january writing/exchange retrospective

[screechfox]

Everything I wrote in January was for exchanges, so I've had to wait until today to make this post. I hit just under 15k words on my getyourwordsout pledge; I've been really enjoying tracking my writing and seeing how final word counts stack up to the words I put into a fic.

Bulletproof

Bulletproof is a freeform exchange run on the Exchanges After Dark discord, and is possibly my new favourite exchange that I've ever done. It's creator's choice of fandom, and fairly relaxed about defaulting/picking up extra pinch hits/disliking gifts. I nominated Many tags, and then was too embarrassed to request an amount of the truly bulletproof ones, but I'm saving "Dubiously Consensual Apotheosis" for next time it runs.

I got two very lovely vampire fics as gifts, one for DC comics with tension around vampire turning, and one that was a D&D-based Original Work with some great characterisation and use of metaphor. As for what I wrote...

• dear lady stowaway, Original F/F. Pirates and runaway trans princesses. I could be happier with this one--I think my ambition and my ability didn't fully match up, and it maybe went a little off the rails--but the recipient enjoyed it, and that's what really matters.
• from the labyrinth fly free, Arcane. Viktor-centric wingfic, because when I saw the tag "Gaining Wings Via Dangerous (Potentially X-Con) Magical/Scientific Experiment", the only question in my mind was who I was going to write it for.
• false heart's devotion, The Untamed. Empress Yu Ziyuan/Concubine Wang Lingjiao. When I hesitantly aimed to write something for The Untamed this year, I didn't expect it to happen in January. But what I did learn was that Wang Lingjiao is incredibly fun to write. She's so awful, and self-aware about some of her awfulness and very not self-aware about other aspects of it.

I have a couple of other things I started and didn't manage to finish / find the right angle on, and I hope to get at least one of them polished up sometime this month, if I'm lucky.

TMA Minor Character Exchange

Another nice low-pressure exchange, although not so low-pressure on the deadline. There's some good stuff in the collection all around, so if you have interest in TMA minor characters, I recommend taking a look! I received a lovely fic of in-universe documents surrounding the Fairchilds, which also filled in a couple of blanks in a way I enjoyed.

• unharnessed -- I didn't exactly broaden my horizons (ha) because I also wrote a fic with Simon Fairchild and Mike Crew.

February Plans/Hopes

Not including this post, I've written precisely 0 words this month so far. I partly blame this on classes starting up again and sapping my energy, but I mostly blame it on me getting intensely invested in bookbinding again; thank god, since I bought the supplies for it four or five months ago. I'm so close to finishing my first case-bound book, and it's only involved some swearing.

(Yes, I will post photos here when I'm done. Yes, they will probably be the exact same photos I will post to Tumblr. It's the principle of it.)

I'm far enough ahead on my GYWO pledge that I could technically write nothing this month and some of next and still be on target. I don't want to, but I could.

On the other hand, I signed up to crackthewip to finally finish my self-indulgent Homestuck faery fic by the start of April, so I should probably actually work on that! My problem with it is that I don't know how to end it. I know how I want to end it, but I don't know if that would be satisfying from a reader's perspective, and I don't even know if it would be a good beat to end on. I'm still thoroughly rewriting my original 2017-18 unfinished draft, though, so I'm just hoping I'll tease out the true ending through that process.

unsent_letters_exchange also has nominations and sign-ups this month, and even though I wasn't planning to do another exchange so soon, I'm tempted.

Mostly, though, it's all bookbinding, all the time.

Maybe I'll do these monthly? I do like talking about myself, and I could talk more about my process/thoughts if it was about fics that weren't for exchanges. But also, I'm lazy. 😔