I thought since it is almost my birthday I would try this ‘over the past year’ meme, adapted to include both original writing and fanfiction. Incidentally, I removed my birthday from all social media when I read an article that suggested it was an easy hook to enable hackers to access and use my personal data. I have read nothing to encourage me to put it back. I cheerfully help other people celebrate but I’d prefer to keep my own celebrations confined to close friends and family. If you want to wish me a happy October, go ahead!

Have I been consistent in my main writing over the past year?

I haven’t included previous figures for comparison because it was hard enough to tease this lot out. I’ve gone with dates of publication/posting which is by no means the same as writing… Any other data set was too convoluted to share.

Total works October 2019 to October 2020

Fanfiction: 3 stories plus 1 piece of meta.

Published works for sale: 3 novels and 1 collection of 5 short stories.

Free original works available on my website (includes ficlets, short stories, meta and poetry but not critiques): 11

So: 23 or 21 if you want to subtract the meta.

What’s your first and second most common work rating?

For fanfiction on AO3 I always use ‘not rated’. Occasionally my work is totally general and needs no ratings but I prefer to use ‘not rated’ as a default. I know some people will therefore not read but frankly, that’s not important for me.

For original work I sometimes put the adult warning on Smashwords. It really depends how I think parents would view a book if a younger teenager read it. By that, I don’t mean my own attitudes, just the majority ones.

I don’t write ‘erotica’ in either format, but I do take the characters as far as sex. This is usually non-explicit but definitely present in the text.

How many fics have you written in each relationship category?

 The fanfiction and the original stories, free and for sale, are all either mm or ff (or both) except for Answering Amanda which is for children even though it’s in my fae ‘verse. (It’s on my website.)

What are your top four fandoms by number?

For fanfiction I’ve written three auction fics this past year. One was SGA and the other two were Star Trek spin-off shows. I’ve written quite a bit of SGA in the past. Star Trek was a new venture.

For original work I’ve finished my fae series and my elf detective series and written some short stories, some of which were actually written earlier but polished for publication or posting since October 2019.

Who are your top seven characters?

In fanfiction this doesn’t apply this year. The three fics were totally different characters and pairings.

Obviously in my original work the bulk of my time was devoted to the main characters in my two series. The short works were very diverse and not connected with the series, apart from Answering Amanda as already explained.

And top six relationships?

Again, not really applicable.

If we’re thinking about the ones I’ve most enjoyed writing and have put a lot of work into, for fanfiction I had fun exploring John Sheppard and Todd the Wraith from SGA, and then Hugh and Elnor from Picard.

For my original fiction, I’ve brought both series to a conclusion and am sad to say goodbye to the characters. The focus of Living Fae is the mm relationship between Harlequin and Yarrow. The strong sub plot in The Skilled Investigators is the mm relationship between Fel and Rath. In the final volume I gave the major character, Genef, a possible romance in her future when a would-be suitor turned up, but she’ll have to get on with it without my assistance.

I started wondering about word count.

A lot of people are a great deal more prolific than I am but often their works are much shorter. I do have ficlets (and poems) in the mix and it was difficult to come up with an exact count but I think taking everything above into consideration I’d give a ballpark figure of 272,000 which I consider quite respectable and about average for me.

Meanwhile I’ve written a short story for Christmas which is about 10,000 and have extensively polished a short novel which is about 60,000. These are both in the editing/formatting process so I haven’t included them above. I’ve also written 7 ficlets for a writing community monster fest – more about that when I post the collection. That adds about another 40,000.

Altogether I’ve worked on approximately 382,000 words in the past year. Maybe I should look back next year, too! But the projects I have in mind are nowhere near as word-intensive so maybe not!