Author's Notes: Year in Review

[luxken27]

Today marks my official fandom anniversary, as close as I can tell. I’m not sure exactly when I first dipped my toes into the fanfic/fanart pool (I watched the anime and read the manga up to date sometime during the summer, then started searching out fanart, which lead to fanfic, which lead to Christmas ’07 as a Tales from the House of the Moon timesink, which lead to even more reading of ‘major fandom works’), but I do know that on March 11, 2008 I signed up for an account at Media Miner and posted the first three chapters of Every Heart, with no small amount of trepidation.

The rest, as they say, is history…


This is mostly for my benefit, so I have a snapshot for the memory box, but everyone’s welcome to take a look inside.

Stats:

Story Stats
Total words written (as accounted for in MS Word): 230,715
Pairings written: Inu/Kag, Sess/Kag, Mir/San, Sess/Kagura, Inu/Kik, Sess/Rin, Hojo/Kagome

Milestone: Attempted at least 1 piece for each of the major pairings in fandom.

Total stories written (started, in progress, or completed): 62
• Total number of drabbles (100-500 words): 35
• Total number of oneshots (500+ words): 19
• Total number of completed multichapter fics: 4
• Total number of WIP multichapter fics: 1
• Total number of series completed: 0
• Total number of series started: 3

Total number of fiction archives used (not counting LJ): 5

Total number of hits/reviews:
• Media Miner
• Fanfiction.net
• Inuyasha Fanfiction
• Eternal Destiny
• Dokuga

Most reviewed stories (title: number of reviews, compiled across all archives)
• Collected Works (drabble & oneshot collection of contest entries): 93
• Every Heart (epic fic): 84
• Memento Mori (Inu/Kag): 77
• Fleeting (Sess/Kag serial): 57
• Four Seasons (Sess/Kag): 27

Milestone: All entries received at least 1 review on at least 1 archive.



Fandom Recognition
Total number of awards won (fandom-wide, pairing-centric, and/or in contest communities at LJ): 32
Breakdown:
• 1st Place: 10
• 2nd Place: 8
• 3rd Place: 14
• Other nominations: 10

Categories nominated into (fandom-wide or pairing-centric):
• Best Action/Adventure (IYFG)
• Best Angst (Feudal Association)
• Best AU/AR (IYFG, Dokuga)
• Best Canon (IYFG)
• Best Characterization (Dokuga)
• Best Drama (IYFG)
• Best Inuyasha/Kagome Romance (IYFG, Eternal Destiny)
• Best Oneshot (IYFG, Feudal Association, Dokuga)
• Best [Other] Romance (Feudal Association)
• Best Short-Short/Drabble (IYFG, Dokuga)

Milestone(s): Nominated at least two times for last three quarters eligible at the IYFG, each time into different categories. Nominated at least once at the Feudal Association for last two terms eligible, each time into different categories. Nominated at least twice at both major pairing-centric sites, Eternal Destiny (Inu/Kag) and Dokuga (Sess/Kag), for the last term eligible.

Categories placed (fandom-wide or pairing-centric):
• Best Angst (Feudal Association, December 2008, 2nd Place)
• Best AU/AR (Dokuga, 1st Quarter 2009, 3rd Place)
• Best Inuyasha/Kagome Romance (Eternal Destiny, First Term 2009, 3rd Place)
• Best Oneshot (Feudal Association, December 2008, 3rd Place)
• Best Short-Short/Drabble (IYFG, 4th Quarter 2008, 2nd Place; Dokuga, 1st Quarter 2009, 3rd Place)

Categories won (fandom-wide or pairing-centric):
• Best Oneshot (IYFG, 3rd Quarter 2008; Feudal Association, December 2008)
• Best Fairytale [1-12 chapter length limit] (Eternal Destiny, First Term 2009)

Most lauded fic (won/placed with the most awards):
• Memento Mori: 4 placements in 6 nominations, 3 of them 1st Place

Other multi-nominated fics:
• Four Seasons: 2 placements in 4 nominations
• Fleeting: 1 placement in 3 nominations


Total number of LJ contests to which I made at least one submission: 6

Awards from LJ contest communities:
• dokuga_contest - 10 [(2) First Place | (3) Second Place | (5) Third Place]
• iyfic_contest - 7 [(3) First Place | (1) Second Place | (3) Third Place]
• iyissekiwa - 3 [(1) First Place | (1) Second Place | (1) Third Place]
• ebony_silks - 2 [(1) First Place | (1) Third Place]
• inuyashaxkagome - 1 [(1) Second Place]
• iy_blind - 0

Challenges started: 5 (two prompt tables for un_love_you, LJ drabble meme, Seasons Challenge @ dokuga_contest, forthrightly’s Halloween Challenge)

Challenges completed: 2 (Seasons Challenge @ dokuga_contest, forthrightly’s Halloween Challenge)



Firsts…
• Fic posted: Every Heart, March 11, 2008
• Review for a fic posted: March 13, 2008, for Every Heart, at Media Miner
• Fic completed: Love Song, March 15, 2008
• First oneshot written: Love Song, March 15, 2008
• First drabble written: “Beauty Is…”, August 24, 2008

• Contest entered: inuyashaxkagome Missing Moments Celebration, August 20, 2008
• Contest placement: “Beauty Is…” @ iyfic_contest, August 29, 2008
• Contest win: “Smile” @ iyfic_contest, September 13, 2008
• Fandom-wide award nomination: Criminal, Best Canon, 2nd Quarter 2008 @ IYFG, July 7, 2008
• Fandom-wide award win: Memento Mori, Best Oneshot, 3rd Quarter 2008 @ IYFG, December 2, 2008
• Pairing-centric award nomination: Memento Mori, Best Love Story & Best Fairy Tale @ Eternal Destiny, First Term 2009
• Pairing-centric award win: Memento Mori, Best Fairy Tale @ Eternal Destiny, First Term 2009, February 15, 2009

• Time writing Inu/Kag: Every Heart, March 11, 2008
• Time writing Mir/San: Every Heart, March 11, 2008
• Time writing Sess/Kagura: Heaven, March 23, 2008
• Time writing Inu/Kik: Criminal, April 10, 2008
• Time writing Sess/Kag: Four Seasons, September 22, 2008
• Time writing Hojo/Kagome: “Number Seven”, October 13, 2008
• Time writing Sess/Rin: “My Innocent”, February 20, 2009

• Standalone piece to exceed 10,000 words: Good Girls Don’t (Memento Mori: Sequel), December 18, 2008

Longest completed multichapter fic: Every Heart, 76,363 words



But what are your thoughts on yaoi?

Hm, looking over the stats compiled, it’s obvious I have absolutely nothing to complain about, be it recognition from readers, results in various fandom competitions, or even how fast I’m hitting personal milestones, in terms of fic lengths or finishes. Though I’ve been keeping a running list of the work I’ve completed as I’ve completed it, I had no idea I’d written so much, over so many different pairings/genres/ratings/whathaveyou. It’s a nice feeling of accomplishment, to have written steadily for a whole year (with no signs of stopping, mind you), after suffering a period of writers’ block three times as long.

It’s funny; I just had the chance to go back and reread my big “epic fic”, the one that brought me into the fandom in so many ways: Every Heart. I was really lucky with it – this fic earned me my first reviews, my first recommendation to the IYFG, my first 1000+ hits for a chapter, my first cheerleader fans. I’m honored to know that it was also nominated for an award – how many people can say that about their very first fic in a new fandom?

When I go back and read it now, I can still appreciate that it’s a good story. I’m immensely proud of the three storyline arc I built (and completed!), and, hindsight being 20/20, I don’t have a strong desire to rip it down, tear it up, and rewrite it. There are some awkward moments, but most of it is pretty solid. It’s still my baby, my epic (even if it was only 75,000 words long), my base. If I had nothing else for this fandom, I’d be happy to have that fic to my name.

It was very much a personal journey for me; not only was it the first fanfic I’d written in probably 15 years, but it was also something of a diary for what I was going through in that period of my life. The struggles Kagome had in that story very closely mirrored my own, as I chose whether or not to return to school after a long time in the work force, and whether I’d get in / go to a university halfway around the world from my home, leaving my family behind. Writing Every Heart gave me a place to channel my anxiety, and actually helped me through the whole transition.

My other early works, on the other hand – heh, yeah, they earn the ol’ cringe from me. Those first oneshots and attempts at songfics were pretty awful, but I’m not someone to rip down early work. If nothing else, they showed me the evolution of my style, what worked and what didn’t, as I got back into the habit of writing daily/weekly, and attempting to tame runaway plot bunnies.

Two fics stand out to me in this early period – Criminal and Coda. I really liked the execution of both, though the readers had mixed feelings on them. Criminal, based on the Fiona Apple song of the same name, is a psychological portrait of Kikyo the days preceding her death – and an exploration of why she may have been reincarnated as Kagome. I was really satisfied with the way I incorporated the lyrics of the song into the story, as well as my take on the canon, after watching that awful anime special, hehe.

Coda is the fic I love the most that’s been most ignored by fandom at large. It’s a twoshot, alternate ending to the manga, and it’s the first piece of darker fic I wrote. It’s based on two songs – “Inside the Fire” by Disturbed and “You Could Be Happy” by Snow Patrol – and is pretty experimental in terms of style and storyline, very different from anything I’d attempted at the time. I played with this one the longest, and it probably flopped the hardest, LOL. But, in terms of style, content, and genre, I consider it one of the stronger pieces on my backlist.

I started writing for LJ contests in August 2008 as a way to position myself better within the fandom (to get into the “community” part of it all), and to give myself a little break between writing chapters for Every Heart. There were pros and cons to this move. Pros: I became quite prolific, I learned how to work under different kinds of conditions (word limits, prompts, time limits), I met some of my favorite authors, and I loved the interaction and feedback from the various communities. Cons: I was sidetracked from my major projects, I found myself burning out quickly from writing so much, and I became caught up in the wanky side of fandom (awards guilds, ho!). I was worrying more about writing for communities each week than I was about finishing the projects I’d started long before wandering onto LJ – which is exactly what I didn’t want to happen.

Then it happened, my Big Splash, the story propelled me to whatever modest success I can claim – Memento Mori. I wrote the original drabble in early September 2008, posting the expanded version a week later, followed quickly by an interlude the following week. The response was, literally, overwhelming, and more or less completely changed the way I viewed writing, readers, and the highs and lows of fandom. It totally grounded me to a halt.

I had to take a step back, realize who and what I was writing for. It’s that moment of discovery, where suddenly everybody wants something from you and you wonder if you can deliver. The recognition is wonderful, but the pressure is a bitch.

Around the same time, I plunged into the Sess/Kag corner of fandom, releasing Four Seasons as a response to the Seasons Challenge at dokuga_contest. Again, the response was overwhelming, but this time in a good way. I was shocked to see how fast and hard the denizens at Dokuga took to the story, how many of them praised my characterizations of Sesshoumaru, Kagome, and the delicate situation I wrote about.

I loved that story, but it totally gutted me. I was utterly depressed for a good week or so after posting it, and again, there was the double-edged sword – the praise was off the charts for the piece, but the more people told me how much they liked it, the more depressed I became because of the story’s contents. I don’t regret writing it or going through that stress, but it’s part of the reason why I can’t produce that quality of work on a regular basis – it literally takes too much out of me.

I finally managed to complete Memento Mori during the Christmas season, and the awards just started pouring in for that fic. It’s far and away the most decorated piece of fanfic I’ve ever written, has received the most reviews of a single story I’ve posted, and is probably the piece I’m “known for” in fandom at large. (Honestly, I have no idea if I'm even “known” in the fandom, LOL.)

…And yet, I found that the vast majority of the readers I had for that fic (and earlier fics), did not follow me when I decided to start wandering around the pairing map. I have always unabashedly stated that Sesshoumaru is my favorite character, so it was probably only a matter of time before most of my stories started to revolve around him in some capacity. That left me in an interesting conundrum, as I was writing fic I thought was very strong in content/style/execution, but was having a hard time finding an audience for it. Most of the people I’d attracted to my friends list on LJ flat out stated they didn’t read S/K (LOL, which makes me wonder what about me attracted them in the first place); most of the people who inhabited the S/K centric Dokuga (the site or the LJ comm) were more interested in reading pr0nz than the sort of stuff I was writing.

So, even now – even after all of this I’ve been through, after all the awesome friends I have been lucky enough to have gathered, after having seen the good, the bad, and the ugly of it all – I still feel very much like I’m an outsider looking in. I’ve had my big “flash in the pan” (Memento Mori) and now it’s like everyone’s waiting to see if I can back that up, or if I’ll fade away into a one-hit wonder.

I wonder that myself, sometimes…

Ultimately, I realize I cannot control fandom – it is a fickle mistress. I can only control the quality of my own writing, and hope that it will attract people who appreciate a well-crafted, sometimes stylistically daring, story or pairing. (I have to laugh when people call me a Sess/Kag writer; though it is what I'm predominantly producing of late, it's obviously not my background. I've been writing the pairing less than half my time in fandom, so I hardly see myself as a S/K veteran...or any other strict "this pairing only" writer. Perhaps that's my problem, why I don't really generate a following for my writing, so much as for each, individual story.)

Personal favorites: (listed in chronological order)
• Every Heart (March 11, 2008)
• Coda (July 28, 2008)
• “Number Seven” (October 13, 2008)
• “Promise” (November 3, 2008)
• “Her Protector” (November 3, 2008)
• “In Pieces” (November 26, 2008)
• “A Cost Too Great” (December 7, 2008)
• “Oath” (January 11, 2009)
• “Perception” (March 2, 2009)



Goals for the next 12 months:
• Finish the many projects I’ve inadvertently started (another thing I never wanted to do – have multiple WIPs!) Front burner fics: Fleeting, Nihon Idol, Allegiance
• Write more Mir/San
• Catch up on the never-ending list of epics I’ve yet to read
• Help the awards guilds in any and all positive ways I can
• Continue to contribute to contest communities that have supported me
• Pimp my favorite authors’ work as much as possible (we’re a nice clique, LOL)
• Win an award for characterization (and serial, if it survives any of the awards groups)