![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
Author's Notes: Year in Review
Well, today marks my fandom anniversary, as close as I can tell. I’m not exactly sure when I first dipped my toes into the fanfic/fanart world; I watched the Inuyasha anime and read the manga up-to-date sometime during the summer of 2007, and then started looking for 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…
2008 in review | 2009 in review | 2010 in review | 2011 in review | 2012 in review | 2013 in review | 2014 in review | 2015 in review | 2016 in review
Stats:
Story Stats:
Total words written (as accounted for in MS Word): 28,491
Total words by fandom:
• Baby-sitters Club: 4,757
• Cinderella (1950): 2,097
• Kids Incorporated: 15,815
• Original fiction (unpublished): 5,822
Total stories written (started, WIP, completed): 7
Most reviewed stories [title (FANDOM, pairing), # of reviews compiled across all archives]
• Fleeting (IY, Sesshoumaru/Kagome): 642
• The Best Friends You’ll Ever Have (BSC, various): 308
• Collected Works (IY, various): 183
• Fragments (IY, Miroku/Sango): 167
• Allegiance (IY, Sesshoumaru/Kagome): 132
Challenges:
Challenges started/ongoing: 3 (![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
un_love_you prompt table, ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
babysitters100 prompt table, Summer Mini Challenge prompt table)
Challenges completed: 1 (Summer Mini Challenge prompt table)
Epics...
• Longest completed fic = Every Heart (73,171 words)
• Longest WIP fic = Stacy in Bloom (120,672)
2017 Goals ~ How did I do?
Here’s the list of goals I made at the end of last year’s post, as goals I wanted to accomplish this year…so: did I succeed, fail, or go off in a completely different direction?
• Finish Fleeting. - Failed, as I have for each of the last five years.
• Write at least one new chapter of Stacy in Bloom. Accomplished! =) We're now at the official halfway point of the story.
• Host another successful Summer Mini Challenge. Done!
• Gif more Designing Women Julia Sugarbaker speeches. I did a few, but I did far more giffing of non-Julia speech scenes (including a shameless breakdown of my favorite episode, "Dash Goff, the Writer."
2017: A Year in Review
Last year definitely represented a huge fall off the fandom cliff in terms of fic-writing. I pretty much only wrote for the Summer Mini Challenge, and then laid down my pen until Valentine's Day of this year. 5 completed stories is an all-time low for me. However, that doesn't mean I was entirely inactive in fandom for the rest of the year.
I posted my notes for myhetswap exchange fic, Summer Rain, at the end of March last year. Two months later, in May, I posted Chapter 25 of Stacy in Bloom, the first chapter of that fic in five years.
Then it was time for the Summer Mini Challenge. It was a quiet challenge this year, as far as other participants went, but it was a successful one. I finished my table for the fourth year in a row. I wrote the opening salvo in a new BSC post-canon series, Maybe Baby. This is my second Charlie/Janine post-canon series, nominally titled "Happily Ever After," in which I explore the idea of them starting a family. It is completely separate from "Count Me In," which is a take on how they get together during their college years.
My second SMC fic was also by far my most popular. I re-watched all of the Disney Princess movies during my annual August vacation, and my re-watch of Cinderella (along with all the meta included on the special edition disc) inspired So This is Love, a missing scene from the Prince's POV. This story has received a surprising amount of love on AO3, with 28 kudos and 6 bookmarks!
The rest of my SMC was devoted to Kids Incorporated - I went for light, teasing comedy (Never Say Never), dark and somber (Shadow of the Day), and pushed out the massive Chapter 26 of Stacy in Bloom, marking the official halfway point of that story.
I didn't manage to produce any more fic until Valentine's Day this year, with a Charlie/Janine oneshot called Stargazers. I enjoyed this take on Janine so much that I am contemplating editing "Happily Ever After" to make her an astrophysicist.
My fic output might've been small, but as has been my tendency lately, I dappled in quite a few other fannish waters. In June, I started posting gifs of my all-time favorite Designing Women episode, "Dash Goff, The Writer." All was happy in happiness house until July 20th, when the world learned about Chester Bennington's death. The news was absolutely devastating for me. One of the ways I dealt with it was to start a "Tribute to Chester" series on my Tumblr.
My gif-fest continued at the beginning of September, when I did a two-week Premier Week Celebration atkidsincdaily to celebrate the anniversary of KI's premiere 34 years ago. It was quite a bit of fun, between Tumblr and Twitter, reminding me why I love that tiny fandom so much ♥ September was also the month that Fergie dropped her second solo album, which I snapped up at release. I have a Lot of Thoughts about it, for which I was planning to do a post but never quite got around to.
My major contribution in October was my annual SMC round up post; in November I purchased Stranger Things when it was released on DVD, with every intention of having a marathon at some point. I was quite proud of myself for only being 1 year behind the bandwagon, instead of my usual 5, but unfortunately I haven't had the chance to really fall off that fandom cliff yet.
I did not join a holiday exchange this year, as I did not care to be part of thefandom_stocking farce again. I had intention of writing giftfic, but unfortunately my depression completely bottomed out instead, leaving me with little desire to do anything other than the random gifset.
In January, we had some unexpected snow days the week of MLK Day, and I had an unexpected tumble off a fandom cliff - the 2008 BBC version of Sense & Sensibility grabbed me and wouldn't let go. I went a little gif-crazy with the copy I had from the library, before purchasing my own copy.
Somehow this lead to me looking back at the original fiction I wrote in the late 90s/early 00s. I found a short story/novella that had very decent bones, and decided that I'd have another go at my original fiction, just to see if I could finish a story again. I made a decent start, but as I am still fighting the black depression, I haven't gotten very far in this endeavor - yet.
I wasn't really looking for a new interest during the Winter Olympics, but one found me anyway, when I got sucked back into figure skating via ice dancing (aka, what figure skating used to be). I used to watch figure skating all the time but lost interest around the 2002 judging scandal and the change in the scoring system. I found (apparently) THE person to follow for skating on Twitter (![[twitter.com profile]](https://p.dreamwidth.org/e0caa790ec10/-/twitter.com/favicon.ico)
rockerskating) and raided my local library for books, and I'm looking forward to delving in and catching up as the season ends (it remains to be seen if Worlds will be broadcast in a way I can see them, but I'm going to try!).
I haven't written a lot, or spent a lot of time on Tumblr (or Discord, for BSC). I've been laying low, trying to ride out this black episode, which means I'm doing a lot of reading and TV watching. Maybe this tide will turn soon and allow me to be creative again. I certainly hope so. I miss my fandom friends and the fannish community. Maybe when I'm up for participating again, you guys will still be around - we'll see.
I anticipate this year to be slow, especially with the World Cup in the summer, and the skating calendar starting up again in the fall. We'll see what happens; the Summer Mini Challenge has become a regular fixture around here, and it will continue again this year. Goodness knows I need a kick in the pants as much as anybody else who participates in it!!
Goals for the next 12 months:
• Finish Fleeting. It's time. It would be a nice, round coda to finish it, 10 years after I started it, no?
• Host another successful Summer Mini Challenge. This seems to be the only thing I can do with any consistency anymore - let's see if I can make it 5 completions in a row, especially with known distractions looming.
• Continue chipping away at that original fic idea. It's too good to be wasted, and I need to remember what it's like to actually finish a project.
The rest, as they say, is history…
2008 in review | 2009 in review | 2010 in review | 2011 in review | 2012 in review | 2013 in review | 2014 in review | 2015 in review | 2016 in review
Stats:
Story Stats:
Total words written (as accounted for in MS Word): 28,491
Total words by fandom:
• Baby-sitters Club: 4,757
• Cinderella (1950): 2,097
• Kids Incorporated: 15,815
• Original fiction (unpublished): 5,822
Total stories written (started, WIP, completed): 7
Most reviewed stories [title (FANDOM, pairing), # of reviews compiled across all archives]
• Fleeting (IY, Sesshoumaru/Kagome): 642
• The Best Friends You’ll Ever Have (BSC, various): 308
• Collected Works (IY, various): 183
• Fragments (IY, Miroku/Sango): 167
• Allegiance (IY, Sesshoumaru/Kagome): 132
Challenges:
Challenges started/ongoing: 3 (
un_love_you prompt table, babysitters100 prompt table, Summer Mini Challenge prompt table)Challenges completed: 1 (Summer Mini Challenge prompt table)
Epics...
• Longest completed fic = Every Heart (73,171 words)
• Longest WIP fic = Stacy in Bloom (120,672)
2017 Goals ~ How did I do?
Here’s the list of goals I made at the end of last year’s post, as goals I wanted to accomplish this year…so: did I succeed, fail, or go off in a completely different direction?
• Finish Fleeting. - Failed, as I have for each of the last five years.
• Write at least one new chapter of Stacy in Bloom. Accomplished! =) We're now at the official halfway point of the story.
• Host another successful Summer Mini Challenge. Done!
• Gif more Designing Women Julia Sugarbaker speeches. I did a few, but I did far more giffing of non-Julia speech scenes (including a shameless breakdown of my favorite episode, "Dash Goff, the Writer."
2017: A Year in Review
Last year definitely represented a huge fall off the fandom cliff in terms of fic-writing. I pretty much only wrote for the Summer Mini Challenge, and then laid down my pen until Valentine's Day of this year. 5 completed stories is an all-time low for me. However, that doesn't mean I was entirely inactive in fandom for the rest of the year.
I posted my notes for my
hetswap exchange fic, Summer Rain, at the end of March last year. Two months later, in May, I posted Chapter 25 of Stacy in Bloom, the first chapter of that fic in five years.Then it was time for the Summer Mini Challenge. It was a quiet challenge this year, as far as other participants went, but it was a successful one. I finished my table for the fourth year in a row. I wrote the opening salvo in a new BSC post-canon series, Maybe Baby. This is my second Charlie/Janine post-canon series, nominally titled "Happily Ever After," in which I explore the idea of them starting a family. It is completely separate from "Count Me In," which is a take on how they get together during their college years.
My second SMC fic was also by far my most popular. I re-watched all of the Disney Princess movies during my annual August vacation, and my re-watch of Cinderella (along with all the meta included on the special edition disc) inspired So This is Love, a missing scene from the Prince's POV. This story has received a surprising amount of love on AO3, with 28 kudos and 6 bookmarks!
The rest of my SMC was devoted to Kids Incorporated - I went for light, teasing comedy (Never Say Never), dark and somber (Shadow of the Day), and pushed out the massive Chapter 26 of Stacy in Bloom, marking the official halfway point of that story.
I didn't manage to produce any more fic until Valentine's Day this year, with a Charlie/Janine oneshot called Stargazers. I enjoyed this take on Janine so much that I am contemplating editing "Happily Ever After" to make her an astrophysicist.
My fic output might've been small, but as has been my tendency lately, I dappled in quite a few other fannish waters. In June, I started posting gifs of my all-time favorite Designing Women episode, "Dash Goff, The Writer." All was happy in happiness house until July 20th, when the world learned about Chester Bennington's death. The news was absolutely devastating for me. One of the ways I dealt with it was to start a "Tribute to Chester" series on my Tumblr.
My gif-fest continued at the beginning of September, when I did a two-week Premier Week Celebration at
kidsincdaily to celebrate the anniversary of KI's premiere 34 years ago. It was quite a bit of fun, between Tumblr and Twitter, reminding me why I love that tiny fandom so much ♥ September was also the month that Fergie dropped her second solo album, which I snapped up at release. I have a Lot of Thoughts about it, for which I was planning to do a post but never quite got around to.My major contribution in October was my annual SMC round up post; in November I purchased Stranger Things when it was released on DVD, with every intention of having a marathon at some point. I was quite proud of myself for only being 1 year behind the bandwagon, instead of my usual 5, but unfortunately I haven't had the chance to really fall off that fandom cliff yet.
I did not join a holiday exchange this year, as I did not care to be part of the
fandom_stocking farce again. I had intention of writing giftfic, but unfortunately my depression completely bottomed out instead, leaving me with little desire to do anything other than the random gifset.In January, we had some unexpected snow days the week of MLK Day, and I had an unexpected tumble off a fandom cliff - the 2008 BBC version of Sense & Sensibility grabbed me and wouldn't let go. I went a little gif-crazy with the copy I had from the library, before purchasing my own copy.
Somehow this lead to me looking back at the original fiction I wrote in the late 90s/early 00s. I found a short story/novella that had very decent bones, and decided that I'd have another go at my original fiction, just to see if I could finish a story again. I made a decent start, but as I am still fighting the black depression, I haven't gotten very far in this endeavor - yet.
I wasn't really looking for a new interest during the Winter Olympics, but one found me anyway, when I got sucked back into figure skating via ice dancing (aka, what figure skating used to be). I used to watch figure skating all the time but lost interest around the 2002 judging scandal and the change in the scoring system. I found (apparently) THE person to follow for skating on Twitter (
I haven't written a lot, or spent a lot of time on Tumblr (or Discord, for BSC). I've been laying low, trying to ride out this black episode, which means I'm doing a lot of reading and TV watching. Maybe this tide will turn soon and allow me to be creative again. I certainly hope so. I miss my fandom friends and the fannish community. Maybe when I'm up for participating again, you guys will still be around - we'll see.
I anticipate this year to be slow, especially with the World Cup in the summer, and the skating calendar starting up again in the fall. We'll see what happens; the Summer Mini Challenge has become a regular fixture around here, and it will continue again this year. Goodness knows I need a kick in the pants as much as anybody else who participates in it!!
Goals for the next 12 months:
• Finish Fleeting. It's time. It would be a nice, round coda to finish it, 10 years after I started it, no?
• Host another successful Summer Mini Challenge. This seems to be the only thing I can do with any consistency anymore - let's see if I can make it 5 completions in a row, especially with known distractions looming.
• Continue chipping away at that original fic idea. It's too good to be wasted, and I need to remember what it's like to actually finish a project.