2012 In Horse Words: A Retrospective · 5:37am Dec 31st, 2012
In which I gaze at my metaphorical navel. Stolen from bookplayer, via Bad Horse. Remember, kids: real authors steal.
Fic total:
6 published stories, 32,000 words.
~25,000 words of abandoned fic.
~30,000 words of in-progress fic.
~5,000 words in shards of fics I would like to expand upon, once I work through other projects.
Overall Impressions:
I write pretty fucking slowly.
Writing was a much more social thing for me this year than before. Not that it compares with tabletop gaming in that regard, which is where most of my other storytelling experience lies, but it wasn’t just a matter of sitting in a dark room and muttering horse words into the void like 2011 was. There was much more back-and-forth with my prereaders, which is good, because A) they’re wonderful people and B) it makes the difference between publishing mediocre stories and publishing good stories.
Looking back, did you write more fic than you thought you would this year, less, or about what you'd predicted?
More than I expected, less than I hoped.
What pairing/genre/fandom did you write that you would never have predicted in January?
I used to tell myself I was never going to write shipping. Happily Ever After is kind of shipping, albeit not of the sort I had in mind. I’ve also written the first two scenes of a story I’m tentatively calling Sympathy, which… well, spoilers. Let’s leave it at “disturbing content.” If I finish it, you’ll know what I mean.
What's your own favorite story of the year? Not the most popular, but the one that makes you happiest?
One Small Step is my favorite, but I’m aware that’s because of how much time I spent in that headspace. I have a strong sentimental connection to Lodestar, despite the fact that she’s a terrible person. Happily Ever After is the best story I’ve finished. Mortal looks like it’s going to steal that spot, but it’s still only about 75% done.
Did you take any writing risks this year? What did you learn from them?
Decided to try present tense and first person (with multiple narrators, no less) for the first time, at the same time. Turned out to be my best-received story by a wide margin. That encouraged me to go crazy in Everfree and the Poisoned Flower. The lesson from that: the weird stuff causes high variance in reactions. This means I should probably try more weird stuff, since I value knocking the socks off of one reader more than I value moderately entertaining ten readers.
Story of mine most under-appreciated by the universe, in my opinion:
It’s a shame how Everfree and the Poisoned Flower was ignored so thoroughly. It’s too weird for fimfic and too short for EqD. Not that I’m bitter.
Most fun story to write:
The Counterfeit Sister, which is a damn shame, considering it turned out to be unpublishably mediocre and not worth the trouble of salvaging. There’s probably a lesson in that.
Most "Holy crap, that's wrong, even for you" story:
Changelings, Changelings, Everywhere. I actually drew a flowchart while plotting that one. I feel like I ought to apologize for what I did.
Not that I’m actually sorry. I’m just aware that I should be.
Story that shifted my own perceptions of the characters:
Writing about a particular pony invariably lowers my opinion of her, because my modus operandi is to pick a couple of flaws and hammer on them until everyone is miserable. I’ve been working on Mortal for the past while, which is about Twilight Sparkle and Rainbow Dash, so now I think they’re both shallow and selfish in their own unique ways.
Story I learned the most from:
Writing One Small Step was downright harrowing. It was both far longer and far more complex than anything I had tried before, and you don’t want to know how many drafts it took. I learned a tremendous amount about structure and pacing in the process, and I divide everything I’ve written into “before One Small Step” and “after One Small Step” in my head as a result. (The former stuff was all published before fimfic was a thing. You can track it down if you really want to, but I wouldn’t recommend it. I'm not trying to say that One Small Step is some super-intense masterpiece; I'm trying to say I was a novice before I wrote it.)
Hardest story to write:
By the eighth draft of One Small Step, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to destroy myself, or everyone else.
Biggest disappointment:
Pulling the plug on The Counterfeit Sister. It had cool parts, but they weren’t the parts that needed to be cool.
Biggest Surprise:
Just about everything I write is carefully planned, thoughtfully developed, painstakingly assembled, revised, critiqued, tweaked, reshuffled, and re-revised over the course of weeks, or more frequently, months. Happily Ever After was written in two half-remembered blitzes over the course of forty-eight hours. I changed maybe two dozen words between the first draft and the finished product. Even in hindsight, the whole process is just confusing.
Most Unintentionally Telling Story:
I am probably the only person who was surprised by how much of myself I wrote into Lodestar.
Fanfic Resolutions:
Finish Mortal already. Write that untitled story set in Equestria’s ancient past.
Make time to preread for EqD again. It has been too long.
Be less bitter about the lowest common denominator of fimfic readers. Focus more on the wonderful, insightful readers I’ve met. (I have no intention to stop being bitter about the lowest common denominator of fimfic writers, since spite has motivated me to write all my best stuff.)
Bitch please, it took me 4-5 months to write a 7000 word fic.