(no subject)

[the_rck]

I had an abrupt uptick in posting in July that was partly for the Nonconathon and partly due to me posting some possibly never to be completed WIP. I kept posting a lot for the remainder of the year. Something like a third of my lifetime word count on AO3 came in 2017.

I wrote two pinch hits, two stories for Pod Together, two exchange assignments, five treats, and finished five stories for the Weiss v. Saiyuki Battle (I'd started two of those in preceding years). I wrote three stories for Fandom Stocking 2016 (all written after the New Year), and I wrote one story for the Small Fandom Big Bang. I defaulted on one exchange, something I'd never done before.

Pretty much everything I wrote skews dark, often very dark. There are-- maybe, depending on where one draws the line-- seven stories on the list that I wouldn't call dark. Not all of the others have a darkfic tag, but they all come with things I think people need to be warned for, going in, that aren't just vague references.

I think that I may be better off, in the coming year, doing what I mostly did this year-- watching for pinch hits and writing treats. If I sign up, there's a strong risk that I'll match on something that I'll really struggle with (fluffy romance!) and that takes away the part of writing that I find therapeutic. The exchange I defaulted on was a combination of bad (beyond terrible) timing with the recipient wanting focus on certain aspects of the canon that I'd been fine with on signing up but couldn't handle in combination with my life right then.

My 2017 posting word counts don't entirely correlate to my 2017 writing counts, both because of things started and not yet finished and because I posted several things that I'd started a year or more ago. At any rate, this is a list of things posted in 2017 with two not yet posted but I think they're almost done stories added on because I won't be counting them next year.

I've noted the things that I think I might have started in previous years (or know I started in previous years) but only got to posting this year. For some reason, I don't want to dig around in my documents to try to figure out when I actually started writing these.

List of stories on AO3 for 2017:

Not yet ready to post but thoroughly complete in draft (so basically things I think should count as 2017 rather than 2018)
[Neither Angry Nor Kind (not yet posted; awaiting beta comments) current word count ~ 5800]
[Struggling Heart Beside (not yet posted; awaiting beta comments) current word count ~ 9970]

Chronicles of Amber - Roger Zelazny
The Order of Our Going (21 December 2017) 441 words
Those Who Live Waiting (12 December 2017) 3015 words
The Rock Beneath the Water (30 November 2017) 2506 words
Welcome and Unwelcome Both (21 October 2017) 1833 words
At the Edge of Centuries (4 October 2017) 23825 words
We Are Where We Began (24 August 2017) 36388 words (possibly started before the start of the year?)
Nothing False and Possible (26 March 2017) 10834 words (possibly started before the start of the year?)
No Decisions to Master (18 March 2017) 1476 words
Paths for Getting Lost (25 February 2017) 1948 words
Your Future Has a History (17 January 2017) 5224 words


DC comics related superhero umbrella
Rooms of Falling Rain c.1-3 (12 July 2017) 12572 words (completely pre-written)


Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Auguries of Innocence c.1-7 (c.7 on 25 July 2017) 42097 words (c.1-6 and half of c.7 pre-written)
The Shadows at Her Will (13 May 2017) 11819 words


Labyrinth (1986)
Neither Sought Nor Knew (24 August 2017) 6611 words
Yesterday's Fabric (17 January 2017) 287


Original fic
For These Cramped Fragments (13 September 2017) 10823 words
A Fist of Darkness (16 July 2017) 3978 words
No Minor Enemy (16 July 2017) 5054 words
Whose Heart Within His Breast Was Clay (16 July 2017) 3415 words


The Pretender (TV)
The Last on Your Path (18 August 2017) 1686 words
Too Tender to Know Change (16 January 2017) 405 words


Rurouni Kenshin
Naught for Death but Toys (12 July 2017) 2763 words (permanently incomplete? completely pre-written)
Another Year of Candlelight (12 July 2017) 15083 words (almost completely pre-written)


Sky High (2005)
Unhoped for in the World (19 December 2017) 4502 words
From My Heart's Ground (9 December 2017) 3761 words
And Love Is Fire (5 December 2017) 5293 words
Not Unallied to Angels (25 November 2017) 1563 words
With Bitter Herbs and Rue (17 January 2017) 449 words


Star Trek: The Original Series
For Me Bitter Science (16 July 2017) 2637 words


Star Wars Original Trilogy
Seeking a Window Out (11 July 2017) 3069 words


Weiss Kreuz
Gathered from the Gales (1 December 2017) 10866 words (1/3 to 1/2 pre-written)
Turning Nothing Into Years (22 November 2017) 8314 words
Centuries of Nerve c.1 (4 November 2017) 2307 words (largely pre-written)
All Eyes But These Eyes (4 November 2017) 3995 words
Carry It Past Goodbye (25 October 2017) 1535 words (200-300 words pre-written)
One More Folded Sunset (17 October 2017) 5303 words (half pre-written)
With Pulses That Beat Double (16 July 2017) 4216 words
Our Uses and Our Destinies (11 July 2017) 4934 words


I got a Numbers spreadsheet, pre-formatted by someone else, and used that to track my word counts all year. I didn't try to change the structure at all to track more sub-categories because that seemed like work. I did not predict well which sub-categories of writing to track. Well, no. I picked two fandoms (Amber and Weiss Kreuz) I wrote a lot, one WIP (Auguries of Innocence) that I barely touched, and a dump category for everything else.

Word count breakdowns of various sorts
My 2017 word count total (using Gdocs word counts, so it's squishy, especially if I used html tags): 198310 words
2017 count for Amber related stories: 84692
2017 count for Auguries of Innocence: 1976
2017 count for Weiss Kreuz related stories: 29667
2017 count for all other types of fic: 82721

Monthly word counts:
January - 14538
February - 19128
March - 12857
April - 18002
May - 15494
June - 16546
July - 26171
August - 11112
September - 4660
October - 11191
November - 15989
December - 32622

So Amber fics just edge out 'everything else' as a category, and December and July were the big months for getting things done.

I think I want to keep tracking Amber word counts and Weiss Kreuz word counts because I know I'm going to keep writing for those fandoms. I'm not as sure about the other categories. The everything else category isn't actually all that useful except as a check that the subcategories, added together, are the same as the all words totals.

Possibly one to track words added to series and to chaptered WIP? That would overlap with the two fandom specific categories, but it would probably be something I'd be interested in knowing.

For the fourth sub-category, maybe something like fics written for prompts or as gifts? That would also overlap with the two big fandom categories, but I think it would be interesting to know. But-- How should I classify sequels to things I wrote as gifts/for prompts?

Comments

[tassosss]

That sounds like a really good year of writing!

[the_rck]

Thanks! I'm kind of gobsmacked by looking at the numbers.

I'm not going to let myself expect this year to be a repeat because I think that's a sure way to wreck myself. It's just kind of weird because, most years, my check ins for writing challenges are pretty uniformly that I did no writing that week.

[lunabee34]

I am so impressed about how much you've written.

[the_rck]

I think I've said this elsewhere, but the word that occurs to me for my reaction to looking at this is 'boggled.' I can (sort of) explain it, but it's so far out of whack from what I expect and consider normal.

I'm not sure whether to hope I write this much in 2018 or not.

[evalerie]

Neatness!!!