...and a hippo gnu year!
Dec. 31st, 2002 12:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
letterbladeMeme time. Stole this one from my friends list in general, because Azalais had it, and Mel had it, and McTabby had it, and they all got it from three different people...y'know, it would be interesting to track the progress of these things.
Anyway.
Looking back, did you write more fic than you thought you would this year, less, or about what you'd predicted?
In one sense, I probably wrote more, as in 'at all,' because about this time last year, if memory serves, I was going through minor writer's block. I finished the dark Myst vignettes in a mad rush in July, wrote some fun miscellany, and recently have been having a surge of activity in the Harry Potter fandom. In another sense, I've written less, since my work has recently become more and more compact, and I never managed to get any work done on my assorted epics--The Book of Narayan, The Scorpion in the Mirror, or my original novel. And all this is made worse because I didn't make predictions.
Woo, wibbly answer.
What pairing/genre/fandom did you write that you would never have predicted in January 2002?
Well, I didn't quite expect to be very immersed in the Potter fandom all of a sudden, and I probably wouldn't have guessed that I'd be writing Tom/Alastor, or Lucius/Gilderoy, but at the same time it doesn't surprise me. I've always liked slightly eccentric pairings. No, what I couldn't've predicted in a million years was Petunia Dursley, of all people, eating my brain and angsting at me for two pages. Should really finish that off and post it one day.
Actually, writing fan poetry, especially in stylistic imitation of a prose translation of the Kalevala, was a bit of a surprise too, but that's another story.
What's your favorite story of the year? Not the most popular, but the one that makes you happiest.
Mechanical: Vengeance, definitely. Well, I started it fall of '01, but I finished it this July, and when I posted the last scene, it was one AM, and I couldn't stop bouncing around in sheer joy for the next hour. It's my favorite of the DMVs, despite its structural problems and trying to be several things at once, which is to say my favorite of a streak of work which contains some of my most mature and popular (relative to the fandom) stuff to date.
Runners-up would be A Lexicon of Serpents, because it's unique in a fandom where it's hard to be so, gets deep into Tom Riddle's brain, and is currently my baby, and Within These Pages..., just because.
Did you take any writing risks this year? (See above for unexpected pairings, etc.) What did you learn from them?
Several, actually.
First-person present is new to me (used in Go East and all of the not-online-yet A Lexicon of Serpents and a few other incomplete Potterfic shreds). And I learned that it's bloody fun. Gives you a lot of characterization and immediacy and opinion right there; the problem for me is cutting down on description, especially if I'm dealing with such unpoetic a narrator as a teenaged Alastor Moody. I think I'm succeeding, but I'm not entirely sure. And I also find myself dealing with the question of "is this narration as in he is telling the story to you the reader as it happens?" and answeing "no" in most cases, believing that the narration was simply happening, without an implied listener. It was a little less clear-cut with Go East and an unposted fic or two.
Het smut is new to me (The Barefoot Rebellion)--I was always planning to try it someday, but that challenge got me in gear long before I might've risked it otherwise. It was in some ways easier than I thought it would be, if only because it's easier to write about the set of genitals you have as long as you've acquainted yourself with them, and I have enough of an overactive imagination that I could just work from there. It was also new to have a straight Lucius, but I think I managed. *blankstare* That was a bit of a viewpoint thing as well, with the third person present (also in Slither); and I've also been using more third-person limited recently, especially in Within These Pages..., which was an interesting trip into Lucius' head.
I've also been doing some very unsystematic stylistic experimentation, something which has been going on for a while, but I think it reached new heights (depths?) in bits of Channelwood: Masks and then in Slither, as far as a character's inner monologue or a rather bizarre semi-mythology leaking into a theoretically distant third-person narration. I think I succeeded there too, although others might have gripes with it. *uncertain look*
And I also took the risk of writing rhyming poetry, in Aspermere: Blessed Are the Meek, and failed. Miserably.
Do you have any fanfic or profic goals for the New Year?
Arrr, I hate setting goals.
I guess I can say this much. I'd like to finish A Lexicon of Serpents within the next year. I'd also like to have revised and finished copies of the dark Myst vignettes. What I'd really like to be able to do is wrap up or put to rest most of my fanfics--either list them as abandoned and let them lie, or finish 'em up nicely and put shiny copies on my website, because I have dozens of fics, some of which are old and gray but I still love dearly, and I'd like to get them organized. But that would be a massive undertaking. Similarly, I have a vast number of bunnies and fic fragments, especially in the Potterfic line, that I should deal with at some point.
Not saying here that I wouldn't continue to write fanfic. I'd just like to have it more organized. To know whether I need to worry about the faint bunnies for Utenafic, or that Nuriko/Tasuki Fushigi Yugi PWP I've been nursing, or all the Evafic, the beloved old Paris/Suder Voyager slash, the even more beloved and even older Lucifer/Morpheus piece... I want to either bury them and take them off my mind, or finish them and take them off my mind. And then I can deal with the new bunnies, and hopefully, with the massive pile of miscellanious fic out of the way, start to experiment with original work again.
And speaking of original work, some of that will be inevitable, seeing as I'll be taking a course next term which will require extensive workshopping and work on my novel. Just hope it survives.
*pants*
So that's that--shameless self-promotion and all. I was considered listing my HP fic reading list, when I realized that it was massively incoherent and all. So i'll just wish everybody a happy new year!
Anyway.
Looking back, did you write more fic than you thought you would this year, less, or about what you'd predicted?
In one sense, I probably wrote more, as in 'at all,' because about this time last year, if memory serves, I was going through minor writer's block. I finished the dark Myst vignettes in a mad rush in July, wrote some fun miscellany, and recently have been having a surge of activity in the Harry Potter fandom. In another sense, I've written less, since my work has recently become more and more compact, and I never managed to get any work done on my assorted epics--The Book of Narayan, The Scorpion in the Mirror, or my original novel. And all this is made worse because I didn't make predictions.
Woo, wibbly answer.
What pairing/genre/fandom did you write that you would never have predicted in January 2002?
Well, I didn't quite expect to be very immersed in the Potter fandom all of a sudden, and I probably wouldn't have guessed that I'd be writing Tom/Alastor, or Lucius/Gilderoy, but at the same time it doesn't surprise me. I've always liked slightly eccentric pairings. No, what I couldn't've predicted in a million years was Petunia Dursley, of all people, eating my brain and angsting at me for two pages. Should really finish that off and post it one day.
Actually, writing fan poetry, especially in stylistic imitation of a prose translation of the Kalevala, was a bit of a surprise too, but that's another story.
What's your favorite story of the year? Not the most popular, but the one that makes you happiest.
Mechanical: Vengeance, definitely. Well, I started it fall of '01, but I finished it this July, and when I posted the last scene, it was one AM, and I couldn't stop bouncing around in sheer joy for the next hour. It's my favorite of the DMVs, despite its structural problems and trying to be several things at once, which is to say my favorite of a streak of work which contains some of my most mature and popular (relative to the fandom) stuff to date.
Runners-up would be A Lexicon of Serpents, because it's unique in a fandom where it's hard to be so, gets deep into Tom Riddle's brain, and is currently my baby, and Within These Pages..., just because.
Did you take any writing risks this year? (See above for unexpected pairings, etc.) What did you learn from them?
Several, actually.
First-person present is new to me (used in Go East and all of the not-online-yet A Lexicon of Serpents and a few other incomplete Potterfic shreds). And I learned that it's bloody fun. Gives you a lot of characterization and immediacy and opinion right there; the problem for me is cutting down on description, especially if I'm dealing with such unpoetic a narrator as a teenaged Alastor Moody. I think I'm succeeding, but I'm not entirely sure. And I also find myself dealing with the question of "is this narration as in he is telling the story to you the reader as it happens?" and answeing "no" in most cases, believing that the narration was simply happening, without an implied listener. It was a little less clear-cut with Go East and an unposted fic or two.
Het smut is new to me (The Barefoot Rebellion)--I was always planning to try it someday, but that challenge got me in gear long before I might've risked it otherwise. It was in some ways easier than I thought it would be, if only because it's easier to write about the set of genitals you have as long as you've acquainted yourself with them, and I have enough of an overactive imagination that I could just work from there. It was also new to have a straight Lucius, but I think I managed. *blankstare* That was a bit of a viewpoint thing as well, with the third person present (also in Slither); and I've also been using more third-person limited recently, especially in Within These Pages..., which was an interesting trip into Lucius' head.
I've also been doing some very unsystematic stylistic experimentation, something which has been going on for a while, but I think it reached new heights (depths?) in bits of Channelwood: Masks and then in Slither, as far as a character's inner monologue or a rather bizarre semi-mythology leaking into a theoretically distant third-person narration. I think I succeeded there too, although others might have gripes with it. *uncertain look*
And I also took the risk of writing rhyming poetry, in Aspermere: Blessed Are the Meek, and failed. Miserably.
Do you have any fanfic or profic goals for the New Year?
Arrr, I hate setting goals.
I guess I can say this much. I'd like to finish A Lexicon of Serpents within the next year. I'd also like to have revised and finished copies of the dark Myst vignettes. What I'd really like to be able to do is wrap up or put to rest most of my fanfics--either list them as abandoned and let them lie, or finish 'em up nicely and put shiny copies on my website, because I have dozens of fics, some of which are old and gray but I still love dearly, and I'd like to get them organized. But that would be a massive undertaking. Similarly, I have a vast number of bunnies and fic fragments, especially in the Potterfic line, that I should deal with at some point.
Not saying here that I wouldn't continue to write fanfic. I'd just like to have it more organized. To know whether I need to worry about the faint bunnies for Utenafic, or that Nuriko/Tasuki Fushigi Yugi PWP I've been nursing, or all the Evafic, the beloved old Paris/Suder Voyager slash, the even more beloved and even older Lucifer/Morpheus piece... I want to either bury them and take them off my mind, or finish them and take them off my mind. And then I can deal with the new bunnies, and hopefully, with the massive pile of miscellanious fic out of the way, start to experiment with original work again.
And speaking of original work, some of that will be inevitable, seeing as I'll be taking a course next term which will require extensive workshopping and work on my novel. Just hope it survives.
*pants*
So that's that--shameless self-promotion and all. I was considered listing my HP fic reading list, when I realized that it was massively incoherent and all. So i'll just wish everybody a happy new year!