A Decade in Fanfic: 2010-2019
The last ten years of writing fic have been something else. I've published 36 stories across 12 fandoms. The shortest is 293 words, the longest 12393 words. For some people that would be nothing--in terms of output, fandom count, or word count--but for me, it represents keeping on and only writing when I have something I really wanted to say. There were years I wrote nothing and years I wrote a lot, and that particular bent has served me well, I think.
Speaking of something that has worked well...I have worked with the same beta for the entire decade, and we have only gotten better at working together. She continues to make me a better writer while also letting me be the writer I need to be in any given moment. It's good stuff.
But with all that...I kind of wanted to look back on the last ten years of fic. And you know I love a meme!
2010-2019 in Fanfic
favorite: ebb on with them who homeward go (TDBM, Jean character study, 2018). This remains the story of my heart. I am so proud of the writing and the structure, of the character work and the subtlety, and of all the work that went into it. It remains everything to me. So does Jean.
the best: There are two answers to this:
1) life, and breath, and all things (Call the Midwife, Shelagh character study, 2017). This story takes a decade of work on character and vignette and lands it perfectly. It showcases Shelagh's life and journey from her youth to just before her marriage and does it subtlely, quietly, and with all the grace she deserves.
2) All the Means to Make Us One (TDBM, Lucien / Jean, 2018). This story was the culmination of a year's work on writing smut that married (hah) the character beats, how the characters were feeling, and what was happening...and made it hot, and perfect. I set out to write the wedding night story of my dreams, and I absolutely nailed it.
most popular: When the Long Trick's Over (MFMM, Jack / Phryne, 2015). Oh, God love this story. It is still consistently getting kudos three and a half years after I wrote it. And don't get me wrong--it deserves it, for it does really wonderful work with Jack and the entire supporting cast (especially Rosie)--but it is my most popular story by a factor of six. So mostly, I remain incredibly grateful to the Miss Fisher crowd for their love of good stories. They show me what a fandom can be.
most under-appreciated by the universe: Oh, City Homicide, how do I love you, you stupid teeny tiny fandom. We have six people, one of whom I don't talk to. But I do so adore the characters and the story they get to tell, so it's okay that Wondering Where I Am (Lost Without You) (CH, Nick / Jen, 2019) tops out at 16 kudos.
most fun to write: A Benevolent Arrangement of Things (Leverage, Maggie outside POV, 2015) was wonderful fun.![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
pellucid asked for how Maggie and Sophie became friends, and then I actually got to surprise her with this one, and it was just great to get into Maggie's head and look at the team from the perspective of someone who has a real life and a real job...but still wants to take down the bad guys.
sexiest: All the Means to Make Us One. I may never top it.
“holy crap that’s wrong even for you”: In 2017, I sort of broke the Call the Midwife fandom by posting a story (and then a series of stories) wherein Sister Bernadette has explicit sex with Doctor Turner. There was horror and outrage! Except the first story has 3200 hits. The damn hypocrites loved their sworn-to-God heroine losing her virginity in a convent. It took a lot for me to post, and then post more, but I learned a lot both about writing smut and about the people who sit around wringing their handkerchiefs. Read: The Best of What Might Be (Call the Midwife, Sister Bernadette / Patrick Turner, 2017).
fic that shifted my own perceptions of the characters: My last real Stargate SG-1 story was Zephyr (Sam future fic, 2011), and it is a Sam story, but also a team story and a friendship story. It is a story about growing older, and the way the people in our lives help us face loss. It wasn't a Sam / Jack story, and I think it was important in many ways that I left that fandom on that note: letting myself be guided by the character instead of the ship. It informs how I think of Sam now, and how I write now.
favorite character to write about: My first story of 2010 was Authentication (Leverage, Sophie character study, 2010), and not only did it really set the tone for my writing for the decade--the character work, the way the relationship works for the character--but man, writing Sophie Devereaux was amazing fun.
biggest disappointment: You know, this is an interesting question. I spent 2018 caught up in a whole lot of internal drama about whether people liked my stuff. I was so disappointed so often about so many things. Comment counts, kudos counts, Tumblr likes, Tumblr reblogs. And it was hard to feel like people didn't like my stuff, or didn't like my stuff enough.
There were other things going on. My fandom was shrinking: I just wrote a pretty damn good story that, two years after All The Means to Make Us One has...a quarter of the kudos. I can tell you now that isn't about the story--the story's lovely!--but about all the reasons folks left TDBM. It tells me some wonderful things about the people that stayed.
Mostly, I had a really, really rough year outside of fandom. And so all the disappointment and frustration of life in 2018 landed squarely on why don't people like this? when the people who were reading absolutely did.
I have had a phenomenal ten years in fandom, with surprisingly few disappointments. And the biggest disappointments weren't about the stories, at least not with hindsight and time and some kindness to myself and my fandom friends.
biggest change in your writing: I mean, by 2010,pellucid had started to break me of my comma problem...but I think the real answer is that my writing has gotten more expansive. I have gotten really good at the character vignette, but now I can write long if I want, and I can write smut if I want, and I am happy to be able to flex all of those muscles if and when I want to.
most telling story: Both Strange How Certain the Journey (TDBM, Lucien / Jean, 2018) and a love i seemed to lose (TDBM, Lucien / Jean, 2019) saw me working through the implications of the second TDBM telemovie. The first story doesn't quite land the way I wanted it to, and the second is short and sort of painful, but both are really products of grief and trying to things out in a fandom where no one wanted to confront the implications of these choices for Lucien. And so yeah, they're telling for sure. But I'm glad I wrote them.
a thing that i’m surprised at: So. I wrote Thy Own Life's Key (Sanctuary, Will Zimmerman, 2011) after utterly, completely failing to answer a prompt for "Victorian smut with considerable attention paid to corset strings." Except I wrote the smutty story and sent it to beta and was so embarrassed about it that I shelved it and wrote something else entirely.
So...I would not have expected me to break Call the Midwife fandom with OOC AU nun!sex, IJS. I guess I grew up in the meanwhile. Plus those handkerchief-wringers pissed me off. ;)
what pairing/genre/fandom did you write that you never would have predicted: Beyond the smut, noted above, I think my transition from space opera and crimedy into...niche British and Australian dramas...was not something I would have forseen.
story you always forget about: the cosmos owns our luck (The West Wing, CJ & Toby, 2011). This story is...wonderful. And it gets kudos from time to time, and I'm always like, wait, what? So yeah. Did you remember I wrote West Wing fic? Neither do I, most of the time!
story that made you cry: The only fandom I have ever written goodbye fic for is Bones. And Lost Somewhere in Your Mind (Bones, not exactly Booth / Brennan, 2010) is Bones standing up for herself in the face of Booth insisting she be someone she isn't (or love in a way she can't) in order for the relationship to work. She walks away from him, and she means it. And it's both sad and was exactly right.
easiest story to write?: Amusingly, When the Long Trick's Over was basically a one and done.
hardest story to write?: life, and breath, and all things required a huge amount of research. I also put it down for something like six months to let it percolate. And it was worth it in the end, but would not have been if I hadn't made myself finish it. So yeah. That was a slog sometimes.
best comment: So, some backstory. Almost all of the comments on When the Long Trick's Over can be summarized by "oh my goodness, I especially loved the Rosie section!" But of course there are outliers. This year, I got a comment in reply to a thread that was: "So, in my earlier comment (left in 2015), I hated the Rosie section, but I just reread this and it's my favorite part now!" That was amazing on so many levels.
**
And that doesn't cover anything I wrote for Scott & Bailey or my story for The Librarians or my other Leverage story or all the in-between stories for City Homicide and TDBM and Call the Midwife, all of which I love and all of which taught me something.
Mostly: still here, still writing. I hope you'll stick with me for the next ten years.
Speaking of something that has worked well...I have worked with the same beta for the entire decade, and we have only gotten better at working together. She continues to make me a better writer while also letting me be the writer I need to be in any given moment. It's good stuff.
But with all that...I kind of wanted to look back on the last ten years of fic. And you know I love a meme!
2010-2019 in Fanfic
favorite: ebb on with them who homeward go (TDBM, Jean character study, 2018). This remains the story of my heart. I am so proud of the writing and the structure, of the character work and the subtlety, and of all the work that went into it. It remains everything to me. So does Jean.
the best: There are two answers to this:
1) life, and breath, and all things (Call the Midwife, Shelagh character study, 2017). This story takes a decade of work on character and vignette and lands it perfectly. It showcases Shelagh's life and journey from her youth to just before her marriage and does it subtlely, quietly, and with all the grace she deserves.
2) All the Means to Make Us One (TDBM, Lucien / Jean, 2018). This story was the culmination of a year's work on writing smut that married (hah) the character beats, how the characters were feeling, and what was happening...and made it hot, and perfect. I set out to write the wedding night story of my dreams, and I absolutely nailed it.
most popular: When the Long Trick's Over (MFMM, Jack / Phryne, 2015). Oh, God love this story. It is still consistently getting kudos three and a half years after I wrote it. And don't get me wrong--it deserves it, for it does really wonderful work with Jack and the entire supporting cast (especially Rosie)--but it is my most popular story by a factor of six. So mostly, I remain incredibly grateful to the Miss Fisher crowd for their love of good stories. They show me what a fandom can be.
most under-appreciated by the universe: Oh, City Homicide, how do I love you, you stupid teeny tiny fandom. We have six people, one of whom I don't talk to. But I do so adore the characters and the story they get to tell, so it's okay that Wondering Where I Am (Lost Without You) (CH, Nick / Jen, 2019) tops out at 16 kudos.
most fun to write: A Benevolent Arrangement of Things (Leverage, Maggie outside POV, 2015) was wonderful fun.
pellucid asked for how Maggie and Sophie became friends, and then I actually got to surprise her with this one, and it was just great to get into Maggie's head and look at the team from the perspective of someone who has a real life and a real job...but still wants to take down the bad guys.sexiest: All the Means to Make Us One. I may never top it.
“holy crap that’s wrong even for you”: In 2017, I sort of broke the Call the Midwife fandom by posting a story (and then a series of stories) wherein Sister Bernadette has explicit sex with Doctor Turner. There was horror and outrage! Except the first story has 3200 hits. The damn hypocrites loved their sworn-to-God heroine losing her virginity in a convent. It took a lot for me to post, and then post more, but I learned a lot both about writing smut and about the people who sit around wringing their handkerchiefs. Read: The Best of What Might Be (Call the Midwife, Sister Bernadette / Patrick Turner, 2017).
fic that shifted my own perceptions of the characters: My last real Stargate SG-1 story was Zephyr (Sam future fic, 2011), and it is a Sam story, but also a team story and a friendship story. It is a story about growing older, and the way the people in our lives help us face loss. It wasn't a Sam / Jack story, and I think it was important in many ways that I left that fandom on that note: letting myself be guided by the character instead of the ship. It informs how I think of Sam now, and how I write now.
favorite character to write about: My first story of 2010 was Authentication (Leverage, Sophie character study, 2010), and not only did it really set the tone for my writing for the decade--the character work, the way the relationship works for the character--but man, writing Sophie Devereaux was amazing fun.
biggest disappointment: You know, this is an interesting question. I spent 2018 caught up in a whole lot of internal drama about whether people liked my stuff. I was so disappointed so often about so many things. Comment counts, kudos counts, Tumblr likes, Tumblr reblogs. And it was hard to feel like people didn't like my stuff, or didn't like my stuff enough.
There were other things going on. My fandom was shrinking: I just wrote a pretty damn good story that, two years after All The Means to Make Us One has...a quarter of the kudos. I can tell you now that isn't about the story--the story's lovely!--but about all the reasons folks left TDBM. It tells me some wonderful things about the people that stayed.
Mostly, I had a really, really rough year outside of fandom. And so all the disappointment and frustration of life in 2018 landed squarely on why don't people like this? when the people who were reading absolutely did.
I have had a phenomenal ten years in fandom, with surprisingly few disappointments. And the biggest disappointments weren't about the stories, at least not with hindsight and time and some kindness to myself and my fandom friends.
biggest change in your writing: I mean, by 2010,
pellucid had started to break me of my comma problem...but I think the real answer is that my writing has gotten more expansive. I have gotten really good at the character vignette, but now I can write long if I want, and I can write smut if I want, and I am happy to be able to flex all of those muscles if and when I want to.most telling story: Both Strange How Certain the Journey (TDBM, Lucien / Jean, 2018) and a love i seemed to lose (TDBM, Lucien / Jean, 2019) saw me working through the implications of the second TDBM telemovie. The first story doesn't quite land the way I wanted it to, and the second is short and sort of painful, but both are really products of grief and trying to things out in a fandom where no one wanted to confront the implications of these choices for Lucien. And so yeah, they're telling for sure. But I'm glad I wrote them.
a thing that i’m surprised at: So. I wrote Thy Own Life's Key (Sanctuary, Will Zimmerman, 2011) after utterly, completely failing to answer a prompt for "Victorian smut with considerable attention paid to corset strings." Except I wrote the smutty story and sent it to beta and was so embarrassed about it that I shelved it and wrote something else entirely.
So...I would not have expected me to break Call the Midwife fandom with OOC AU nun!sex, IJS. I guess I grew up in the meanwhile. Plus those handkerchief-wringers pissed me off. ;)
what pairing/genre/fandom did you write that you never would have predicted: Beyond the smut, noted above, I think my transition from space opera and crimedy into...niche British and Australian dramas...was not something I would have forseen.
story you always forget about: the cosmos owns our luck (The West Wing, CJ & Toby, 2011). This story is...wonderful. And it gets kudos from time to time, and I'm always like, wait, what? So yeah. Did you remember I wrote West Wing fic? Neither do I, most of the time!
story that made you cry: The only fandom I have ever written goodbye fic for is Bones. And Lost Somewhere in Your Mind (Bones, not exactly Booth / Brennan, 2010) is Bones standing up for herself in the face of Booth insisting she be someone she isn't (or love in a way she can't) in order for the relationship to work. She walks away from him, and she means it. And it's both sad and was exactly right.
easiest story to write?: Amusingly, When the Long Trick's Over was basically a one and done.
hardest story to write?: life, and breath, and all things required a huge amount of research. I also put it down for something like six months to let it percolate. And it was worth it in the end, but would not have been if I hadn't made myself finish it. So yeah. That was a slog sometimes.
best comment: So, some backstory. Almost all of the comments on When the Long Trick's Over can be summarized by "oh my goodness, I especially loved the Rosie section!" But of course there are outliers. This year, I got a comment in reply to a thread that was: "So, in my earlier comment (left in 2015), I hated the Rosie section, but I just reread this and it's my favorite part now!" That was amazing on so many levels.
**
And that doesn't cover anything I wrote for Scott & Bailey or my story for The Librarians or my other Leverage story or all the in-between stories for City Homicide and TDBM and Call the Midwife, all of which I love and all of which taught me something.
Mostly: still here, still writing. I hope you'll stick with me for the next ten years.