2014 end-of-year writing meme
fics i wrote in 2014
total word count: 85,342
fandoms written in: exo, exo, exo :)) thank you for being wonderful muses, boys!
☆ ☆ ☆
looking back, did you write more fic than you thought you would this year, less, or about what you'd predicted?
i honestly wrote less this year than i'd hoped to - my initial target was 100k, but i only hit about 85k due to time restraints in the last quarter of the year. it's a slight disappointment, but i plan to snowball the remaining 15k to next year's goal and be content with the fact that i've hit 85% of 2014's goal, at least!
what pairing/genre/fandom did you write that you would never have predicted in january?
i didn't have many surprises in terms of pairing or fandom this year, but i guess one of the things i never really saw myself writing was lighthearted, slice-of-life fic! it's not usually something i'd go for :p
what's your own favourite story of the year?
probably the world from above c: i fell in love with pacific rim the first time i watched it, and incorporating baeksoo into that universe felt like a dream come true! it was so much fun thinking up the little details of the universe in my fic, seeing as it was more of a prequel to the real film and there was a lot of material either unreleased or comic book-exclusive, so i had to use my imagination to fill in the blanks. location research was a lot of fun too! overall, i'm pretty satisfied with the way all that took shape in the fic.
did you take any writing risks this year? what did you learn from them?
as strange as it sounds, i think the writing risk i took this year was trying to write kid!au...? i consider myself really bad at trying to portray childhood innocence, partly because the characters i usually write are adults with demons in their closets. i learnt that simple words can convey very strong messages if phrased properly and applied in the right context! purple prose doesn't necessarily convey emotion. and i learnt to write from a very young, eager, fresh point of view that i hope to be able to refine soon!
do you have any fanfic or profic goals for the new year?
take risks and write aus i never would've otherwise thought about writing! spend at least an hour writing every day, or if not, do something to contribute to the development of any current project, be it research or just sparing a thought for what comes next. write intimacy and sexual tension that's so strong, it gives me goosebumps as i write. also, write some weird non-fic kinda fic. yeah. um. WRITE MORE!!!
☆ ☆ ☆
from my past year of writing, what was...
my best story of this year:
either the world from above or toi et nul autre. i liked the characterisation and setting of both these fics a lot, and i particularly enjoyed the location research i did and how that manifested in the fic! imo, a story that really satisfies me is a good balance between emotions and immersion, and i think these two did that for me!
my most popular story of this year:
probably toi et nul autre? it's easy to fall in love with the city of love ♡
most fun story to write:
this one would definitely be grazed grace! :DD i had a blast doing the character map for this (as you can see, it kind of spiralled out of control), and then there was picking out outfits, discerning skating and music styles, dynamics... it was a lot of work, but i also enjoyed doing this because it felt like i was stitching together elements of a figure skating team in my head, and goodness, that was so much fun to do!
story with the single sexiest moment: hmmm... to be fair, i didn't write a lot of sexy scenes this year... but it would probably be the scene in the world from above where baekhyun sucks kyungsoo off in the conn-pod, where everyone can see them if they looked in through the glass :)) i enjoy the thrill of nearly having my characters caught HAHAHA and also because baekhyun's in a black leather jacket and skinnies and a white v-neck????
most "holy crap, that's wrong, even for you" story: lmao idk about this one tbh, but i guess it'll be bend (and brand) me? because, well, kyungsoo's a twisted assassin who sends baekhyun on a wild goose chase and gets him to kill people and glorifies that and has sex with him but ends up killing him because baekhyun fell in love with his supposed facade...? oops.
story that shifted my own perceptions of the characters:
this one goes to grazed grace, because while i was writing baekhyun and kyungsoo as skaters, i borrowed a lot of their personality traits from their real selves as performers and musicians. i've always known baekhyun to be determined, but his will in this one was bordering on stubbornness; kyungsoo's always been strong and quiet and maybe a bit brash to hide his gentler side, but maybe it's because he doesn't quite want to let go of something in the past... there was a lot of dimension to the leads in this fic, and i really enjoyed crafting that through their backstories and watching how it manifested in their adulthood and careers.
hardest story to write:
sweeter than a song, brighter than the sun, solely for the fact that the characters were children from start to finish, and i had to write this from a point of view where they didn't know what was going on, but they weren't aware that they didn't know, if that makes sense :p innocence is a difficult thing to write haha!
biggest surprise:
525,600 minutes, because i wasn't really expecting my chansoo feelings to actually manifest into anything! and i quite enjoyed the intimacy and homeliness in this fic, despite its short length c:
most unintentionally telling story:
grazed grace, for the same reasons as the perceptions question! i learnt a lot about baekhyun and kyungsoo both as characters and as people, and i think the readers did too, from their response mechanisms and skating styles. the reflections (no ice pun intended) helped say a lot of things that weren't outright mentioned in the course of the story itself.
☆ ☆ ☆
favourite opening lines/introductions:
- "To Kyungsoo."
In the stillness of the empty control room, the clink of their glasses is sharp, reverberating between the desks of equipment and travelling along the wires of scattered machinery. Kyungsoo raises the rim to his lips, inclining his head slightly in acknowledgment. The liquid making its way down his throat definitely doesn't seem to be in any kind of rush, moving slowly, leaving a tangy, acidic taste in its wake. Kyungsoo licks the roof of his mouth and sets his glass back on the table; it's been a while since he last had something so sweet. (the world from above)
- The books lie, Baekhyun will always say. The movies, too. Morning isn't his off-white curtains fluttering in the occasional sigh of wind, nor the warm prod of sunlight against his face. Morning isn't rolling over on a messy, springy bed, sheets crinkling under the fabric of his tank top and pillow seemingly moving to accommodate the puff of his cheek. Almost as if it's whispering to him, go, go back to sleep. Morning isn't even grappling blindly at his nightstand, accidentally knocking over a tube of face cream in a noble quest to find and silence his alarm clock.
Morning is none of those luxuries. (grazed grace)
favourite closing lines:
- somewhere in the distance, the sound of a lock being unlatched clicks softly. (天缘巧合)
- Kyungsoo rests his hand on the ominous, large red button encased in a glass box, attached to a slim control panel just outside the door to the Shatterdome - the key to the rest of their lives, their new future. "We aren't the army anymore, Baekhyun," he whispers. He needs to make certain that this is what Baekhyun wants. "We're the resistance."
Baekhyun places his hand atop Kyungsoo's, slender fingers fitting into the gaps between Kyungsoo's perfectly, as if nature had made their hands to be held in each other's. "Together?"
The gaze Kyungsoo directs at Baekhyun lasts but a few seconds, but the way the edges of Baekhyun's lips slowly inch upward, the glint in his telling gray eyes, the face and person of his dreams, tells him everything he needs to know. He's reminded of the person Baekhyun used to be, the person Baekhyun is now, and the somewhere-in-between he's fallen in love with.
Kyungsoo brings the back of Baekhyun's hands to his lips. "Always." (the world from above)
favourite 5 lines from anywhere:
- he can see chanyeol’s grin at its fullest now. there’s something unconventional about it - it’s not perfect, it’s actually very lopsided, pretty goofy, even, but kyungsoo loves it. it’s warmer than summer, gentler than spring. autumn in the curve of his lips and winter at the edges. a smile that never changes despite the season, or rather, a smile for all the seasons. (525,600 minutes)
- "I’d rather drown you than keep you afloat. That way, you won’t be able to run from me. Ever." (bend (and brand) me)
- It's funny, almost ironic, how the world is coming face-to-face with its impending doom, with monsters and threats probably too much for them to outsmart and overcome, but here they are, falling in love, worrying about the slow, small things in life.
Kyungsoo takes Baekhyun's lips in his, brushing away the hair sticking to his forehead. He kisses Baekhyun until they fall into the haze between sleep and wake, fingers tightly interlocked between them. "Even if the world ends tomorrow, even if we die tomorrow, it doesn't change the fact that I loved you today." (the world from above)
- when kyungsoo stares baekhyun in the eye, he sees his old rival, his best friend, his one and only love. but more than anything, he sees byun baekhyun, the haphazard collage of good and bad that kyungsoo's somehow ended up falling for. baekhyun is the kind of person who bounds onto the ice and only worries about it cracking after the fissures have begun to appear. (toi et nul autre)
- The ice is his natural habitat, a place that sets him at ease, sets him alight and afire all at the same time. Baekhyun is a predator, and all predators must have competition. It's survival.
Perhaps this is the best way, the only way, to describe what they are. (grazed grace)
top 5 scenes from anywhere you would choose to have illustrated:
- chanyeol hugging kyungsoo from behind. (525,600 minutes)
- baekhyun and kyungsoo looking at their jaeger (with a lit core!) from inside the conn-pod. (the world from above)
- baekhyun almost kissing kyungsoo on pon des arts. (toi et nul autre)
- empress luhan bestowing baekhyun with the champion's rewards from the annual palace tournament. (bend (and brand) me)
- baekhyun at the height of his biellmann spin. (grazed grace)
new year's resolutions:
write that music school au that you've been wanting to write forever, self. fics don't write themselves!!
☆ ☆ ☆
word count totals:
→ total finished, posted fic: 85,342 w.
→ longest posted fic: the world from above (31,854 w.)
→ percentage of fics started and completed in 2014: i honestly have no idea how many fics i've started this year lmao ;;
characters (posted fic only):
→ most common narrator: kyungsoo (5/9)
→ most common character: kyungsoo (9/9)
→ most common pairing: baekhyun/kyungsoo (8/9)
list of completed stories:
- bend (and brand me)
- toi et nul autre
- untitled twitlonger ficlet
- 525,600 minutes
- 天缘巧合
- the world from above
- sweeter than a song, brighter than the sun
- just think of me (as the pages in your diary)
- grazed grace
list of wips (things i have to work on asap):
- secret fest fic
- baekhyun/kyungsoo music school au
- 2938439881032 other wips sitting in my wips spreadsheet... i kid you not :))
well, it's time to bid farewell to 2014 and here's to the start of a productive year for writing! thank you for being a part of my fic-writing process this past year, everyone; you've all been such amazing people and i'm so grateful ;w; ♥
total word count: 85,342
fandoms written in: exo, exo, exo :)) thank you for being wonderful muses, boys!
☆ ☆ ☆
looking back, did you write more fic than you thought you would this year, less, or about what you'd predicted?
i honestly wrote less this year than i'd hoped to - my initial target was 100k, but i only hit about 85k due to time restraints in the last quarter of the year. it's a slight disappointment, but i plan to snowball the remaining 15k to next year's goal and be content with the fact that i've hit 85% of 2014's goal, at least!
what pairing/genre/fandom did you write that you would never have predicted in january?
i didn't have many surprises in terms of pairing or fandom this year, but i guess one of the things i never really saw myself writing was lighthearted, slice-of-life fic! it's not usually something i'd go for :p
what's your own favourite story of the year?
probably the world from above c: i fell in love with pacific rim the first time i watched it, and incorporating baeksoo into that universe felt like a dream come true! it was so much fun thinking up the little details of the universe in my fic, seeing as it was more of a prequel to the real film and there was a lot of material either unreleased or comic book-exclusive, so i had to use my imagination to fill in the blanks. location research was a lot of fun too! overall, i'm pretty satisfied with the way all that took shape in the fic.
did you take any writing risks this year? what did you learn from them?
as strange as it sounds, i think the writing risk i took this year was trying to write kid!au...? i consider myself really bad at trying to portray childhood innocence, partly because the characters i usually write are adults with demons in their closets. i learnt that simple words can convey very strong messages if phrased properly and applied in the right context! purple prose doesn't necessarily convey emotion. and i learnt to write from a very young, eager, fresh point of view that i hope to be able to refine soon!
do you have any fanfic or profic goals for the new year?
take risks and write aus i never would've otherwise thought about writing! spend at least an hour writing every day, or if not, do something to contribute to the development of any current project, be it research or just sparing a thought for what comes next. write intimacy and sexual tension that's so strong, it gives me goosebumps as i write. also, write some weird non-fic kinda fic. yeah. um. WRITE MORE!!!
☆ ☆ ☆
from my past year of writing, what was...
my best story of this year:
either the world from above or toi et nul autre. i liked the characterisation and setting of both these fics a lot, and i particularly enjoyed the location research i did and how that manifested in the fic! imo, a story that really satisfies me is a good balance between emotions and immersion, and i think these two did that for me!
my most popular story of this year:
probably toi et nul autre? it's easy to fall in love with the city of love ♡
most fun story to write:
this one would definitely be grazed grace! :DD i had a blast doing the character map for this (as you can see, it kind of spiralled out of control), and then there was picking out outfits, discerning skating and music styles, dynamics... it was a lot of work, but i also enjoyed doing this because it felt like i was stitching together elements of a figure skating team in my head, and goodness, that was so much fun to do!
story with the single sexiest moment: hmmm... to be fair, i didn't write a lot of sexy scenes this year... but it would probably be the scene in the world from above where baekhyun sucks kyungsoo off in the conn-pod, where everyone can see them if they looked in through the glass :)) i enjoy the thrill of nearly having my characters caught HAHAHA and also because baekhyun's in a black leather jacket and skinnies and a white v-neck????
most "holy crap, that's wrong, even for you" story: lmao idk about this one tbh, but i guess it'll be bend (and brand) me? because, well, kyungsoo's a twisted assassin who sends baekhyun on a wild goose chase and gets him to kill people and glorifies that and has sex with him but ends up killing him because baekhyun fell in love with his supposed facade...? oops.
story that shifted my own perceptions of the characters:
this one goes to grazed grace, because while i was writing baekhyun and kyungsoo as skaters, i borrowed a lot of their personality traits from their real selves as performers and musicians. i've always known baekhyun to be determined, but his will in this one was bordering on stubbornness; kyungsoo's always been strong and quiet and maybe a bit brash to hide his gentler side, but maybe it's because he doesn't quite want to let go of something in the past... there was a lot of dimension to the leads in this fic, and i really enjoyed crafting that through their backstories and watching how it manifested in their adulthood and careers.
hardest story to write:
sweeter than a song, brighter than the sun, solely for the fact that the characters were children from start to finish, and i had to write this from a point of view where they didn't know what was going on, but they weren't aware that they didn't know, if that makes sense :p innocence is a difficult thing to write haha!
biggest surprise:
525,600 minutes, because i wasn't really expecting my chansoo feelings to actually manifest into anything! and i quite enjoyed the intimacy and homeliness in this fic, despite its short length c:
most unintentionally telling story:
grazed grace, for the same reasons as the perceptions question! i learnt a lot about baekhyun and kyungsoo both as characters and as people, and i think the readers did too, from their response mechanisms and skating styles. the reflections (no ice pun intended) helped say a lot of things that weren't outright mentioned in the course of the story itself.
☆ ☆ ☆
favourite opening lines/introductions:
- "To Kyungsoo."
In the stillness of the empty control room, the clink of their glasses is sharp, reverberating between the desks of equipment and travelling along the wires of scattered machinery. Kyungsoo raises the rim to his lips, inclining his head slightly in acknowledgment. The liquid making its way down his throat definitely doesn't seem to be in any kind of rush, moving slowly, leaving a tangy, acidic taste in its wake. Kyungsoo licks the roof of his mouth and sets his glass back on the table; it's been a while since he last had something so sweet. (the world from above)
- The books lie, Baekhyun will always say. The movies, too. Morning isn't his off-white curtains fluttering in the occasional sigh of wind, nor the warm prod of sunlight against his face. Morning isn't rolling over on a messy, springy bed, sheets crinkling under the fabric of his tank top and pillow seemingly moving to accommodate the puff of his cheek. Almost as if it's whispering to him, go, go back to sleep. Morning isn't even grappling blindly at his nightstand, accidentally knocking over a tube of face cream in a noble quest to find and silence his alarm clock.
Morning is none of those luxuries. (grazed grace)
favourite closing lines:
- somewhere in the distance, the sound of a lock being unlatched clicks softly. (天缘巧合)
- Kyungsoo rests his hand on the ominous, large red button encased in a glass box, attached to a slim control panel just outside the door to the Shatterdome - the key to the rest of their lives, their new future. "We aren't the army anymore, Baekhyun," he whispers. He needs to make certain that this is what Baekhyun wants. "We're the resistance."
Baekhyun places his hand atop Kyungsoo's, slender fingers fitting into the gaps between Kyungsoo's perfectly, as if nature had made their hands to be held in each other's. "Together?"
The gaze Kyungsoo directs at Baekhyun lasts but a few seconds, but the way the edges of Baekhyun's lips slowly inch upward, the glint in his telling gray eyes, the face and person of his dreams, tells him everything he needs to know. He's reminded of the person Baekhyun used to be, the person Baekhyun is now, and the somewhere-in-between he's fallen in love with.
Kyungsoo brings the back of Baekhyun's hands to his lips. "Always." (the world from above)
favourite 5 lines from anywhere:
- he can see chanyeol’s grin at its fullest now. there’s something unconventional about it - it’s not perfect, it’s actually very lopsided, pretty goofy, even, but kyungsoo loves it. it’s warmer than summer, gentler than spring. autumn in the curve of his lips and winter at the edges. a smile that never changes despite the season, or rather, a smile for all the seasons. (525,600 minutes)
- "I’d rather drown you than keep you afloat. That way, you won’t be able to run from me. Ever." (bend (and brand) me)
- It's funny, almost ironic, how the world is coming face-to-face with its impending doom, with monsters and threats probably too much for them to outsmart and overcome, but here they are, falling in love, worrying about the slow, small things in life.
Kyungsoo takes Baekhyun's lips in his, brushing away the hair sticking to his forehead. He kisses Baekhyun until they fall into the haze between sleep and wake, fingers tightly interlocked between them. "Even if the world ends tomorrow, even if we die tomorrow, it doesn't change the fact that I loved you today." (the world from above)
- when kyungsoo stares baekhyun in the eye, he sees his old rival, his best friend, his one and only love. but more than anything, he sees byun baekhyun, the haphazard collage of good and bad that kyungsoo's somehow ended up falling for. baekhyun is the kind of person who bounds onto the ice and only worries about it cracking after the fissures have begun to appear. (toi et nul autre)
- The ice is his natural habitat, a place that sets him at ease, sets him alight and afire all at the same time. Baekhyun is a predator, and all predators must have competition. It's survival.
Perhaps this is the best way, the only way, to describe what they are. (grazed grace)
top 5 scenes from anywhere you would choose to have illustrated:
- chanyeol hugging kyungsoo from behind. (525,600 minutes)
- baekhyun and kyungsoo looking at their jaeger (with a lit core!) from inside the conn-pod. (the world from above)
- baekhyun almost kissing kyungsoo on pon des arts. (toi et nul autre)
- empress luhan bestowing baekhyun with the champion's rewards from the annual palace tournament. (bend (and brand) me)
- baekhyun at the height of his biellmann spin. (grazed grace)
new year's resolutions:
write that music school au that you've been wanting to write forever, self. fics don't write themselves!!
☆ ☆ ☆
word count totals:
→ total finished, posted fic: 85,342 w.
→ longest posted fic: the world from above (31,854 w.)
→ percentage of fics started and completed in 2014: i honestly have no idea how many fics i've started this year lmao ;;
characters (posted fic only):
→ most common narrator: kyungsoo (5/9)
→ most common character: kyungsoo (9/9)
→ most common pairing: baekhyun/kyungsoo (8/9)
list of completed stories:
- bend (and brand me)
- toi et nul autre
- untitled twitlonger ficlet
- 525,600 minutes
- 天缘巧合
- the world from above
- sweeter than a song, brighter than the sun
- just think of me (as the pages in your diary)
- grazed grace
list of wips (things i have to work on asap):
- secret fest fic
- baekhyun/kyungsoo music school au
- 2938439881032 other wips sitting in my wips spreadsheet... i kid you not :))
well, it's time to bid farewell to 2014 and here's to the start of a productive year for writing! thank you for being a part of my fic-writing process this past year, everyone; you've all been such amazing people and i'm so grateful ;w; ♥