The year is over! It… really doesn’t feel like it. It feels like very shortly I was deciding what fics to put up for Evil Author Day (Feb 15th) and it’s already almost February again!
I haven’t written very much this year. Specifically, I spent last year (January 1st through March) writing hundreds of words a day for my 2023 Quantum Bang project, the first time I’ve written a novel in one ‘sitting’, the first time I’ve broken 50k, and the first time I’ve completed a 50k challenge.
It felt like it wiped me out a bit, writing-wise. The constant grind and write-write-write drained me of some of my creative energy. What pieces I’ve published since are short and far between.
That said, I’ve been creative in other ways. I’ve been bookbinding/fanbinding for a little over a year now, which is incredible– a way to make art and appreciate and preserve fanfiction. I’ve certainly been reading, most of which are public bookmarks on ao3. I’ve read at least one fic that was over a million words long (it updates once or twice a week, actually, so I’m still reading it.)
I’m still picking at ideas for 2024 QB, but unless I choose an idea I’ve already begun, I would be signing myself up for that… high-paced, monumental effort, once again.
I’m very much at a “if it happens, it happens.” stage re: the 50k marathon. I’ve started and stopped several projects that were meant to be contenders. I’ve plotted out even more.
For 2023, I started and then DNFd a few challenges. I did one (1) whumptober piece before realizing I wasn’t at all in the headspace for whump (“What once was mine”); I tried to write a piece for each quarter’s “Big Moxie” challenge, most recently writing several thousand words for the recent ‘Time Travel’ prompt– but coming short of the 5k goal. I think trying and failing the challenges ended with me writing more than I would otherwise, and the 50k I published (!!!!! my longest ever fic!!!!) means I still wrote more this year than many other years (68k on ao3 compared to 57k last year), but it doesn’t feel like it due to the quantity of individual fics difference.
Several times lately I’ve sat down with the urge to write, the time and motivation, but found the field where I grow my story ideas fallow. I simply am out of plot bunnies for the moment. I toyed with several, and I’m always daydreaming about ideas, but they’re not ones of substance that can hold up to serious plotting– and I’ve been trying not to pants and write eternal WIPs. I certainly haven’t been posting eternal WIPs, which is still alien– previously I would write and write and write until the motivation ran out, leaving me with 20k fics that weren’t going anywhere. That’s a good deal of my precense on Ao3.
Then again, I’ve also been working full time, with some really hard work and health stressors cropping up– I’m having to switch careers, for one thing– alongside my probably 20-40 extra hours a week bookbinding, which I’m now easing away from a little. It’s important to treat yourself with grace, and I’m trying. I look forward to having a little more time for writing in 2024– even if I have to make that time intentionally.
What I Published in 2023
With Flying Colors – BNHA | Gen – My roughtrade project from last year, published for EAD – February 2023
Other EAD Works– Various – February 2023
Proud Immortal’s Demon Waif– Naruto/SVSSS | Kakashi/Tobirama- March 2023
Blood and Ashes– TGCF | Hualian – (January through) July 2023
April and the Sun – The Witcher (The Accidental Warlord fanwork) | Aiden/OMC – July 2023
Lift your hands (toward the sun)– BNHA | Bakudeku – August 2023
What once was mine – MCU Spider-man | Tony Stark & Peter Parker – October 2023