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2024 Writing (Year in Review)
Jan. 3rd, 2025 12:00 pmBetter late than never!
This year, I posted 35k words on AO3. This is about half of what I posted last year, so it seems my resolution to do fewer exchanges (especially Triple Crown ones) is working. But I think I forgot to do the other half, where I work more on non-exchange writing instead? (And that's really the most important part!)
I'm definitely seeing a trend of low activity for most of the year and then reviving to participate in winter exchanges. I started out this year by wrapping up my 2023 exchange season: a Fandom Trees "pinch hit" and two fics for Bulletproof. In the summer, I made some progress on an ongoing WIP (hallelujah!), and noticed this put me over 500k words posted on my account (in 4 years!), so took a couple prompts on Tumblr to celebrate. Besides that, I wrote nothing until it came time for my winter exchange season again with FIAB, Eyeshield 21 Winter Gift Exchange, Yuletide, and soon Bulletproof once more.
It's unfortunate because winter was again my busiest and most stressful time of year professionally, personally, medically. With more writing gaps, I also felt quite rusty coming into both my WIP in the summer and then FIAB in the winter. Being busy and rusty meant I wasn't able to participate to the full extent I wanted in my exchanges. I got a bunch of FIAB swaps, but they were all in the same fandom (Genshin) which I didn't expect and found discouraging. I actually ended up defaulting on 2 of my 4 swaps, but fortunately the exchange rules were generous enough to allow earning back my wordcount by writing more of my original assignment - which worked out because that was turning out to be a monster anyhow. I also didn't have my normal level of commenting energy - I left 40 comments in the FIAB collection and 16 in Yuletide - and there were several treats I wanted to write but didn't get close.
Overall, though, I feel good about the extent of my exchange participation. I think I've narrowed down to my few favorite exchanges and the amount feels reasonable, if unfortunately clustered in the worst time of year for it. Perhaps this means next year I can aim to work more on personal projects throughout the year, and quarantine exchanges to the winter alone!
( stats and meme questions )
This year, I posted 35k words on AO3. This is about half of what I posted last year, so it seems my resolution to do fewer exchanges (especially Triple Crown ones) is working. But I think I forgot to do the other half, where I work more on non-exchange writing instead? (And that's really the most important part!)
I'm definitely seeing a trend of low activity for most of the year and then reviving to participate in winter exchanges. I started out this year by wrapping up my 2023 exchange season: a Fandom Trees "pinch hit" and two fics for Bulletproof. In the summer, I made some progress on an ongoing WIP (hallelujah!), and noticed this put me over 500k words posted on my account (in 4 years!), so took a couple prompts on Tumblr to celebrate. Besides that, I wrote nothing until it came time for my winter exchange season again with FIAB, Eyeshield 21 Winter Gift Exchange, Yuletide, and soon Bulletproof once more.
It's unfortunate because winter was again my busiest and most stressful time of year professionally, personally, medically. With more writing gaps, I also felt quite rusty coming into both my WIP in the summer and then FIAB in the winter. Being busy and rusty meant I wasn't able to participate to the full extent I wanted in my exchanges. I got a bunch of FIAB swaps, but they were all in the same fandom (Genshin) which I didn't expect and found discouraging. I actually ended up defaulting on 2 of my 4 swaps, but fortunately the exchange rules were generous enough to allow earning back my wordcount by writing more of my original assignment - which worked out because that was turning out to be a monster anyhow. I also didn't have my normal level of commenting energy - I left 40 comments in the FIAB collection and 16 in Yuletide - and there were several treats I wanted to write but didn't get close.
Overall, though, I feel good about the extent of my exchange participation. I think I've narrowed down to my few favorite exchanges and the amount feels reasonable, if unfortunately clustered in the worst time of year for it. Perhaps this means next year I can aim to work more on personal projects throughout the year, and quarantine exchanges to the winter alone!
( stats and meme questions )
