rachelleneveu | Year-End Writing Roundup

Okay, I know I owe just about everybody meme responses and comments and whatnot, but I’m going to do this first, so I can get it posted before January 1^st rolls into January 2^nd and I run out of time.

Harry Potter

· Here – Hermione; Ron/Hermione. PG-13. 957 words. (August 25^th, 2010)

TGWTG

· the stars have all faded here – Stacey, others. PG-15. 5,151 words. (July 30^th, 2010)

· The Writer – Bennett the Sage, Linkara; Normal!Verse. PG. 193 words. Written for Bennett the Sage Week on tgwtg_fic. (August 19^th, 2010)

· time to rest – Critic/Chick; Normal!Verse. PG-13. 278 words. Written as a meme response for nombrehetomado. (September 5^th, 2010)

· unraveling – Liz/Mary. PG-15. 526 words. Written as a meme response for emeriin. (September 5^th, 2010)

· night shift – Linkara/Iron Liz; Normal!Verse. PG-15. 177 words. Written as a meme response for funkyinfishnet. (September 7^th, 2010)

· smile – Linkara/Iron Liz; Normal!Verse. PG. 238 words. Written as a meme response for funkyinfishnet. (September 7^th, 2010)

· one lie short of true – Paw/Donna/Benzaie, Goggles/MarzGurl, Linkara/Iron Liz, Chick/Nella, Stacey/Nerd. PG-15. 3,929 words. (September 7^th, 2010)

· Nerds Do It Better – Angry Joe/Nostalgia Chick; Normal!Verse. NC-17. 2,345 words. Only de-anon I will ever make from the kink meme. (Original: June 30^th, 2010; Rewrite: September 16^th, 2010)

· needful things – Penny/That Other Girl. PG. 685 words. Written as a meme response for emeriin. (September 22^nd, 2010)

· the arrow in my path – Liz, Michaud. PG. 739 words. Written as a meme response for emeriin. (September 23^rd, 2010)

· ask a stupid question… – Nostalgia Critic, Ask That Guy; Normal!Verse. PG. 521 words. Written as a meme response for emeriin. (September 25^th, 2010)

· knights in rusty armor – Lucy, Ellis. PG. 1,438 words. Written as a meme response for freya_sacksen. (September 26^th, 2010)

· prizefighter – Mary/Angry Joe. PG-13. 1,097 words. (September 30^th, 2010)

· we are beautiful, we are doomed – That Other Girl/Linkara, Michaud/Stacey, Penny/Harvey Finevoice, Film Brain/Donna, Y/Lucy. PG-13. 4,612 words. (October 9^th, 2010)

· Timestamp Meme Responses – Stacey/Michaud, Y/Lucy, Linkara/Critic. PG-13. 2,233 words. Written for freya_sacksen, theladyisatiger, and emeriin, respectively. (October 18^th, 2010)

· sometimes, the line walks you – Angry Joe, Mary, others; Angry Joe/Mary. PG-13. 10,712 words. (November 5^th, 2010)

· living in twilight – Full Cast; Multiple Pairings. PG-15. 17,341 words. Written for emeriin's birthday. (December 13^th, 2010)

Original Fiction/Nonfiction

· After the End – PG-13. 2,341 words. (August 2^nd, 2010)

· Buried – PG. 3,802 words. (April, 2010)

Word count total: 58,218 words. Eleven “full” stories and eleven drabbles/meme responses. Good lord, this is the most I’ve written for just about anything since mid-2008.

My favorite story this year (my own): It’s definitely a tie between sometimes, the line walks you and living in twilight. Even though at times it felt like these stories were eating my brain, I took a lot of risks with the both of them and I got to experiment with tying a lot of very different characters into a single, cohesive narrative. They were labors of love, and I'm proud of them.

My best story this year: sometimes, the line walks you. I loved writing the relationship between Joe and Mary, and being able to look at the club from an outsider’s point of view. This was the story where I started to play around with twisting canon details from the Normal!Verse, and at least to me, the story where I really began writing these people we know and love in character. Plus, I got to write a fight scene that turned out better than I expected it to and bring Sage back into the ‘verse! Hooray!

My favorite line of this year: From needful things: “Penny spits the words and That Other Girl smiles at her fondly before knocking her hands away. Penny stumbles back and That Other Girl moves forward, her fingers tight around her wrists as she pushes Penny against the brick wall opposite them. Penny struggles against her and That Other Girl grins, pins her arms above her head and suddenly That Other Girl is kissing her and it can’t be real, it can’t be real, but Penny can feel That Other Girl’s free hand coming up to cradle the back of her head, nails digging into her scalp as she opens her mouth with her tongue. She can taste the blood from the cut on That Other Girl’s mouth; coppery, like licking a battery.”

Best title: Probably we are beautiful, we are doomed. Thank you, Los Campesinos!, for your awesome song titles. Even if I don’t always like your music, you’ve got lyrics and titles that seem to fit this AU perfectly, and I appreciate it.

Story most underappreciated by the universe, in my opinion: knights in rusty armor. I know that it’s not my best work, but I liked looking into the connection between Ellis and Lucy and I thought it turned out well, overall.

Most fun story: Definitely a tie between The Writer and living in twilight. With both stories, I had a lot of fun ~~warping~~ playing with all the different characters and canon and in-jokes this fandom has to offer, and I’m still a little surprised by how well they both turned out in the end.

Sexiest story: I mostly wrote gen-with-some-romance-thrown-in, as is my natural inclination, but Nerds Do It Better is just about the smuttiest thing I’ve written, like, ever.

Biggest disappointment: Outside of dropping out of NaNoWriMo, definitely the stories I’ve begun but still haven’t been able to finish. I’ve got one for Percy Weasley that’s about a chapter and a half short of completion, but can’t seem to motivate myself to write, and one about Pansy Parkinson that is 12,000 words in and still not anywhere near finished. It makes me sad because I’m beginning to doubt I’ll ever properly get the post-war story I have for her on paper.

Hardest story to write: Definitely Buried. Honestly, that essay was never actually meant to be seen by anyone – let alone submitted into any kind of contest – and was really more my way of dealing with my grief. Even now, I still can’t read certain parts of it without crying.

Most unintentionally telling story: I’m not sure…After the End, probably, and I guess the stars have all faded here could also fall under this banner, if only a little.

Most “OHMIGOD HEY *I* WROTE THAT” fanon-turned-canon-moment: I don’t think I’ve had any.

What pairing/genre/fandom did you write that you would never have predicted in January 2010: I definitely did not think I would be writing for TGWTG, let alone in an AU where a good deal of these people work as prostitutes in a rather shady nightclub. It’s a little funny how things turn out, isn’t it? ;o)

Did you take any writing risks this year? What did you learn from them? I wrote longer, plottier stories this year. I also wrote more stories that took place over a longer span of time, and I took a lot of different risks with characters and situations I was unfamiliar with. I also wrote slash for the first time ever, so that was an interesting experience.