Year-End Writers' Meme, 2015
Dec. 31st, 2015 12:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
puss_nd_bootsWell, it's that time of the year again, folks, and below is my analysis of the last 12 months of writing. I'd like to note here that there are spoilers within, especially for the story Heart of the Ocean, so if you haven't read them, proceed with caution! I'd like to add that my first story of 2016 is currently underway. (It's kind of a belated Christmas fic - um, I'll try to have it up before the Feast of Epiphany?)
Total Number of Completed Stories: 32
Overall Thoughts: Now, this was a strange year for me, because I ended the year with an entirely different cast of muses than I started out with! You see, up until 2016, as you've probably figured out from my older fanfics, my J-rock love was confined to PSC bands - primarily Alice Nine, GazettE and SCREW, although Kouki from D=OUT and Ryoga from BORN also showed up in Camera Eye. That all changed when I discovered Lycaon thanks to my second trip to Japan last year. The floodgates opened to a whole new world of non-PSC groups - and before I knew it, I had one new muse after another. Yuuki entered first with Beautiful Intruder, posted February 9; Yo-ka (DIAURA) followed with Bring In the Understudy on Feb. 20; Subaru (Royz) came along with Dirty Angel on May 5; and finally, MiA (Mejibray) arrived with The Boy in the Pumpkin Coach on Aug. 22. Those four are now the core cast of Camera Eye, and they were the main characters of the supernatural AU fics I did as well. (Hey, Yuuki and Yo-ka were even in one of the very few real-music-world fics I did, The Agony of De-Feet. Yes, the year was pretty much given over to AUs, be it Camera Eye, supernatural or slice-of-life.)
Looking back, did you write more fic than you thought you would this year, less, or about what you'd predicted? About what I thought, really. That's an average number of fics for me - especially considering that I had a couple of very LONG pieces and there were a couple of weeks where I was recovering from a car accident.
What pairing/genre/fandom did you write that you would never have predicted in January? See the entire first entry above - at the turn of the year, I didn't even know Yo-ka existed, I'd only heard of Subaru peripherally and all I knew of Mejibray was Meto (because he's kind of unavoidable on Tumblr). And even when Yo-ka entered the picture, I didn't think I'd be writing him with Kai!
What's your own favorite story of the year? Not the most popular, but the one that makes you happiest? The Heart of the Ocean. It was a supernatural romance involving a type of creature that doesn't show up in fanfiction very often - a selkie, or seal shapeshfter. It was fun and challenging to work traditional selkie lore into the fic while still giving it my own twist (like a happy ending - most selkie legends do NOT end with the selkie and human living happily ever after). It was also a challenge to hint at Subaru's secret but not fully reveal it to the reader until Yo-ka found out about it. I was very pleased with how this came out. (I also incorporated it into Camera Eye as the basic storyline of a video that Subaru and Yo-ka filmed).
Did you take any writing risks this year? What did you learn from them?: I can't say that I'd ever written a full-blown novella before - but A Whole New World is definiely one, at least by the standards of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, who define a novella as being between 17,500 and 39,999 words. According to AO3, my genie-in-a-bottle story clocks in at 27,447 words. What did I learn from it? That I'll never be able to do NanoWriMo, because after I wrote that fic (in about three weeks) I was wiped!
Do you have any fanfic or profic goals for the New Year?: Given how unpredictable the last year was, I'm not setting goals - other than there's a couple of relationships in Camera Eye that still need to be fully resolved . . .
From my past year of writing, what was...
My best story of this year: The Heart of the Ocean - see above.
My most popular story of this year: Judging by sheer number of comments alone, my Kai/Yo-ka fic, Copycat. Runners-up were Heart of the Ocean, Beautiful Intruder (Yuuki's debut fic) and The Boy in the Pumpkin Coach (MiA's debut fic).
Most fun story to write: On Display, a Camera Eye fic that covered an adult entertainment expo. It was just fun researching the real-life Adult Entertainment Expo, translating the details to the Camera Eye world and figuring out the different components of it (Gay Alley, the autograph sessions, the "mainstream" room of the con, the autograph sessions etc.) Plus, the fic marked the debut of MiA's notorious tiara!
Story with the single sexiest moment: Coronation Ceremony, my last completed fic of the year, had a foursome among, well, what is now the main Camera Eye foursome.
Story with the single funniest moment: Trophy Boys 2: These Boots Weren't Made for Walking. Yuuki's tumbles to the red carpet and the awards podium, thanks to his unruly footwear. Also, an honorable mention to anything involving the Notorious Porn Pool - a common adult video set featured in Mejibray's Secret No. 3 video. It made its way into two fics - A Whole New World and the third installment of Camera Eye's Heaven, Hell and Earth miniseries. (Its use was both serious and humorous in the latter fic, though, since it was the source of a serious conflict between Uruha and his boss).
Story that shifted my own perceptions of the characters: Sinned Against and Sinning was a big milestone in the development of both Uruha and the Yuuki/Yo-ka pairing. It involved Uruha being commissioned as an advisor for a mainstream filmmaker who was looking to do an "art-porn" film - and then later finding out he was being manipulated into doing the director's work for him. It explored the depths of Uruha's integrity and commitment to "his people" - and also the depth of Yuuki and Yo-ka's commitment to each other, even though they're the most free-loving, openly and completely polyamorous couple in the series.
Hardest story to write: A Whole New World, just for the sheer length of it! (I can't imagine it being any shorter than it was, though - in fact, sometimes I wonder if it should have been longer!)
Biggest Disappointment: The fact that the damn site that's been harvesting people's fics without their permission is still around, despite the efforts of myself and others to get it thrown off the Net. At least I figured out how to manipulate my tags so she doesn't grab my stuff in the future - but it's annoying how she ignores all the "Please take my stuff down and don't post any more of my fics wthout permission" messages she gets.
Biggest Surprise: The fact that I got a muse this year who was primarily inspired by another fanfic - namely,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
hamhamheaven's dystopian AU, By Any Other Name. I started reading the fic having no idea who her central character was - like I said, my knowledge of Mejibray was limited to seeing Meto all over Tumblr. By the fourth or fifth chapter, I'd grown to like him enough to seek out the REAL MiA behind her character, and from that, Porn Star!MiA was born - tiara, Boba Fett slippers and all. The main thing that came out of this, though, is that hamhamheaven is now a dear friend of mine - and that was the best thingof all to come out of this year's writing.
Total Number of Completed Stories: 32
Overall Thoughts: Now, this was a strange year for me, because I ended the year with an entirely different cast of muses than I started out with! You see, up until 2016, as you've probably figured out from my older fanfics, my J-rock love was confined to PSC bands - primarily Alice Nine, GazettE and SCREW, although Kouki from D=OUT and Ryoga from BORN also showed up in Camera Eye. That all changed when I discovered Lycaon thanks to my second trip to Japan last year. The floodgates opened to a whole new world of non-PSC groups - and before I knew it, I had one new muse after another. Yuuki entered first with Beautiful Intruder, posted February 9; Yo-ka (DIAURA) followed with Bring In the Understudy on Feb. 20; Subaru (Royz) came along with Dirty Angel on May 5; and finally, MiA (Mejibray) arrived with The Boy in the Pumpkin Coach on Aug. 22. Those four are now the core cast of Camera Eye, and they were the main characters of the supernatural AU fics I did as well. (Hey, Yuuki and Yo-ka were even in one of the very few real-music-world fics I did, The Agony of De-Feet. Yes, the year was pretty much given over to AUs, be it Camera Eye, supernatural or slice-of-life.)
Looking back, did you write more fic than you thought you would this year, less, or about what you'd predicted? About what I thought, really. That's an average number of fics for me - especially considering that I had a couple of very LONG pieces and there were a couple of weeks where I was recovering from a car accident.
What pairing/genre/fandom did you write that you would never have predicted in January? See the entire first entry above - at the turn of the year, I didn't even know Yo-ka existed, I'd only heard of Subaru peripherally and all I knew of Mejibray was Meto (because he's kind of unavoidable on Tumblr). And even when Yo-ka entered the picture, I didn't think I'd be writing him with Kai!
What's your own favorite story of the year? Not the most popular, but the one that makes you happiest? The Heart of the Ocean. It was a supernatural romance involving a type of creature that doesn't show up in fanfiction very often - a selkie, or seal shapeshfter. It was fun and challenging to work traditional selkie lore into the fic while still giving it my own twist (like a happy ending - most selkie legends do NOT end with the selkie and human living happily ever after). It was also a challenge to hint at Subaru's secret but not fully reveal it to the reader until Yo-ka found out about it. I was very pleased with how this came out. (I also incorporated it into Camera Eye as the basic storyline of a video that Subaru and Yo-ka filmed).
Did you take any writing risks this year? What did you learn from them?: I can't say that I'd ever written a full-blown novella before - but A Whole New World is definiely one, at least by the standards of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, who define a novella as being between 17,500 and 39,999 words. According to AO3, my genie-in-a-bottle story clocks in at 27,447 words. What did I learn from it? That I'll never be able to do NanoWriMo, because after I wrote that fic (in about three weeks) I was wiped!
Do you have any fanfic or profic goals for the New Year?: Given how unpredictable the last year was, I'm not setting goals - other than there's a couple of relationships in Camera Eye that still need to be fully resolved . . .
From my past year of writing, what was...
My best story of this year: The Heart of the Ocean - see above.
My most popular story of this year: Judging by sheer number of comments alone, my Kai/Yo-ka fic, Copycat. Runners-up were Heart of the Ocean, Beautiful Intruder (Yuuki's debut fic) and The Boy in the Pumpkin Coach (MiA's debut fic).
Most fun story to write: On Display, a Camera Eye fic that covered an adult entertainment expo. It was just fun researching the real-life Adult Entertainment Expo, translating the details to the Camera Eye world and figuring out the different components of it (Gay Alley, the autograph sessions, the "mainstream" room of the con, the autograph sessions etc.) Plus, the fic marked the debut of MiA's notorious tiara!
Story with the single sexiest moment: Coronation Ceremony, my last completed fic of the year, had a foursome among, well, what is now the main Camera Eye foursome.
Story with the single funniest moment: Trophy Boys 2: These Boots Weren't Made for Walking. Yuuki's tumbles to the red carpet and the awards podium, thanks to his unruly footwear. Also, an honorable mention to anything involving the Notorious Porn Pool - a common adult video set featured in Mejibray's Secret No. 3 video. It made its way into two fics - A Whole New World and the third installment of Camera Eye's Heaven, Hell and Earth miniseries. (Its use was both serious and humorous in the latter fic, though, since it was the source of a serious conflict between Uruha and his boss).
Story that shifted my own perceptions of the characters: Sinned Against and Sinning was a big milestone in the development of both Uruha and the Yuuki/Yo-ka pairing. It involved Uruha being commissioned as an advisor for a mainstream filmmaker who was looking to do an "art-porn" film - and then later finding out he was being manipulated into doing the director's work for him. It explored the depths of Uruha's integrity and commitment to "his people" - and also the depth of Yuuki and Yo-ka's commitment to each other, even though they're the most free-loving, openly and completely polyamorous couple in the series.
Hardest story to write: A Whole New World, just for the sheer length of it! (I can't imagine it being any shorter than it was, though - in fact, sometimes I wonder if it should have been longer!)
Biggest Disappointment: The fact that the damn site that's been harvesting people's fics without their permission is still around, despite the efforts of myself and others to get it thrown off the Net. At least I figured out how to manipulate my tags so she doesn't grab my stuff in the future - but it's annoying how she ignores all the "Please take my stuff down and don't post any more of my fics wthout permission" messages she gets.
Biggest Surprise: The fact that I got a muse this year who was primarily inspired by another fanfic - namely,
hamhamheaven's dystopian AU, By Any Other Name. I started reading the fic having no idea who her central character was - like I said, my knowledge of Mejibray was limited to seeing Meto all over Tumblr. By the fourth or fifth chapter, I'd grown to like him enough to seek out the REAL MiA behind her character, and from that, Porn Star!MiA was born - tiara, Boba Fett slippers and all. The main thing that came out of this, though, is that hamhamheaven is now a dear friend of mine - and that was the best thingof all to come out of this year's writing.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2015-12-31 06:14 pm (UTC)You've had a really productive year and deserve something fun in celebration. (Pity everything fun costs money or calories!)
no subject
Date: 2016-01-01 01:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-01-01 03:55 am (UTC)I loved your supernatural AUs this year. They're some of my favorite types of fic to read and I'll be putting yours on my Kindle so I can read on my trip. It's been interesting reading the massive shift in the Camera Eye from PSC to the 4 new boys though they are some of my favorites so it's been fun for me as a reader. Subaru is absolutely adorable and such a fun boy to write. Mine is being incredibly demanding...
I'm glad hamhamhaven was able to inspire you and bring you knowledge of Mejibray outside of Meto (amazing as he is). MiA is such a cutie and also a fun charachter to write. Best of luck in your writing next year!
no subject
Date: 2016-01-04 09:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-01-05 12:35 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-01-03 09:37 am (UTC)It really is fascinating how our brains can be taken over by completely new muses sometimes, right? I hope you'll have a great writing year 2016 too! :D
no subject
Date: 2016-01-04 09:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-01-11 07:49 am (UTC)(you probably already know but anyways...)
gazette finally announced their dates for the world tour and the USA had not one but four shows scheduled. I'm going to the one in LA. although I also wanted to attend the one in SF. it might not be possible due to how expensive those tickets are but. I can dream.