snick_backup | that other year-end meme

This year was definitely the Year of the Drabble: I wrote 26 of them. Despite my recollection to the contrary, I wrote a fair few other things as well, including my first real attempts at Buffy/Spike. I’m pleased about that. In particular, I seem to have begun a Spuffy WIP, although really it’s just a loose collection of one-shots.

In general fannish participation, I wrote for both rounds of

genfic_minis and for Yuletide. Also there was the Merry Christmas to the Flist project, which I’m working on the tail end of. (Happy Martin Luther King Day to the Flist?) And now I’m all officialized as a mod over at

seasonal_spuffy, which so far has just meant index posts as usual, plus some tag wrangling (which will be gotten back to here soon!).

Plus: new friends! I’ve gotten to know some of you better, including some I didn’t know at all this time last year. (Hi, Bob! Hi, Verity!)

Fannish surprises: Sherlock - had no inkling that I’d adore that like I do (the first third, at least). Dawn/Ethan (mildly though I ship it). Pretty sure there are more I’m not thinking of.

Goals from last year: Write at least a drabble’s worth of Faith/Giles (check), finish the Buffy/Giles thing (still stalled), get back into the swing of original fic (kind of? I made several sales, anyway).

Goals for this year: Faith/Giles, gosh darn it! I’ve got all these great bits in a file, and they need to be fic-shaped by January 30. Also finish the Illyria fic I’ve been poking at for ages; it needs two, maybe three more really good writing days, and then revision. Finish the Spike character study drabble series. Finish the Christmas project. And, yes, more original fic.

Favorite story this year: Probably Children’s Tales. My Seraphverse, I love it so.

My best story this year: Probably one of the Oz fics? So either The Ones Not Kissed (Oz&Cordelia) or Oz, After the Apocalypse. Both did things that I’d never seen done elsewhere, and in both I was fairly satisfied with the Oz characterization, which pleases me, because Oz is hard.

Most underappreciated by the universe, in my opinion: My Yuletide story, no question: A Little Shadow That Goes In and Out With Me (Raines). On one hand, there’s a warm fuzzy feeling that goes with writing a fandom that almost no one signed up for. OTOH, if no one signed up for it, it probably means no one knows it well enough to want to read the fic, either. But my giftee seemed to like it quite a bit, and that’s the main thing.

Second place would go to Lift, the Firefly/Matilda crossover, but then again I suppose there’s only so much interest one can expect in a crossover that bizarre.

Most fun story: Y’all remember the microfic meme? Those. I had a blast writing them, and most of them actually work.

Sexiest story: For the first time ever, there is competition in this category! All Spuffy, interestingly. (This will not be true next year.) I have two fics that mention actual sex, but personally I think the hottest moment is the reunion kiss in What She Was Waiting For. Agree? Disagree?

"Holy crap, that's wrong, even for you" story: I don’t think I’ve confessed to it here before, but I wrote penguinverse Spuffy mpreg. But it was all Gabs’ fault!

Story that shifted my own perceptions of the characters: Probably To Come Home To and What She Was Waiting For, because my grasp of Buffy is still a work in progress, and everything I write from her POV helps a little.

Hardest story to do: At Last, for the Giles round of

genfic_minis. I have no explanation for why this story made me sweat so hard, but I had such a time writing it. What I actually posted was the third completely separate idea I’d tried. I like what I ended up with, though.

Biggest surprise: Probably Oz, After the Apocalypse, both in how it turned out and in the response to it. Despite the crazy POV and crossover stuff mentioned elsewhere, this fic feels more experimental than anything else I’ve done. Futurefic is always a stretch for me, plus all the real-world backstory I developed and the POV weirdity at the end. And people seemed to like it, which was gratifying.

Most revealing story: Probably the To Come Home To snippets. My id, let me show you it.