2017: A Retrospective
4 Jan 2018 23:09![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
extrapenguinNabbed from isis's 2016 in review post. Only doing questions rather than "Top Three By X", because that's a drudge.
My favorite story this year:
Waves from Eternity, in which I got to combine my loves for poetry of both regular and vaguely pretentious sort, and spaaaaace! Bits of it are hard science fiction; others, songs. Writing it was enjoyable!
Most popular story:
Shelve Under: 18.2 Fiction, Adults' – 2k of Rivers of London gen from the era when there still were practitioners, written forjenett during ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
worldbuildingex, centered on the Bodleian Magical Library's filing system. (Most of the research I did was on era-appropriate pornography, which was only mentioned. The fact that Boyle died in Copenhagen was inspired by my own visit there that same winter/spring.)
Story most underappreciated by the universe, in my opinion:
The Thousand Ravaged Worlds, Revelation Space, forweakinteraction. I captured the original's sense of unavoidable tragedy and creeping misfortune, as well as the grand timescale involved in space travel. It's set pre-canon by billions of years, and a lack of canon knowledge shouldn't prohibit reading it.
Most fun to write:
How far I came for you, because SPAAAAACE and also self-indulgent poetry and did I mention the space? Space Vehicles, Cassini/Saturn, which is a wonderful pairing.
Hardest to write:
Aflame with Need, because porn requires a bit more thought, always, and I had to figure out how to describe the décor in sufficiently fancypants terms. Plus I occasionally had to figure out what the thou-form of some verbs would be, which meant pausing, which meant taking more time and not quite going with the flow of writing. But the porn's hot, so it's all right.
Easiest to write:
First we lift our swords to heaven (which is essentially origfic) flowed off like water in a mad fury.
Biggest disappointment:
Mirror Dance not being as popular as it could've been. Then again, it is explicit het porn in a fandom that seems to be either into M/M dirtybadwrong involving a villain, or gen. Oh well. If you like identity weirdness with mirrors, do give a click!
Biggest surprise:
Never Gonna Give You Up being my most popular Yulefic by hits and kudos. Apparently in Nirvana in Fire fandom, people are willing to read stuff titled with Rick Astley lyrics. Or it read as suitably generic? Or people just wanted the AU with Mei Changsu having to redeem a cynical Jingyan with love.
Favorite title:
He Who Breaks the Silence (TGE) has a nice rhythm to it, and the ominousness fits the fic.
Favorite opening line:
Even steel went brittle with the cold, from Cuts Through Curses (essentially origfic), set in a wintery, freezing landscape. I got to give my English snow vocabulary a workout, and write a nice love story. The opening line foreshadows both the fact that the story'll happen in a wintry landscape, and also one of the protagonists' background.
Favorite closing line:
Looking through my fics, I seem better at this category! How far I came for you ends with A piece of stardust became one with another, which is a fitting end for our planet/space probe romanceand also a symbolic sex scene. Mirror Dance ends with Kel Cheris fell asleep next to her unsleeping reflection, which underlines the Cheris-Jedao relationship's inherent unsettlingness quite nicely, as well as how Cheris is forced to trust Jedao to some degree.
Favorite line from anywhere:
downhill is the destiny of water, from one of the poems in Waves from Eternity (essentially origfic). I like the rest of the stuff in that sestina as well.
Looking back, did you write more stories than you thought you would this year, fewer than you thought, or about what you predicted?
Fewer than I thought – I only got under 28k in compared to last year's 41k. It's probably due to the spring's writing slump. Let's hope it doesn't come back.
What pairing/genre/fandom did you write that you would never have predicted in January?
I really couldn't have predicted getting into Nirvana in Fire! My fandoms tend to be science fiction books. NIF is live-action historical/low-fantasy (wuxia). Between this and TGE, I think my aversion to fantasy is mostly just aversion to the Standard Average Medieval Europe setting and tropeset. Or I like the wuxia tropeset? Hmm.
Story that could have been better?
Glowing Rocks, a Dragon Age: Inquisition ficlet, could've done with a second pass and maybe a beta.
Did you take any writing risks this year? What did you learn from them?
IDK, I'm too much of a pantser to think about writing on the "taking a risk" level. I did write a ficlet in Finnish, and learned that no-one else in TGE fandom speaks Finnish, which I already knew. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Alternatively, Sacrifice, which I wrote in first person present tense to make it feel more immediate, cramped and paranoid.
Leitmotif of the year and the story that demonstrates it the best:
I started out with stuff that felt grand and large-scale and more ideas-based, then shrank down into the intimate and the character level. I generally tend to have two writing seasons, rather than a year of continuous writing.
What's next for 2018?
More Nirvana in Fire, more exchanges, reading new books and maybe watching stuff, too. I'll try to art, perhaps. I don't feel like making any NYRs.
Last year's NYR
50k in 2017: ahahaha nope
explicit F/F: yes, twice, though not Ana Khouri/Ilia Volyova
Culture series: investigated, bounced off
Baru Cormorant: read, liked
WIP: ahahaha nope
Vorkosigan reread: nope
Summa summarum: 3 out of 6, or 50% done on NYRs.
Oh, and there's a post-Yuletide friending meme ongoing! Be sure to take a peek.
isis's 2016 in review post. Only doing questions rather than "Top Three By X", because that's a drudge.My favorite story this year:
Waves from Eternity, in which I got to combine my loves for poetry of both regular and vaguely pretentious sort, and spaaaaace! Bits of it are hard science fiction; others, songs. Writing it was enjoyable!
Most popular story:
Shelve Under: 18.2 Fiction, Adults' – 2k of Rivers of London gen from the era when there still were practitioners, written for
jenett during worldbuildingex, centered on the Bodleian Magical Library's filing system. (Most of the research I did was on era-appropriate pornography, which was only mentioned. The fact that Boyle died in Copenhagen was inspired by my own visit there that same winter/spring.)Story most underappreciated by the universe, in my opinion:
The Thousand Ravaged Worlds, Revelation Space, for
weakinteraction. I captured the original's sense of unavoidable tragedy and creeping misfortune, as well as the grand timescale involved in space travel. It's set pre-canon by billions of years, and a lack of canon knowledge shouldn't prohibit reading it.Most fun to write:
How far I came for you, because SPAAAAACE and also self-indulgent poetry and did I mention the space? Space Vehicles, Cassini/Saturn, which is a wonderful pairing.
Hardest to write:
Aflame with Need, because porn requires a bit more thought, always, and I had to figure out how to describe the décor in sufficiently fancypants terms. Plus I occasionally had to figure out what the thou-form of some verbs would be, which meant pausing, which meant taking more time and not quite going with the flow of writing. But the porn's hot, so it's all right.
Easiest to write:
First we lift our swords to heaven (which is essentially origfic) flowed off like water in a mad fury.
Biggest disappointment:
Mirror Dance not being as popular as it could've been. Then again, it is explicit het porn in a fandom that seems to be either into M/M dirtybadwrong involving a villain, or gen. Oh well. If you like identity weirdness with mirrors, do give a click!
Biggest surprise:
Never Gonna Give You Up being my most popular Yulefic by hits and kudos. Apparently in Nirvana in Fire fandom, people are willing to read stuff titled with Rick Astley lyrics. Or it read as suitably generic? Or people just wanted the AU with Mei Changsu having to redeem a cynical Jingyan with love.
Favorite title:
He Who Breaks the Silence (TGE) has a nice rhythm to it, and the ominousness fits the fic.
Favorite opening line:
Even steel went brittle with the cold, from Cuts Through Curses (essentially origfic), set in a wintery, freezing landscape. I got to give my English snow vocabulary a workout, and write a nice love story. The opening line foreshadows both the fact that the story'll happen in a wintry landscape, and also one of the protagonists' background.
Favorite closing line:
Looking through my fics, I seem better at this category! How far I came for you ends with A piece of stardust became one with another, which is a fitting end for our planet/space probe romance
Favorite line from anywhere:
downhill is the destiny of water, from one of the poems in Waves from Eternity (essentially origfic). I like the rest of the stuff in that sestina as well.
Looking back, did you write more stories than you thought you would this year, fewer than you thought, or about what you predicted?
Fewer than I thought – I only got under 28k in compared to last year's 41k. It's probably due to the spring's writing slump. Let's hope it doesn't come back.
What pairing/genre/fandom did you write that you would never have predicted in January?
I really couldn't have predicted getting into Nirvana in Fire! My fandoms tend to be science fiction books. NIF is live-action historical/low-fantasy (wuxia). Between this and TGE, I think my aversion to fantasy is mostly just aversion to the Standard Average Medieval Europe setting and tropeset. Or I like the wuxia tropeset? Hmm.
Story that could have been better?
Glowing Rocks, a Dragon Age: Inquisition ficlet, could've done with a second pass and maybe a beta.
Did you take any writing risks this year? What did you learn from them?
IDK, I'm too much of a pantser to think about writing on the "taking a risk" level. I did write a ficlet in Finnish, and learned that no-one else in TGE fandom speaks Finnish, which I already knew. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Alternatively, Sacrifice, which I wrote in first person present tense to make it feel more immediate, cramped and paranoid.
Leitmotif of the year and the story that demonstrates it the best:
I started out with stuff that felt grand and large-scale and more ideas-based, then shrank down into the intimate and the character level. I generally tend to have two writing seasons, rather than a year of continuous writing.
What's next for 2018?
More Nirvana in Fire, more exchanges, reading new books and maybe watching stuff, too. I'll try to art, perhaps. I don't feel like making any NYRs.
Last year's NYR
I'll write more words – I got 41k this year, let's see if I can get 50k! (That should also bring my AO3 total wordcount to >100k from its current 86k.) I'll also write some explicit F/F. (Ana Khouri/Ilia Volyova, perhaps?) I'll investigate the Culture series and The Traitor Baru Cormorant, since karanguni's id is apparently my id, and there are Yuletide requests to write. I'll finish that WIP I promised james. And continue the Vorkosigan reread.
50k in 2017: ahahaha nope
explicit F/F: yes, twice, though not Ana Khouri/Ilia Volyova
Culture series: investigated, bounced off
Baru Cormorant: read, liked
WIP: ahahaha nope
Vorkosigan reread: nope
Summa summarum: 3 out of 6, or 50% done on NYRs.
Oh, and there's a post-Yuletide friending meme ongoing! Be sure to take a peek.