stunt_muppet

I normally don't do this meme until the 11th, but I'm unlikely to get any more writing done this year except possibly for Yuletide, and anyway it's almost the 11th. Besides, you know I never pass up an opportunity to self-pimp.

For the year of 2009...

Fics Completed:
Holding the Reins (Doctor Who, Three/Jo, NC-17 stop that I can hear you judging)
Castaways (Doctor Who, Jack/K-9, G)
Stargazer (Doctor Who, Gen, Donna, Wilf, G)
The Strength To Hold On (The Halley’s Comet Remix) (Doctor Who, Liz/Martha, PG-13)
Lessons (Doctor Who, Liz/Jo, G)


Fics (multi-chapter) Started or Continued:
The Memory Always Lies, Chapter 2 (Doctor Who, Gen, Three, Liz, Brig, Benton, PG)
The Memory Always Lies: Sentencing, Chapter 2.1/Missing Scene (Doctor Who, OCs sort-of, vaguely Doctor/TARDIS, PG)

Total:
7

Looking back, did you write more fics than you thought you would this year, less than you thought, or about what you predicted?
I thought I’d write more. A lot more. But then, from what I can tell, nobody seems to have been able to write this year, so I’m not feeling too guilty.

Where did you publish/archive your stories?
I moved my old Who fic to FF.net, posted new stuff on Teaspoon, and uploaded most of my old fic to AO3.

What pairing/genre/fandom did you write that you would never have predicted in January 2009?
Given that I didn’t really like Liz/Jo as a pairing (fics that I’ve read of it tend to be heavy on the “the Doctor is essentially a bad character and should only be tolerated because his companions are awesome” vibe, which sucks if you actually like the Doctor even if he’s a right bastard), I wouldn’t have thought I’d end up writing it, and actually sort of liking the resulting fic.

Also, while I probably could have predicted writing Three/Jo PWP, I would not have predicted that I’d be putting my name on it. Well, my pseud, anyway.

What’s your favorite story this year? Not the most popular, but the one that makes you the happiest.
Tie between two:
The Strength To Hold On: It’s my first remix, my first femslash story, the longest story I’ve ever written except for my unfinished Eternal Darkness fic and my badfics from my early days, and while it’s not the first time I consciously set out to set up themes, parallels, metaphors, and comparisons it’s (in my opinion anyway) the first time I’ve succeeded worth a damn. And really, I’m just happy that I managed to craft a story out of someone else’s without it seeming like a retread.

Sentencing, the deleted scene from Memory. It’s not really a story so much as it is me screwing around and pretending at being deep, but I like some of the images I used, and it’s kind of Doctor/TARDIS which I’ve been meaning to write for a while, and for a first go at an extended metaphor I think it works rather well. Also it incorporated details of future canon and I like doing that. It makes me feel smrt.

Okay, NOW your most popular story.
Probably The Strength to Hold On, which makes me very happy as I’m actually proud of that one. :) Also possibly Memory Always Lies Chapter 2, since I’ve managed not to completely put off my readers by my long delay.

Story most underappreciated by the universe?
…I don’t know? If I was going to be shamelessly honest, I’d say Holding the Reins. I mean, I know no one comments on porn unless it’s for a really popular pairing, but I would have like to know if I was doing it right or if it was too generic or what. That way I’d know to stop plugging away at kinkmeme fic and expend my energies elsewhere. Which I should be doing anyway.

Story that could have been better?
All of them! Mostly kidding. Lessons is probably the one that could have used a lot more time, which is my own fault for procrastinating. I’m not entirely satisfied with it; I think it’s slow and not much happens, but I did think it over and spend time on it, so…there it is.

Sexiest story?
Holding the Reins was the only one that was supposed to be sexy, but I’m not sure how it worked out. So I guess that’d be it.

Most fun story?
I had a lot of fun planning out and thinking about The Strength to Hold On even if writing it was sort of an ordeal – there’s really no way to replicate the feeling of just sitting around, letting your mind wander, and then suddenly sitting bolt upright and realizing that BY JOVE YOU’VE CONSTRUCTED A METAPHOR, HUZZAH. Holding the Reins was rather exhilarating to write in a “it’s five in the morning and this is probably the most shameless/stupid thing I’ve ever written, I feel like I’m dancing in my knickers in front of the entire internet and I don’t care” sort of way. And I had fun writing Castaways, brief though it was, because I like writing K-9 and think Jack/K-9 actually has a lot of potential as a pairing and would like to write it again someday. It’s probably the most fun as far as content goes.

So perhaps it wasn’t all gloom and doom and hair-pulling.

Story with single sweetest moment?
Probably The Strength to Hold On, with the reunion between Liz and Martha at the end. I kind of cheated my way out of having to write the actual reunion itself, because I am very Not Good at big emotional scenes, but I think the aftermath, where Martha tells Liz about the Year That Never Was, works rather well.

The story that made you cry?
I feel nothing but shame for admitting this, but I got a little choked up (but didn’t actually cry!) while writing two of my stories: writing Liz’s breakup with Emma in Strength to Hold On (no idea why, since it’s not like I have any bad memories to dredge up, but I was doing some serious Method Writing for a while there) and the dream sequence with John Smith and Jamie in Memory Chapter 2, because anything involving post-War Games Jamie makes me maudlin. I thought the end of Sentencing was sad, but not enough so to make me cry.

Hardest story to write?
ALL OF THEM AUGH. Ahem. This was kind of a difficult year for writing for a whole variety of reasons, so I didn’t finish much of anything that wasn’t a ficathon piece and even those I cranked out at the last minute with much accompanying angst. I’d say the two ficathon stories (Strength to Hold On and Lessons) were probably the most difficult for just that reason.

Easiest story to write?
Sentencing (Chapter 2.1 of Memory). It’s essentially freewriten, and one of the only coherent freewriting pieces I managed. It’s also another idea that I’d been kicking about for a few weeks and just finally wrote down all in one go, so hopefully certain other stories I’d like to write will follow that mould.

Most overdue story?
Chapter 3 of Memory, a ha ha. I really have got to pick up the pace, this “one chapter a year” business is just not going to fly. Oh, and the second chapter of An Experiment, of Sorts, because I keep writing fragments of it and it is not coming together. The second and third chapters of Made Up Your Mind don’t count because I only recently decided I wanted to write them rather than let them slink off into a corner and die.

Oh, and my two Miami WIPs that I should finish. Especially Sixth-Date Rule, because I write so much Serious Business fic now (relative to how much of it I wrote in Miami fandom, anyway) that writing pure fluff would be nice. And also widdledragon ’s Horatio/Ryan, which is Overdue Like Whoa.

Did you take any writing risks this year? What did you learn from them?
- Writing for a ficathon that actually has consequences for defaulting. I mean, in theory all of them do, but dropping out of a Remix, even a fandom-specific Remix, or an actual comm ficathon seems slightly higher-profile and more disappointing (which is not to say that defaulting is ever not disappointing). What I learned from that is that even in my leisure-time activities I am a horrible procrastinator and actually physically allergic to getting anything done more than a week before it’s due. Also that I should stop signing up for ficathons. Or maybe I shouldn’t, since it’s the only time I get anything written.

- Posting PWP under my own name. Yes, shush, I consider that a risk, because it lets everyone know how bizarre my tastes run. I learned that I still have a weensy bit of shame because I can’t bring myself to post anything under my own name except for very, very vanilla porn. I’m still too shy to even write anything worse which is part of the reason I want to finish up and post some of the worse things I’ve got in mind.

-Writing femslash! I’m always worried I’m going to commit egregious sexuality!fail somehow whenever I write…well, anything, but especially slash and femslash, and because femslash isn’t as well-represented in fandom I assumed it was going to be harder to write for some reason. Not so! In fact I find it rather easier to write than slash fic, because I have a harder time writing romance from a male POV, which I probably shouldn’t but there you go. (I hadn’t realized until I started writing femslash just how often I wrote from a female POV to begin with, specifically Liz’s POV – both the femslash stories are from her POV, as is the Three/Liz story and big chunks of Memory. And the romance stories that aren’t in Liz’s POV are in Jo’s POV, except for those two that aren’t…wait, never mind, I don’t actually use Jo’s POV all that often.)

Do you have any fanfic goals for the New Year?
RITE MOAR, mostly. I had a lot of good reasons for not getting a lot of writing done this year, but at the same time I miss being able to write with spontaneity and verve and feeling instead of churning things out on a deadline. I miss it when writing was a bit easier.

More specifically:
Write more boyslash (because I’ve written very little of it and I should break my phobia of male POVs)
Write more gen (fandom always needs more gen!),
Write more short fic, especially for whoniverse1000 (because I’m tired of six-jillion-word epics, dammit)
Write more in other fandoms besides Doctor Who (surely there are a few canons I know well enough by now)
Finish up my WIPs in all fandoms
Write for a greater variety of Doctors and companions within Who fandom (because there are a lot of companions and Doctors I love a whole lot but never write for because I tend to hyperfocus on one or two characters whenever I enter a fandom)
Write those last two chapters of Made Up Your Mind and the Big Epic Three/Jo think that I have been meaning to for like a year and stop being ashamed of both of those things
Generally improve my writing skills, especially in problem areas like description and internal monologue
Last but not least, relax. Because I never seem to accomplish that.



To work, to work.

PS, you know I want you to do all of this because I love hearing you all ramble about fic and all, don't you? Of course you do.