Writing in 2004
Jan. 3rd, 2005 05:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
revenaOne of the best things about working at Fleming and Curti, P.L.C., is that all of the employees (even part-time! yay!) get a monthly massage. I had mine today, and I feel all relaxed and lavender-scented. Mmm... lack of tension...
Anyway, I'm in a bit of a creative mood, but I'm feeling far too calm to really get into writing the next Valmai Hammerhand installment, right now. It's very angsty, and I'm too relaxed. So I thought I'd do this interesting writing-in-review type meme I saw in![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
casirafics's journal.
Stories I wrote this year:
This took me a little while to figure out. I started writing the Valmai Hammerhand stories this year, and they total either twenty-one, now, or one, depending on whether they're short stories or chapters in a serial. I honestly have no idea. Then there are the other short stories I posted on my blog, which brings us to either six or twenty-six. The NaNovel is not -quite- done, but I'm gonna count it as another one, anyway, because it's hella long. Then there's "Necessary", which got posted here, and at Ashwinder, but never on the blog. Twenty-eight or eight. And then, the drabbles I did for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
tucson_writers, and the weird little almost-story I posted in a comment thread at one point over at circe_tigana's journal. So... I wrote either thirty-one stories in 2004, or eleven, or maybe something in between, depending on how one counts them. It's pretty impressive, actually, to me. I had written perhaps five stories total in all of the years preceding this past one. I guess once I finally got going, it was hard to stop.
My favorite story this year (of my own):
Probably "The Shape of Him." It's certainly not the most well-written, or even the most interesting, but it was the one that really let me into Valmai's head, and got me going on everything else in that story universe. Also, I really loved the line "When you spend every waking moment watching someone else’s back, you learn to like the shape of it. And Emlyn’s back, after all, is more shapely than most." That snippet of what became the foundation of Valmai's story echoed in my head for days before I wrote "The Shape of Him," and really demanded to be written.
My best story this year:
This is tough. I like lots of things about lots of my stories, but I see all of their weaknesses, too. The mythology that runs through my NaNovel, such as what I posted in my third excerpt, is probably the most creative stuff. "Yes" was sort of a challenge that my friendspic_ity_do_da had thrown out to me, and I felt really good about how I handled the material. "Necessary", for all of its brevity, and though it is fanfiction, is probably the most compact and self-contained thing I've written. And I really liked the tone of "The Teddy Bear Lady," though that was, again, not entirely my own creative work. Hard to pick a best, I guess.
Story most underappreciated by the universe, in my opinion:
Probably the birth of Thokta story I posted in my sixth excerpt from my NaNovel. I really, really liked that mythology chunk. And no one else seemed to. Mystifying, to me.
Most fun story:
"Yes" was awfully fun to write. I also really enjoyed writing "Control," which probably shows an awful lot about which characters I love best in the Valmai universe, and why. Most of my characters are either clearly an expansion of some facet of my own personality, or else clearly outside myself, based on a friend or a concept. Valmai, for example, is fun for me to write because she's an awful lot like me in many important ways. In the areas where we differ, she tends to be a lot like who I was at another point in my life, so that no matter what, she feels familiar, and comfortable. Emlyn, though, is some strange combination of me, and Jameson, and abstract ideas about the nature of magic, the meaning of honor, the reality of morality, etc. He totally fascinates me, and I love writing stories that give glimpses into what goes on in his mind.
Most disappointing story:
I think probably "Tamesis." It was meant to show a little bit about Valerian politics, and Emlyn's place within his family, and to introduce some characters like Ophira Tamesis who aren't ever really important to the action of the story, but do affect the plot both during the story I'm writing, and in the time before the story begins. I was trying to explain a political system, a little, depict a competitive, aggressive family where Emlyn doesn't fit in, and introduce new characters. I think I mainly suceeded only in confusing people.
Sexiest story:
Definitely "Yes." Though, I think "What There Is" has some pretty sexy moments, and I'd say that there's a sort of vaguely simmering sexual tension in... oh... just about -every- Valmai Hammerhand story.
Story with single sexiest moment:
Damn, that's a hard one. I think, because of my odd fascination with Emlyn, I tend to see very sexy moments in what are really pretty innocuous lines of description, as far as my readers are concerned. That said, I'd pick out "Until Honor is Satisfied" as having probably the sexiest moment in it. If you've read that one, you're probably saying "wait, what? Isn't that the one where Emlyn and his cousin duel, and it's really bloody and awful?" If you want to know, I'm thinking of the third paragraph in, where Valmai describes what Emlyn looks like, and ends by noting that he needs a haircut. That random observation is just very sweet and, I dunno, "real" or something, to me, and it makes that bit of description sexier than anything graphic could be.
Hardest story to write:
Oh, god. All of them have their challenges. "Yes" was the first sex scene I'd ever really written in seriousness. "Until Honor is Satisfied" was the first fight scene. "Five Things that Sybill Trelawney Never Predicted" was the first fanfic I've ever done (and it shows, I'm sure). My NaNovel (I'm kinda going with _The Book of Saint Tourmaline_ as a title, these days, but that could change) was the first novel-length story I attempted to tell. All of those firsts were difficult, in one way or another. And then, of course, there were chunks in every other story that were hard. "The Council of Merchants" was probably the hardest overall, though, really. Trying to make a beaurocratic paper-shuffling meeting interesting... Yeesh.
Most unintentionally *telling* story:
Oh, probably all of them are "telling" in one way or another. Probably everything creative I've ever written reveals my strong preferences for a certain physical "type" of man... The problems that Valmai has valuing herself are definitely issues that I myself have struggled with, and I'm sure it shows. Etc., etc. I don't know how I could write anything at all that wouldn't reveal all sorts of things about me.
Well, that was rather interesting. I'm sort of impressed that I had to look at my blog while I was filling this out, to be sure I was remembering the stories correctly. I've really written a -lot- of stuff... Wow.
Likecasirafics, from whom I copied this meme, I would be very interested to know which stories readers of mine would choose for all of those categories, too. I'd especially like to know which ones you all liked best.
ETA: I realised as I was beginning to cook dinner just now that I've made two errors, here.
1. I counted the 21st Valmai story, which was actually finished last night, making it a 2005 story, not 2004. So... Uh... 30 or 11. Or something.
2. I said that I've written maybe five stories before this year. Idiotically, I completely forgot to account for all of the RP Notes I've written on Magrathea. Those tend to be short, of course, and they're written for a very specific audience, but they are stories, nonetheless. I have no idea how many of them I've written. Hundreds, maybe. And I probably wrote some this year that I didn't count...
Anyway, I'm in a bit of a creative mood, but I'm feeling far too calm to really get into writing the next Valmai Hammerhand installment, right now. It's very angsty, and I'm too relaxed. So I thought I'd do this interesting writing-in-review type meme I saw in
casirafics's journal.Stories I wrote this year:
This took me a little while to figure out. I started writing the Valmai Hammerhand stories this year, and they total either twenty-one, now, or one, depending on whether they're short stories or chapters in a serial. I honestly have no idea. Then there are the other short stories I posted on my blog, which brings us to either six or twenty-six. The NaNovel is not -quite- done, but I'm gonna count it as another one, anyway, because it's hella long. Then there's "Necessary", which got posted here, and at Ashwinder, but never on the blog. Twenty-eight or eight. And then, the drabbles I did for
tucson_writers, and the weird little almost-story I posted in a comment thread at one point over at circe_tigana's journal. So... I wrote either thirty-one stories in 2004, or eleven, or maybe something in between, depending on how one counts them. It's pretty impressive, actually, to me. I had written perhaps five stories total in all of the years preceding this past one. I guess once I finally got going, it was hard to stop.My favorite story this year (of my own):
Probably "The Shape of Him." It's certainly not the most well-written, or even the most interesting, but it was the one that really let me into Valmai's head, and got me going on everything else in that story universe. Also, I really loved the line "When you spend every waking moment watching someone else’s back, you learn to like the shape of it. And Emlyn’s back, after all, is more shapely than most." That snippet of what became the foundation of Valmai's story echoed in my head for days before I wrote "The Shape of Him," and really demanded to be written.
My best story this year:
This is tough. I like lots of things about lots of my stories, but I see all of their weaknesses, too. The mythology that runs through my NaNovel, such as what I posted in my third excerpt, is probably the most creative stuff. "Yes" was sort of a challenge that my friend
spic_ity_do_da had thrown out to me, and I felt really good about how I handled the material. "Necessary", for all of its brevity, and though it is fanfiction, is probably the most compact and self-contained thing I've written. And I really liked the tone of "The Teddy Bear Lady," though that was, again, not entirely my own creative work. Hard to pick a best, I guess.Story most underappreciated by the universe, in my opinion:
Probably the birth of Thokta story I posted in my sixth excerpt from my NaNovel. I really, really liked that mythology chunk. And no one else seemed to. Mystifying, to me.
Most fun story:
"Yes" was awfully fun to write. I also really enjoyed writing "Control," which probably shows an awful lot about which characters I love best in the Valmai universe, and why. Most of my characters are either clearly an expansion of some facet of my own personality, or else clearly outside myself, based on a friend or a concept. Valmai, for example, is fun for me to write because she's an awful lot like me in many important ways. In the areas where we differ, she tends to be a lot like who I was at another point in my life, so that no matter what, she feels familiar, and comfortable. Emlyn, though, is some strange combination of me, and Jameson, and abstract ideas about the nature of magic, the meaning of honor, the reality of morality, etc. He totally fascinates me, and I love writing stories that give glimpses into what goes on in his mind.
Most disappointing story:
I think probably "Tamesis." It was meant to show a little bit about Valerian politics, and Emlyn's place within his family, and to introduce some characters like Ophira Tamesis who aren't ever really important to the action of the story, but do affect the plot both during the story I'm writing, and in the time before the story begins. I was trying to explain a political system, a little, depict a competitive, aggressive family where Emlyn doesn't fit in, and introduce new characters. I think I mainly suceeded only in confusing people.
Sexiest story:
Definitely "Yes." Though, I think "What There Is" has some pretty sexy moments, and I'd say that there's a sort of vaguely simmering sexual tension in... oh... just about -every- Valmai Hammerhand story.
Story with single sexiest moment:
Damn, that's a hard one. I think, because of my odd fascination with Emlyn, I tend to see very sexy moments in what are really pretty innocuous lines of description, as far as my readers are concerned. That said, I'd pick out "Until Honor is Satisfied" as having probably the sexiest moment in it. If you've read that one, you're probably saying "wait, what? Isn't that the one where Emlyn and his cousin duel, and it's really bloody and awful?" If you want to know, I'm thinking of the third paragraph in, where Valmai describes what Emlyn looks like, and ends by noting that he needs a haircut. That random observation is just very sweet and, I dunno, "real" or something, to me, and it makes that bit of description sexier than anything graphic could be.
Hardest story to write:
Oh, god. All of them have their challenges. "Yes" was the first sex scene I'd ever really written in seriousness. "Until Honor is Satisfied" was the first fight scene. "Five Things that Sybill Trelawney Never Predicted" was the first fanfic I've ever done (and it shows, I'm sure). My NaNovel (I'm kinda going with _The Book of Saint Tourmaline_ as a title, these days, but that could change) was the first novel-length story I attempted to tell. All of those firsts were difficult, in one way or another. And then, of course, there were chunks in every other story that were hard. "The Council of Merchants" was probably the hardest overall, though, really. Trying to make a beaurocratic paper-shuffling meeting interesting... Yeesh.
Most unintentionally *telling* story:
Oh, probably all of them are "telling" in one way or another. Probably everything creative I've ever written reveals my strong preferences for a certain physical "type" of man... The problems that Valmai has valuing herself are definitely issues that I myself have struggled with, and I'm sure it shows. Etc., etc. I don't know how I could write anything at all that wouldn't reveal all sorts of things about me.
Well, that was rather interesting. I'm sort of impressed that I had to look at my blog while I was filling this out, to be sure I was remembering the stories correctly. I've really written a -lot- of stuff... Wow.
Like
casirafics, from whom I copied this meme, I would be very interested to know which stories readers of mine would choose for all of those categories, too. I'd especially like to know which ones you all liked best.ETA: I realised as I was beginning to cook dinner just now that I've made two errors, here.
1. I counted the 21st Valmai story, which was actually finished last night, making it a 2005 story, not 2004. So... Uh... 30 or 11. Or something.
2. I said that I've written maybe five stories before this year. Idiotically, I completely forgot to account for all of the RP Notes I've written on Magrathea. Those tend to be short, of course, and they're written for a very specific audience, but they are stories, nonetheless. I have no idea how many of them I've written. Hundreds, maybe. And I probably wrote some this year that I didn't count...
