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younglegends) wrote2022-12-23 07:14 pm
younglegends) wrote2022-12-23 07:14 pm
2022 writing round-up
guys its time for my favourite insufferable activity aka talking about writing :]
TOTAL WORD COUNT (COMPLETE): 26,097
FICS COMPLETED AND PUBLISHED: 3
this year rather than being like "noo i only wrote 3 fics" im genuinely like "damn i wrote 3 whole fics!!!", even "damn i wrote 3 whole fics i loved writing!!" i'm really happy with everything i wrote :) also looking at this list i'm really like... Wow everything i write really is everything i write.
FANDOMS: one piece (1), omniscient reader's viewpoint (2)
who would've thought i would return to op 10 years later, and also get into a 551 chapter webnovel that destroyed my life lol. also, no kpop fic from me this year, for the first time since 2016, and for ever, i think! 5 years writing in kpop fandom!! it was fun when it was fun but no more :')
NOTICEABLE TRENDS: i have JUST realized everything i wrote this year was gen in terms of ships AND rating!! dam that's crazy what do you mean i didn't write anything unflinchingly violent this year <-- guy whose top used tag is Canon-Typical Violence (10)
tbh i don't care to box myself when it comes to what i write but i do think i am a way stronger gen writer than ship writer. i feel myself tend to shy away from romance, the explicit idea of it, even when i'm writing a shipfic in question. in genfic, it's easier because it's ok to not know or say it LOL. like, the love's there, obviously, but it can exist as just there. of course i love writing longing and wretchedness and devotion but i do love to write these things as repressed or unspoken or implied... argh i've been having this problem a lot lately, deciding whether or not to make something gen or commit to the ship. more on this in the wip section.
INDIVIDUAL FIC COMMENTARY:
1. EVERYTHING WILL UNFURL: one piece, nami-centric gen, east blue saga, 10.2k.
2. WHAT THE LIVING DO: orv, gen, non-linear narrative, 7.2k.
with any post-canon reflective fic i write, i'm mostly thinking about the loose ends/character perspectives/missing scenes i would most like to explore after finishing a canon. for me the most obvious ones were 1) jung heewon when they decide to group regress, BECAUSE THAT'S ALWAYS BEEN SO. AUGH. To go back, go through all of it again, to save someone who isn't entirely the version of the person you know and love, but is still him. AUGH! and 2) lee gilyoung. ngl i was very attached to gilyoungie from the start of reading orv and so it kind of disappointed me that his character arc um. didn't really go anywhere or exist at all. Like i'm sorry but i think there was more potential there than what we got in canon... anyway love this kid, wanted more of him, wanted to write him so i did.
uh i rewrote the yoo sangah scene like 30 times. that's what i do with everything i write--i rewrite--and since ysa's scene is the beginning, her scene received the brunt of it. eventually it became a comforting thing to return to, lol--ysa driving to work, her meditations on living, her voice setting the tone. the things she sees and remembers. the work of surviving; of scraping together something like an epilogue; of tending quietly to the hope and yearning still in your heart. T___T guys orv hollowed out my heart this year...
anyway while i'm on this tangent, this is very much a genfic (whatever that means!) but the ysa scene sparked *gestures* something wrt sangah/sooyoung for me. Like obviously it's just vague vibes but something is really getting to me re: writers as creators. the ones to make something from nothing, strike a spark. AUGH HEY GUYS DID U KNO THAT... UM... THERE ARE THREE WAYS TO SURVIVE IN A RUINED WORLD??? anyway and it's that spark of creation that is hope that is desire that is coming up with something against sensibility and that's one of the things that obviously touched me so much about the epilogue, and that i love so much about hsy as a character, that she makes things happen, makes them move, makes them... and not to be like Yoo sangah was poking hsy like a lifeless bug with a stick prodding her for signs of life in the years after they first tried and failed to get kdj back but those are the vibes i got u know?? and what it meant for her to write again, even if it's the same old story they know and lived and love... T__T i wrote this before even reading the side story which made me 100x crazier about this.
anyway. i digress. lee gilyoung's scene was so easy to write; jung heewon's was not and i was never able to wrangle it to something i loved; lee jihye's was not either but i do like how it turned out--also i think it laid the groundwork for my next fic as i realized how interesting it was to write 49kdj from the perspective of someone who doesn't know, which would include 49kdj himself. (49kdj without batting an eye: twsa? oh yea it was just a story i loved, whatever!) yoo joonghyuk worst pov ever WHYYY ARE U SO FREAKING HARD TO WRITE. that's all!
3. THE FALSE LAST ACT: orv, canon divergence au, 8.6k.
the other 2 fics are very representative of my style (heavy introspection and imagery) but for this one i actively tried to emulate orv's narrative style (more direct, more dialogue-based, often more about what isn't being mentioned than what is) which was actually really fun, and i'm glad i tried it :)
btw i truly feel like it is impossible for me to write kim dokja pov, aka a story told by kim dokja, in kim dokja's narrative voice, and by kim dokja i specifically mean the complete fucker, that guy who's all there. not past versions of him who don't know the whole story, not half versions of him who don't even know what's missing and therefore can't hide it from anyone. sorry idk how to NOT write him from a distance when a lot of the time it feels like he IS the distance :') Like, i would simply never attempt writing him, godspeed. idk tho maybe i'll get an insane idea next year or something.
WORKS IN PROGRESS:
1. THIS LOVE IS BEING TURNED INTO...: orv, yoohankim reverse gsnk au, 6.7k
anyway i've labelled this "yoohankim" but i'm seriously agonizing over whether this is genfic or shipfic like. GUYS? how would these 3 clueless characters conceivably "get together" in a universe where they're oblivious teenagers. Ok so it's going to be vaguely gen. But also the intentions are there i guess. If u even care. Like i'm sorry i'm simply laying down the words that are getting beamed into my head and u guys just have to interpret the meaning i guess. wait, that's what all reading is? you don't say!
2. NAMELESS WIP (still): genshin impact, modern superhero au, 43.2k (HELLO?)
this wip contains so much that i love writing and don't necessarily get to write very often--plot, action, a story long enough for me to actually have fun setting up foreshadowing and mysteries and unsayable things that will only get revealed later. it's also got inside jokes with myself and random challenges i made up for myself (like finding a way to insert a word from whatever song i was obsessed with at the moment of writing) and silly cameos for fun. (i'm sorry, never felt such glee as when i figured out a way to write BAIZHU into this thing, and then SHENHE, both in hilarious ways!!) it will also theoretically commit to romance but i'm sorry i can't take it seriously i'm only pretending argh.
writing is sooo fun u guys u can literally just write whatever the hell.
FINAL NOTES + GOALS FOR NEXT YEAR:
TOTAL WORD COUNT (COMPLETE): 26,097
FICS COMPLETED AND PUBLISHED: 3
this year rather than being like "noo i only wrote 3 fics" im genuinely like "damn i wrote 3 whole fics!!!", even "damn i wrote 3 whole fics i loved writing!!" i'm really happy with everything i wrote :) also looking at this list i'm really like... Wow everything i write really is everything i write.
FANDOMS: one piece (1), omniscient reader's viewpoint (2)
who would've thought i would return to op 10 years later, and also get into a 551 chapter webnovel that destroyed my life lol. also, no kpop fic from me this year, for the first time since 2016, and for ever, i think! 5 years writing in kpop fandom!! it was fun when it was fun but no more :')
NOTICEABLE TRENDS: i have JUST realized everything i wrote this year was gen in terms of ships AND rating!! dam that's crazy what do you mean i didn't write anything unflinchingly violent this year <-- guy whose top used tag is Canon-Typical Violence (10)
tbh i don't care to box myself when it comes to what i write but i do think i am a way stronger gen writer than ship writer. i feel myself tend to shy away from romance, the explicit idea of it, even when i'm writing a shipfic in question. in genfic, it's easier because it's ok to not know or say it LOL. like, the love's there, obviously, but it can exist as just there. of course i love writing longing and wretchedness and devotion but i do love to write these things as repressed or unspoken or implied... argh i've been having this problem a lot lately, deciding whether or not to make something gen or commit to the ship. more on this in the wip section.
INDIVIDUAL FIC COMMENTARY:
1. EVERYTHING WILL UNFURL: one piece, nami-centric gen, east blue saga, 10.2k.
What she learned instead: so this was how those who called themselves pirates got to live. How they lied and stole and took whatever they pleased. She’d do better, she thought, and beat them at their own game. Look how greedy I can be: heart a bottomless pit. I’ll pay any price you set. You know nothing about the depth of my want.this is still my favourite thing i wrote this year. it's completely me working all my love for this series and this character into 10k words, and it probably shows. in that way, it's also completely for me!! above quote is the first passage that came to me, roughly, while thinking of writing this fic. here are some more choice excerpts from the working gdoc.
IT’S ABOUT BEING SEEN........... U GUYSSS. IT’S ABOUT BEING SEEN. :( Imagine ur nami uve told them nothing theyve seen u anyway. LIKE WHAT THE FFFFFF. How can anyone even be seen straight thru to the core like that i’m shakingfave parts of writing this:
nami: resentment. Love love love. I love the way she’s drawn right now, with one side of her hair untucked behind her ear, the way it curls out slightly under her ears, at her shoulders.
I just think there’s something very wrong about people who grow up alone.
- list of the things she stole from everyone <3 i've been obsessed with the THIEF character archetype since forever and in a long line of beloved thief characters (eugenides + peter nureyev my other most beloveds...) it's true that nami was the pioneer for me. is there ANYTHING more romantic than a thief character!! than having to delineate between the things u steal out of necessity and the things u steal out of wanting and the things u want most and so dont allow urself to steal at all!!! thief characters are magicians and the stealing itself is so often an act of misdirection... ANYWAY.
- i tend to rewrite canon scenes a lot in fic which is fun only for me bc the reader already knows the scene--idk, i really do love exploring what a character would have been thinking in certain scenes--but in this fic i did try to dig deeper and at least make it interesting LOL. one part i'm personally proud of is the memory of cocoyasi village banding together to harvest the mikan grove after bell-mere's death... that did NOT come out fully formed on the page but i knew there was something there and tried very hard to make it work.
- scene of flat unbearable resentment re: sanji on the baratie was incredibly fun to write bc i'd never considered it before, what nami would've thought of sanji on the baratie... jealousy over this guy who's being offered up everything on a plate and is, what, too proud, stubborn, stupid to take it... oh the themes of WANT and SELFISHNESS and GREED they're soooo delicious. Anyway i love writing resentment so so much.
- and lastly, the shortest scene comprising of 4 lines that makes up the confrontation between nami and zoro at arlong park, and therefore the most indulgent scene in the whole damn fic. I'm sorry i simply died writing it from the indulgence of, yes, 4 short simple lines that straightforwardly transcribe literally what happens in the canonical scene. 4 whole lines to acknowledge the weight of what that scene means to me. Me to my 16 yr old self: these 4 lines are FOR U, u just dont know it yet!!
2. WHAT THE LIVING DO: orv, gen, non-linear narrative, 7.2k.
Of course, ingenuity comes with its costs. More and more often she finds herself dozing off in class or sleepwalking with no memory of how she’d gotten from one place to another. But energy returns to her through a page blank as snow, waiting to be filled. And she still doesn’t know how the story ends, but that’s how she likes it. Anything can happen; she has the power to decide. The ideas come to her as easily as ink flowing from a pen. She didn’t know it, before, but writing—it’s really fun, isn’t it?again, i quoted this part because, OF COURSE, it was the first part of this fic i wrote lmao. came to me when i was in that phase of having just finished a canon i dearly love and am just stream-of-consciousnessing in the gdoc trying to strongarm my way into something, anything. of course it would be han sooyoung who was my entry into this fic :] because it's true, writing is fun.
with any post-canon reflective fic i write, i'm mostly thinking about the loose ends/character perspectives/missing scenes i would most like to explore after finishing a canon. for me the most obvious ones were 1) jung heewon when they decide to group regress, BECAUSE THAT'S ALWAYS BEEN SO. AUGH. To go back, go through all of it again, to save someone who isn't entirely the version of the person you know and love, but is still him. AUGH! and 2) lee gilyoung. ngl i was very attached to gilyoungie from the start of reading orv and so it kind of disappointed me that his character arc um. didn't really go anywhere or exist at all. Like i'm sorry but i think there was more potential there than what we got in canon... anyway love this kid, wanted more of him, wanted to write him so i did.
uh i rewrote the yoo sangah scene like 30 times. that's what i do with everything i write--i rewrite--and since ysa's scene is the beginning, her scene received the brunt of it. eventually it became a comforting thing to return to, lol--ysa driving to work, her meditations on living, her voice setting the tone. the things she sees and remembers. the work of surviving; of scraping together something like an epilogue; of tending quietly to the hope and yearning still in your heart. T___T guys orv hollowed out my heart this year...
anyway while i'm on this tangent, this is very much a genfic (whatever that means!) but the ysa scene sparked *gestures* something wrt sangah/sooyoung for me. Like obviously it's just vague vibes but something is really getting to me re: writers as creators. the ones to make something from nothing, strike a spark. AUGH HEY GUYS DID U KNO THAT... UM... THERE ARE THREE WAYS TO SURVIVE IN A RUINED WORLD??? anyway and it's that spark of creation that is hope that is desire that is coming up with something against sensibility and that's one of the things that obviously touched me so much about the epilogue, and that i love so much about hsy as a character, that she makes things happen, makes them move, makes them... and not to be like Yoo sangah was poking hsy like a lifeless bug with a stick prodding her for signs of life in the years after they first tried and failed to get kdj back but those are the vibes i got u know?? and what it meant for her to write again, even if it's the same old story they know and lived and love... T__T i wrote this before even reading the side story which made me 100x crazier about this.
anyway. i digress. lee gilyoung's scene was so easy to write; jung heewon's was not and i was never able to wrangle it to something i loved; lee jihye's was not either but i do like how it turned out--also i think it laid the groundwork for my next fic as i realized how interesting it was to write 49kdj from the perspective of someone who doesn't know, which would include 49kdj himself. (49kdj without batting an eye: twsa? oh yea it was just a story i loved, whatever!) yoo joonghyuk worst pov ever WHYYY ARE U SO FREAKING HARD TO WRITE. that's all!
3. THE FALSE LAST ACT: orv, canon divergence au, 8.6k.
“Ahjussi,” Shin Yoosung said at last. She looked straight at him, her face so grave, so serious. She told him: “It’s okay.”already wrote a post about this one. kind of shocked by + also grateful for the reception it got (it spawned some really interesting discussions!! felt very My Job Here Is Done but u didnt do anything etc). it was also fascinating to see whether people got the twist or not, and how one's reading of the fic was very coloured by that fact--whether it was interpreted as a story of kdj healing, moving on from things he clung to in the past, moving forward vs a story of a kdj who is missing certain parts of himself but is still alive, living in the world, unlike his greater half who's become reduced to that singular role: a reader.
Kim Dokja stared back at her. He had the sensation of a relief so dark and deep he could fall through it entirely. He could hear it whistling past now in his ears.
the other 2 fics are very representative of my style (heavy introspection and imagery) but for this one i actively tried to emulate orv's narrative style (more direct, more dialogue-based, often more about what isn't being mentioned than what is) which was actually really fun, and i'm glad i tried it :)
btw i truly feel like it is impossible for me to write kim dokja pov, aka a story told by kim dokja, in kim dokja's narrative voice, and by kim dokja i specifically mean the complete fucker, that guy who's all there. not past versions of him who don't know the whole story, not half versions of him who don't even know what's missing and therefore can't hide it from anyone. sorry idk how to NOT write him from a distance when a lot of the time it feels like he IS the distance :') Like, i would simply never attempt writing him, godspeed. idk tho maybe i'll get an insane idea next year or something.
WORKS IN PROGRESS:
1. THIS LOVE IS BEING TURNED INTO...: orv, yoohankim reverse gsnk au, 6.7k
Turns out dating is exactly like having a beta reader. In the stories, Han Sooyoung knows, romance is all about undying pledges and tragic sacrifices and fated companions finding each other through space and time. But is there really a gesture more romantic than letting someone else read her story draft before it’s been published, than allowing their suggestions to change the trajectory of the plot? Someone who’s been keeping track of the intricate inner workings of the narrative as closely as the writer herself? It’s like finding out a world she created is no longer an inhabitant of one: she’s sharing this space with someone else.Yea i'm writing this. of course i would write this, u guys. of course i have to write this. WHO ELSE WOULD WRITE THIS!!! Guys i've connected the dots between gsnk and orv two of my dearest most beloved fandoms of all time. It's about stories and it's about love what else can i say! (a lot, actually, but i'll save it for the fic.)
anyway i've labelled this "yoohankim" but i'm seriously agonizing over whether this is genfic or shipfic like. GUYS? how would these 3 clueless characters conceivably "get together" in a universe where they're oblivious teenagers. Ok so it's going to be vaguely gen. But also the intentions are there i guess. If u even care. Like i'm sorry i'm simply laying down the words that are getting beamed into my head and u guys just have to interpret the meaning i guess. wait, that's what all reading is? you don't say!
2. NAMELESS WIP (still): genshin impact, modern superhero au, 43.2k (HELLO?)
The last time he had heard Fischl’s voice was when he told her he was leaving. To go travelling, Bennett explained, adventuring like his fathers had before him. The dream he had always promised to continue in their stead, waving around a cardboard sword as a child, trekking through the woods with a bag full of all the collected pinecones and berries and pretty leaves he pretended was treasure; remember that, Fischl? How the berries tasted sour, and the leaves were poison ivy? Anyway, he had no itinerary or end destination in mind, but his plan was to stay for a while in every city he came through, taste life outside of what laughably little he knew of the world. He thought maybe he’d start with Liyue Harbour. It wasn’t that far away. Not really.egregiously long excerpt because no i'm not really writing this rn and i'll probably never finish it let alone publish it anywhere! but it's been immensely fun going back to this and rereading it, rewriting it, adding to it whenever i don't have anything to write/whenever i feel like it :]
They were walking home from the hospital, side-by-side. Visiting hours were over. Bennett kicked at a pebble, watched the side of Fischl’s face that was visible to him as he waited for her to respond. Their pace slow. It was summer then, so the sun set late. The usually immaculate pigtails in her hair were crooked, because Bennett had helped tie them that morning. Her arm cradled in a cast. She said nothing for a long time, though silence was not her style. And patience wasn’t his, but he waited all the same.
When they finally reached the street corner where their paths home branched apart, Fischl turned to him and said, “So this is your true heart’s desire?”
He couldn’t answer. It was answer enough. Her face hardened beneath the bruise that splayed across her eye, the green flash of its judgement. She turned away. Bennett watched her leave, thought it was okay, things would be okay. The arm would set, the bruise would heal. One morning the plaits in her hair would be fastened by her own steady hand. There would be time yet to say goodbye.
this wip contains so much that i love writing and don't necessarily get to write very often--plot, action, a story long enough for me to actually have fun setting up foreshadowing and mysteries and unsayable things that will only get revealed later. it's also got inside jokes with myself and random challenges i made up for myself (like finding a way to insert a word from whatever song i was obsessed with at the moment of writing) and silly cameos for fun. (i'm sorry, never felt such glee as when i figured out a way to write BAIZHU into this thing, and then SHENHE, both in hilarious ways!!) it will also theoretically commit to romance but i'm sorry i can't take it seriously i'm only pretending argh.
writing is sooo fun u guys u can literally just write whatever the hell.
FINAL NOTES + GOALS FOR NEXT YEAR:
- next year i am going to write SHIPFIC (maybe). i am going to write it with INTENT. i am going to CHALLENGE my ABILITIES!!
- if i do not write an orv timeloop next year... whats even the point
- kinda wish i could write shorter fic. imposing restraint--feels like i need that lol. had the vague idea to start a collection of really short op flash fics just whenever they come to me as i'm rewatching it, just for fun, without committing to anything more than a scene or a bout of imagery... idk if i'll do it but we'll see!!
- anyway hey guys did u know that writing is fun. sorry for repeating it for the nth time but i really had fun T__T *ignoring the agonies i went thru in the periods of time i had nothing to write* i haven't been writing recently but it does always feel nice to know i have it waiting for when i decide to return to it again!!