Rather a Story

Goodbye, 2014, I will not miss you. Here's to kicking ass and taking names in 2015.

I hope the year is treating everyone well so far!

Things are finally starting to settle into a semblance of normalcy over here at casa ratherastory. I still haven't unpacked all my boxes from when I moved from Montreal to Ottawa back in November, but all the important things are unpacked. Work is calming down, the dog is calming down, and the kitten is never calm anyway. ;)

2014 was really rough on me physically, emotionally and financially. Between the end of my relationship, the death of my cats within a week of each other (one of them highly traumatic), the renovations on my old house, the sale of my house, the move to another city, having the dog and my new kitten each have a bunch of health issues, and then needing repairs on my car, I'm kind of glad the year is over. That's only my personal problems, not even counting the murders of the RCMP officers in June, the terrible events of Ferguson and everywhere else, the honour guard murdered in Ottawa in October, and the summer of constant, unrelenting online misogyny and violence against women and trans people and people of colour. Almost everyone I know suffered personal losses and crises, one after the other. In short, 2014 sucked. Good riddance to bad rubbish.

I have a number of things I would like to get accomplished in 2015, some of them writing-related, and all of them designed to make my overall quality of life infinitely better. I won't bore you with the personal goals, but since this is my fic journal, I will list the few but important goals I have for my writing this year.

Writing Goals:

• Figure out how to write for the sheer, unadulterated joy of it again


• Update some of my 'verses. In particular Fusion, because I love that 'verse, and the Garden 'verse, because I know where I want that 'verse to end, and I'm not there yet.


• Write, edit and submit a novel for publication


• Outline all my current novel projects (I have four in various stages of conception and writing)


• Write every day in my "Morning Pages" journal, which is the best creative tool I've found for myself thus far


• Write 300,000 words by the end of the year (I signed up for gywo with this goal in mind)

I've also given myself a moratorium on signing up for challenges and exchanges this year. They used to be a great source of motivation for me, but this year I found that, because I was already pretty burned out, all they did was ramp up my anxiety issues and make me hate myself and my writing. So this year will be devoted to writing things only when they bring me joy.

If you would like, you may leave me prompts for any of my existing 'verses in any fandom (not that I have that many), or request time stamps/whatever for anything I've already written**.

**I am going to be SUPER picky about which prompts I accept for Fusion, so don't take it personally if I don't end up writing your prompt specifically. I get a lot of "Sam freaks out and Dean comforts him" prompts for that 'verse which, well, is not a useful prompt, since it basically describes over half the stories in the 'verse. ;) But if you have things you'd like to see, themes you'd like to have me explore, then please toss your hat in the ring! I have a big old playground and everyone is welcome!

Stolen from half my flist.

The Works In Progress meme. Open your WIP file and post the names of all your documents, regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous. Feel free to ask about anything and I'll tell you the premise or paste you a tidbit for any of these.

Everybody ready?

Supernatural

1- alcoholic!Dean
2- chelsea_grin
3- collar
4- MS!Sam
5- This Never Happened
6- Those Who Toil To Go On
7- avatar!J2
8- ohsamchallenge1
9- gen_bigbang_fairies
10- casefic_bigbang_radiation
11- sn_cross_hawaii
12- Pamela_Jesse_Forever
13- Roses in December
14- The Angel Pin

Leverage

1- Eliot!charityfic
2- blind!Eliot

H50

1- near-drowning
2- steve/danno challenge
3- Just South of Stockholm
4- tsunami!BB


So apparently I have 20 or so WIPs, which doesn't include all the prompt tables I have. *headdesk* I am never going to be done!

So I signed up for getyourwordsout and pledged myself for 350k words next year. It looks really intimidating at first, but then I went back and did a quick (or, really, not-so-quick) count of all my words last year, and, yeah, I can do it.

2010 published wordcount was ~450k

2010 total wordcount was ~505k.


So I can definitely make 350k next year. In fact, I am going to give myself a secondary goal of doubling my total wordcount between January 1st and December 31st 2011.

Yes, that's one million words, or an average of 2,740 words a day. I'm a little freaked out, but it's an exciting prospect, so. :)

I have plenty of other goals and projects for the New Year, but I figured I'd record the writing goal here, since this is where I do 99% of my writing these days.