Cover Letter To A Jewellery Store

My fics

Little roundup (stolen as usual), and happy new year for tomorrow since I think it unlikely that I will post again within 24 hours:

This year I wrote 31 fics (Original, J&W, Sherlock Holmes and a couple random fandoms such as Sleeping Beauty crossover'd with Snow White - really, WHAT was I thinking?) for a total of 144,168 words. I totally suck, it was 202,000 last year. Shortest fic: "Mattutino II" (283 words); longest fic: "My Infinite Variety. A Case of Identity" (41,410 words, incidentally my longest fic ever). This year proved that my variety is most definitely not infinite, not even notable, we could rather say non-existent, since 99% of my fic was Sherlock Holmes and what can you do about it.

Masterlist, in case you're lazy


My favorite story of 2010 (of my own): "My Infinite Variety", because it's long, has a plot that works, sort of, and is an AU, which makes it as mine as a fanfiction will ever be. It is also rather appreciated around in the fandom, and the lovely took pains to make it look better than it is with her fabulous illustration, so, definitely my fave.

My best story this year: No, not "My Infinite Variety" again. I'll go for "Far from home, elephant guns", which is a long-ish piece about Watson meeting an old comrade-slash-lover and Holmes getting all jealous and annoyed and annoying about it. Verbal nonsense follows.

Story most underappreciated by the universe, in my opinion: My Bertie/Vince series, but it's just to be expected, since they are OCs in a fandom (J&W) that nobody in Italy knows.

Most fun story: Nothing is funnier for me to write than the Bertie/Vince stories and I think the funniest is "Fishnet".

Most sexy story: I feel like reiterating the concept: I suck at smut. And I'm not normal, apparently, since I think the sexiest one is the tentacle!p0rn in "Blessings of Babylon".

Most unintentionally *telling* story: Blessings of Babylon. "My Infinite Variety" shows pretty well, I think, what's my problem with the Sherlock Holmes fandom, and the Sherlock Holmes character, and how I - and my Watson - tried to overcome the problem out of sincere love for both.

Story that shifted my own perceptions of the characters: By now my collection of end-of-year memes show that I only have one big fic per year. "My Infinite Variety", again, was an exercise in turning Holmes into a real person, with all the problems connected to that. It didn't teach me that I don't like him, because I already knew I don't, but it taught me why, and why that's totally ininfluent in the end, and why I love him anyway.

Biggest surprise: Tentacle!p0rn?

Biggest disappointment: "All that is left, all that I hide". Not the fic itself, I think the fic is okay, but the project connected to it and how rudely I was dumped, which hurt me more than a bit.

Worst story: I'm tempted to name one among the tons of useless drabbles, but that would be easy. I'll say "Secret chord" (CHAS what if), because... just because.

Hardest story to write: "All that is left, all that I hide". My god, it never ended. Never. Ended. And I started picturing RDJ and JL towards the end and couldn't stop, which made it feel completely wrong , since those two are as similar to Holmes and Watson as I and a big fat country rat.

Easiest story to write: "My Infinite Variety". Just plot, plot, plot, just get to the end and then stop writing, don't care if it sucks, just do it. It was SO fun.

"Holy crap, that's wrong, even for you" story: Tent--no, okay, that would be too easy. What about playing with crossdressing stereotypes and then smashing them all in "Fishnet"? No, eh?

Awards:

I don't think I won anything this year. I wasn't eligible at the Italian P0rn Fest #3, after all (which may sound arrogant of me, but it's not my fault if I won all I was eligible for for two years out of two.)



2010 was a bit improductive as to writing. Most part of the year I was busy with my final dissertation (200 pages), which means I wrote little fiction but, on the other hand, my aNobii book count simply rocketed, and reading is - I think - more important than writing. I published a story in a collection, and what else?

Oh yes, I made a serious reflection on fanfiction and writing in general and I reached the conclusion that too many authors I appreciate (some among my friends, some don't even know I exist) in time tend to become self-fanwriters, which means they write fanfiction of their own works. They repeat themselves, and then they become terribly bad at it. You can always feel when an author is self-fanficcing because they don't ring true , they ring like they know what they're aiming at, and that's making you say "oh, yes, that's so X, that's so their style". Which doesn't mean it's purposeful - I don't think it is at all - but it's, nevertheless, dramatic. The next step from that is mediocrity, and the next one from that is pure badfic. I know of people who made the whole cycle: beginner mediocrity, good work, very good work, self-fanfic, irritating self-fanfic, badfic, SPECTACULARLY BAD fic. When you reach the last stage you're fucked, because you know you can write good fic, you have in fact written very good fic, you see what's wrong in others' fic because your judgement skills are still intact, but at the same time you write shit and you can't see it because, well, it's yours and you're good, aren't you?

(This reflection, far from being original as I presented it, it's more or less what Alan Moore says about "having a recognizable style" in his ever so useful Writing for Comics . I just borrowed it and applied it to fanfiction.)

I'll hence devote my future fic (and writing) life to avoiding ever getting trapped into that lethal cycle. That's all, thank you.