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fanfic navel gazing
May. 16th, 2015 08:07 pmPosted some short Check Please nonsense to AO3 (Outlook Hazy, Hazeapalooza G-rated kink) and noticed it was my 100th story! So clearly time for some unbecoming self-absorption.
Most hits and kudos: Eight Principles of Yong. Gen about a popular character in a medium-large fandom, ha-hey? But, no, look, if I was going to a fandom gathering and I was going to be represented by my most popular story I'd be pretty happy to have this on my nametag. I like this Zuko, I like the story conceit, I like that I had this story kicking around in my brain for a long time but I did finally get it written unlike my big ATLA future AU I only ever wrote tiny bits of. (And, okay, the inner attention dolphin loves how many people have apparently enjoyed this story, that is a lot of tasty fish.)
Thing I love the most that people like the least: Gull and Dust, Shadow, Mallorn, Tower, and Sea, my post-LOTR "going over the sea" stories. Some people did read Gull, probably coming in from the Gimli/Legolas tag, but only a very few people ever read Dust and, man, I don't know. I just love it so much. LOTR is *such* a core work in my reading life, and to have come up with something I wanted to *say* about it, that's so satisfying to me. Gull is also *tiny* and I will probably never hit that level of punch per word again.
Most frustrating fandom: Huge, because I wrote a bunch of stories because I was doing this writing contest thing as part of a whole "trying to boost interest in the fandom" thing, and also wrote a pairing I wasn't crazy about for Yuletide, but none of them are the stories I really wanted to tell and I never did get around to writing those and the inner attention dolphin feels pretty strongly I should chase fishier waters now. But, like, *so many good ideas*, wah.
Most mind-blowing thing that will ever happen to me in any fandom: when Scott Westerfeld Tweeted about Interesting Facts About The London Zoo. "Fanfic of great perspicacity." What, you didn't think that was going to be on here somewhere? Seriously, THAT HAPPENED. Twenty years from now I will probably be like "THAT HAPPENED". Also unlike Huge I have *not* given up and I'm still going to finish my last three Leviathan stories because even if the whole Westerfeld thing had never happened it's maybe the core fandom of my heart, like, the cross of "how much I love the source material" and "how much I love the stories I've told in it", there may be more fish elsewhere but bury me in Leviathan fandom.
Runner up: Check Please fandom. Where I am... talking... to people? Like I am in some sort of community or something? I've heard of this in fandom but... have never really been that person but... it's neat? I mean, I have gone into fandoms *with* friends, I started writing in the first place for friends, but they were prior friends. I don't know. I may also be confused by shifting formality norms in paratextual conversation but honestly even being "in" fandom in any significant way is kind of new and different, I've been pretty lurkery in reading and hit-and-run in writing. I guess when I hit 200 stories in another ten years I'll have a better picture of what happened here in retrospect ::grin::.
Most hits and kudos: Eight Principles of Yong. Gen about a popular character in a medium-large fandom, ha-hey? But, no, look, if I was going to a fandom gathering and I was going to be represented by my most popular story I'd be pretty happy to have this on my nametag. I like this Zuko, I like the story conceit, I like that I had this story kicking around in my brain for a long time but I did finally get it written unlike my big ATLA future AU I only ever wrote tiny bits of. (And, okay, the inner attention dolphin loves how many people have apparently enjoyed this story, that is a lot of tasty fish.)
Thing I love the most that people like the least: Gull and Dust, Shadow, Mallorn, Tower, and Sea, my post-LOTR "going over the sea" stories. Some people did read Gull, probably coming in from the Gimli/Legolas tag, but only a very few people ever read Dust and, man, I don't know. I just love it so much. LOTR is *such* a core work in my reading life, and to have come up with something I wanted to *say* about it, that's so satisfying to me. Gull is also *tiny* and I will probably never hit that level of punch per word again.
Most frustrating fandom: Huge, because I wrote a bunch of stories because I was doing this writing contest thing as part of a whole "trying to boost interest in the fandom" thing, and also wrote a pairing I wasn't crazy about for Yuletide, but none of them are the stories I really wanted to tell and I never did get around to writing those and the inner attention dolphin feels pretty strongly I should chase fishier waters now. But, like, *so many good ideas*, wah.
Most mind-blowing thing that will ever happen to me in any fandom: when Scott Westerfeld Tweeted about Interesting Facts About The London Zoo. "Fanfic of great perspicacity." What, you didn't think that was going to be on here somewhere? Seriously, THAT HAPPENED. Twenty years from now I will probably be like "THAT HAPPENED". Also unlike Huge I have *not* given up and I'm still going to finish my last three Leviathan stories because even if the whole Westerfeld thing had never happened it's maybe the core fandom of my heart, like, the cross of "how much I love the source material" and "how much I love the stories I've told in it", there may be more fish elsewhere but bury me in Leviathan fandom.
Runner up: Check Please fandom. Where I am... talking... to people? Like I am in some sort of community or something? I've heard of this in fandom but... have never really been that person but... it's neat? I mean, I have gone into fandoms *with* friends, I started writing in the first place for friends, but they were prior friends. I don't know. I may also be confused by shifting formality norms in paratextual conversation but honestly even being "in" fandom in any significant way is kind of new and different, I've been pretty lurkery in reading and hit-and-run in writing. I guess when I hit 200 stories in another ten years I'll have a better picture of what happened here in retrospect ::grin::.
