Fanfic Year in Review 2011

[tarotgal]

This is my fourth time doing this. Here's Year 2008, Year 2009, & Year 2010 if you want to compare.

There's a key in the expredsheet link below saying where each fic was posted, if there's a fic there you want to read and haven't yet.

Fanfic Year in Review: 2011

Total pieces I wrote this year: 104. Honestly, not bad for one of the busiest years of my life!
Expredsheet list of all: http://tgsrealm.beastlet.com/yearinreview/FinishedFics11.htm

Fandoms (including crossovers):
Batman-1
Buffy the Vampire Slayer-4
Doctor Who-2
Downton Abbey-1
Firefly-1
Harry Potter-68
Horatio Hornblower-5
Merlin-3
NCIS-5
Original Fiction (Strokes)-2
Psych-1
Star Trek Reboot-1
Star Wars- 3
Star Wars: the clone wars-1
Stargate Atlantis-3
The Avengers-1
The OC-1
Torchwood-2
X-Men-1
Once again, Harry Potter comes out as the overwhelming overall winner here. Surprisingly, Horatio Hornblower is the second most popular fandom I wrote last year. That surprises me greatly! I wrote in a few fandoms I'd never written in before (or at least, never finished fics in before): Star Trek Reboot, Stargate Atlantis, The Avengers (Marvel), Star Wars: the clone wars, and Downton Abbey.

Challenges, fests, etc. I participated in:
January- 12 Ficlets in 12 Days (wrote 2 fics)
March-April- Sneezefic Fest 2011
May- Lusty Month of May at pervy_werewolf (my 7th time participating, 7th time finishing, and FIRST time winning the popular vote!)
June- Running Hot, Fever Fic Meme
June- Xanthe H/C athon
July-December- Daisy Chain of Awesome
October- 10 Hurt/Comfort piece finished (ongoing challenge)
November- NaNoRebel (passed 50,000 words)
November-December- Sneezefic Annual Challenge (both rounds 1 & 2)
December- 12 Ficlets in 12 Days (posted 7 fics)


Reasons for pieces:
76- Written for fests, challenges, prompts, etc.
17- Written for someone else (request or gift)
11- Written for self, just because
Not all the gift fics are so noted in the spreadsheet, because there's some overlap; some are drabbles written for the winner of my help_japan auction. Once again, I wrote considerably more fics for challenges/fests than for myself, but I suppose that's the be expected. Deadlines really do motivate me!


Ratings:
A wide range of ratings, once again, including a gen fic or two. There's some het in there thanks to the Daisy Chain of Awesome and friends who really like het pairings, requesting specific fics.

Monthly Breakdown
~January~ (6)
Original(Strokes)- Still Okay
TW: Day 8
HH: Day 9
HP: I hate You
NCIS: Plans Change
DA: Just Imagine

~February~ (0)

~March~ (3)
Merlin: Stranded on a Mountain
HP: Bliss and Complications
Batman: Irritant
~April~ (3)
HP: Never Gets Old
Buffy: Interruption
HP: Collarless and Hopeless

~May~ (32)
HP: Polishing His Wand
HP: On the Rooftops of London
HP: The Man's Talent
HP: Libri Interuptus
HP: What Dreams May Come
HP: The Morning After Surprise
HP: Secret Keeper
HP: Almost Out of the Closet
HP: Building Memories
HP: Losing Memories
HP: Making New Memories
HP: A Balanced Mixture
HP: Takes Some Getting Used To
HP/HH: Where, When Why, Who & Howl Part 23 Reloaded
HP: Dynamics
HP: Mery Month Moony! Reloaded
HP: Someone's Coming
HP: Prove It
HP: Precious Minutes
HP: Orange Reloaded
HP: It's In His Kiss
HP: Like a Rabbit? Reloaded
HP: Nightmare
HP: Toss Me
HP: Almost
HP: Bowing
HP: WRock Reloaded
HP: Songs of Attraction
HP: Collared Reloaded
NCIS: Defiance
HP: We're Dumbledore's Men Through and Through
HP: Need a Holiday
~June~ (8)
XMen-Hope is the Thing with Fur
HP: Post-coital Musings
HH: Pass the Cream
Merlin: Revealing
Firefly: Doctors Do Get Sick
NCIS: Progress
Buffy: Walk Through the Fire
HP: Veritaserum

~July~ (3)
HP: Finally Admitting It
HP: Whiskey in the Shot Glass
Original(Strokes): RENT

~August~ (6)
HP: Something Different
HP: All You Need is Love
HP: Bella's Initiation
NCIS: Sweet Little Lies
HP: Unexpected Similarities
TW: Capturing the Unpredictable
~September~ (13)
SGA: When There's Work to Do
HP: In Hagrid's Hut
HP: Discovery
HP: A Different Kind of Magic
Buffy: Flip a Coin
HP: Tattoo
HP: Buns in the Oven
SW: Stoking the Fire in Sixty Seconds
HP: Trying to Sit This One Out
HP: Obsession
DW: Cool
DW: Countdown
NCIS: Falling for It

~October~ (8)
HP: Gnorwlla
HP: Clueless
HP: Aspirations
HP: Fainting or Collapsing
HP: Roses for Remembrance
SGA: Rough Waters
ST: Studying
HP: Orders of Merlin

~November~ (5)
HP: A Happy Ending
HP: Curiosity Killed the...
HP: Courted By Both Sides
HP: Power Struggle
HP: How It's Done

~December~ (17)
HP: Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder
HP: Because
SW: Do Not Defy the Council. Not Again.
HP: Nargles
Merlin: Taking Advantage of a Weakness
SW: Trust
HP: Chocolate Frog Card
HP: Nothing
Avengers: Men of Honor
SGA: Day 1
SW: Day 2
HH: Day 3
Psych: Day 4
HP: Day 5
Buffy: Another Halloween in Sunnydale
OC: Day 6
HH: Day 7

Even with the rocky year I had, I still managed to post fics every month apart from February. Granted, almost all were drabbles or ficlets, but there were a decent amount of short stories amidst it all.

My Favorite: I'm not so sure I can choose. Possibly Tattoo because I love Neville/Charlie in it. Or Falling For It because I've gotten such lovely feedback on it that makes me smile. Or We're Dumbledore's Men Through and Through because I got to write something I'd never had a chance to write before (i.e. two couples having sex next to each other at the same time). Or Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder because I adore the close friendship Charlie & Bill have and the idea for the fic came to me in the theaters during my third time watching Deathly Hallows part 2, during the Shell Cottage scenes; also, it makes me think happy thoughts about my grand parents' old house a few blocks from a beach in Santa Barbara.

Most Proud of: Collarless and Hopeless. I'd wanted to write a sequel to Collared and I finally just sat down and did it, managing to post it 2 days before the beginning of LMOM2011, wrapping up the basic storylines within the year. And I think it turned out pretty darn well, actually. Lots of angst/mental anguish and working out feelings and sex, of course.

My Best: I seriously can't answer this. No Earthly idea.

Most Under-Appreciated: When There's Work to Do. It's not that I think it's a brilliant fic or anything, I just love it because it's Xanthe's collar-verse and my first attempt writing Stargate Atlantis fic.

Most Fun: Trying to Sit This One Out. It was sooooo much fun writing the argument between Ron and Snape. And then Harry trying to get in the middle of that and failing... yeah, it was lots of fun.

Sexiest: Day 8 of last year's 12 Fics in 12 Days. There's just something about sneezy!Ianto and Jack with a fetish for it... and lots of required closeness *EG*

Single Sexiest Moment: Someone's Coming. It's a LMOM fic and definitely on the sexy side. It pushes the desperation kink button of mine. And the fic is short, but I like a lot of the wording.

Holy crap, that's wrong, even for you: Orange Reloaded. For LMOM, I created pervy LEGO images and wrote fic to go along with each of them. This one had Remus in a rainbow tank top, a not-so-subtle Village People joke, public flogging, and, oh year, LEGO glory holes.
Runner up: Gnorwlla. The title is two words backwards: all wrong. It's Ron Weasley/James Potter (Harry's father) as dictated by the Daisy Chain of Awesome, so the title was apt.

Fic that shifted my own perceptions of the characters: Aspirations. I don't write a lot of het, so it's not that surprising that one of those written for my help_japan partner would make me see new sides of characters. In this short drabble, Hermione is revealed to be a journaler and I got to examine Snape's response to that discovery.

Hardest to do: Veritaserum. I'd never written Hermione/Snape before, but it's my help_japan package winner's favorite pairing, so I gave it a try. I had a hard time writing it because it needed to be good on top of just... being.

Biggest disappointment: Nothing. It's not that it isn't good... it's just that Remus/Sirius is my OTP and I couldn't come up with anything better to represent it in the Remus/Sirius week at the Daisy Chain of Awesome. I wrote it in less than an hour, and my puppies deserve better than a short ficlet like this.

Biggest surprise: Falling For It. I had a lot of fun writing the first part and then I wrote the follow-up, thinking that was it. But people commented, wanting more and telling me it wasn't finished yet. And, actually, they were right. The rest of the story wrote itself. The quality wasn't quite what the first chapter or two had, but I was really thrilled about how everything tied together (with PLOT!) and all the fun hurt/comfort and Tibbs-ness that came with it. For a story I thought was finished twice, I was pleasantly surprised by the places the fic went when I kept giving it a chance.

A story I want remembered: Hope is the Thing with Fur. I chose this for a couple reasons. First, I accidentally added it twice to the spreadsheet while compiling it, so clearly it's one that stood out in my mind. Second, it deals with some dark subject matter and even though it was written based on a daily prompt, I'm quite pleased with the outcome.

Goals from last year: Dedicate more time to Strokes. Er, no. I did work on a bunch of stories, but I didn't really get any large ones finished. And I didn't get Sin's collection today. MAJOR fail. Finish all giftfics. Getting closer! Definitely spend more time on fics for my own enjoyment. A lot of the ones I wrote even for prompts or challenges were ones that came out of that part of my brain, and I've come to the slow realization that it's important to do challenges that give me the excuse I need to write just for fun. And I'd LOVE to have a good working draft of a YA novel. But that's less a goal and more of a far off dream. Boud's story broke down around chapter 3... but I have hopes of whipping it into shape. I think it's got mad amounts of potential.

Goals for next year: Submit pieces to contests (a 101 Things in 1001 Days item). Finish more Strokes fics and self-publish one book of those stories (either Sin's collection or the "new" Sweetie/Jamie collection). Finish the draft of Boud's story. Thoroughly edit my H/C BigBang fic with beta readers & post it on time.

Comments

[wig-powder.livejournal.com]

Wow! I'm impressed! You're such a prolific writer, but you make it look so easy!

I'm not surprised Hornblower was your second most busy fandom; You would have written much less if I hadn't come around. Sorry about that, but I love that show so much...

Good luck on completing your 2012 goals! I'm sure you can do it!

(and if you come across any good contests, send the links my way. That sounds like something that could be fun.)

[tarotgal]

Is it terribly sad that this write-up took me, like 5 hours? LOL But it's nice to spend some time looking at all my fics... and I was kind of looking forward to the Year in Review for the past few days ;-) Thanks for reading it!

I definitely don't write as much as I wish I did or as much as I used to. But considering my life was crazy in 2011, I think I did a good job with it.

I'm not surprised Hornblower was your second most busy fandom; You would have written much less if I hadn't come around. Sorry about that, but I love that show so much...
You're a bad influence *G* I blame you entirely. But no need to apologize!

I recommend 10_hurt_comfort if you don't know it already. And when I feel like I need something new to write, I check out the hundreds of challenges posted here: http://www.squidge.org/~peja/cgi-bin/challenges.php They're ordered by fandom, mostly, but there are also plenty under "Author's Choice" that apply to any fandom one wishes.

[wig-powder.livejournal.com]

I'll check those out! Thank you!

"You're a bad influence *G* I blame you entirely."

We just need more Hornblower fic in the world, sneezefic or otherwise. You just happen to be really good at it.

[smokeycat-430.livejournal.com]

That's great that you wrote so much last year. You might not think you wrote as much as you would've liked but I can count how much I wrote in the past two years on less than one hand! Zero. Think if I kept a list of the things I wrote I would be more motivated? I like to make and fill out spreadsheets and lists so maybe that will be something. That, and that maybe my mind will shut up once I have what I have been thinking about down on paper/computer. Good luck for the new year and thanks again for the fic!