Meta: 2007 Fannish Year in Review

[arrow00]

nos4a2no9 said I should do this, and I am but her willing slave.
The timing seems appropriate since I'm nearing my one year anniversary
in due South Fandom. I came to dS on January 19th, and discovered The Sentinel
in May (it was all cesperanza's fault.)


2007 Fannish Year in Review

Wherein I link to everything I've written this past year and then yammer about it.
(Not for the faint of heart.)
due South   -   The Sentinel   -   FYIR Meme

due South Vids (1)
"Better Days" by the Goo Goo Dolls
A character study in trying, failing, and perhaps somehow succeeding, ultimately. Fraser-centric.

due South Stories (22)
Heavy As Hope (PG, F/V)
My first dS story. More a survival tale as Fraser confronts imprisonment and possible demise.

Partners With Privileges (NC-17, F/K)
Ray makes his move. Could be he's started an avalanche. This was my first F/K story; I'd finally watched third season and, much as I am hot for both Rays, I found so much more of a 'hook' into writing RayK.

Louder Than Words (NC-17, F/K)
For the ds_flashfiction Button Challenge. Ray hears what Fraser does.

Just Ask (NC-17, F/K)
Ray teases Fraser. It starts as just a game. It sure the heck doesn't end there. Sequel:
Show Me (NC-17, F/K)
You got your exhibitionism, your masturbation, your naked-Mountie-in-a-Stetson. Really, I just wrote it for that last bit.

Five Things Fraser Does Not Say to Ray Kowalski
Wherein there is teasing, and Fraser is tongue-tied.

Edge of Snow (NC-17, F/K)
It's the end of the quest. It's almost the end of everything when an old secret comes out.

Waiting (PG, F/K)
It's time for Ray to get off his ass.

Unextraordinary (R, F/K)
Fraser needs his hat.

Steam (NC-17, F/K)
The boys get tied up.

Class (NC-17, F/V)
The uniform is not the man.

Unhinged (NC-17, F/K)
Fraser lets the cat out of the bag. No, not that cat, the other cat. Well, all the cats, really.

One Small Thing (NC-17, F/K)
Fraser just needs to find that one small thing. Sequel is:
Operation Stupid (NC-17, F/K)
Wherein Ray tries too goddamn hard.

Dancing Blind (NC-17, F/K)
For the ds_flashfiction dancing challenge. Ray finally lets Fraser see him.

Red Light, Green Light (NC-17, F/K)
Fits and starts and fits. And unnecessary bathing.

Breakwater (NC-17, F/K)
Ray needs something that Fraser finds it difficult to give.

The Cold Equations (R, F/K)
Ray tries to do the math. The title comes from a classic SciFi story that broke my heart when I was wee.

All of Us Drown (PG, F/K)
Fraser goes under.

A Small Mercy (NC-17, pre-F/K, non-con Fraser/Victoria)
This was a disturbing way to ease back into writing after The Pinky Incident, and maybe someday I will write a sequel to this puppy. I hate to leave Fraser broken.

Slow Time (NC-17, F/K)
Ray is gravity, and Time is elastic. Written for ds_flashfiction's Amnesty 2007, Time Challenge.

which brings us just over the line to:
Pacta Sunt Servanda (NC-17, F/K)
A piece of silliness. Beware of Francesca bearing tea. The talented _inbetween_ then created a fabulous illustration to accompany the piece.

due South Snippets (1000 words or fewer) - 4
Merely Improbable (PG, F/K)
Is everything Fraser does totally impossible?

Running With the Wolf (G, pre-F/K)
The title says it.

Making Friends (G, pre-F/K)
Uh. Ray is jealous of his turtle. And there is GTS and Miami Vice references and it's just wrong.

In October, I shattered my pinky and had to have surgery and stuff, so I wrote:
Top 10 Things to Do to Fraser When He's All Loopy on Pain Killers, but that was the last typing I did for a while until the cast came off.


Sentinel Stories (9 stories, 1 novella)
I'll preface this list by noting all my TS stories are J/B, thus saving myself some typing.
I discovered The Sentinel via Francesca's wonderful Sentinel stories.

What You Do (NC-17)
My first Sentinel story was very short, but I think it's a pretty good foray. After a tough day, Blair gives Jim what he asks for. My first story in second person. A really neat experiment.

Letting Go (NC-17)
Jim is out of rope, so Blair throws him a line. I really, really enjoyed writing this one. My first time writing about Jim's senses from his POV. What a terrific opportunity that premise is.

Acceptable Damages (R) Series: Casualties of War
Part of a trio of stories (and I'm working on the fourth.) After Jim is kidnapped and roughed up, he reveals something to Blair about his past that he really shouldn't have.

Sense Memory (NC-17) Series: Casualties of War
Jim's recovery has put the kibosh on their developing relationship. Blair tries a little sense therapy.

Scavengers (PG) Series: Casualties of War
Sandburg is like a goddamned octopus in bed. Jim learns to love it.

Somewhere to Be (NC-17, AU)
My very first Sentinel AU, and a novella. All four parts are linked above. I wrote this piece in eight days, which is the most I think I've written in such a short period (31,744 wds. total). This story just grabbed me by the throat and ran.

Consent (NC-17)
Not a non-con, in spite of the title. Blair gets dosed, and then gets wise. Remember, kids, drugs are wrong, wrong, wrong. No really.

Complicated
This was supposed to be straight smut. Pure and simple. But Blair is involved, so some other stuff crept in, hence the title.

The Gift (PG)
Blair gives Jim such a gift.

Dead Man's Float (PG, no warnings)
I really can't summarize this one. It would be wrong.

Sentinel Snippets (1000 words or fewer) - 5
Daily Atrocities Perpetrated by Blair Sandburg (The Abridged List) (NC-17)
The title says it.

Signal Markers of Anal-Retentiveness in the Modern-Day Sentinel (An Annotated Compendium) (R)
The sequel to above "Atrocities".

A Conversation With Jim's Balls (?)
A Very Silly comment fic inspired by Sense Memory.

Getting It Right (R)
It's heavy. It's Blair's gun.

User (PG)
Jim is down on himself. Prompted by janedavitt's Call of Duty.



The FYIR Meme

Total Word Count: 75,622 Sentinel, 79,415 due South for a grand total of 155,037.
(I think I talk too much.)

My best story of this year: Jesus I hate questions like this. Apples, oranges, and an assumption of hubris. Okay, for Sentinel I think my best story is The Gift. It's simple, but somehow it works. I feel like it got handed to me.

For dS, oh crap. Uh, I'll go with Edge of Snow. Even though it's long and in first person, I think I held on pretty good to my Fraserbrain. And it was a very difficult subject to dance around, and I think I pulled it off. I had a hard time writing it, though.

My favorite story of this year:
TS: Somewhere to Be. In spite of a slight pacing problem I really like this story. There was something open about it, a little free, that I generally fail to achieve in my writing. Maybe because I wrote it so quickly, instead of agonizing.

dS: I have to go with Five Things Fraser Does Not Say to Ray Kowalski. It's tight, and the sub-theme looped really nicely. Also, the bit about the melon-ballers. I love that bit.

Most fun story to write:
TS: I've already said, but "Somewhere to Be". I've never had a writing experience like that. Wish I could have it again.

dS: One Small Thing. I think I was grinning the entire time I was writing this. It was so fun to be in the particular head space I created for Fraser. He's just *trying* so damned hard and being so danged logical but it's pure lusting.

Sexiest story:
TS: Complicated. This might well contain the hottest sex scene I've ever written, and I've written a lot of them. For some reason.

dS: Show Me. Even without the Naked Mountie in a Hat issue, there's this scene in the shower that's so weirdly constrained yet hot, I think. Something about Fraser actually showing Ray, and vice versa just does me.

Story with the single sexiest moment:
Uh. Well, hell, this is embarrassing.

TS: From What You Do: And maybe he whimpers when he feels you turn to gentleness. Maybe he tries to fight it by tightening around you, bucking under you, trying to make you come. But you hang on and keep moving inside until he shivers, and the shiver turns into a constant tremble, and he's making sounds again, soft, pleading whispers, but you just rock, rock, letting your weight rest on his slick back, letting your hands slide down his arms to loosen his white grip on the railing so you can twine your fingers together.

dS: From Unextraordinary: He looks at Ray again, at the jut of his slender hips, the easy looseness of his stance. Ray is eating his hard-won candy bar, and Fraser can almost taste the chocolate that lingers on the edge of Ray's lip.

Fraser wants.

Most "Holy crap, that's wrong, even for you" story:
Well, most of those are still sitting in a pile in my writing folder. But,

TS: Scavengers. The prosecutor is really sick. And yet, on a fantasy level at least, she could be a mirror twin of those of us who adore H/C. The line is very thin, but it's fully there: fantasy versus reality.

dS: A Small Mercy. I broke Fraser badly in this one, and I wasn't very comfortable writing the non-con.

Story that shifted my own perceptions of the characters:
TS: Getting It Right. Most of the time, in canon, Blair is only incidentally violent toward the bad guys. In this vignette, I see him making the shift, making the decision that, in becoming Jim's partner and carrying a gun, he is prepared to kill to protect him.

dS: Breakwater. What I explored here was the possibility of Ray and Fraser's incompatibility of needs. I stretched both of them a little to see if they would break apart.

Hardest story to write:
TS: I had a heck of a time writing A Conversation With Jim's Balls, mainly due to arguments with myself over punctuation. What would Jim's balls sound like, if you were talking to them? Huh? You try it.

dS: Edge of Snow, hands down. That fucker took me forever.

Biggest Disappointment:
I don't post stories if I find them disappointing, but all of my stories have moments or problems that disappoint me.

TS: The pacing on "Somewhere to Be." I really, really should have written out some of the parts that were tell-not-show. But it was like I couldn't slow down.

dS: In Unhinged, I failed in my attempt to sort-of make it obvious to Ray (but not to the reader) why Fraser finally decides to tell Ray about Dead!Bob. Probably because I was in Fraser's POV and unreliable, to boot. Oh well. It was fun trying.

Biggest Surprise:
TS: "What You Do" Grabbed me, hauled me, kicking and screaming, into a brand-new fandom.

dS: Class - I really, really like writing Vecchio first person. Which is probably why I haven't done it since. I'm afraid it won't be as fun and I'll suck at it the second time 'round.

Most Unintentionally Telling Story:
Man, aren't they all?

TS: "The Gift." Yeah, I'm a sap.

dS: "Edge of Snow." Yeah.

Looking back, did you write more fic than you thought you would this year, less, or about what you'd predicted?
I don't think about it. I'm either writing or I'm not. But looking at the word count does make me go "guh" a little.

What pairing/genre/fandom did you write that you would never have predicted in January 2007?
Both TS and dS. I was very much entrenched for three years in a fandom far, far away until December 12th, 2006, when I wrote my last published story there.

Did you take any writing risks this year? (See above for unexpected pairings, etc.) What did you learn from them?
I need to take a lot more risks, really. I started repeating myself about a hundred thousand words ago. I need to be willing to step out and make the characters be as dark as I sometimes see them. But that hurts and I often don't finish those stories.

Do you have any fanfic or profic goals for the New Year?
I want to do the Sekrit Santa thing next year. I've never done it, mainly because the idea of handing a story of mine to a random recipient and saying, "Here, take this! Like it!" would take brass ones, I think. I envy the folks who can do it. So I'm gonna make myself.

I'd Like to Thank the Academy...
Well, I started to list everyone I've come to know and rely on and love here and then I realized it was stupid. I can't list 'em all and would only hurt any I missed. There are too many stars in my constellations. The people in both my fandoms are so freakin' supportive and wonderful, intelligent and insightful...I wouldn't have lasted five minutes otherwise.

I'm so glad I found you.

So, thanks for reading. More importantly, thanks for hearing.