End of Year Review 2015

I’ve not done one of these before because I haven’t written enough in a year until now. Just thought it might be fun and give me encouragement moving forward. Hopefully, I’ll be able to do one next year, too.

I’m including only things in the “stories” tag from the past year, which are:

1. Plebe Summer (47,526 words)
2. The Root of The Root (1,442 words)
3. Let Your Heart Be Next To Mine (1,517 words)
4. Buzzfeed (481 words)
5. Mouse in the House (653 words)
6. Slippahs (727 words)
7. Graduation Day (1,958 words)
8. Love Wins (2,366 words)
9. Ceci n’est pas une Pipe (669 words)
10. Changing Horses Midstream (1,373 words)
11. Theek Pique (720 words)
12. The Rousing Effects of Coffee (349 words)
13. When Life Leaves You High and Dry (113,083 words)
14. Dress Blues (1,046 words)
15. Angels and Demons (13,976 words)
16. Something To Be Thankful For (5,711 words)
17. Bugging Out (9,028 words)
18. The Trauma of Painting (1,473 words)
19. Saved By the Jingle Bells (508 words)

Total word count: 204,606
Average word count per story: 10,767

This post may contain mild spoilers for all of the above.

Looking back, did I write more than I thought I would this year, less, or about what I’d predicted?

SO MUCH MORE. I didn’t realize until this post that I finished both Plebe Summer and When Life Leaves You High and Dry this year. They were both WAY longer than I thought they’d be.

What’s my own favorite story of the year? Not the most popular, but the one that makes me happiest?

When Life Leaves You High and Dry makes me happiest because I finished it. I was not, before this year, a long-story writer, so that was a big deal. My favorite part of any story, however, is chapter 13 of Plebe Summer.

What is my most popular story?

This one’s a bit tricky to judge, since not everyone reads my stories where I can easily track them. I also didn’t add the “read more” breaks to my posts until midway through this year, which messes up my stats slightly, because people didn’t have to actually “view” the post to read it. But going by number of hits, Theek Pique is most popular, at 384.

Did I take any writing risks this year? What did I learn from them?

Um, writing dirty talk in a second language for Let Your Heart Be Next To Mine was a definite risk, and I learned that all the French slang words for “penis” are grammatically feminine, which seems weird. Also that it’s difficult to do that without an actual human being to tell you not only if the translation is correct, but if it’s sexy in the other language. A few websites helped me out.

Do I have any writing goals for 2016?

I want to write more of Quint and Theo by themselves, so it’s not so heavily skewed to Seb/Zain, and definitely more Theo’s POV. I miss his voice.

From my past year of writing, what was the…

Most fun story to write: 

Buzzfeed, just for sheer silliness. It was a joke to start, but then I got encouraged to post it. Also, Zain’s “BUT I WANNA BE A BUNNY!” makes me laugh every time.

Hardest story to write:

The answer to this is always “the one I am currently writing,” haha. But if I had to pick a past one, Bugging Out, because I was a bit blocked and felt like the whole thing sucked on the first go-round.

Biggest surprise:

Platt as a whole. I didn’t mean to make him such an important supporting character, it just sort of happened that way.

Story that shifted my own perceptions of the characters:

When Life Leaves You High and Dry, probably. Not so much my perceptions of the characters as my perceptions of the relationships.

Most unintentionally revealing story:

The Rousing Effects of Coffee betrayed my hatred of butter in coffee? And also my job, kinda, without which I would not have known it was National Coffee Day.

Story with single sexiest moment:

The Columbus Day weekend sex scene in When Life Leaves You High and Dry is a particular favorite.

Story with single sweetest moment:

Also from When Life Leaves You High and Dry: Seb crossing the street and plowing into Zain when he comes to New York.

Best opening line:

Saved By the Jingle Bells: “You can’t spank me, I’m Santa!”

Best closing line:

Theek Pique: “He just makes it seem so easy, being my anchor, that sometimes I forget.”

I like both the anchor metaphor (because he’s in the naval service, get it??? harhar) and the subtle reference to “So Easy” from my Seb/Zain playlist.

Best line from anywhere:

This is very dumb, but I’m proud of it: “Nobody puts habibi in a corner!” from Bugging Out. I waited OVER A YEAR to use that line, and I just LOVE the pun, even though I hated Dirty Dancing, hahaha.

Theme for the year and the story that demonstrates it most:

Friendship. Between the two couples, and between Zain, Seb, and Platt. The story that best demonstrates that is, of course, When Life Leaves You High and Dry.