kate | 2009 Writing Roundup

Total words written: 366,017
Total words kept: 176,217
Total words published: 109,158
Total stories: 40
Average words per story: 2729
Shortest story: 100
Longest story: 30,130 (if you count the Variations series as one story, otherwise 13,878)
Median: 1203

Fandoms written in: SGA, Lotrips, Criminal Minds, Leverage, Star Trek: AOS RPF, Eastwick (still working on that one).
Fandoms I had never written in before this year: Criminal Minds, Leverage, Star Trek: AOS RPF, Eastwick.
Fandoms that really hooked me: No fandoms hooked me, but a couple of shows did: Star Trek, Criminal Minds, Leverage, White Collar, Top Chef. Nothing has become my go-to next fandom, and I'm still pretty well entrenched in SGA.
Fandoms I expected to be writing more, but didn't: Fringe, Leverage, Star Trek: AOS, Eastwick.
Fandoms I expect to write in next year: SGA (I know better than to say I'll be writing in other fandoms; it could happen, but it's going to be a spur of the moment thing).

Fests I participated in this year: Candy Hearts Challenge, One Night Stand Ficathon,

remixredux09,

mcshep_match, NaNoWriMo,

sga_santa,

cm_exchange,

3_ships. Fests I failed at this year include

kink_bingo,

cliche_bingo,

talk_bingo,

sgabigbang, and

yuletide
Fests I expect to participate in next year:

mcshep_match,

kink_bingo,

cliche_bingo (if it goes again), whatever big bang

gblvr decides to run, NaNoWriMo, and

sga_santa.

So there's another meme that's going around...

My favorite piece of this year: Fill All Thy Bones With Aches for the

sga_flashfic hurt/comfort challenge. I just love this look at the team as oldsters. I'm really happy with how it turned out.

My best piece this year: Variations on a Theme of John Sheppard (and its sequels - all in one post there). This is just so much better than anything I had done until that point, and it still stands as the best thing I've done this year. I'm hoping to top it next year with a couple of pieces, but for right now, while this isn't perfect, I think it's pretty damn good.

Most fun piece: Meeting of the Minds, SGA/CM crossover. Half Star Trek trivia, half threesome (John/Rodney/Reid) PWP, it turned out so much better than I ever could've guessed. I had a blast writing it (over only four days).

Most sexy piece: Kinky Boots. John Sheppard in thigh high leather boots. It just never gets old.

Piece with the single sexiest moment: There's a moment in Prologue, a Vegas!John/Vegas!Rodney prequel to the episode that I think is probably one of the sexiest things I've written so far.

Piece that shifted my own perceptions of the characters: the subterraneans (the tall tales and legends remix). Remixing

vanitashaze's amazing The Subterraneans was a hell of a challenge. Add trying to imagine the team's exploits from thousands of years in the future, treating them like myths and legends... it was tough, and really took some thinking around corners.

Biggest Disappointment: War Games. I liked it, and still like it, but I would have preferred another week or so to really tweak it and make it better. I like the idea, and I like that John, but it wasn't everything it could have been.

Biggest Surprise: my first honest-to-god crack fic: Clips and Clamps. Paperclips, for crying out loud.

the_wanlorn, still all your fault.

Most Unintentionally Telling piece: Hrm. Maybe Reflections, the drabble about Reid slowly going crazy? I've had a turn toward the dark this year, wanting things to be more angsty, more heart-wrenching. I like taking darker versions of characters and seeing what I can do with them.

A selection of stories I'm proud of, including my sga_santa. My full fic listing can be found here, if you're interested in every little thing I wrote. This is just stuff I'm proud of that isn't listed in the meme above.

SGA
TRU LUV. Kid!John/Kid!Rodney, conversation hearts and kissing.

Close Quarters. College!John/College!Rodney, locked in a closet.

Musical Chairs. Team gen, what happens when John wins the pool about when Rodney breaks up with Keller.

Rx. I love this longish Lorne/Zelenka stuck-on-a-planet piece.

North Star. Mmm, I love this short Elizabeth/Teyla fic too - though I'm pretty sure I used the word 'laid' incorrectly. God, I hate that word.

Phylactery. More Lorne/Zelenka, and a dark crossover with Dollhouse to boot.

gblvr's fault, definitely.

Sugar and Spice. Because I felt bad about the one above, I wrote

gblvr this one, too. Much fluffier.

Null Hypothesis. John/Rodney. Rodney knows he's right - he just needs to test his hypothesis. This had a much bigger plotline, and I pared it down to fit into my Solstice Calendar.

All Poker Games Are Played Without God. It's tarot reader!John/chef!Rodney misunderstanding/prank war AU. The story I was going to write for

mcshep_match but didn't. I probably should have.

Secondhand Lions, my McShep

sga_santa story. It's... tough to describe, and a little dark... I love it a lot, and don't really know what else to say about that.

Leverage
Five Course Meal. Five drabbles that add up to a five course meal. Parker/Hardison/Eliot.

And that other meme, where you put up chunks of your unfinished stories.

My original sga_santa fic
"Colonel Sheppard," the high priest – Bol, he remembers abruptly – says as he enters. "You're looking better."

John laughs, high-pitched and bordering on hysteria. He can feel the rage still boiling in his gut, but cold, like liquid nitrogen exposed to air.

"Or perhaps not," Bol says, stepping up to the bed. Not quite within range, so John plays along, trying to remember what he needs to do to come off as charming and non-threatening.

"Fit as a fiddle," he says, gripping the wooden shank in his left hand. Come closer, you asshole, he thinks, just one more step.

"Oh, good," Bol says, seeming delighted. "We very much need your help in fixing our shield, and–"

John can feel the laughter coming again, bubbling out of him involuntarily. He grins maniacally as Bol takes the all-important step closer. "Too bad you killed the guy who could actually do it," he says, swinging his arm with all his might and stabbing Bol with the shank. He aims just below the ribcage, doing his best to twist the bit of wood up into a lung so Bol can't call for help.

Last Minute Shopping
The stalls go on for miles.

"The stalls go on for miles," Rodney whines. "Do we really have to stop at every one?"

Ronon claps him on the shoulder so hard he sinks six inches deeper into the muck they call a road on this planet, and Sheppard stops at the next stall dutifully. There are rows of prizes in the back, clear jars filled with pink, yellow, purple, orange, green, and blue liquid.

"What do we have to do to win those?" Sheppard asks, pointing at the jars. The woman at the stall smiles up at him and bats her eyelashes. Rodney rolls his eyes. Maybe it's a flirting contest and they'll end up with a full collection.

Impromptu
Sheppard finishes the movement and sets his hands down at his sides on the bench. "C'mon in, Rodney," he says, and Rodney makes his way down to the stage.

"Hi," he says tentatively, hefting himself up to sit on the stage.

"Hey. Like the Enescu?" Sheppard asks, and Rodney can't help but answer honestly, relieved by Sheppard's casual, 'let's act like it never happened' demeanor.

"Never used to. I'm learning to appreciate… some of it." Rodney puts up his violin and rips through an A major scale, satisfied with how his sound echoes back to him from the empty seats.

"What do you feel like doing?" Rodney asks. "Start and stop on everything? Run something?" Rodney stands and sets his music on the stand that's two feet too high. He ratchets it down while he waits for Sheppard's answer. "Hm?"

"Why don't I go out into the hall," Sheppard says as he walks to the edge of the stage and jumps down. Rodney's eyes are drawn to the line of striped boxers peeking out of the back of his black jeans. "I'll give you a sound check on the Hindemith."

"You like the Hindemith?" Rodney asks, pulling out the music from behind the Brahms and Mozart.

"Not particularly. I find Hindemith to be pretty simplistic. But you got to hear a movement of mine, so I want to hear a movement of yours."

The one where John's an ER doc
“Trauma Blue, ground, ETA 3 minutes.”

“I want – ” Before he can even get the orders out, Laura is telling him, typing them in furiously at the same time.

“Trauma labs, ETOH, pan scan, portable chest x-ray, you want a tox screen?” she asks, holding a finger up as the phone rings and she picks it up and goes into her spiel without even her to-the-point greeting.

“Forty year old male, pulled out of the inner harbor, hypothermic and severely beaten, he’s coded and Ronon’s working on him in the back of a squad car. They’ll be here in about a minute.” She makes a note on her pad. Kavanagh ETA 30 minutes.

John taps Laura’s shoulder to get her attention. Kavanagh is not going to wander in here half an hour after they’ve been working a guy that’s been fished out of the Chesapeake bay. “Dr. Sheppard would like to speak to you, Dr. Kavanagh.” She hands the phone over to John and types in the tox screen, handing the labels to the phlebotomist running in from the ICU.

“Kavanagh, get your ass down here. I know damn well you can throw on some scrubs, get in your overpriced SUV, and show up in this ER in ten minutes.”

Deathfic
The first warning signs show up without much fanfare. Rodney becomes clumsy. John knows Rodney’s body language better than anyone else on his team; he knows that Rodney’s stuttering walk and flailing hands are manifestations of his nerves or his temper. It might look graceless to the uninitiated, but John knows better. Rodney can move if he needs to, and his hands fly over laptops and Ancient equipment alike when he's working.

John remembers Rodney complaining once about his hands shaking, and blowing him off with suggestion that he reduce the caffeine intake. It's not until he drops his coffee at the senior staff meeting that John realizes something more might be going on.

Rodney insists it's nothing, too little sleep or too much caffeine, and broods for the rest of the meeting, hands tucked under his armpits like he might lose them if he doesn’t keep them close. Rodney acting peculiar is par for the course, but this time something eats at John, his internal organs tying themselves into knots. He stuffs it down like he always does, waiting for the moment when Rodney will berate Woolsey or insult Ronon’s intelligence and things will be okay again.

McKeller fix-it fic
It hadn't taken long for the sex to get a little stale. Jennifer had expected as much; she knew the statistics about frequency of sex declining over time in a committed relationship. Rodney, ever the problem-solver, had started offering new things as soon as she brought it up.

"There's all kinds of things to try," he said, a little desperately, which was flattering, but also made her feel uncomfortable. "I mean, roleplay alone gives us hundreds of possibilities. Toys - you could peg me, if you wanted. I've been penetrated before."

Contrary Motion
"Ow." John catches Rodney's boot before he can nudge it into John's ribs again. "Stop."

"Sure thing, sleeping beauty. I didn't know you snored."

"I don't snore." No one he's ever slept with complained about him snoring - wait, including Rodney. "You know I don't snore, we've bunked together for four years offworld."

Rodney shrugs. "Sometimes you start up when you get older. You're no spring chicken, Colonel."

"Thanks, Rodney." John gets up, a little slower than normal, because his old ligament injury seems to be acting up.

Cambion
John's earliest memory is being plucked from his mother's arms when he was four, a rush of terror that still gives him nightmares, makes him wake up sweaty and shaking. She was dead; he knows this because his father told him so, and then never stopped telling him so until John left to get away from the accusations heavy in his father's eyes.

Death followed John closely in his youth. The next door neighbor girl he played house with, his third grade teacher who used to read stories to him when his father was late picking him up, the teacher's aide in seventh grade that he talked into letting him touch her breasts. They were soft. She gasped and fell down, and John stood there helplessly, watching as the ambulance came and left, with her wrapped in a plastic bag like she was an old suit.

She had a weak heart, they told him.

And a few more little things (as long as we're being thorough).

General writing goals for 2010: 200,000 words published, write something absolutely every day, post at least four stories a month, write better words (throw less away).
Specific writing goals for 2010: finish all stories in my WIP folder, write my Yuletide story, write my NYR for Yuletide, don't sign up for more than one fest at a time, organize/help write a revised season 5 for SGA.
Other goals sort of related to writing for 2010: read more, keep track of books read, do more fic recs, get started with Wii fit and yoga, and start meditating and writing in the mornings before work.

2009 Writing Roundup

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