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2023 Fic Writing Wrap-Up
In 2022 I wrote 100K of fic, which was absolutely a record high of prose writing for me. This year I wrote less, especially in the second half of the year. That was actually intentional; as I launched into some pretty big creative projects in my work life, it was necessary to scale back on my fandom productivity.
Also during the second half of the year I helped moderate the Kfic Big Bang which was its own whole project; I participated as an artist and betaed an amazing Seventeen fic by liebchen which I am as proud of as anything I wrote myself this year.
Still, despite my busyness, I managed to finish three fics ranging from 2K to 23K and made progress on two other WIPs. I'm happy with that! I have a feeling next year I will have even less time to write fic- if I manage to just finish my two in-progress works by the end of this year, I will be happy.
More details and thoughts below.
not to me/not if it's you - SKZ, Han Jisung/Lee Minho | 23,980 words | March
I started this story at the end of 2022; I think I wrote about 3K of it before the turn of the year. But all the rest came out in a rush in the beginning of 2023. In this story both Han and Lee Know are written as trans men; it's set during Han's recovery from top surgery and draws a lot from my own recovery experience. As such, this is one of the more personal and close to chest (ha) stories I've ever written. I'm extremely grateful for how lovingly it has been received. I'm never sure what the audience will be for trans stories, even on Ao3, but at least in the SKZ fandom the reception has been very warm! Deep thank yous to everyone who has read this story, commented, or left it a kudos. My greatest hope is that it makes the idea of recovering from top surgery feel less scary to anyone considering it.
In The Wayhouse - SKZ, Bang Chan/Lee Minho | 7,346 words | April
This story was written as part of a small fest which I participated in with some lovely writing friends. We threw a bunch of story elements and tropes into a hat and chose a handful and all had to write stories inspired by them. It was such a fun puzzle to fit in all of the required elements: a nonlinear narrative, a phone call, an aromantic character, a twist ending. It resulted in a story I don't think I ever would have written otherwise. I was also hypothetically supposed to be disguising the fact that I was the author of the story for the anon period, but once I made Lee Know an intersex robot it was pretty much obvious to anyone who knows anything about me lolol. Even the animal hybrids didn't throw anyone off my scent.
[bright] [moon] [light] - SVT, Hong Joshua/Wen Jun Hui | 2,737 words | September
This fic was written as part of Kpop Ficmix, a very fun fest where authors are assigned another kpop fic writer's body of work, and have the opportunity to write a remix of one of their assignee's stories. It can be a prequel, sequel, retelling, or completely new story as long as it contains the original ship from the source fic. I really loved this challenge! I was assigned a writer whose works I had never read before and so many of their stories were tempting to me. Ultimately, I chose a Rule 63 Joshua/Jun story; this is both a new ship and a new trope for me! My story is a sequel about teenage girlhood in the mid-2000s, focused on two girls who bonded over being immigrants to South Korea, and includes dream sharing. If any of that sounds tempting to you, definitely read the original story first!
The Same Sky (cowritten) — BTS, Kim Namjoon/Kim Seokjin & Jung Hoseok/Park Jimin | currently at 178K | started posting in July 2021, latest update in November 2023
In January of last year, one of my main resolutions was to finish this fic. That didn't quite happen, but my wonderful co-author ShinySherlock and I posted 6 chapters totaling 44K over the course of the year, and we have another 8K written but as yet unposted in our working drafts. I firmly believe we are within 3 chapters of the end of this story. I am both very excited to finish it and also it will be so strange to have it done- it's become the longest creative collaboration of my life so far, both in terms of time and also of word count. At this point our writing for this fic is so intertwined there's no point in trying to go back and check how many of those 52K words are mine. Half, roughly.
I also wrote 7300 words of a Stray Kids Taekwondo AU which I may or may not ever get around to finishing. I'd like to. But we'll see.
Which brings my fic writing total for 2023 up to... about 63K give or take. Around 2/3 of how much I wrote last year! I'm actually surprised that number is so high. This year I really felt myself shifting out of the writing habits I had built during 2020-2022. I still attend one weekly writing group on discord, but the spontaneous sprinting my other writing group used to do has really fallen away. Life changes! I am grateful for all of the time I spent writing, especially in company, in 2023. I hope I make some words in 2024 too, but if I learned anything from last year, it's that this year will probably not go as I expect!
Also during the second half of the year I helped moderate the Kfic Big Bang which was its own whole project; I participated as an artist and betaed an amazing Seventeen fic by liebchen which I am as proud of as anything I wrote myself this year.
Still, despite my busyness, I managed to finish three fics ranging from 2K to 23K and made progress on two other WIPs. I'm happy with that! I have a feeling next year I will have even less time to write fic- if I manage to just finish my two in-progress works by the end of this year, I will be happy.
More details and thoughts below.
not to me/not if it's you - SKZ, Han Jisung/Lee Minho | 23,980 words | March
I started this story at the end of 2022; I think I wrote about 3K of it before the turn of the year. But all the rest came out in a rush in the beginning of 2023. In this story both Han and Lee Know are written as trans men; it's set during Han's recovery from top surgery and draws a lot from my own recovery experience. As such, this is one of the more personal and close to chest (ha) stories I've ever written. I'm extremely grateful for how lovingly it has been received. I'm never sure what the audience will be for trans stories, even on Ao3, but at least in the SKZ fandom the reception has been very warm! Deep thank yous to everyone who has read this story, commented, or left it a kudos. My greatest hope is that it makes the idea of recovering from top surgery feel less scary to anyone considering it.
In The Wayhouse - SKZ, Bang Chan/Lee Minho | 7,346 words | April
This story was written as part of a small fest which I participated in with some lovely writing friends. We threw a bunch of story elements and tropes into a hat and chose a handful and all had to write stories inspired by them. It was such a fun puzzle to fit in all of the required elements: a nonlinear narrative, a phone call, an aromantic character, a twist ending. It resulted in a story I don't think I ever would have written otherwise. I was also hypothetically supposed to be disguising the fact that I was the author of the story for the anon period, but once I made Lee Know an intersex robot it was pretty much obvious to anyone who knows anything about me lolol. Even the animal hybrids didn't throw anyone off my scent.
[bright] [moon] [light] - SVT, Hong Joshua/Wen Jun Hui | 2,737 words | September
This fic was written as part of Kpop Ficmix, a very fun fest where authors are assigned another kpop fic writer's body of work, and have the opportunity to write a remix of one of their assignee's stories. It can be a prequel, sequel, retelling, or completely new story as long as it contains the original ship from the source fic. I really loved this challenge! I was assigned a writer whose works I had never read before and so many of their stories were tempting to me. Ultimately, I chose a Rule 63 Joshua/Jun story; this is both a new ship and a new trope for me! My story is a sequel about teenage girlhood in the mid-2000s, focused on two girls who bonded over being immigrants to South Korea, and includes dream sharing. If any of that sounds tempting to you, definitely read the original story first!
The Same Sky (cowritten) — BTS, Kim Namjoon/Kim Seokjin & Jung Hoseok/Park Jimin | currently at 178K | started posting in July 2021, latest update in November 2023
In January of last year, one of my main resolutions was to finish this fic. That didn't quite happen, but my wonderful co-author ShinySherlock and I posted 6 chapters totaling 44K over the course of the year, and we have another 8K written but as yet unposted in our working drafts. I firmly believe we are within 3 chapters of the end of this story. I am both very excited to finish it and also it will be so strange to have it done- it's become the longest creative collaboration of my life so far, both in terms of time and also of word count. At this point our writing for this fic is so intertwined there's no point in trying to go back and check how many of those 52K words are mine. Half, roughly.
I also wrote 7300 words of a Stray Kids Taekwondo AU which I may or may not ever get around to finishing. I'd like to. But we'll see.
Which brings my fic writing total for 2023 up to... about 63K give or take. Around 2/3 of how much I wrote last year! I'm actually surprised that number is so high. This year I really felt myself shifting out of the writing habits I had built during 2020-2022. I still attend one weekly writing group on discord, but the spontaneous sprinting my other writing group used to do has really fallen away. Life changes! I am grateful for all of the time I spent writing, especially in company, in 2023. I hope I make some words in 2024 too, but if I learned anything from last year, it's that this year will probably not go as I expect!