My Writing Year in Review
Dec. 28th, 2014 10:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
earlgreytea68I used to do these every year, and then at some point I fell out of the habit. But, anyway, here's my look back at my writing year in review!
Part of the problem is that I can no longer remember what was written this year and what was just edited and finished this year, so it's hard to come up with a totally accurate picture of what I did this year. But here's an approximation.
Original Stuff
I had two novels and two novellas published this year. I'm pretty sure both novels and one of the novellas were done with first drafts last year, but they were definitely edited and finished up this year. I can't remember how much of the second novella was written this year, but my best recollection as to where I started this year in the draft leaves me with 21,693 written on it this year before it was edited and finished.
That is not a lot for me, in terms of output. But I had to recalibrate my expectations for original fic. I can draft and post 21,693 words of fanfiction without thinking. Drafting, editing, copyediting, finalizing, promoting, etc., 21,693 words of original fiction is much more effort, it turns out. My agent said I should feel okay taking a bit of a break to creatively recharge, so I did. I never quite stopped poking around at original stuff, but I didn't stress myself out over it, which helped take some of the pressure out of it for me.
I drafted another quick little short story in my 'verse that amounted to 1,999 words, finished a draft of a middle-grade novel at 35,563 words, and started writing two more young adult novels, that currently stand at 19,875 words and 35,857 words.
So even though I had the impression I slacked off on writing original stuff this year, I ended up with a bunch of editing behind me, a bunch of publications behind me, and 114,987 new words. Really not a bad year at all.
Fanfiction Stuff
We got a new series of Sherlock this year, and in the beginning that meant I wrote Sherlock stuff at a feverish pace. There was Tiebreaker (1,542 words) and Trick Questions (2,015 words) and Operation Baby Girl Watson (3,138 words), all written very, very quickly while I tried to work my way through some immediate emotions.
I was in the middle of posting Letters, Resolved as the new year arrived, but I'm pretty sure I was done writing it by the time I started posting it. (I used to never, ever post until I was completely done with the story. "Sherlock" made me a mess with that policy.)
The first long Sherlock fic I dove into in the new year was The Adventures of a Single Girl in London (Plus a Consulting Detective) (32,913 words). I was really taken with the idea for this fic, I really ended up falling in love with Janine as I wrote it, and this was just a delightful writing process for me: quick and breezy and as fun as I could make it while also having a bunch of death in it. But I still think I write a lighter, brighter Sherlock in this fic than I usually do, because of what Janine brings out in him, and I loved writing Janine's blog. And this fic has one of my favorite sex scenes I've ever written. I hate writing sex scenes and am usually unhappy with how they come out but I adore the one in this fic. Coda: After I finished this fic, Prince Harry broke up with his girlfriend. I don't think Janine, Sherlock, or Mycroft had anything to do with it.
I intended to write a little bonus Bang & Clatter fic to celebrate the opening of a new baseball season. I ended up falling behind and writing it furiously just before it went up, but I did get it done: Holmes Is Where the Heart Is: In London with Sherlock Holmes and John Watson (4,725 words). Much as I did with "Letters" and "Single Girl," I played around with format and style a little bit in this one, writing it as a newspaper article, and it was super-fun. I'm realizing now that I went through a phase where I was no longer just telling a straightforward story: I was writing letters and blog entries and newspaper articles instead. I didn't make that connection until just now. THIS IS THE VALUE OF THE WRITING YEAR IN REVIEW.
Nature and Nurture started in March 2013 and finished in May 2014. I know I was still writing it in 2014, because I mention it in my author's notes at the beginning of "Single Girl." I'm still trying to remember where I was. I put a chapter count up on the fic on February 12, meaning that I'd finished writing it at that point. So I'm not entirely sure how many of the 200,000 words of that fic were written this year. I did detective work. On December 10, 2013, I sent my beta a version of the fic that was 147,009 words long. On January 24, 2014, I sent a version of the fic that was 167,546 words long. So we'll split the difference between that 20,000 words and say I wrote 10,000 words of that in January, plus the remainder of the fic, means that I wrote 45,727 words of the fic in 2014. I will say: 200,000 words is a long time to spend on a fic. By the end of N&N, I was a bit burnt out on it, which is why there's been a bit of a break. I felt like the fic was meandering around and wasn't getting anywhere and I was kind of thinking, "This is why I always wait until I'm done to start posting a fic." But eventually I found myself a plot and had an idea and sketched everything out. So I finished N&N and even half-plotted its sequel, which I haven't started writing yet, but will eventually.
You could tell I was having a hard time with N&N because I kept getting distracted by other ideas. The new season was understandable, but then the Winter Olympics happened and somehow I found myself writing Working on the Edges (56,089 words). I started the fic intending it to be very, very short--I was thinking under 20,000 words. I remain really terrible at estimating how long it will take me to tell a story. (I took this title, incidentally, from the ice skating lesson in "John Watson's Twelve Days of Christmas," which also had a lot of talk about edges.)
All this time I had embarked on an AU binge, in lots of different fandoms, sparked by my adoration for coffee shop AUs. I'd never written one before and wanted to try my hand at it and ended up with It Just Sort of Happens (9,653 words). I had just clawed my way through N&N and WotE, two AUs that I hadn't intended to be nearly as long as they became, so I was really dreading this tea shop AU blossoming outward and taking over my life. For that reason, I wrote it much more slowly than I usually write anything at all, and I'm still not totally pleased with it. I feel like you can feel me holding back, not wanting to get too deep into it in case it turned out to be quicksand. But as a rough idea, I like it. I feel almost like it's a prologue other people can run with it if they want.
We all know how the story of the AU binge ended: it ended in Inception.
My first idea was an Inception/Sherlock crossover. I've only got Part 1 done, and it isn't all posted yet, but it is all written, and it's 119,248 words long.
But while I was writing what turned out to be called Keep the Car Running, I kept getting distracted by other ideas. Like, for instance, the fact that the first tropical storm of the year was named Arthur. I mean, *seriously*? That just begged to be turned into a fic. So I sat and banged out Storm Chasing (1,107 words) in the course of one inspired morning. Then a chance encounter with a cockroach had me thinking about other household pests and Of Mice and Mutant Demon Creatures (2,670 words) flowed right out of me. I was in that honeymoon phase with Arthur and Eames, when they never shut up in your head and you haven't hit that plot snag yet that makes you sigh and turn to something else.
Because I was in the middle of writing a crossover, I started thinking about other crossovers, and that's where Conspiracy Theory (1,630 words) came in. I purposely kept it very short, writing it on Labor Day because that's kind of like a bonus day and wouldn't lose me writing time on anything else, but I am very, very fond of it. It isn't canon for me in either 'verse but it was very fun to revisit Brem and to grow Oliver up a bit.
Eventually I finished writing Keep the Car Running, Part I. Part II deals with the events of HLV, and we all know how I feel about the events of HLV. So, to procrastinate, I went back and spent some time with Oliver. I wrote Snow (4,982 words), Mycroft's Story (2,325 words), and an as-yet-untitled fic about Oliver's first day of school (4,751 words). Theoretically. I'm still fiddling with that fic. And my beta had long ago suggested a Salem witch trials AU, so I wrote it for her as a gift: Spectral Evidence (4,032 words).
To work my way into Keep the Car Running, Part II, I wrote myself a few little ficlets in the 'verse that fill in the time gap between the end of Part I and the beginning of Part II. None of them have been posted yet, for obvious reasons, but, to tease you, they are 5,100 words, 4,931 words, and 13,952 words, respectively.
Then I dove into the drafting of Keep the Car Running, Part II. I'm currently 23,555 words into the fic, but you can tell it's giving me fits and starts because, as happened with N&N, I keep getting distracted by other ideas. While I've supposedly been drafting KtCR, Part II, I wrote a still-unposted Inception high school AU where Arthur and Eames are partnered to raise an egg baby (20,319 words); a still-unposted Inception AU based on the French movie "Heartbreaker" (23,799 words); part of an Inception Iron Chef AU (494 words); and part of an Inception academia AU (3,531 words). I also wrote, crazily, Lucky (37,069 words). And, lest you think you've seen the last of Lucky, I've got a sequel written right now (7,210 words).
You may ask why some things get posted as they're being drafted, like "Lucky," while others get held back until I'm ready, like all those AUs I just referenced that are sitting on my hard drive. The answer is: I don't really know. I think sometimes I can sense from the first paragraph: "This is a good idea. This is going somewhere. I like it." And, weirdly, those are the fics I keep to myself until they're done and polished, because I'm proud and pleased and want them perfect. But other times I start writing something and I'm thinking to myself, "WHAT THE HELL IS THIS?" And that's more likely to get posted as I draft, so that people can say to me, "...You're insane, what is this?" and I can stop if necessary before getting too deep. (Other times there's some outside force that compels me. Like, I wanted WotE to start posting while the Olympics were still going on.)
What I've noticed from this year looking back is that, for whatever reason, I can tell a story in an Inception AU naturally much more quickly than I can in Sherlock. Why is that? I have no idea. When I get an Inception AU idea, I think, "Awesome! Let me sit and write it!" And normally I can get it done in, like, a weekend. When I get a Sherlock AU idea, I think, "Oh, God, this will take over my life for the next year, let me wait until I'm ready for it." Why?? Why does it seem to take me so much longer to tell a Sherlock story???
And then, for fun, I randomly wrote a UK Office fic, Ten (Eleven) Years Later (1,861 words). It was the first story I've ever told in script form, and I'm not sure there'll be many more, as I found it super-challenging. But I wanted to see if I could do it and I'm glad I gave it a try.
So my fanfiction totals for the year are: 173,522 Sherlock-related words, 120,182 Inception-related words, 142,803 Inceptionlock-related words, and 1,861 other, for a total of 438,368 words.
Which means that, this year, I wrote a total of 553,355 words.
I...am shocked by this total. I actually thought I had a slow writing year! Certainly there were vast periods of time when I felt like the writing was pulling teeth. And I also thought that I would look back and Inception writing would totally dominate the year, but, actually, the year still belonged to Sherlock in the end, and, actually, I barely wrote more Inception-related words than I did original words. I think it was just that Inception was coming so easily for such a huge portion of the year that it felt so dominant to me. That's slowed a bit, but it's more that I'm buckling down to KtCR, Part II, because I *will* have it finished by the time Part I is finished posting so I can go right into it. Part I seemed so long when I started it and now I've wasted away half of the fic!
As for what next year will bring? Who knows? Who could have predicted this year? I know azriona wants a Sherlock Slayer AU, I want lots of other AUs, and I have an entire document with notes for future Oliver fics. So I think there's lots to come, and I'm excited to see where it all leads!
Part of the problem is that I can no longer remember what was written this year and what was just edited and finished this year, so it's hard to come up with a totally accurate picture of what I did this year. But here's an approximation.
Original Stuff
I had two novels and two novellas published this year. I'm pretty sure both novels and one of the novellas were done with first drafts last year, but they were definitely edited and finished up this year. I can't remember how much of the second novella was written this year, but my best recollection as to where I started this year in the draft leaves me with 21,693 written on it this year before it was edited and finished.
That is not a lot for me, in terms of output. But I had to recalibrate my expectations for original fic. I can draft and post 21,693 words of fanfiction without thinking. Drafting, editing, copyediting, finalizing, promoting, etc., 21,693 words of original fiction is much more effort, it turns out. My agent said I should feel okay taking a bit of a break to creatively recharge, so I did. I never quite stopped poking around at original stuff, but I didn't stress myself out over it, which helped take some of the pressure out of it for me.
I drafted another quick little short story in my 'verse that amounted to 1,999 words, finished a draft of a middle-grade novel at 35,563 words, and started writing two more young adult novels, that currently stand at 19,875 words and 35,857 words.
So even though I had the impression I slacked off on writing original stuff this year, I ended up with a bunch of editing behind me, a bunch of publications behind me, and 114,987 new words. Really not a bad year at all.
Fanfiction Stuff
We got a new series of Sherlock this year, and in the beginning that meant I wrote Sherlock stuff at a feverish pace. There was Tiebreaker (1,542 words) and Trick Questions (2,015 words) and Operation Baby Girl Watson (3,138 words), all written very, very quickly while I tried to work my way through some immediate emotions.
I was in the middle of posting Letters, Resolved as the new year arrived, but I'm pretty sure I was done writing it by the time I started posting it. (I used to never, ever post until I was completely done with the story. "Sherlock" made me a mess with that policy.)
The first long Sherlock fic I dove into in the new year was The Adventures of a Single Girl in London (Plus a Consulting Detective) (32,913 words). I was really taken with the idea for this fic, I really ended up falling in love with Janine as I wrote it, and this was just a delightful writing process for me: quick and breezy and as fun as I could make it while also having a bunch of death in it. But I still think I write a lighter, brighter Sherlock in this fic than I usually do, because of what Janine brings out in him, and I loved writing Janine's blog. And this fic has one of my favorite sex scenes I've ever written. I hate writing sex scenes and am usually unhappy with how they come out but I adore the one in this fic. Coda: After I finished this fic, Prince Harry broke up with his girlfriend. I don't think Janine, Sherlock, or Mycroft had anything to do with it.
I intended to write a little bonus Bang & Clatter fic to celebrate the opening of a new baseball season. I ended up falling behind and writing it furiously just before it went up, but I did get it done: Holmes Is Where the Heart Is: In London with Sherlock Holmes and John Watson (4,725 words). Much as I did with "Letters" and "Single Girl," I played around with format and style a little bit in this one, writing it as a newspaper article, and it was super-fun. I'm realizing now that I went through a phase where I was no longer just telling a straightforward story: I was writing letters and blog entries and newspaper articles instead. I didn't make that connection until just now. THIS IS THE VALUE OF THE WRITING YEAR IN REVIEW.
Nature and Nurture started in March 2013 and finished in May 2014. I know I was still writing it in 2014, because I mention it in my author's notes at the beginning of "Single Girl." I'm still trying to remember where I was. I put a chapter count up on the fic on February 12, meaning that I'd finished writing it at that point. So I'm not entirely sure how many of the 200,000 words of that fic were written this year. I did detective work. On December 10, 2013, I sent my beta a version of the fic that was 147,009 words long. On January 24, 2014, I sent a version of the fic that was 167,546 words long. So we'll split the difference between that 20,000 words and say I wrote 10,000 words of that in January, plus the remainder of the fic, means that I wrote 45,727 words of the fic in 2014. I will say: 200,000 words is a long time to spend on a fic. By the end of N&N, I was a bit burnt out on it, which is why there's been a bit of a break. I felt like the fic was meandering around and wasn't getting anywhere and I was kind of thinking, "This is why I always wait until I'm done to start posting a fic." But eventually I found myself a plot and had an idea and sketched everything out. So I finished N&N and even half-plotted its sequel, which I haven't started writing yet, but will eventually.
You could tell I was having a hard time with N&N because I kept getting distracted by other ideas. The new season was understandable, but then the Winter Olympics happened and somehow I found myself writing Working on the Edges (56,089 words). I started the fic intending it to be very, very short--I was thinking under 20,000 words. I remain really terrible at estimating how long it will take me to tell a story. (I took this title, incidentally, from the ice skating lesson in "John Watson's Twelve Days of Christmas," which also had a lot of talk about edges.)
All this time I had embarked on an AU binge, in lots of different fandoms, sparked by my adoration for coffee shop AUs. I'd never written one before and wanted to try my hand at it and ended up with It Just Sort of Happens (9,653 words). I had just clawed my way through N&N and WotE, two AUs that I hadn't intended to be nearly as long as they became, so I was really dreading this tea shop AU blossoming outward and taking over my life. For that reason, I wrote it much more slowly than I usually write anything at all, and I'm still not totally pleased with it. I feel like you can feel me holding back, not wanting to get too deep into it in case it turned out to be quicksand. But as a rough idea, I like it. I feel almost like it's a prologue other people can run with it if they want.
We all know how the story of the AU binge ended: it ended in Inception.
My first idea was an Inception/Sherlock crossover. I've only got Part 1 done, and it isn't all posted yet, but it is all written, and it's 119,248 words long.
But while I was writing what turned out to be called Keep the Car Running, I kept getting distracted by other ideas. Like, for instance, the fact that the first tropical storm of the year was named Arthur. I mean, *seriously*? That just begged to be turned into a fic. So I sat and banged out Storm Chasing (1,107 words) in the course of one inspired morning. Then a chance encounter with a cockroach had me thinking about other household pests and Of Mice and Mutant Demon Creatures (2,670 words) flowed right out of me. I was in that honeymoon phase with Arthur and Eames, when they never shut up in your head and you haven't hit that plot snag yet that makes you sigh and turn to something else.
Because I was in the middle of writing a crossover, I started thinking about other crossovers, and that's where Conspiracy Theory (1,630 words) came in. I purposely kept it very short, writing it on Labor Day because that's kind of like a bonus day and wouldn't lose me writing time on anything else, but I am very, very fond of it. It isn't canon for me in either 'verse but it was very fun to revisit Brem and to grow Oliver up a bit.
Eventually I finished writing Keep the Car Running, Part I. Part II deals with the events of HLV, and we all know how I feel about the events of HLV. So, to procrastinate, I went back and spent some time with Oliver. I wrote Snow (4,982 words), Mycroft's Story (2,325 words), and an as-yet-untitled fic about Oliver's first day of school (4,751 words). Theoretically. I'm still fiddling with that fic. And my beta had long ago suggested a Salem witch trials AU, so I wrote it for her as a gift: Spectral Evidence (4,032 words).
To work my way into Keep the Car Running, Part II, I wrote myself a few little ficlets in the 'verse that fill in the time gap between the end of Part I and the beginning of Part II. None of them have been posted yet, for obvious reasons, but, to tease you, they are 5,100 words, 4,931 words, and 13,952 words, respectively.
Then I dove into the drafting of Keep the Car Running, Part II. I'm currently 23,555 words into the fic, but you can tell it's giving me fits and starts because, as happened with N&N, I keep getting distracted by other ideas. While I've supposedly been drafting KtCR, Part II, I wrote a still-unposted Inception high school AU where Arthur and Eames are partnered to raise an egg baby (20,319 words); a still-unposted Inception AU based on the French movie "Heartbreaker" (23,799 words); part of an Inception Iron Chef AU (494 words); and part of an Inception academia AU (3,531 words). I also wrote, crazily, Lucky (37,069 words). And, lest you think you've seen the last of Lucky, I've got a sequel written right now (7,210 words).
You may ask why some things get posted as they're being drafted, like "Lucky," while others get held back until I'm ready, like all those AUs I just referenced that are sitting on my hard drive. The answer is: I don't really know. I think sometimes I can sense from the first paragraph: "This is a good idea. This is going somewhere. I like it." And, weirdly, those are the fics I keep to myself until they're done and polished, because I'm proud and pleased and want them perfect. But other times I start writing something and I'm thinking to myself, "WHAT THE HELL IS THIS?" And that's more likely to get posted as I draft, so that people can say to me, "...You're insane, what is this?" and I can stop if necessary before getting too deep. (Other times there's some outside force that compels me. Like, I wanted WotE to start posting while the Olympics were still going on.)
What I've noticed from this year looking back is that, for whatever reason, I can tell a story in an Inception AU naturally much more quickly than I can in Sherlock. Why is that? I have no idea. When I get an Inception AU idea, I think, "Awesome! Let me sit and write it!" And normally I can get it done in, like, a weekend. When I get a Sherlock AU idea, I think, "Oh, God, this will take over my life for the next year, let me wait until I'm ready for it." Why?? Why does it seem to take me so much longer to tell a Sherlock story???
And then, for fun, I randomly wrote a UK Office fic, Ten (Eleven) Years Later (1,861 words). It was the first story I've ever told in script form, and I'm not sure there'll be many more, as I found it super-challenging. But I wanted to see if I could do it and I'm glad I gave it a try.
So my fanfiction totals for the year are: 173,522 Sherlock-related words, 120,182 Inception-related words, 142,803 Inceptionlock-related words, and 1,861 other, for a total of 438,368 words.
Which means that, this year, I wrote a total of 553,355 words.
I...am shocked by this total. I actually thought I had a slow writing year! Certainly there were vast periods of time when I felt like the writing was pulling teeth. And I also thought that I would look back and Inception writing would totally dominate the year, but, actually, the year still belonged to Sherlock in the end, and, actually, I barely wrote more Inception-related words than I did original words. I think it was just that Inception was coming so easily for such a huge portion of the year that it felt so dominant to me. That's slowed a bit, but it's more that I'm buckling down to KtCR, Part II, because I *will* have it finished by the time Part I is finished posting so I can go right into it. Part I seemed so long when I started it and now I've wasted away half of the fic!
As for what next year will bring? Who knows? Who could have predicted this year? I know azriona wants a Sherlock Slayer AU, I want lots of other AUs, and I have an entire document with notes for future Oliver fics. So I think there's lots to come, and I'm excited to see where it all leads!
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2014-12-29 01:37 pm (UTC)I'm constantly amazed at your output and the quality of that output. Holy moly....
no subject
Date: 2014-12-29 03:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-12-30 03:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-12-29 04:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-12-30 03:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-12-29 05:58 pm (UTC)I've just realised, though, how much of your work I still have bookmarked and haven't read. So little time / so many stories . . .
But thanks very much for the recap; congratulations on being a published author and very much looking forward to your next year's output!
Happy New Year if we don't 'speak' again before then!
no subject
Date: 2014-12-30 03:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-12-29 10:11 pm (UTC)I would think that both in terms of prestige and money, the getting novels published would outweigh the fanfiction! But perhaps I am just prejudiced here.
I've written fanfiction, and some of it I am even proud of (My Doctor Who/Babylon 5 fanfic!) but a big part of me doesn't take it seriously. It is more just an exercise for me.
no subject
Date: 2014-12-30 03:08 am (UTC)The original stuff is more important to the extent that I'm getting paid for it and have deadlines and responsibilities that I take very seriously and prioritize over fanfic.
But fanfic is just as important because it's my winding-down writing, it's the writing I get to do to let loose and have fun, and I'm immensely proud of it. I think some of my fanfiction is among the best stuff I've ever written.
no subject
Date: 2014-12-30 12:32 am (UTC)And so we are, believe me!
Gosh, you can be very proud of yourself, you had such a productive year. The fact that your stories are so numerous and so good never fails to astonish me.
Also...
EARLGREYTEA (seeing a 13,952 word long story): Oh look, a ficlet!
:D
no subject
Date: 2014-12-30 03:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-12-30 02:22 pm (UTC)HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
*breath*
See, this is the advantage of the spreadsheet. I can look very quickly and tell you when I started something and how long I was writing and editing it. YAY SPREADSHEET. It totally soothes my addiction to numbers.
no subject
Date: 2015-01-02 01:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-01-03 03:37 am (UTC)