Year In Writing Review 2020

[konstantya]

List of fics:
 

The Larks, Still Bravely Singing  (Hetalia; 3,685 words)

There Are Dreams I Must Gather  (This Gun For Hire; 4,043 words)

Your Fortune’s Fallin’ All Over the Town  (TGFH; 1,384 words) 

They’ll Ask Me Why and I’ll Tell Them I’d Rather  (TGFH; 6,020 words) 

In Every Prayer  (TGFH; 3,024 words)
 

Also, not quite fics, but I feel it’s worth mentioning that I also wrote a few reviews/comparisons this year:

This Gun For Hire  (1942 film vs. 1936 Graham Greene novel)

And Now Tomorrow  (1944 film vs. 1942 Rachel Field novel)

I Married a Dead Man  (reread of 1948 Cornell Woolrich novel)

The Dancing Detective  (1938 Cornell Woolrich short story and adaptations)

Total fic wordcount for 2020:  Somewhere around 20,000.  (And again, most of that actually ended up published!)

Looking back, did you write more fic than you thought you would this year, less, or about what you’d predicted?
Quite a bit more than I expected.  I wouldn’t say the clusterfuck that was 2020 really got my creative juices flowing or anything like that, but maybe I found myself needing a distraction a bit more than I otherwise would have.
 

What pairing/genre/fandom did you write that you would never have predicted in January 2020?

This Gun For Hire, for sure.  Did not expect a classic proto-noir film to grab me as hard as it did, pfft.
 

Did you take any writing risks this year?  (See above for unexpected pairings, etc.)  What did you learn from them?

Don’t really think I took any risks, but I also don’t think you could blame anyone for creatively playing it safe this year, heh.  I wrote a decent amount of “non-fiction” (as I guess you’d call the film/book reviews), which is not something I usually do, so maybe that counts?
 

Do you have any fanfic or pro-fic goals for the New Year?

Oh, man.  Not really?  I kind of want to continue exploring the TGFH universe I’ve (apparently???) created, and it would be nice to get back to some of my older WIPs (Hetalia, Star Trek, Catherine and the Pirate, etc.), but to be honest, if I can simply recover mentally and emotionally from 2020, I’ll be happy, pfft.



From my past year of writing, what was…

My Favorite Story:  Probably a tie between The Larks, Still Bravely Singing (because ballet/music fic and also pet rarepair fic!) and There Are Dreams I Must Gather (as that started my TGFH fic spree).
 

My Best Story:  There Are Dreams...  Honestly, I think they’re all really strong this year, but that one just seems *chef kiss* perfect, from the plot to the overall flow to the character interactions/dialogue to the way it ends.  I’m just really, really proud of that one in particular.
 

Most Popular Story:  The Larks... (which is still far from popular, but literally just about anything beats out my TGFH fics, lolol).
 

Story Most Underappreciated by the Universe:  Considering how incredibly niche my fandoms/pairings have been this year, I’m honestly thankful for every single comment, kudos, and even story hit, haha--but if I absolutely had to choose, I guess it would have to be In Every Prayer.  Non-existent fandom, and then the fact that it was the latest published, so it simply hasn’t had much of a chance to be appreciated, or even just happened upon.
 

Most Fun:  None of them are really fun, per se, but In Every Prayer might count?  If only because there are some weird, semi-humorous bits to it?  (Philip Raven: the kind of guy who thinks the worst thing about being in the army during WWII is not the carnage or ever-present fear of death, but instead the whole “having to be around other people” thing, ugh.  Also, for as self-aware as he is about his personal issues, he’s still an utter idiot when it comes to recognizing romantic attraction, bless.  😂)
 

Most Surprising:  Again, all of my TGFH fics, but especially There Are Dreams... and They’ll Ask Me Why..., because they both ended up quite a bit longer than I expected.
 

Most Disappointing:  None?  I mean, maybe you could say Your Fortune’s Fallin’ All Over the Town due to how short it is?  But it was also never meant to be a long fic?  In Every Prayer might count, just because it took so long to really settle into Raven’s POV?  As usual, it’s probably the WIPs I have left that are the most disappointing, due to their unfinished status.  I started a fic that would detail how Ellen gets her cat, and another that focuses on Ellen and Michael’s relationship, post-movie (Michael: a good egg as far as 1940s dudes go I’m a lowkey Michael fan, fight me, but resentful of the fact that he’s basically indebted to a murderer for saving his gf’s life, pfft), but neither of them got very far.  Perhaps in 2021?
 

Sexiest:  None of my fics were all that sexy this year (I was more into soft, sweet romance, apparently), but I guess if I had to choose it would be The Larks... because of ⬇️
 

Sexiest Single Moment:  The weird, separate-but-related piano/ballet climax from The Larks..., lololol.
 

Hardest to Write:  Probably In Every Prayer, because it took me a long time to really get inside Raven’s head.  Once I finally did, it came together pretty quickly/easily, but I had been poking at something from his perspective for a good few months at that point.
 

Easiest to Write:  Oh, man, all of them came together with surprising ease once they really got going.  I guess Your Fortune’s Fallin’... would win, though, simply because it was the shortest (which made the writing quicker, and the editing/rereads easier).
 

“Holy crap, that’s wrong even for you” Fic:  Don’t think I have one?  Unless you count deciding to write for a now-obscure movie with, not even a small fandom, but absolutely no fandom?  Would that qualify?  😂  My fandom masochism clearly reached new levels this year.

Fic That Shifted My Own Perceptions of the Characters:  Hmm, maybe There Are Dreams...?  If only because that’s when the whole “Ellen probably has PTSD from the events of the film” idea really started to jell.
 

Most Unintentionally Telling:  The Larks..., and also a bit of They’ll Ask Me Why...