I've been looking over my AO3 stats for the last year. Initially I thought I hadn't written much, but actually, 2022 has been about average at approx 37,000 words. (2015, when I apparently lived in a cave and wrote 224,000 words, is an outlier adn should not be counted.)
I wrote 13 stories in 2022, ranging from over 8000 words to just 224.
My most popular story this year was Heart In Paradise, a modern AU for Hua Cheng/Xie Lian from Tian Guan Ci Fu (Heaven Official's Blessing). I'm not a modern AU sort of person at all, but I really like the way this one came out. There is SO much background research; you should've seen all the work I did trying to figure out if my setting details were appropriate. If there's one thing I worry about, it's that I feel the setting did end up a bit vaguelandia, I was trying for China but I didn't want to set it in a specific city in case I got the feel entirely wrong. But in my heart the story is set in Shanghai.
Next in popularity is Release from Bondage, also a TGCF fic, but this time for Quan Yizhen/Yin Yu, my favourite secondary ship from the book. I adore Quan Yizhen as a character; he's such a wild card to play with. An adorable fluffy puppy of a person with zero shame and zero mouth filter. And his relationship with Yin Yu just intrigues me so much!
Then, the story that will probably come to my mind if I were asked sometime in the future what I wrote in 2022: Ten Thousand Years of Love, a Wen Kexing/Zhou Zishu story for Word of Honor, my longest fic this year. This was one of those sheer indulgence fics on my part; I gave them everything I wanted to see for them, kadianed every section by writing either 511, 1129, or 1640 words in each one, and posted it on the anniversary of the first episode of Word of Honor airing in China. I love WenZhou so much; they've grabbed hold of my heart in a way I haven't experienced in years. Such a glorious couple, such a wonderful show!
Fourth, another indulgent fic on my part: Find Home, a crossover story featuring Maglor from the Silmarillion, and Hua Cheng from TGCF. These two needed to meet, and I thought it would be so nifty if Maglor's sword ended up in Hua Cheng's armoury as a gift for Xie Lian. There had to be a fair bit of balance in this story; they needed to find common ground, and they do in their similar definition of what home is. Also, Maglor's power impresses Hua Cheng, but it's his honesty that wins him over.
My next most popular fic is a short scene, In This Moment (Word of Honor). Along with A Moment in the Sun (Word of Honor), Joyous Moment (Silmarillion), and A Moment of Respite (Silmarillion), it was written as part of a bunch of short shippy ficlets for![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
nerdyjellyfish for Trick or Treat, just a box of sweet little treats. I do love Trick or Treat so much for its low word count minimum; it's one of the exchanges I'm always excited about every year.
Then, the only Junzhe fanfic I managed to write this year, For Real This Time, for the DZZS Server Exchange. I like the way it turned out, but it was tough to write. This whole year has been a hard time to be writing Junzhe fic. I have so many thoughts and ideas burning a hole in my head for them, but it's been difficult to get them onto the page. Maybe 2023 will be kinder to Junzhe fandom, and most importantly, to Zhang Zhehan.
And now, my Innumerable Stars story, A Cup of Tea and a Message from Beyond the Sea. I really loved this one; it's so delightful to get two characters talking and see what comes out. In this case, Elwing and Gandalf really do have a bit to talk about, and it was so much fun to weave through Gandalf's thread about trying to learn how to act like a mortal rather than a Maia. I think also, I wanted to write Elwing as contented, settled, matured, and happy with her life. She has regrets, but she's old enough to realise that her younger self didn't have much in the way of choices, and what's done is done.
My Bëor/Finrod magnum opus for the Tolkien Reverse Summer Bang, Give Back the Gift, is pretty low down on this list, perhaps less popular than it deserves. It's a sad story but with hope sprinkled throughout, it's bittersweet but I hope not heartbreaking. I didn't put any smut in it but I do want to write a couple of smutty/shippy side stories at some point. I wrote it while struggling with my mental health and I think it impacted not the story itself but the way I dealt with the story afterwards; I didn't really promote it properly. But despite that, I've had a lot of love from readers, and I did my best to write a story I've been wanting to write for years, so I'm happy with it.
Lastly, there's two stories I wrote for The Untamed, Stay Forever, and Close Together. I'm not surprised at all that these two aren't super popular; both involve rarepairs and unique scenarios, as requested by my exchange recipients. I, however, am very happy with them both, and would definitely prefer to both read and write more rare ships and different takes than any Extruded Fic Product(tm) that this fandom in particular seems to be so very fond of. (It's the curse of fandoms that are very mainstream and large, sadly.)
Next year, with a little effort, I'm pretty sure I can top a million words total on AO3; I'm about 73k out from that now. In terms of fandoms, definitely going for more Junzhe and Wenzhou, more Hualian, more Silmarillion fic of whatever kind, some rarepairs, maybe some rarer fandoms, maybe some Star Wars, maybe that long long overdue sequel to my Truce of the Games Space AU. Or maybe something original that I'll try and publish, who knows?
I wrote 13 stories in 2022, ranging from over 8000 words to just 224.
My most popular story this year was Heart In Paradise, a modern AU for Hua Cheng/Xie Lian from Tian Guan Ci Fu (Heaven Official's Blessing). I'm not a modern AU sort of person at all, but I really like the way this one came out. There is SO much background research; you should've seen all the work I did trying to figure out if my setting details were appropriate. If there's one thing I worry about, it's that I feel the setting did end up a bit vaguelandia, I was trying for China but I didn't want to set it in a specific city in case I got the feel entirely wrong. But in my heart the story is set in Shanghai.
Next in popularity is Release from Bondage, also a TGCF fic, but this time for Quan Yizhen/Yin Yu, my favourite secondary ship from the book. I adore Quan Yizhen as a character; he's such a wild card to play with. An adorable fluffy puppy of a person with zero shame and zero mouth filter. And his relationship with Yin Yu just intrigues me so much!
Then, the story that will probably come to my mind if I were asked sometime in the future what I wrote in 2022: Ten Thousand Years of Love, a Wen Kexing/Zhou Zishu story for Word of Honor, my longest fic this year. This was one of those sheer indulgence fics on my part; I gave them everything I wanted to see for them, kadianed every section by writing either 511, 1129, or 1640 words in each one, and posted it on the anniversary of the first episode of Word of Honor airing in China. I love WenZhou so much; they've grabbed hold of my heart in a way I haven't experienced in years. Such a glorious couple, such a wonderful show!
Fourth, another indulgent fic on my part: Find Home, a crossover story featuring Maglor from the Silmarillion, and Hua Cheng from TGCF. These two needed to meet, and I thought it would be so nifty if Maglor's sword ended up in Hua Cheng's armoury as a gift for Xie Lian. There had to be a fair bit of balance in this story; they needed to find common ground, and they do in their similar definition of what home is. Also, Maglor's power impresses Hua Cheng, but it's his honesty that wins him over.
My next most popular fic is a short scene, In This Moment (Word of Honor). Along with A Moment in the Sun (Word of Honor), Joyous Moment (Silmarillion), and A Moment of Respite (Silmarillion), it was written as part of a bunch of short shippy ficlets for
nerdyjellyfish for Trick or Treat, just a box of sweet little treats. I do love Trick or Treat so much for its low word count minimum; it's one of the exchanges I'm always excited about every year. Then, the only Junzhe fanfic I managed to write this year, For Real This Time, for the DZZS Server Exchange. I like the way it turned out, but it was tough to write. This whole year has been a hard time to be writing Junzhe fic. I have so many thoughts and ideas burning a hole in my head for them, but it's been difficult to get them onto the page. Maybe 2023 will be kinder to Junzhe fandom, and most importantly, to Zhang Zhehan.
And now, my Innumerable Stars story, A Cup of Tea and a Message from Beyond the Sea. I really loved this one; it's so delightful to get two characters talking and see what comes out. In this case, Elwing and Gandalf really do have a bit to talk about, and it was so much fun to weave through Gandalf's thread about trying to learn how to act like a mortal rather than a Maia. I think also, I wanted to write Elwing as contented, settled, matured, and happy with her life. She has regrets, but she's old enough to realise that her younger self didn't have much in the way of choices, and what's done is done.
My Bëor/Finrod magnum opus for the Tolkien Reverse Summer Bang, Give Back the Gift, is pretty low down on this list, perhaps less popular than it deserves. It's a sad story but with hope sprinkled throughout, it's bittersweet but I hope not heartbreaking. I didn't put any smut in it but I do want to write a couple of smutty/shippy side stories at some point. I wrote it while struggling with my mental health and I think it impacted not the story itself but the way I dealt with the story afterwards; I didn't really promote it properly. But despite that, I've had a lot of love from readers, and I did my best to write a story I've been wanting to write for years, so I'm happy with it.
Lastly, there's two stories I wrote for The Untamed, Stay Forever, and Close Together. I'm not surprised at all that these two aren't super popular; both involve rarepairs and unique scenarios, as requested by my exchange recipients. I, however, am very happy with them both, and would definitely prefer to both read and write more rare ships and different takes than any Extruded Fic Product(tm) that this fandom in particular seems to be so very fond of. (It's the curse of fandoms that are very mainstream and large, sadly.)
Next year, with a little effort, I'm pretty sure I can top a million words total on AO3; I'm about 73k out from that now. In terms of fandoms, definitely going for more Junzhe and Wenzhou, more Hualian, more Silmarillion fic of whatever kind, some rarepairs, maybe some rarer fandoms, maybe some Star Wars, maybe that long long overdue sequel to my Truce of the Games Space AU. Or maybe something original that I'll try and publish, who knows?
