writing year in review [2024]

[hyojungss]

> see previous years here
> spans jan 1, 2024 - dec 30, 2024

# OF AO3 FICS: 3 (▲1)
# OF AO3 WORDS: 4.3k (▼12.0k)
# OF DW FICS: 0 (▼5)
# OF DW WORDS: 0k (▼4.4k)
# OF TOTAL WORDS: 4.3k (▼16.4k)

WORK SUMMARY

SVT/PRISTIN 1 (=)
OH MY GIRL 1 (▲1)
ITZY 1 (▲1)
LE SSERAFIM 0 (▼1)

-

17HOLS, DREAM GIRLS FEST, ORIGINAL 0

✧

learn how to face it
yubin/jiho, 1731
ggjb round 4, march

i know you get déjà vu
seungcheol/nayoung, 1582
igff 2024, july

as I watched you
chaeryeong/ryujin, 1001
ftr disc two, july

LINES

favorite closing line(s):

learn how to face it

Yubin sighs. “Every year that goes by I know less of what to say to you.” Her uselessly sentimental heart barely knows where to start. Thank you, or I’ll miss you, or—

Jiho places her hand over Yubin’s. “It’s okay. I already know.”

favorite lines from the other two:

i know you get déjà vu

The article went into some detail about how they’d met ages ago during their groups’ promotions, which in those early days always seemed to dovetail like it was fated. It was kind of romantic when you put it that way; and it wasn’t some anonymous source telling them that they’d met through a ‘mutual friend’. Everyone knew better than that, anyway. Nayoung wasn’t learning anything she didn’t already know, reading this. It was just some kind of morbid curiosity she was trying to sedate.

Nayoung lied flat on her couch after that and tried not to think about anything.

as I watched you

It was honestly better for a girl in her circumstances not to think about those other possibilities. Any modifier you wanted to add would make it even worse. An aspiring idol in her teens who couldn’t stop thinking about another girl. A girl in her twenties who didn’t know how to stop dreaming.

QUESTIONS

looking back, did you expect to write more fic than you thought you would this year, less, or about what you’d expected?

less!! i didn't have any delusions about last year's wc being representative of what i'm capable of but this year was somehow worse than 2022... i think 2024 involved a lot of content consumption for me, which was probably very helpful for my work-life balance, but i'm too prideful to just sit here and be happy about that, you know? i still can't get over the fact that i didn't fill a single prompt for the ficathon last winter. but trying to write was like squeezing that last little bit of toothpaste out of the tube.


events you participated in this year:

> girl group jukebox round 4
> inter-group fic fest 2024
> for the record fic fest disc two

no 17hols and no dgf. and because i didn't even write for it, no ficathon!! the good thing is that 2025 will have 17hols and likely dgf although i really should have started planning for dgf by now... T____T i love to participate in the indie (ie. f/f and het) fests but i have to consider if it is Value Adding.


your own favorite piece from this year:

learn how to face it, not that there was much competition, and it's not perfect, but it conveys exactly what i wanted out of the story, with the help of the commentary. these days i'm thinking a lot about how easy it is for losers to plagiarize writing, and i can't help but think it would be pointless to read that fic devoid of its identity as a gone girl jiho tonyang omgeol post-renewal fic. that makes me even happier... i don't care if there are less than ten people on earth that fully understand the context!


fic recommendations from this year's reads:

starlight by lachrymosy
suzy/jinyoung

two remixes for the mountains unfurl by elliebell (Naladot):
Stars blow down in showers by miissedappointments,
& if you, if i by fractalkiss
wwjn

Island in the Sun by miuyi (rainiest)
jngchl

Blood in the Water by ions
f1 c2

yet again, the jugular by pursuit (iverins)
f1 3110

honorable mention to Fish in the water by miuyi (rainiest) which was of course already on my 2020 favorites list but released chapter 2 in 2024!!

GOALS

2024:

goals:

write f1 fic in some capacity (500 words is acceptable!)

use more incisive language - if not metaphorical, use key moments to spell out feeling in contrast to the ambiguity of the rest of the fic

lean into toxicity in the context of character study

january 2024 risa don't make me laugh... what i have realized is i haven't written a fic of length from a "male" perspective for a long time. i think it's just hard these days to project onto men. thematically most of my writing is about aging and not meeting your goals and loneliness and incompatibility and i don't really think rps svt or f1 have a lot of these stories in a way that i care to talk about. but you know what... there's exceptions to everything!

so i don't really think i accomplished any of these goals as written but the intention of the goals stayed with me throughout the year, and i think they were useful.



2025:

goals:

don't post things you aren't happy with

this is essentially the contrapositive of a goal from 2022: "be happy with everything that you post". i think it's a really important challenge for me because year on year my unhappiness comes from seeing half-baked work on my various pages, and i don't like taking things down because i still see value in them, and as a reader or watcher i'm always sad to see something i like taken down just because the creator didn't think it was perfect. but i generally struggle to believe that posting nothing is better than posting something when it comes to events or "providing" niche fic. i need this to drive my writing instead of the idea of having posted something specific, and i want it to push me to put more effort into what i write, and to have more patience with it.

everything really comes down to my ego. but at the end of the day, why would i do anything that i do if not for that, right!

Comments

[sleepyshamrocks]

ok we SHOULD revive dgf for real.....re:your 2025 goals i similarly struggle with feeling like everything i post on ao3 has to be "worthy", but i think that the practice of writing just for the sake of writing helps me overcome the itch of perfectionism, plus it's like the writing equivalent of going to the gym even though you don't like it/can't see the incremental gains you're making yet. that's why i like participating in dw fests (and rarely/never crosspost those fics to ao3), it feels less like portfolio building and more like...exercising a muscle (and having fun with it!). tldr let's do dgf again lol.

also i like your color scheme!

[hyojungss]

going to dm u about dgf right after this :D i like your gym analogy so much... and i definitely think dw fests help a lot with the feeling of getting to write without it "counting", towards stats or whatever just because the expectation of measurable engagement is so much lower.

[lachrymosy]

You are brilliant and talented 💕

[hyojungss]

ellie that's you!!

[liptinted]

i really like your 2025 goal, it's giving me something to think about as well. i find it a lot easier to readily try to swallow the notion of being proud with finished output because it always seems to be the admirable thing to do.. #self-affirmations and positive talk by trying to protect and nurture what you wrote. but it was always accompanied by the simultaneous pressure to continue working on the next thing and push that out--at least for me personally, it kind of felt like the next thing i finished would absolve whatever dissatisfaction i had with a previous work? it's a kind of impatience that drives it, and admittedly that's not pushing me anymore, i think. your 2025 goal is interesting because that would need a lot of patience, like you said and i would love to get that back too <3

[hyojungss]

your perspective is interesting! i think it's admirable how much you're able to write and now i have more context for it... personally i have so much pride these days but not really the skills to deliver on it so i think all i can do is preserve my legacy and not post additional badfic LOL...

thank you for commenting!! i hope we can both write with motivation this year :)