observation that it seemed likely to rain before long.


Coldharbour: It was a ridiculously small thing that overset her – a bird, a mere sparrow, alighting on the bare branch of a bush in front of her in the garden of Coldharbour House – but to Elizabeth it brought a back a long-forgotten memory with sudden vividness.


April Showers: In the middle of a field, one telegraph pole was being rained on by a lone cloud poised far above it.


No Apologies: It was, Georgie thought, bad enough to be bleeding all over the place without someone lecturing her about how it was her own fault and she should have known better than to come after him.


I rather like the start of Salt of the Earth, too, but you need two lines, not one: Martha Tyler had always seen things other people hadn’t. Time slivers had danced around her crib, and from the very start, she’d shivered at the abyss at the edge of the woods that her mother happily walked right through.



Best/worst last line(s)?

Again, ones I like only. (I think, with last lines, they work in context, so there are few that are more than one sentence, because sentences do not exist in isolation. They have paragraphs. Context is everything. Stuff the meme.)


Illogical Explanations: "Now, come on, Jonathan, you’re a magician’s assistant – you must have a saw in here somewhere!"


In the Blood: “Oh, God, help me,” she says, but this treacherous creature within thinks of Lucy, and that path leads to the Count and damnation. There’s no way back.


Unrelated: Only imagine the Doctor’s face when he finds out, Missy thinks in glee. That will be a moment to treasure.


Ship of Ghosts: In the meantime, there is work to do, more changes to make, decisions to be made, a new course ahead, and it feels to Jackson almost like another regeneration, or better, a renewal of spirit: suddenly there’s a flicker of life within.


Tea Break: “Liar,” she said, as she fell.


Probably the last line of 'Friendly Warning' is a contender, but it's a bit spoilery for DW S9 to quote out loud.



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 don't know. I wrote fewer fics than usual, but some of them were longer and I wrote lots of original fic for runaway tales.


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

Well, I couldn't predict that I'd get hold of and fall into Adam Adamant Lives!, and I hadn't even heard of Zodiac. A special mention should go to a meme ficlet not on this list, in which I achieved Steed/Baldrick, though. I don't expect anyone predicted that!

I am pretty much happy to try writing most things. I don't always succeed, but what else is fanfic for, anyway? Plus, I can't resist a good random generator.


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

Hmm, I'm really not sure. I think the honest answer would be some of my runaway_tales fics, but since I didn't include them here, then Salt of the Earth, Ship of Ghosts or All the Hounds of Hell. Probably Salt of the Earth, because, like Light on a Hill last year, that was something I'd been wishing would exist for years. I was just really hoping someone else would write it for me!


Okay, NOW your most popular story.

According to my AO3 stats, that would be Tea Break, closely followed by Criss-Cross My Heart And Hope to Die, and Rewards of Battle, although I think if I used all the sites, it might well be my drabble Friendly Warning. That was certainly the only one to pick up comments on Teaspoon without being linked from somewhere. (It's very depressing on Teaspoon nowawdays. I used to delete fics that got less than 3 reviews for being Obviously Terrible and it was probably a fair measure of quality then, while now I get zero reviews for nearly everything.)



Story most underappreciated by the universe?

Waiting for the Stars to fall, probably, or Best Out of Twelve. That's what I get for wilfully writing in obscure fandoms, however.

Unrelated wasn't exactly not appreciated by anyone because I've had three very nice comments on it, including from the remixee, which is the important thing, but otherwise there was silence for months and I don't know why, because it's a popular character, and part of fest and I genuinely still think it's one of the three best things I've written this year. Hey-ho. What do we mere authors know, eh?? Heh.



Story that could have been better?

All of them, I'm sure, but I really would have liked more time to go over The Lower Atherton Mystery, and to just tidy up a few loose ends in The Maze of Terror.



Sexiest story?

In the Blood maybe?? (But, hey, I wrote some stuff that pretty much was for runaway tales. Gosh. Go me.)



Saddest story?

Possibly Tea Break, for killing off another Clara splinter, but mostly I've not gone further than a bit angsty. (I wrote some very sad stuff for runaway_tales, though. I was evil there and kinder here.)


Most fun?

The Maze of Terror! (Or at least, it ought to be.)


Story with single sweetest moment?

Well, Criss-Cross My Heart and Hope to Die has pie? Um, maybe Adam and Georgie at the end of No Apologies is at least a little aww-worthy?


Hardest story to write?

I had real trouble making myself actually write Salt of the Earth (I had to mentally cast old telly actors as all the OCs to get myself going: apparently this never fails with me now). Quest Object ought to have been straight-forward and I'd been looking forward to writing Harry and Sarah again, but then it was such a slog and I was hating it before I was done. Maze of Terror was simultaneously huge fun to do and something that seemed as if it might be the death of me, because of illness crossed with rapidly approaching deadlines. Remind me next year: if I sign up for who_at_50, I need to do icons or recs or something, because ONCOMING YULETIDE. I really need to learn to be more sensible about how much I can't do!



Easiest/most fun story to write?

The easiest to write was probably Ship of Ghosts or my Remix, Unrelated, both of which were the sorts of fics that came pretty much fully formed right out of my head onto the page.



Did any stories shift your perceptions of the characters?

Um, probably not? Remixing Dancingsalome's Sliding Down the Razorblades of Life for Unrelated made me think quite a lot about River, though and really got into my head quite a bit before I'd done.



Most overdue story?

April Showers I wrote at least a year before posting/typing up. Possibly two years. So there was that.



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

I don't know? I suppose attempting 19th C Journalese for The Lower Atherton Mystery was a misguided idea. (But it's not Wilkie Collins if you don't go all epistolary in some way!)



What are your fic writing goals for next year?

Keep writing, be sensible, don't get tempted into signing up for more than the very occasional fix exchange. I do still intend to keep writing the original fiction for runaway tales and maybe other things, though.

Date: 2016-01-04 07:26 am (UTC)
mab_browne: Auckland beach, pohutukawa and a view of Rangitoto from a painting by Jennifer Cruden (Default)
From: [personal profile] mab_browne
All those little bits do add up and I admire your spread of fandoms. :-)

Date: 2016-01-03 10:38 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] elviaprose.livejournal.com
I love the first lines of Salt of the Earth. Also I just learned a new word: overset!

It seems like you wrote a lot of good things this year!

Date: 2016-01-04 03:46 pm (UTC)
liadt: Fuji Maiden by Tamasaburo propped on elbow looking to right of frame (DW Master desk)
From: [personal profile] liadt
Loadsa fic!

I'm thinking of deleting these questions Lol. I'm thinking of ignoring them and waffling off the point!

Date: 2016-01-04 04:09 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] a-phoenixdragon.livejournal.com
Wow!! You wrote a lot of awesome things this year...and honestly, yes, some questions should be deleted, lol!!

*HUGS*

Date: 2016-01-04 06:23 pm (UTC)
elen_nare: (Default)
From: [personal profile] elen_nare
I love the first lines of No Apologies and Salt of the Earth!

I may borrow this meme :)

Date: 2016-01-04 08:55 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] swordznsorcery.livejournal.com
You momentarily baffled me with talk of Martha Tyler. I was thinking: "No... It's Rose Tyler, and Martha Jones. Is it a gestalt entity? Has she been at the Christmas sherry?" But these are the wonders of lesser known characters. :)

Love the line from "No Apologies". Oh Georgie! You should have stayed at home. ;) And Steed/Baldrick?! Unexpected crossover is unexpected. Nice one! Patrick Macnee was in "Thunder In Paradise", you know. I am now thinking thinky thoughts which I really don't have time to be thinking right now...!

Date: 2016-01-04 09:49 pm (UTC)
john_amend_all: (evil)
From: [personal profile] john_amend_all
I'm thinking of deleting these questions.

I think that's an excellent idea. It becomes a terrible chore to go through however many fics looking at first and last lines and trying to compare one with another.

Date: 2017-01-07 09:33 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] ghost2.livejournal.com
Wow, you came out with a lot of stuff. I wish I'd written anything at all.

Yeah, Teaspoon has slowed way down. Along with few reviews being posted, not that many authors are submitting material. A lot of times when I check the queue, it's empty. Maybe things will pick up nicely when the new series starts airing. I hope so, anyway!

I'm guilty of not reviewing anyone's stories in a while. This reminds me to read more and leave some comments at least occasionally because I know it's depressing to get little or no response.

Date: 2017-01-07 09:44 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] ghost2.livejournal.com
LOL, I had two windows open at once (for your most recent entry and for this one), didn't check the date, and thought this post was the latest one. I guess what I said still holds true, though!

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