End of year stuff, a little late
Jan. 12th, 2014 07:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ravenThe end of year meme:
What did you do in 2013 that you'd never done before?
Qualified and got married. (There were other things I'm sure, but how can anything else compare?)
Did you keep your new years' resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
Last year's resolution was just: change. At the end of 2012 I was sure I wasn't happy with my life and I needed to do something about it. It took a long time and it was very hard, but I did that.
This year: I resolve to finish revising my stupid novel, and try to write some original short stories.
Did anyone close to you give birth?
Yes! M&J had their beautiful baby Katy in March; and then my cousin Misti had her baby on December 16th, and my mother neglected to mention this to me until December 25th, and yes, I am still bitter about this. Her little girl was meant to arrive on the day of the wedding, December 29th, in a masterpiece of timing all round.
Did anyone close to you die?
My maternal grandfather died in April, and the world is a darker, colder, stupider, harsher and more senseless place for his loss.
What countries did you visit?
This year, only India, the US and the Czech Republic; I do these things strictly, and the old year slipped away a couple of hours before I landed in Singapore.
What would you like to have in 2014 that you lacked in 2013?
Hmmm. I would like to own a house, not rent it. (Imagine, me, owning land. No, don't imagine it.)
What was your biggest achievement of the year?
I qualified as a solicitor, and then, I gave it up. I am proud of myself for all three things: for qualifying, for deciding I didn't want to be a solicitor in commercial practice, and for surviving the period of unemployment that followed. Getting the job I have now was also an achievement! But somehow less of one, I think? It didn't feel as hard as the other things were. I didn't at any point have to make the decision between unemployment and commercial practice, and I'm grateful for that.
What was your biggest failure?
I was unemployed for two months, but I really refuse to call that a failure. It happened, it sucked, I got through it.
Did you suffer illness or injury?
Oddly enough, no. I didn't have a migraine cluster this year; I had some depression and anxiety issues, as always, but mild and/or situational; I didn't get the flu. I have a terrible cold while I write this, but that's as bad as it got.
What was the best thing you bought?
At the beginning of the year Shim and I bought a tablet between us, with the thought it would come in useful - it's basically salvaged two hours of my day for me, because it's portable enough to carry on the commute and I can actually read and write on it.
Whose behaviour merited celebration?
Absolutely everyone involved with either or both of the weddings. Everyone was so enthusiastic, so kind, so thoughtful and where required, so patient - I haven't got over it and I suspect I never will.
Whose behaviour made you appalled and depressed?
Last year I wrote "Those awful, creeping, self-serving self-declared class warriors some total fuckers elected into government". I haven't changed my mind. <---- last year's answer.
Where did most of your money go?
Flights, rent, and the annual season ticket, which is, honestly, the most money I have ever spent in one go, ever. (aaaaaargh)
What did you get really, really, really excited about?
The first wedding; also, Vienna Teng live!
Which song will always remind you of 2013?
Everything on Aims, but particularly "Landsailor".
Compared to this time last year, are you:
i. happier or sadder? So much, so much happier I can't even begin to explain it.
ii. Richer or poorer? Oddly, richer. Post-qualification, I earn more than I used to.
What do you wish you'd done more of?
I let the language-learning go a little this year, but as regrets go, it's hardly massive, and I signed up for Hindi grammar classes starting this Thursday, so, really.
What do you wish you'd done less of?
Cycling for miles in the rain. <--- last year's answer, again!
How did you spend Christmas?
I was going to say I missed it, what with the preparations for the wedding, but oddly, I didn't. I had a wonderful, surreal Christmas:gavagai, Shim and I took the Metro across Delhi on a beautiful bright crisp day, walked down Janpath and took tea at the Imperial with ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
highfantastical and her brother! It was... well, it was very surreal, but it made me very happy.
How did you spend New Year's Eve?
The wedding festivities ended on the 30th, but Shim and I stuck around. We left our family and friends on the evening of the 31st and were seen off by a crowd of laughing, waving people; we flew out on a 10pm flight which was a little delayed, so we were still on Indian time two hours later, so the flight crew wished us all a happy new year and handed out wine. I was pleased, in an obscure way, that we were still in India for the new year; one thing the wedding did for me, the week of running around with my family and friends, was bring Delhi, and India, into focus for me a little, as though they were mine, too. I really felt, for the first time ever, that on that flight we were leaving home, and that the new year came with India still slipping past below - that was right.
Did you fall in love in 2013?
Yes.
What was your favorite TV programme?
Oh my goodness, Parks and Recreation. I haven't fallen in love with a TV show this way in years. And this is also the place to mention the truly wonderful, kind, humane, morbidly creepifying and wonderful again, Welcome To Night Vale.
What was the best book you read?
Those Pricey Thakur Girls, by Anjua Chauhan. I have a proper review of this coming. I adored Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell beyond the telling of it, and I also liked George McDonald Fraser's McAuslan books.
What was your greatest musical discovery?
The Oh Hellos, whom I love a lot, and I also liked Dessa. Vienna Teng's new album, "Aims", isn't a new discovery, but, lfjgldfjgldfjgjdf, aaaaah.
What did you want and get?
Here.
What did you want and not get?
I'd have liked, perhaps, a permanent contract. But really, I am so happy to be here.
What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I was 26! I went out for cocktails with friends, I had a horrible hangover, walked through Bloomsbury in the thick snow feeling rather ill but rather in awe at how beautiful everything was. I also accidentally matchmade two dear friends! I think it counts as a win.
How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2013?
For the first half of the year, my ugly work clothes, getting uglier as my contract was ending and I stubbornly refused to replace them; then the least said about the months of unemployment the better. Now, I'm rejoicing in not having a dress code and going for butch days and femme days, so pretty dresses and colourful jewellery nice leather boots, and also jeans and spiked ear studs and big stompy boots. I have learned how to apply eyeliner! It's the best.
Which public figure did you fancy the most?
Probably Rashida Jones. Probably there's no 'probably'.
What political issue stirred you the most?
No one thing, this year - just, everything. Argh.
Who do you miss?
I saw a lot ofgavagai, all things considered - at Easter, then for both weddings - but stiiiiiiiill. Still.
Who was the best new person you met?
My new colleagues have been thoroughly nice, kind, welcoming people. And in the summer I metlamentables and catwalksalone for the first time and hey, that didn't suck! That did not suck at all.
Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2013:
Most of the time it's okay to want what you want? Yeah.
Quote a song lyric that sums up your year:
call it your day number one / of the rest of forever
-Vienna Teng, "Level Up"
And the fannish version:
Looking back, did you make more fannish stuff than you thought you would this year, less, or about what you'd predicted?
This year was a total astonishment, from start to end. I thought it would be a decent year - 2012 wasn't bad - and then I didn't write anything (well, barely anything; less than 4000 words in total) from January to May. Then, from May to December, I wrote 100,000 words and made four vids. What the hell, brain. Unemployment had something to do with it, but actually I think I might have written almost as much without that - I had that thing I hadn't had for years, that scary all-consuming thing where all you want to do in every spare moment is write.
What pairing/genre/fandom did you do that you would never have predicted in January?
Whoa. Well, getting into a new fandom is a very rare event for me these days. In January, if you'd told me I would have fallen head-over-heels in love with a teeny podcast that's some kind of secret lovechild of The Twilight Zone and A Prairie Home Companion, that it would be an enormous fandom, that I would writeten eleven stories totalling 30,000 words for it, I would have been a teeny bit surprised. If you'd said after that that I would then fall belatedly in love with Parks and Recreation, a show I've had major trouble getting into in the past, and then write 30,000 words for that, too, as a kind of casual afterthought? Yeah. No.
What's your own favorite story/vid/podfic of the year? Not the most popular, but the piece that makes you happiest?
A toss-up between two of them. There's "everyone says that this love will change you...", which I like a lot, possibly because it has more of me in it than most. I like it because I think it includes my own unremarkable flavour of queerness (which I don't often see in stories, so often end up writing myself), and I like the themes of cold, and distance, so the chill of the weather is equated with the unfamiliar chill of learning that you live in a queer body - which are appropriate for Ben, whose biggest life disaster involved a lot of ice and moving as far from home as possible - but also relate to themes I love exploring in fic, the way space and distance can be both external and internal.
(Quite a lot of me. Yes.)
The other is "Both Hands", the apocalyptic Parks and Rec AU. Political arguments, people who love each other, and alien invasion. I don't write a lot of idfic, but this one was my whole year's quota.
Did you take any creative risks this year? What did you learn from them?
This year, for the first time, I wrote a story that was only meant to be porn (as opposed to having some grudgingly-written sex for plot purposes): "waiting for the thaw", a Parks and Rec kinkmeme fill. Things I have learned about writing porn: it's just like writing other things. Seriously. :) Actually, the problem is my style (by which I mean, my habitual, how-I-write-when-not-really-trying style), which tends to the sparse, and doesn't do well on the kind of detail you need for porn. And I think I figured out, that like any other story, there needs to be an arc from A to B, and sex is just another way from getting from one to the other. (In that story, it's a simple arc: they fight, then make up. Simple. But it took me a while.)
Also, and very differently, I did the rather odd thing of revisiting a story idea I'd first had eleven or twelve years ago. "what is living is fugitive" is a M*A*S*H story, about Hawkeye, with a happy ending. Years and years and years ago,garnettrees and gamesiplay and I all wrote, within a few weeks of each other, a story with the same basic plot. It was a much unhappier story. This time around, it's a happy ending, and it's a far better story for it; but I wrote a couple of lines in that story when I was fifteen; to write them again, so many years on, was something I'm glad I did, but an odd thing to do, creatively.
(Also, Leigh betaed that story and happened to mention that she had not forgotten my thing for dogtags. I do have a kink for dogtags! I mean, I still do. But I had this weird revelatory moment: first of all, that I should have such wonderful friends who remember that sort of detail over years; and second of all, I feel like the difference between fifteen and twenty-six is a lot, like, more than a span of eleven years would be any time later in life. I had this vivid clarion call through time, as though me at fifteen and the self who writes this stuff now really do have more in common than the mere accident of being the same person, like adulthood and growth are real things.
My best piece of this year:
Undoubtedly, the Welcome to Night Vale story, "when you lay me down you'll bury only bones". This was a hard piece to write, and not for the usual, writing-is-hard reasons - it came together pretty well, I think, and I wrote it in a week or so, which isn't bad for a story of nearly 7000 words. But this was the story I wrote for Carlos and Cecil that was really a story about me. And not in the fun way, either. I have said, both here and elsewhere, that when I think of who I am, race comes first. Race comes before queerness, for all manner of reasons, and so do culture and language. I'm comfortable with my queerness for the most part - I explore it in fic because it's fun and comfortable to do so - but I don't discuss race. I did, in this story, go into all the places and spaces that actually I'm not okay with. Other brown people made this one worth it, and I am still turned over and inside-out a little from the response I got.
My most popular piece of this year:
Ah. Aha. Ahaha.
My two most popular pieces of the year were "jus sanguinis, jus soli", a Cecil/Carlos Night Vale story, and "Unsteady Ground", a multifandom vid. They were both about LAND REGISTRATION.
I guess you really should write what you know.
Piece of mine most under-appreciated by the universe, in my opinion:
"you who flew with them / you who are neither before nor after". I think Fringe is possibly one of those shows like The West Wing, in that a lot of fannish people like it but there isn't, nevertheless, a lot of fannish activity surrounding it, perhaps because the show itself deals with some of the cracks and gaps that fans might be tempted to fill. So it's a small fandom, and then this story, which depends on the last few episodes of the show (which I love, and a lot of people hate, for reasons I wholly understand), is itself kind of... offputting. (I mean, just click on it and see.) So I understand why not many people read it, to be fair, but I was a little disappointed, because the wacky style did take rather a lot of work. That said, those who did read it were very nice about it, so perhaps I should shut up and not complain.
Most fun piece to make:
The M*A*S*H vid, "you know there will be days". This vid is nothing more, nothing less, than a love letter to a show I have loved for basically half my life (eek). Oh, shooooow.
Most "Holy crap, that's out there, even for you" piece:
I wrote a Vorkosigan/M*A*S*H fusion AU. Yeah. And people READ IT, and it got more hits and kudos than many much more sensible stories I wrote for each fandom individually. I'm amazed at you all, always.
Piece that shifted my own perceptions of the characters:
"Talitha Cumi". This was my M*A*S*H daemon AU, in which BJ is the POV character - because, argh, this is my favourite trope, the story about character A which is grounded in the perceptions of character B, who both loves but doesn't quite understand character A - and it had to be BJ, for various plot and setting reasons that are quite obvious if you read the story. But then, I got the hang of BJ after this. He's never been one of my favourite characters, but writing this, I understand why he's other people's.
Hardest piece to make/write:
Undoubtedly, "Unsteady Ground". I learned to vid to make this vid. I messed around with workflow and fought with Final Cut and figured out cross-fades and colour and aspect ratio for this vid. I doubt anything I write or make will be quite as technically difficult.
Biggest disappointment:
I had none! It was a good year.
Biggest surprise:
VIDDING. Seriously. So I went to Vidukon back in April with the thought that it'd be fun to watch vids with friends and have a weekend away, not because I've ever vidded. I came back with a notepad full of ideas and a guide to workflow fromsuch_heights, and still didn't think anything would come of it. Then I spent a month of my life learning how to vid so I could make a vid about land registration - sigh - and somehow - somehow! - it came together. And I still thought it might be a fluke, but two weeks after that I made another vid, much more easily this time ("you know there will be days", a M*A*S*H vid that's basically the love-letter to the show I couldn't express in any other way), and a bit after a constructed reality vid for Welcome To Night Vale, and then "Landsailor", for silly_cleo's Aims vid project. I have been told by more than one person that my vids can be... a little peculiar. But nevertheless, I think this is a thing I do now.
Most unintentionally telling piece:
So, "when you lay me down...." and "Both Hands" are two very different stories. One is a thoughtful meditation on queerness and race, with aspirations to literary content; the other is a 17,000-word idfic alien invasion AU, with explosions.
But, in "when you lay me down...", Carlos is listening to Cecil, sort-of kind-of explaining what it feels like to have a part of yourself missing, and thinking love can do many things, but it can't do this - and what he means is, he loves Cecil, loves him utterly, but that won't be enough. That won't fix the damage done by colonialism, that won't fix years of internalised racism, that love is a whole lot of a thing but it's not enough.
And then, in "Both Hands", it's a story about Ben, who responds to an alien invasion by armed resistance, and Leslie, who responds to it by negotiating the aliens into making concession after concession. They fight about this, a lot - in fact, the point of that story is not the aliens, really, it's Leslie and Ben having a 17,000-word fight - and here's the thing: neither Ben, nor Leslie, is meant to win. Neither of them wins the fight, neither of them is wrong, nor wholly right; it's not that they're not communicating like adults (okay, it is that a little); it's not that one of them is being unreasonable, it's not that one of them hasn't understood the other. It's that they are both politically and ideologically driven, they have conflicting ideas about how best to take responsibility for making their society better- and if that conflict destroys their marriage, then so be it. Love is not enough to save you.
And from me - me, I write found families, happy endings, small moments of understanding - that's kind of a bleak thing. It's come up twice, in two such different contexts, that's interesting to me.
Overall thoughts:
A good year. A year in which I did actively try to take creative risks, write wacky timelines and sex and long AUs, and I think I learned to write a little better for it. Oddly, it's also been a year in which I've seen my writing settle a little, which can be bad, because I don't want to stagnate, but also I've got something of an understanding what my schtick actually is, what I'm writing about when I sit down to write.
Also, lots of silly stuff. Nail polish fic and Star Trek AUs and alien invasions and more documentary format - and that's great, that's the best bit of writing for me. A good year.
What did you do in 2013 that you'd never done before?
Qualified and got married. (There were other things I'm sure, but how can anything else compare?)
Did you keep your new years' resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
Last year's resolution was just: change. At the end of 2012 I was sure I wasn't happy with my life and I needed to do something about it. It took a long time and it was very hard, but I did that.
This year: I resolve to finish revising my stupid novel, and try to write some original short stories.
Did anyone close to you give birth?
Yes! M&J had their beautiful baby Katy in March; and then my cousin Misti had her baby on December 16th, and my mother neglected to mention this to me until December 25th, and yes, I am still bitter about this. Her little girl was meant to arrive on the day of the wedding, December 29th, in a masterpiece of timing all round.
Did anyone close to you die?
My maternal grandfather died in April, and the world is a darker, colder, stupider, harsher and more senseless place for his loss.
What countries did you visit?
This year, only India, the US and the Czech Republic; I do these things strictly, and the old year slipped away a couple of hours before I landed in Singapore.
What would you like to have in 2014 that you lacked in 2013?
Hmmm. I would like to own a house, not rent it. (Imagine, me, owning land. No, don't imagine it.)
What was your biggest achievement of the year?
I qualified as a solicitor, and then, I gave it up. I am proud of myself for all three things: for qualifying, for deciding I didn't want to be a solicitor in commercial practice, and for surviving the period of unemployment that followed. Getting the job I have now was also an achievement! But somehow less of one, I think? It didn't feel as hard as the other things were. I didn't at any point have to make the decision between unemployment and commercial practice, and I'm grateful for that.
What was your biggest failure?
I was unemployed for two months, but I really refuse to call that a failure. It happened, it sucked, I got through it.
Did you suffer illness or injury?
Oddly enough, no. I didn't have a migraine cluster this year; I had some depression and anxiety issues, as always, but mild and/or situational; I didn't get the flu. I have a terrible cold while I write this, but that's as bad as it got.
What was the best thing you bought?
At the beginning of the year Shim and I bought a tablet between us, with the thought it would come in useful - it's basically salvaged two hours of my day for me, because it's portable enough to carry on the commute and I can actually read and write on it.
Whose behaviour merited celebration?
Absolutely everyone involved with either or both of the weddings. Everyone was so enthusiastic, so kind, so thoughtful and where required, so patient - I haven't got over it and I suspect I never will.
Whose behaviour made you appalled and depressed?
Last year I wrote "Those awful, creeping, self-serving self-declared class warriors some total fuckers elected into government". I haven't changed my mind. <---- last year's answer.
Where did most of your money go?
Flights, rent, and the annual season ticket, which is, honestly, the most money I have ever spent in one go, ever. (aaaaaargh)
What did you get really, really, really excited about?
The first wedding; also, Vienna Teng live!
Which song will always remind you of 2013?
Everything on Aims, but particularly "Landsailor".
Compared to this time last year, are you:
i. happier or sadder? So much, so much happier I can't even begin to explain it.
ii. Richer or poorer? Oddly, richer. Post-qualification, I earn more than I used to.
What do you wish you'd done more of?
I let the language-learning go a little this year, but as regrets go, it's hardly massive, and I signed up for Hindi grammar classes starting this Thursday, so, really.
What do you wish you'd done less of?
Cycling for miles in the rain. <--- last year's answer, again!
How did you spend Christmas?
I was going to say I missed it, what with the preparations for the wedding, but oddly, I didn't. I had a wonderful, surreal Christmas:
gavagai, Shim and I took the Metro across Delhi on a beautiful bright crisp day, walked down Janpath and took tea at the Imperial with highfantastical and her brother! It was... well, it was very surreal, but it made me very happy. How did you spend New Year's Eve?
The wedding festivities ended on the 30th, but Shim and I stuck around. We left our family and friends on the evening of the 31st and were seen off by a crowd of laughing, waving people; we flew out on a 10pm flight which was a little delayed, so we were still on Indian time two hours later, so the flight crew wished us all a happy new year and handed out wine. I was pleased, in an obscure way, that we were still in India for the new year; one thing the wedding did for me, the week of running around with my family and friends, was bring Delhi, and India, into focus for me a little, as though they were mine, too. I really felt, for the first time ever, that on that flight we were leaving home, and that the new year came with India still slipping past below - that was right.
Did you fall in love in 2013?
Yes.
What was your favorite TV programme?
Oh my goodness, Parks and Recreation. I haven't fallen in love with a TV show this way in years. And this is also the place to mention the truly wonderful, kind, humane, morbidly creepifying and wonderful again, Welcome To Night Vale.
What was the best book you read?
Those Pricey Thakur Girls, by Anjua Chauhan. I have a proper review of this coming. I adored Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell beyond the telling of it, and I also liked George McDonald Fraser's McAuslan books.
What was your greatest musical discovery?
The Oh Hellos, whom I love a lot, and I also liked Dessa. Vienna Teng's new album, "Aims", isn't a new discovery, but, lfjgldfjgldfjgjdf, aaaaah.
What did you want and get?
Here.
What did you want and not get?
I'd have liked, perhaps, a permanent contract. But really, I am so happy to be here.
What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I was 26! I went out for cocktails with friends, I had a horrible hangover, walked through Bloomsbury in the thick snow feeling rather ill but rather in awe at how beautiful everything was. I also accidentally matchmade two dear friends! I think it counts as a win.
How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2013?
For the first half of the year, my ugly work clothes, getting uglier as my contract was ending and I stubbornly refused to replace them; then the least said about the months of unemployment the better. Now, I'm rejoicing in not having a dress code and going for butch days and femme days, so pretty dresses and colourful jewellery nice leather boots, and also jeans and spiked ear studs and big stompy boots. I have learned how to apply eyeliner! It's the best.
Which public figure did you fancy the most?
Probably Rashida Jones. Probably there's no 'probably'.
What political issue stirred you the most?
No one thing, this year - just, everything. Argh.
Who do you miss?
I saw a lot of
gavagai, all things considered - at Easter, then for both weddings - but stiiiiiiiill. Still. Who was the best new person you met?
My new colleagues have been thoroughly nice, kind, welcoming people. And in the summer I met
lamentables and catwalksalone for the first time and hey, that didn't suck! That did not suck at all.Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2013:
Most of the time it's okay to want what you want? Yeah.
Quote a song lyric that sums up your year:
call it your day number one / of the rest of forever
-Vienna Teng, "Level Up"
And the fannish version:
Looking back, did you make more fannish stuff than you thought you would this year, less, or about what you'd predicted?
This year was a total astonishment, from start to end. I thought it would be a decent year - 2012 wasn't bad - and then I didn't write anything (well, barely anything; less than 4000 words in total) from January to May. Then, from May to December, I wrote 100,000 words and made four vids. What the hell, brain. Unemployment had something to do with it, but actually I think I might have written almost as much without that - I had that thing I hadn't had for years, that scary all-consuming thing where all you want to do in every spare moment is write.
What pairing/genre/fandom did you do that you would never have predicted in January?
Whoa. Well, getting into a new fandom is a very rare event for me these days. In January, if you'd told me I would have fallen head-over-heels in love with a teeny podcast that's some kind of secret lovechild of The Twilight Zone and A Prairie Home Companion, that it would be an enormous fandom, that I would write
What's your own favorite story/vid/podfic of the year? Not the most popular, but the piece that makes you happiest?
A toss-up between two of them. There's "everyone says that this love will change you...", which I like a lot, possibly because it has more of me in it than most. I like it because I think it includes my own unremarkable flavour of queerness (which I don't often see in stories, so often end up writing myself), and I like the themes of cold, and distance, so the chill of the weather is equated with the unfamiliar chill of learning that you live in a queer body - which are appropriate for Ben, whose biggest life disaster involved a lot of ice and moving as far from home as possible - but also relate to themes I love exploring in fic, the way space and distance can be both external and internal.
(Quite a lot of me. Yes.)
The other is "Both Hands", the apocalyptic Parks and Rec AU. Political arguments, people who love each other, and alien invasion. I don't write a lot of idfic, but this one was my whole year's quota.
Did you take any creative risks this year? What did you learn from them?
This year, for the first time, I wrote a story that was only meant to be porn (as opposed to having some grudgingly-written sex for plot purposes): "waiting for the thaw", a Parks and Rec kinkmeme fill. Things I have learned about writing porn: it's just like writing other things. Seriously. :) Actually, the problem is my style (by which I mean, my habitual, how-I-write-when-not-really-trying style), which tends to the sparse, and doesn't do well on the kind of detail you need for porn. And I think I figured out, that like any other story, there needs to be an arc from A to B, and sex is just another way from getting from one to the other. (In that story, it's a simple arc: they fight, then make up. Simple. But it took me a while.)
Also, and very differently, I did the rather odd thing of revisiting a story idea I'd first had eleven or twelve years ago. "what is living is fugitive" is a M*A*S*H story, about Hawkeye, with a happy ending. Years and years and years ago,
garnettrees and gamesiplay and I all wrote, within a few weeks of each other, a story with the same basic plot. It was a much unhappier story. This time around, it's a happy ending, and it's a far better story for it; but I wrote a couple of lines in that story when I was fifteen; to write them again, so many years on, was something I'm glad I did, but an odd thing to do, creatively.(Also, Leigh betaed that story and happened to mention that she had not forgotten my thing for dogtags. I do have a kink for dogtags! I mean, I still do. But I had this weird revelatory moment: first of all, that I should have such wonderful friends who remember that sort of detail over years; and second of all, I feel like the difference between fifteen and twenty-six is a lot, like, more than a span of eleven years would be any time later in life. I had this vivid clarion call through time, as though me at fifteen and the self who writes this stuff now really do have more in common than the mere accident of being the same person, like adulthood and growth are real things.
My best piece of this year:
Undoubtedly, the Welcome to Night Vale story, "when you lay me down you'll bury only bones". This was a hard piece to write, and not for the usual, writing-is-hard reasons - it came together pretty well, I think, and I wrote it in a week or so, which isn't bad for a story of nearly 7000 words. But this was the story I wrote for Carlos and Cecil that was really a story about me. And not in the fun way, either. I have said, both here and elsewhere, that when I think of who I am, race comes first. Race comes before queerness, for all manner of reasons, and so do culture and language. I'm comfortable with my queerness for the most part - I explore it in fic because it's fun and comfortable to do so - but I don't discuss race. I did, in this story, go into all the places and spaces that actually I'm not okay with. Other brown people made this one worth it, and I am still turned over and inside-out a little from the response I got.
My most popular piece of this year:
Ah. Aha. Ahaha.
My two most popular pieces of the year were "jus sanguinis, jus soli", a Cecil/Carlos Night Vale story, and "Unsteady Ground", a multifandom vid. They were both about LAND REGISTRATION.
I guess you really should write what you know.
Piece of mine most under-appreciated by the universe, in my opinion:
"you who flew with them / you who are neither before nor after". I think Fringe is possibly one of those shows like The West Wing, in that a lot of fannish people like it but there isn't, nevertheless, a lot of fannish activity surrounding it, perhaps because the show itself deals with some of the cracks and gaps that fans might be tempted to fill. So it's a small fandom, and then this story, which depends on the last few episodes of the show (which I love, and a lot of people hate, for reasons I wholly understand), is itself kind of... offputting. (I mean, just click on it and see.) So I understand why not many people read it, to be fair, but I was a little disappointed, because the wacky style did take rather a lot of work. That said, those who did read it were very nice about it, so perhaps I should shut up and not complain.
Most fun piece to make:
The M*A*S*H vid, "you know there will be days". This vid is nothing more, nothing less, than a love letter to a show I have loved for basically half my life (eek). Oh, shooooow.
Most "Holy crap, that's out there, even for you" piece:
I wrote a Vorkosigan/M*A*S*H fusion AU. Yeah. And people READ IT, and it got more hits and kudos than many much more sensible stories I wrote for each fandom individually. I'm amazed at you all, always.
Piece that shifted my own perceptions of the characters:
"Talitha Cumi". This was my M*A*S*H daemon AU, in which BJ is the POV character - because, argh, this is my favourite trope, the story about character A which is grounded in the perceptions of character B, who both loves but doesn't quite understand character A - and it had to be BJ, for various plot and setting reasons that are quite obvious if you read the story. But then, I got the hang of BJ after this. He's never been one of my favourite characters, but writing this, I understand why he's other people's.
Hardest piece to make/write:
Undoubtedly, "Unsteady Ground". I learned to vid to make this vid. I messed around with workflow and fought with Final Cut and figured out cross-fades and colour and aspect ratio for this vid. I doubt anything I write or make will be quite as technically difficult.
Biggest disappointment:
I had none! It was a good year.
Biggest surprise:
VIDDING. Seriously. So I went to Vidukon back in April with the thought that it'd be fun to watch vids with friends and have a weekend away, not because I've ever vidded. I came back with a notepad full of ideas and a guide to workflow from
such_heights, and still didn't think anything would come of it. Then I spent a month of my life learning how to vid so I could make a vid about land registration - sigh - and somehow - somehow! - it came together. And I still thought it might be a fluke, but two weeks after that I made another vid, much more easily this time ("you know there will be days", a M*A*S*H vid that's basically the love-letter to the show I couldn't express in any other way), and a bit after a constructed reality vid for Welcome To Night Vale, and then "Landsailor", for silly_cleo's Aims vid project. I have been told by more than one person that my vids can be... a little peculiar. But nevertheless, I think this is a thing I do now.Most unintentionally telling piece:
So, "when you lay me down...." and "Both Hands" are two very different stories. One is a thoughtful meditation on queerness and race, with aspirations to literary content; the other is a 17,000-word idfic alien invasion AU, with explosions.
But, in "when you lay me down...", Carlos is listening to Cecil, sort-of kind-of explaining what it feels like to have a part of yourself missing, and thinking love can do many things, but it can't do this - and what he means is, he loves Cecil, loves him utterly, but that won't be enough. That won't fix the damage done by colonialism, that won't fix years of internalised racism, that love is a whole lot of a thing but it's not enough.
And then, in "Both Hands", it's a story about Ben, who responds to an alien invasion by armed resistance, and Leslie, who responds to it by negotiating the aliens into making concession after concession. They fight about this, a lot - in fact, the point of that story is not the aliens, really, it's Leslie and Ben having a 17,000-word fight - and here's the thing: neither Ben, nor Leslie, is meant to win. Neither of them wins the fight, neither of them is wrong, nor wholly right; it's not that they're not communicating like adults (okay, it is that a little); it's not that one of them is being unreasonable, it's not that one of them hasn't understood the other. It's that they are both politically and ideologically driven, they have conflicting ideas about how best to take responsibility for making their society better- and if that conflict destroys their marriage, then so be it. Love is not enough to save you.
And from me - me, I write found families, happy endings, small moments of understanding - that's kind of a bleak thing. It's come up twice, in two such different contexts, that's interesting to me.
Overall thoughts:
A good year. A year in which I did actively try to take creative risks, write wacky timelines and sex and long AUs, and I think I learned to write a little better for it. Oddly, it's also been a year in which I've seen my writing settle a little, which can be bad, because I don't want to stagnate, but also I've got something of an understanding what my schtick actually is, what I'm writing about when I sit down to write.
Also, lots of silly stuff. Nail polish fic and Star Trek AUs and alien invasions and more documentary format - and that's great, that's the best bit of writing for me. A good year.
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on 2014-01-12 08:09 pm (UTC)And I wish I had been able to fly over to Delhi, cause the Scottish wedding was wonderful in many ways!
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on 2014-01-14 09:57 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2014-01-12 10:04 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2014-01-14 09:52 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2014-01-13 04:44 pm (UTC)Glad you had a good year!
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on 2014-01-14 09:51 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2014-01-13 03:09 pm (UTC)Last year's resolution was just: change. At the end of 2012 I was sure I wasn't happy with my life and I needed to do something about it. It took a long time and it was very hard, but I did that.
Both of these answers make me really pleased for you.
This year: I resolve to finish revising my stupid novel, and try to write some original short stories.
Yay! I hope I will get to read them at some point. (Balance of probabilities also suggests your novel is not stupid.)
Your Bloomsbury-in-the-snow birthday sounds great. I am really enjoying working in this area of London - as you say, it is very beautiful - and I am looking forward to seeing it in the snow.
SEASON TICKETS. They are such huge chunks of money.
(Someone from your workplace just emailed here to ask us to put aside some books they are coming in to see, which I have dutifully done. Any likelihood that you'll ever get sent over to the library? That would be excellent.)
Arrgh, I need to do end of year things too. And, really, write about Christmas. I have been very behind.
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on 2014-01-14 09:51 pm (UTC)You know, I don't know! I've had field trips to my employer's UK HQ in Farringdon, and I may well get sent on field trips elsewhere, so here's hoping!
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on 2014-01-14 11:00 pm (UTC)I know quite a few people who are in the process of becoming lawyers, but unfortunately none are currently in a position where they use that library; it feels like such a missed opportunity. (I have seen an ex-housemate who was a raging Tory and really awful to live with several times, though.) It would be great if you ever had reason to come over!