FIC YEAR IN REVIEW - 2020

[jedibuttercup]

Okay, so. 2020 was pretty much a wash, for me. I completely failed to participate in the August twistedshorts marathon for the first time in more than a decade; I missed most of my other goal targets, too; I wrote pretty much only one story post completely for myself. As for my getyourwordsout target, HAH.

But! The nagging tracker at least kept prompting me to sign up for exchanges trying to keep from failing completely, and at year's end, I seem to have pretty much written about the same amount as in 2019? Maybe not a win, but not a loss either! Plus, I actually managed to write something entirely new this year: anthropomorphic.

Given everything else that was 2020, I'll take it. Goals for 2021: Do Better. Signing up for getyourwordsout again!

---

2020 Fanfiction Stats

(As a reminder, I always count Yuletide stories with the year following, in which the reveals happen; so 2020's count includes the Yule 2019 stories and not the Yule 2020 ones.)

Number of works posted: 26
Total words posted: 74,150

(For perspective: last year's numbers were 35 and 71,750. In 2011, my best year yet? 137 and 272,200.)

Most popular stories of 2020:
An Intersection of Paths - Stargate SG-1/Dresden Files, Teal'c & Harry Dresden
Door Number Two - Alien vs Predator, Scar/Alexa Woods

Least popular stories of 2020:
As Remembrance Gives You Pleasure - Total Recall (2012), Melina/Douglas Quaid/Lori Quaid
everything else is academic - King Arthur: Legend of the Sword, Bedivere/Goosefat Bill/Maggie

Pleased about the former category; not at all surprised by the latter. :)

---

Movie Non-Crossovers

For to Each is Given - Constantine (2005), Angela & Isabel, Angela/John, 7,200 words (fandom5k)
Shifting Parameters - Dredd (2012), Anderson/Dredd, 10,700 words (highadrenalineexchange)

As Remembrance Gives You Pleasure - Total Recall (2012), Melina/Doug/Lori, 4,800 words (yuletide)
everything else is academic - King Arthur: LotS (2017), Bedivere/Bill/Maggie, 4,400 words (rarepairsexchange)

Door Number Two - Alien vs Predator (2004), Scar/Alexa Woods, 1,500 words (chocolateboxcomm)
it's not about the ones you lose - The Meg (2018), Jonas/Suyin, 1,600 words (shipoween)
Journey of a Thousand Miles - The Thing (1982), MacReady & Childs, 1,600 words (trickortreatex)
Monitoring His Frequency - Star Trek (AOS), Uhura/Spock, 4,200 words (auexchange)
pas de deux dans l'éclipse - Pitch Black (2000), William Johns/Riddick, 1,750 words (yuletide)
so familiar a gleam - Last Witch Hunter (2015), Chloe/Kaulder, 1,800 words (shipoween)
this moment (we own it) - Furious 7 (2015), Gisele/Han, 800 words (chocolateboxcomm)

Following Her Heart - Knives Out (2019), Marta/Benoit, 1,800 words (trickortreatex)
Knocking Over the Board - Knives Out (2019), Marta/Ransom, 300 words (multifandomdrabble)
the best thing that could happen - Knives Out (2019), 300 words (multifandomdrabble)

TV Non-Crossovers

Ante Up - Firefly, River/Jayne, 300 words (multifandomdrabble)

Hell of an Epilogue - Angel: the Series, Faith-centric, 3,600 words (circle_of_friends)

Book Non-Crossovers

The Coming of the King - Lord of the Rings, Imrahil-centric, 10,700 words (ficinabox)

Another Scheme of Happiness - Mansfield Park, AU, 300 words (multifandomdrabble)
what a delightful thing it is - The Unknown Ajax, Daracott OT3, 1500 words (littleblackdressex)

Crossovers

Fighting Words - The Mandalorian x Leverage, Cara Dune & Eliot Spencer, 1700 words (intoabar)
getting awful crowded in my sky - Star Wars (OT) x Firefly, Mal Reynolds & Han Solo, 1,700 words (crossworks)

Chosen, Too - B:tVS x Dresden Files, Buffy Summers/Harry Dresden, 4,000 words
An Intersection of Paths - Stargate SG-1 x Dresden Files, Teal'c & Harry Dresden, 2,000 words (wishlist_fic)
We All Began as Something Else - B:tVS x Chronicles of Riddick, Buffy/Riddick, 4,800 words (hetswap)

Other

Spirit of Place - anthropomorphic, 11'8" Bridge, 1,000 words (juletide)

Comments

[hiddencait]

Man going through my reread marathon of your SG1 fics made me wonder if I was still following you on Dreamwidth or if I'd lost that over at LJ (glad to say we already are lol), but that somehow put me in the mood to possibly do a fic exchange and lo and behold you have a delightful list of them here! No idea if they'll be close to sign ups as I go wander, but at least I have some to be on the look out to help out my GYWO wordcount this year. Granted, I've been writing original fic short stories for submissions to lit mags and anthologies which I'm really enjoying (and would be happy to share some calls if you are ever interested though most I've been drawn to seem to be horror lately weirdly enough) but I miss fanfic and I haven't been able to get my brain focused on it lately. Le sigh.

[jedibuttercup]

I haven't been checking my read lists at either journal since probably the pandemic started, but I do keep track of my comments! :)

Actually, there is a handy-dandy comm called fandomcalendar on DW! Not all exchanges, but a great many of them post there when they're opening nominations or signups or just setting schedules. And there's another one where some enterprising soul is trying to keep a massive spreadsheet of dates and times for all exchanges they're aware of, not just the one currently in progress: fanwork_events_calendar. Announcements are how I find most of the exchanges I do, when I have time to look for something.

Thanks - I've thought about doing originals, and yay for success for you! Part of me's always been worried that turning my fic hobby into something more formal will burn me out on it, though, the way my summers in a cubicle during college totally turned me off of computer programming.

[hiddencait]

Oh score! I will add both of those to my subscribe list! I just signed up for Fandomlittleblackdress though I am not totally sure I signed up properly. Oh well, we'll see if I get errors/unmatchable. I have a fair number of characters I ship with literally almost anyone so it could be fun.

And success is... questionable? LOL I've been in a few micro press anthologies and my writing group has done some charity anthologies over the years, but that's it. I've got another novel in the query trenche, so we'll see if I get an agent with it this time, I guess? Le sigh. And yeah, I totally get that - that's half the reason I still cling to fanfic as well. So I have some writing that is still solely a hobby so I don't lose that fun feel even though I'm trying to be more professional with the other side of my writing life.

[jedibuttercup]

I wasn't sure how to sign up for that one either; so I ended up participating last year by grabbing a pinch hit. :) Hopefully I'll have time this week to figure out an actual sign up this time!

Most of my day job these days is online database and communications related for an HR consulting firm, and I end up doing a not-inconsiderable amount of generating and proofing of pretty dry, brain-tiring stuff. One of these days maybe I'll have the right idea for a non-fanfic thing that inspires me to fill my free time with it, but in the meantime getting instant comments and that daily kudos email are necessary motivation for recreational typing. :)

Good luck with the novel!

[hiddencait]

Don't know if it'll help, but this was my letter: https://hiddencait.dreamwidth.org/4065.html and for the actually sign up, I mostly followed the requests section but ended up splitting Gundam Wing and Black Sails each into two requests each since not all of the characters had the same LBD/X set ups, if that makes sense? The offers felt much simpler once I sorted that out in the requests LOL.

and yeah, the instant gratification of fanfic posting definitely keeps me coming back to it. Original fiction gets lonely LOL