KJ

Time for the 2012 fic year in review, one of my favorite journaling traditions.

( Master List )

( Questions and Answers )

In conclusion: I wrote a lot this year. Like, a lot. More than I have in years. At the moment Dragon Age and Tumblr get most of the credit, but I hope that I can carry it through to other fandom projects as well.

On the keyboard, that is. Progress on my dragonagebb fic is finally happening, slowly but surely, and wrisomifu has already served its intended purpose: I had a very full schedule yesterday, and nine times out of ten, on a day like that, I'd have just said "screw it, I'll write more tomorrow." Instead, I took exactly ten minutes to site down and write, and when I was finished, I had 340 more words than the beginning of the day. A drop in the bucket, but every drop helps. As of today, I have about 5200 words, which in theory is a quarter of the way there, but there is no way this story is getting told in 20k. Still, I feel like I'm well under way! A bit of a snippet:

( I think I really like the way the AU is coming together. 'Ware Dragon Age: Origins spoilers. )

I also did succeed in finishing my Cinders fic! It's more like a published second draft than anything (no one, not even a beta, is ever going to see a true rough draft from me), and once DABB is over I'll polish it up for posting on AO3, but it's over here on Tumblr for anyone interested.

Good progress, let's hope I can keep it up. :)

As expected, FogCon has been great so far. Interesting panels, some fun activities, chatting with people both known and new to me. A couple of fun "oh, you're KJ/owlmoose!" moments. I haven't really been taking close notes -- although, as always, I've been adding to the to-read list, even though I barely made a dent in my to-read list from the last FogCon -- but some thoughts and impressions...

( Friday )

( Saturday )

I posted earlier today about the Women of Dragon Age Challenge. Over on Tumblr, there's been a little bit of a discussion about the choice of the Bechdel Test as a criteria for submissions. I have some thoughts -- of course I have thoughts; any discussion of the Bechdel Test is like catnip to me -- but I didn't want to hijack the post advertising the challenge, so I've come over here to talk about it instead.

One of the things I love about this particular challenge is that it explicitly references Bechdel and requests that every story pass. I have said before, and continue to believe, that the Bechdel Test is not primarily about evaluating the quality or female-friendliness of any one particular work but about looking at larger patterns in media. But still, I do think it can be a really great tool to apply to our own writing, because it makes us really think about our choices. Which characters do we write about? What do they talk about? And why?

To use a Dragon Age example, let's say I decided to write a story about Aveline and Brennan, discussing a man they arrested and the crime he committed. Is that a conversation about a man, or is it a conversation about work? I would tend to say that it's the latter, which would allow it to be considered it a Bechdel pass, even if the criminal is the only thing they talk about. But let me take a step back and ask another question: does the criminal have to be a man? Is there some reason intrinsic to the story I'm telling? Or did I make him a man because we tend to think of male as the default? Did I pick a minor male NPC because he fit into the story better than any other NPC available, or was he just an easy choice? Could I have made the character a woman, or chosen a female NPC, without any fundamental change to the story? And if the answer is yes, then why not do it?

I'm not saying every story can or should pass the strictest version of the Bechdel Test, especially not short stories, and especially not in fanfic where we are limited by the characters presented to us in canon. But I appreciate that we can use this challenge, and others like it, as an opportunity to look at our work a little more critically.

Days written: 25/31
Words written: 16,603
Words of fic written: 12,821
Stories worked on: Nine (including one finished story from the kmeme, cleaned up to post on AO3)
Stories posted: Six, plus the above repost.
Words written in 2011: 193,129 (!)
Fic words in 2011: 156,411 (!! -- I could have made my getyourwordsout on fic alone!)
Fic words posted in 2011: 138,277

( Charts for the year: )

That last one is pretty striking when you compare to last year; I actually wrote slightly more fic this year than last (156k versus 148k), but my total wordcount for 2010 was considerably higher (223k). I didn't do enough "Other" writing in 2011 for me to even bother putting it on the chart, and I also did way less journaling -- 52k words in 2010 versus 35k in 2011. It's less obvious on the charts, but on my spreadsheets, it's clear that my journal writing fell off a cliff in May and never really came back. I'm sure it's no coincidence that this is around the time my Dragon Age obsession really took off.

Anyway, goals.

( December )

( 2011 )

I'll probably have more to say about 2011 overall when I do my fanfic wrap post, either later this afternoon or tomorrow sometime, but even though I missed a couple of big goals, I am really satisfied with my progress. I found a new fandom. One that was outside my zone in a number of ways. I don't even know if there are words to convey how big a deal this is to me. I am intimidated by change and scared of taking the initiative to meet new people, and stepping out the door into a new fandom means giant heaping spoonfuls of both. But I did it. Amazing, the things love will make us do.

Also, I finished "Aftermath", which means: I WIN!

Okay, that said: goals for January and beyond.

January

1. Write an average of six days per week.

2. Finish my recently-claimed kmeme prompt and "Separation of Powers".

3. Start and complete the "30 Days of Dragon Age" meme, with substantial meta posts as much as possible.

4. Participate in the Chocobo Races. For real this time.

2012

1. Finish "Wardens of Ivalice".

2. Make my wordcount goal for getyourwordsout. I returned to the 200k level, because I blew past 150k so easily this year. Time to make it a bit of a stretch.

3. Review every book I read, even if it's just a star rating on GoodReads, and write a substantial review if I can. Reviewing is probably the part of journaling I've missed most, and I feel like I've really lost track of my reading. Two birds with one stone.

4. Work on at least one Final Fantasy fic per month (not counting "Wardens of Ivalice"), ideally to completion and posting. I love these fandoms and don't want to give them up, and this seems the best way to keep my hand in.

5. Go through my WIP files and unwritten fic prompts, organize them, and determine which will be finished and which should go into cold storage. No unfinished story or unwritten prompt is ever completely dead, but I need to prioritize and give more headspace to the ones I really do want to finish.

Similar to last year's goals, but more specific, which I think is important. Will it help? Time will tell.

Looks like stupid Ed Lee won the stupid mayor's race. They're not officially calling it yet -- some absentee and provisional ballots left to count -- but he declared victory this afternoon. Dear San Francisco politicians: can we maybe get it together and run a smaller field next time? You do not all need to be mayor.

Work was stressful and annoying for reasons I'd rather not get into right now. Shoes keep dropping, but it never feels like the last one has fallen.

Mega Flare would be going well, but there's this one scene that I really hate, and I don't know how to fix it. I suppose I could cut it, but there's some important character interaction and canon crossing stuff. So I need to wrangle it into submission, somehow. I knew I should have put more effort into finding a beta.

Our water heater is leaking gas fumes, and last night I noticed that I was getting lightheaded when I sat at my desk for too long. T's upstairs trying to fix it right now, but he's not too hopeful.

At least there is new Top Chef tonight.

Ganked from lassarina and others.

I will post the names of all the files in my WIP folder(s), regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous. Choose one (1), and I will post a random line or two.

I did something similar awhile back, but my WIP folder has grown and shrunk and grown again over the last few months, so it seemed worthwhile to do another round. Also now you get to see how boring my WIP names tend to be. And also that the line between "WIP" and "Abandoned Idea" tends to be a fine one. But anyway, here we go:

( The filenames )

I don't have anything exciting to post about, really; it's only that I realized it's been a week since I've done so. So, what have I been up to? Not a lot, really. Let's break it down:

Work: Stuff going down that I don't want to say too much about; personnel changes, mostly, for good, for ill, for big scary unknowns. It's been a really busy quarter, the kind where I feel like I'm just keeping my head above water. The Tuesday-Saturday schedule would be fine if I could settle into it, but it seems like there some exception every other week that keeps it from becoming routine, and now it's almost over -- possibly at the beginning of September, definitely by the end of the month.

Media: After getting it recommended by tons of friends over the years, I finally started watching Friday Night Lights last weekend. I've seen the first four episodes, and it's good so far, if a bit predictable. I look forward to seeing where it goes. I've also seen the first four episodes of Game of Thrones, which will definitely get its own post when I'm done. Current book is In Ashes Lie by Marie Brennan, which is good so far, although it's the second in a series and I've forgotten too much of what happened in the first volume. More later, I hope. Also, we went to see Captain America today, and it gets the thumbs up. Steve Rogers is so adorable in his earnestness. I just want to give him a hug and tell him that everything will work out.

Games: We made a little progress on Dragon Age 2, although not as much as I would have liked, and I logged a good chunk of time on my third DA:O playthrough, this one with M!Surana -- I've been wanting to play as a mage, I haven't tried out being an elf yet, and I was definitely curious to see how a male Warden affect things. (And, as long as I'm making true confessions, I'd like to branch out on my romance options, and I just know that if I play as female, I will be unable to resist Alistair's charms. It's hard enough to resist them when I know they can't go anywhere.)

Writing: I didn't get anything else written for the Porn Battle. A few ideas, but nothing that gelled for me, and I ended up spending most of the week's writing time on yet another DA:O conversation, a new one. I think it's almost finished, so look for that soon. And then I really, really need to get cracking on my Mega Flare. Anyone up for some Larsa-related brainstorming sometime soon?

The Rest of Life: It rolls merrily along. One week will be crammed with social events and the next will be quiet, which works okay for me. The whole "offset weekends" thing is fortunately not wreaking as much havoc with my social life as I was afraid it might, although I am having to skip a weekend trip I would have really liked to take. But not much to report, really. Except that I am still in love with my MacBook Air. So, so in love. I bought a new laptop bag for it, a smaller, classier one, and I am ridiculously excited for it even though it's backordered until mid-September.

And now, bedtime. Goodnight, moon. Goodnight, DW, Goodnight, LJ.

I am done with my ff_exchange story! And with time to spare.

Now I am being consumed by my first (and hopefully not last) story for the newgameplus reversathon. Seriously, seriously consumed. This prompt hit me like a ton of bricks: I wrote 2300 words in one day, and I already have more words of fic written this month than I wrote in the entire month of March or April and will probably crack February's total before I go to bed tonight. And almost all of them are on this one fic. I haven't been on fire like this in awhile; it's a nice feeling.

Not to mention, I got bunnied really hard the other day for a story that I think will make a Mega Flare project. Since I hadn't been sure what I was going to write this year, I am very pleased to have an idea present itself. (Well, really, to have it presented by someone. But more on this at another time.)

So I think the creative juices are back with a vengeance. Which just goes to show that, more often than not, making a public complaint about being in a creative lull will often act as a catalyst to end that lull. Here's hoping, anyway.

I think... I think I might have a complete draft of the last chapter.

Of course, now the story wants to have an epilogue. Why, story? Why are you doing this to me?