Writing Roundup 2013
Jan. 3rd, 2014 01:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
out_thereLast year's stats.
Fannish works posted this year:
February
Bridges Crossed and Fair Maidens Won (1000 words) by out_there
Fandom: Supernatural
Characters: Dean Winchester, Charlie Bradbury
Summary: “She’s a fairy, not an elf,” Charlie says. “And I asked for help to get a message to her. Organize a date. Not spend the rest of my life crossing the spookiest bridge in the Midwest.”
Challenge: Picfor1000
Reflections: I still really like Charlie as a character, and writing her and Dean bantering was incredibly fun.
March
How Blaine Ended Up Living in New York With Three Roommates (1286 words) by out_there
Fandom: Glee
Characters: Blaine Anderson
Summary: Self-explanatory title explains all. (Set sometime after 4.14, but not particularly spoilery.)
Reflections: Even though it's been jossed by Glee's weirdly shifting timelines (this school year refuses to end!), I'm still fond of this Blaine POV. This was fun to write just to have Blaine interracting with everyone. You know my favourite line in this story? It's Sugar talking about having a man around to kill spiders, and Blaine's reply:
"I don't have much experience with spider killing." Because spiders freak him out, just a bit. Because Kurt would roll his eyes and squish them without a qualm. "But I can learn."
Because Blaine's a darling who would totally learn about spider killing for his roommates, even if it scares him. (Plus, oh poor Adam. I really thought you'd be around for longer.)
April
Liminal (The Belonging Remix) (13601 words) by out_there
Fandom: Glee
Relationships: Blaine Anderson/Kurt Hummel
Characters: Kurt Hummel, Blaine Anderson
Summary: Blaine Anderson transfers to Dalton Academy, and there he meets Kurt Hummel. A remix of Narie's “There's Friends for Life and Acquaintances”.
Challenge: Glee Remix
Reflections: After the initial panic of the challenge (trying to work out what to do, which stories I liked, how I could add something to the narrative), this was good to write. I loved the idea of a Kurt who hadn't lived through the years of McKinley bullying, who was confident and outspoken but also more generally accepted. Who played a sport (probably with eye-rolling) and didn't sing in the Glee club because he had choices of other groups who would accept him. And of course, the balancing to this is a Kurt who's never felt forced to be honest with his dad and let distance grow between them.
Likewise, it's a Blaine who's never been gaybashed. It's a Blaine who managed to sidestep that traumatic event but also doesn't have the courage-through-fire from that to be so firm and upfront about his sexuality. For someone who clearly avoids confrontation and likes fitting in, it's easy to see how being overlooked and fitting in could be very appealing.
It's essentially a story about being honest. About not trying to hide who you are just to be accepted. It's a theme that Glee does do well and I still like this insecure, uncertain Blaine POV finding the courage to be himself and unintentionally inspiring Kurt to do the same.
September
Before You Had It Written for You (2775 words) by out_there
Fandom: Glee
Relationships: Kurt Hummel/Blaine Anderson
Characters: Kurt Hummel, Blaine Anderson, Santana Lopez
Summary: A great agent is respected for being judgmental and bitchy. A great agent can afford the best clothes and gets invited to the best parties. Kurt is going to be the best agent ever. (Entourage fusion AU.)
Reflections: When I first thought of this, it was going to be much longer and there'd be scenes of LA nightlife and Kurt haggling with studios for Blaine's interest and I have no idea how the romance would happen but it would. But most of the thrill was the idea of Sue as Ari Gold -- because she is equally terrifying, admit it -- and this section was long enough to set the scene.
A Grey Sea of Eucalyptus Leaves (479 words) by out_there
Fandom: Prison Break
Relationships: Alexander Mahone/Michael Scofield
Characters: Alexander Mahone, Michael Scofield
Summary: "You never said what you did," Alex says, "to be sent here." (Colonial AU, set in Australia around 1820. For Isagel.)
Reflections: Written previously but not officially posted, and therefore not counted in previous years' wordcounts. Originally, this was going to be a huge, sprawling Colonial AU but it never got past this first scene.
October
Crisis, Midlife or Otherwise (759 words) by out_there
Fandom: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Relationships: Clint Barton/Phil Coulson
Additional Tags: Episode: s01e02 0-8-4, Coda
Summary: "Would you call this a midlife crisis?"
The Ongoing Christmas Wars (939 words) by out_there
Fandom: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Relationships: Clint Barton/Phil Coulson
Additional Tags: Episode: s01e03 The Asset, Coda
Summary: "You know, I'm always going to be the guy who tries to peek at his Christmas presents."
Appreciated (But Unnecessary) (943 words) by out_there
Fandom: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Relationships: Clint Barton/Phil Coulson
Additional Tags: Coda, Episode: s01e04 Eye Spy
Summary: "I can call back," Phil offers. They're going to be grounded in Stockholm for the next few days, waiting on repairs to the Short Bus - an unfortunate name that has stuck, despite Phil's personal distaste for it. Phil has nothing but time on his hands, and a request to testify that hasn't been answered.
Reflections: This was when AoS first came out and I fell for the idea of Clint/Coulson happening in the background and around the episodes. Unfortunately my enthusiasm didn't last long enough for me to actually turn it into a sickeningly sweet holiday story (you just know it would have) but it was fun while it lasted. I liked the rhythm of the banter and the mature acceptance of long-distance relationships and the underlying sweetness between them.
December
Leap Before You Look (1199 words) by out_there
Fandom: Dead Like Me
Characters: Rube Sofer, Betty Rhomer
Summary: Listening to other people’s warnings is like looking before she leaps: she didn’t do it when she was alive, and she’s not about to start now that she’s dead.
Challenge: Yuletide 2013
Reflections: As with any challenge, there was the initial lull of confidence (I can do that! that'll be fun!) followed by the stress and the panic and the looming deadline, but in the end it came together. I have to say, as fun as Betty can be, writing Rube's lines was a hoot. "Don’t do anything fucking stupid.” is good basic advice.
Conclusion
You know, I was trying to add these up in my head, and then remembered AO3's statistics page. That makes life much easier.
9 stories, which is 2 more than last year (yay improvement) but less overall word-count. (And 59% of total wordcount was in one story).
Breakdown by fandom:
1 Supernatural - 1,000 words
3 Glee - 17,662 words
1 Prison Break - 479 words.
3 Agents of SHIELD/Avengers - 2,641 words
1 Dead Like Me - 1,199 words
Total words written: 22,981
Thoughts
I wrote more than I realised but... I feel like my days of productivity are truly behind me and that's a sad feeling. Out of curiousity, though, I had a look at my previous years output.
It proves that my averages are all over the place. There have been times of great output, and other years of tiny output (2011 was particularly bad, but completing the CPA and taking on a higher role at work will do that). Here's hoping next year will be a randomly high one.
Part of the reason for the lower output this year was real life (buying a new place in April, settling/moving in June, busy work times from March-August) but part of it was fandom related. My big fandom of 2012 was Glee, and then the OTP broke up in a way that made me lose my faith in them as a couple. I have a history of falling for an OTP and then losing interest once canon effectively breaks them up. It's why I was so productive in SN (short lived series that didn't have time to effectively break the OTP; plus, it ended with the boys choosing to stay in NYC together and both being single in canon. That's fine with me.). It's why I was so productive in Heroes when Matt and Mohinder were living together, and then completely lost it when canon got stupid.
It's sort of why I'm wary of committing too much to Clint/Coulson, even though I love it, because I suspect it will be truly jossed and will lose the appeal. (Much like my attraction to Sherlock/John completely died with Series2 -- which was a great show to watch but also acknowledged the Sherlock/John vibes in a way that closed the slashy possibility for me. Series 3 might reopen it -- fingers crossed -- but I'll wait until I see it before making any big plans.)
Goals for 2014:
This is actually difficult since I seem to have a bad habit of listing goals and then not completing them. I have multiple wips that I'm not willing to set aside in the dead wip pile:
- a Glee wip stuck at 8K -- the "Children and Chanel" fic that I'd been hoping to get done by December, and instead... have got myself stuck. I think I need to force a conclusion and then send it to beta to be wrangled back to an actual story. I also think I need to accept the fact that this will probably be my last Glee fic because my OTP has lost the appeal.
- an old Heroes wip at 9K -- damn you, FBI-Matt, why can't an action-plot-based fic be easier to write?
- a PB wip that never made it past a scene -- although, hmmm, I sorta posted what I had and maybe I just have to live with that being a standalone scene rather than a proper story.
- I have recorded notes for the start of a Hawaii 5-0 story (doctor AU). I need to actually type them up and see if they could be a story.
And I keep thinking about committing to an Avengers Clint/Coulson story and keep chickening out of actually starting it. (If I did start it, it would be a riff on Clint having a reputation of hooking up at SHIELD office parties -- a fair and true reputation, honestly -- and him hooking up with Phil as a one-off convenience and it turning into more -- partly due to liking Phil, and partly due to Phil kknowing what he wants, knowing how to keep Clint's interest and being a Machievellian genius at playing the long-game. I have the shape of the story in my head, but I suspect the different bits have all been written in other stories -- i.e. the "I have nothing new to say" fear -- and I'm not sure if I have the time/ability/effort available to write it -- i.e. the "it won't be any good" fear. But I *want* to write it and I think it'd be a story that would absorb my attention... and yet I keep procrastinating about it.
*shrugs*
But this has also been a year when I've come back to completing challenges: Picfor1000 (which I missed last year -- only year I haven't done it), Yuletide (which I haven't completed in years), and Glee Remix (again, haven't done a remix in years). I think this calls for swallowing a bit of my terror at challenges and trying to stretch myself a little more this year.
Audience Participate Time:
Any questions you want to ask about the 2013 stories? Or any questions in general? Feel free to ask.
Fannish works posted this year:
February
Bridges Crossed and Fair Maidens Won (1000 words) by out_there
Fandom: Supernatural
Characters: Dean Winchester, Charlie Bradbury
Summary: “She’s a fairy, not an elf,” Charlie says. “And I asked for help to get a message to her. Organize a date. Not spend the rest of my life crossing the spookiest bridge in the Midwest.”
Challenge: Picfor1000
Reflections: I still really like Charlie as a character, and writing her and Dean bantering was incredibly fun.
March
How Blaine Ended Up Living in New York With Three Roommates (1286 words) by out_there
Fandom: Glee
Characters: Blaine Anderson
Summary: Self-explanatory title explains all. (Set sometime after 4.14, but not particularly spoilery.)
Reflections: Even though it's been jossed by Glee's weirdly shifting timelines (this school year refuses to end!), I'm still fond of this Blaine POV. This was fun to write just to have Blaine interracting with everyone. You know my favourite line in this story? It's Sugar talking about having a man around to kill spiders, and Blaine's reply:
"I don't have much experience with spider killing." Because spiders freak him out, just a bit. Because Kurt would roll his eyes and squish them without a qualm. "But I can learn."
Because Blaine's a darling who would totally learn about spider killing for his roommates, even if it scares him. (Plus, oh poor Adam. I really thought you'd be around for longer.)
April
Liminal (The Belonging Remix) (13601 words) by out_there
Fandom: Glee
Relationships: Blaine Anderson/Kurt Hummel
Characters: Kurt Hummel, Blaine Anderson
Summary: Blaine Anderson transfers to Dalton Academy, and there he meets Kurt Hummel. A remix of Narie's “There's Friends for Life and Acquaintances”.
Challenge: Glee Remix
Reflections: After the initial panic of the challenge (trying to work out what to do, which stories I liked, how I could add something to the narrative), this was good to write. I loved the idea of a Kurt who hadn't lived through the years of McKinley bullying, who was confident and outspoken but also more generally accepted. Who played a sport (probably with eye-rolling) and didn't sing in the Glee club because he had choices of other groups who would accept him. And of course, the balancing to this is a Kurt who's never felt forced to be honest with his dad and let distance grow between them.
Likewise, it's a Blaine who's never been gaybashed. It's a Blaine who managed to sidestep that traumatic event but also doesn't have the courage-through-fire from that to be so firm and upfront about his sexuality. For someone who clearly avoids confrontation and likes fitting in, it's easy to see how being overlooked and fitting in could be very appealing.
It's essentially a story about being honest. About not trying to hide who you are just to be accepted. It's a theme that Glee does do well and I still like this insecure, uncertain Blaine POV finding the courage to be himself and unintentionally inspiring Kurt to do the same.
September
Before You Had It Written for You (2775 words) by out_there
Fandom: Glee
Relationships: Kurt Hummel/Blaine Anderson
Characters: Kurt Hummel, Blaine Anderson, Santana Lopez
Summary: A great agent is respected for being judgmental and bitchy. A great agent can afford the best clothes and gets invited to the best parties. Kurt is going to be the best agent ever. (Entourage fusion AU.)
Reflections: When I first thought of this, it was going to be much longer and there'd be scenes of LA nightlife and Kurt haggling with studios for Blaine's interest and I have no idea how the romance would happen but it would. But most of the thrill was the idea of Sue as Ari Gold -- because she is equally terrifying, admit it -- and this section was long enough to set the scene.
A Grey Sea of Eucalyptus Leaves (479 words) by out_there
Fandom: Prison Break
Relationships: Alexander Mahone/Michael Scofield
Characters: Alexander Mahone, Michael Scofield
Summary: "You never said what you did," Alex says, "to be sent here." (Colonial AU, set in Australia around 1820. For Isagel.)
Reflections: Written previously but not officially posted, and therefore not counted in previous years' wordcounts. Originally, this was going to be a huge, sprawling Colonial AU but it never got past this first scene.
October
Crisis, Midlife or Otherwise (759 words) by out_there
Fandom: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Relationships: Clint Barton/Phil Coulson
Additional Tags: Episode: s01e02 0-8-4, Coda
Summary: "Would you call this a midlife crisis?"
The Ongoing Christmas Wars (939 words) by out_there
Fandom: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Relationships: Clint Barton/Phil Coulson
Additional Tags: Episode: s01e03 The Asset, Coda
Summary: "You know, I'm always going to be the guy who tries to peek at his Christmas presents."
Appreciated (But Unnecessary) (943 words) by out_there
Fandom: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Relationships: Clint Barton/Phil Coulson
Additional Tags: Coda, Episode: s01e04 Eye Spy
Summary: "I can call back," Phil offers. They're going to be grounded in Stockholm for the next few days, waiting on repairs to the Short Bus - an unfortunate name that has stuck, despite Phil's personal distaste for it. Phil has nothing but time on his hands, and a request to testify that hasn't been answered.
Reflections: This was when AoS first came out and I fell for the idea of Clint/Coulson happening in the background and around the episodes. Unfortunately my enthusiasm didn't last long enough for me to actually turn it into a sickeningly sweet holiday story (you just know it would have) but it was fun while it lasted. I liked the rhythm of the banter and the mature acceptance of long-distance relationships and the underlying sweetness between them.
December
Leap Before You Look (1199 words) by out_there
Fandom: Dead Like Me
Characters: Rube Sofer, Betty Rhomer
Summary: Listening to other people’s warnings is like looking before she leaps: she didn’t do it when she was alive, and she’s not about to start now that she’s dead.
Challenge: Yuletide 2013
Reflections: As with any challenge, there was the initial lull of confidence (I can do that! that'll be fun!) followed by the stress and the panic and the looming deadline, but in the end it came together. I have to say, as fun as Betty can be, writing Rube's lines was a hoot. "Don’t do anything fucking stupid.” is good basic advice.
Conclusion
You know, I was trying to add these up in my head, and then remembered AO3's statistics page. That makes life much easier.
9 stories, which is 2 more than last year (yay improvement) but less overall word-count. (And 59% of total wordcount was in one story).
Breakdown by fandom:
1 Supernatural - 1,000 words
3 Glee - 17,662 words
1 Prison Break - 479 words.
3 Agents of SHIELD/Avengers - 2,641 words
1 Dead Like Me - 1,199 words
Total words written: 22,981
Thoughts
I wrote more than I realised but... I feel like my days of productivity are truly behind me and that's a sad feeling. Out of curiousity, though, I had a look at my previous years output.
| Year | Total Words | Main fandom |
| 2003 | 38,126 | TWW, SV |
| 2004 | 62,664 | SN |
| 2005 | 273,267 | SN |
| 2006 | 44,068 | SGA |
| 2007 | 120,074 | Jeeves & Wooster, TW |
| 2008 | 149,427 | Heroes, TW |
| 2009 | 62,676 | PB |
| 2010 | 82,112 | Sherlock, WC |
| 2011 | 8,160 | Sherlock |
| 2012 | 108,599 | Glee |
| 2013 | 22,981 | Glee |
It proves that my averages are all over the place. There have been times of great output, and other years of tiny output (2011 was particularly bad, but completing the CPA and taking on a higher role at work will do that). Here's hoping next year will be a randomly high one.
Part of the reason for the lower output this year was real life (buying a new place in April, settling/moving in June, busy work times from March-August) but part of it was fandom related. My big fandom of 2012 was Glee, and then the OTP broke up in a way that made me lose my faith in them as a couple. I have a history of falling for an OTP and then losing interest once canon effectively breaks them up. It's why I was so productive in SN (short lived series that didn't have time to effectively break the OTP; plus, it ended with the boys choosing to stay in NYC together and both being single in canon. That's fine with me.). It's why I was so productive in Heroes when Matt and Mohinder were living together, and then completely lost it when canon got stupid.
It's sort of why I'm wary of committing too much to Clint/Coulson, even though I love it, because I suspect it will be truly jossed and will lose the appeal. (Much like my attraction to Sherlock/John completely died with Series2 -- which was a great show to watch but also acknowledged the Sherlock/John vibes in a way that closed the slashy possibility for me. Series 3 might reopen it -- fingers crossed -- but I'll wait until I see it before making any big plans.)
Goals for 2014:
This is actually difficult since I seem to have a bad habit of listing goals and then not completing them. I have multiple wips that I'm not willing to set aside in the dead wip pile:
- a Glee wip stuck at 8K -- the "Children and Chanel" fic that I'd been hoping to get done by December, and instead... have got myself stuck. I think I need to force a conclusion and then send it to beta to be wrangled back to an actual story. I also think I need to accept the fact that this will probably be my last Glee fic because my OTP has lost the appeal.
- an old Heroes wip at 9K -- damn you, FBI-Matt, why can't an action-plot-based fic be easier to write?
- a PB wip that never made it past a scene -- although, hmmm, I sorta posted what I had and maybe I just have to live with that being a standalone scene rather than a proper story.
- I have recorded notes for the start of a Hawaii 5-0 story (doctor AU). I need to actually type them up and see if they could be a story.
And I keep thinking about committing to an Avengers Clint/Coulson story and keep chickening out of actually starting it. (If I did start it, it would be a riff on Clint having a reputation of hooking up at SHIELD office parties -- a fair and true reputation, honestly -- and him hooking up with Phil as a one-off convenience and it turning into more -- partly due to liking Phil, and partly due to Phil kknowing what he wants, knowing how to keep Clint's interest and being a Machievellian genius at playing the long-game. I have the shape of the story in my head, but I suspect the different bits have all been written in other stories -- i.e. the "I have nothing new to say" fear -- and I'm not sure if I have the time/ability/effort available to write it -- i.e. the "it won't be any good" fear. But I *want* to write it and I think it'd be a story that would absorb my attention... and yet I keep procrastinating about it.
*shrugs*
But this has also been a year when I've come back to completing challenges: Picfor1000 (which I missed last year -- only year I haven't done it), Yuletide (which I haven't completed in years), and Glee Remix (again, haven't done a remix in years). I think this calls for swallowing a bit of my terror at challenges and trying to stretch myself a little more this year.
Audience Participate Time:
Any questions you want to ask about the 2013 stories? Or any questions in general? Feel free to ask.
