Discussion 2017 Fanfic Resolutions

For 2016 I'm giving myself a T (for "troll"). I had seven goals, and I succeeded at accomplishing a small part of one and an even smaller part of another.

For 2017, I'm keeping it simple:

1. Complete my various WIPs,
2. Write all the challenges I have pending, some of them since 2015 (except the poetry challenge, which will take a looooong time to complete),
3. Keep reading and reviewing the fics of my favourite authors.
EDIT: 4. To reply to all outstanding comments I received on some of my older fics and rudely ignored until now.

There, that should be feasible. What, no?

 

2016: Made no resolutions, thus didn't fail in any. Did some commenting and a fair amount of beta reading, but no actual writing - except for the WIP fic-gift that I'm working on now.

2017:
1. Finish the Winter Fic-Gift, if it's not already done by the 1st.
2. Reply to comments on all the stories where I've let that slide for, oh, over a year. (Sorry, commenters! )
3. Compile my writing outlines and such on Notes (to start with). I'm not going to say finish it, but at least get to the point where I remember what I was even doing there.
4. Begin work on the five (yes... sigh... five) medium-length stories that I have been thinking about this winter. See if any of them are actually viable.

 

I did my DDC like I wanted, but I am not sure if I did any writing challenges. I think I did, but I would have to check the dates to see if they were written in 2016 or 2015. I noticed I didn't put down I wanted to do NaNoWriMo. My past self obviously knew how hectic this year will be.

2017
I foresee my 2016 DCC turning into a regular story for me to finish. I know this is going to be a super busy year, so I am going to forgo doing Part 5 of the story as a DDC and just finish up Part 4.

If I see any interesting writing challenges I plan on doing them.

That is it for writing resolutions. As for my personal resolutions, I want to finish school and get a full time job so I can send my oldest off to Michigan Tech (if he gets accepted, that is).

Congrats to everybody who completed their resolutions!

 

My goal for 2017 is to finish the trilogy about Jacen.
And take part in some competitions.

 

My goals for last year were as follows:

Hmm... I didn't make it to the end of part three, but I did make some progress, so maybe I'll give myself 1/2 on this one.

Well... I achieved this for a couple months, anyway, but with one thing and another I wasn't able to keep it up beyond that. So 0, I'm afraid.

This I did. 1.

Ditto this. 1. I need to check in there again soon, though.

0, I'm afraid. We were both just really busy with various other things. But there's always next year.

I did pretty good with this on the whole, so I think I can give myself a 1.

So that's 3 1/2 out of 6. Not stellar, but it certainly could be worse.

---

So, now, on to this year. I think I'm going to keep it down to just a few:

1. To continue making significant progress on my multi-chapter story, and specifically to make it to the end of part three. (Yes, this is exactly the same as last year's no. 1—don't judge. )
2. To administer at least two more challenges in the Fanon Thread, and to come up with some discussion topics.
3. To finally start that new thread with Ewok Poet.

(Please note that this doesn't mean that I will no longer be trying to keep up with reviewing, participating in challenges, etc. I will of course continue doing those things—just not as formalized resolutions. )

 

On the final day of December 2015, I made public the following resolutions:

1. Shame myself out of writing something for the 2016 Dear Diary Challenge. (It hardly matters whether or not anyone would want to read and/or comment on [identifying story details redacted]; even if the story I started for the 2009 challenge wasn't still tragically, and annoyingly, in progress, I am on record in at least one post as saying I won't allow myself to write any more multi-post stories, a decision I made years ago for very, very good reasons.)
2. Write two! entries on the previously mentioned diary.
3. And: that is all.

Well (to answer the question in the opening post) I shall put it bluntly: I did not accomplish my goals. Oh, I have zero for two, so I most emphatically did not. I did write something for the Dear Diary Challenge--and while I won't say that it wasn't worth breaking resolutions for, it remains, as the year's challenge ends, unfinished, and not even half-way done. But that can be a problem for 2017. And I think I may have opened the file on the 2009 diary once at the most.

However, I am not here merely to lament the above results, but to examine why--in particular--goal number 2 might have been doomed to its failure. It looks easy on the surface: I had only to write two relatively brief, 1000ish words at the most, entries. But it doesn't really work to make a quick dip into and out of a long story that one hasn't worked on, or read, in months; I would have to re-read, at the least, the last few entries to catch up to where I could commence writing, as well as going back to check on details while I write. And of course, that doesn't go into how I might contradict previous details that I wrote years ago, and no longer remember are there. If I ever do return to this story--and that is no certain thing--I might as well keep on writing towards the end.

So I don't have any resolutions for the rapidly approaching new year. And that, that, is all.

 

Pandora, it's hard to get back into an old story. Even one that you like and want to work on... someday. I know the feeling.

 

I don't typically make writing goals. I did last year and was only mildly successful. For this year, my goals are as follows:

1. Complete Knightfall I.
2. Get Knightfall II outlined.
3. Complete my non-Star Wars stories and get them posted.
4. Write the Leia story I have in mind. (Don't know when or if this will happen. Too raw right now)
5. whatever else I accomplish, I want to challenge myself.

Lofty goals, but doable if I can focus.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

Ahem, yes. I'm adding that one to my list too

 

Hookay. As per this post...

1. Complete both of my current longfics by the last third of the year (hopefully much earlier) and start posting their joint sequel, which is the best thing I have ever written.
Has not happened, because numbers two and three distracted me and, in general, I'm distractable.

2. Complete a ~26-chapter DDC.
Turned out to be 52 chapters with the 53rd as its epilogue. It kind of ate everything else, but it set the foundations to an entire universe of characters, places, beliefs and more. I'm proud of how it turned out.

3. Participate in the Fifty Titles challenge, which came just about handy for what I want to do.
As said before, I developed my idea further and assumed that it would not be fair of me to disrespect the wanted format for the challenge and go my own way, so I dropped. But the stories inspired by it are still going.

4. Complete all remaining 2015 challenge responses by March or so.
Did not complete the Movie Quote Challenge and I only got a decent idea for it this month. It will have taken me about two years in the end, but I don't care, it will be good. Did not complete the first Fanon Challenge, because I got lost in preparing a website for an event that did me more harm than good, but in the meantime, I found some cool old newspaper clippings that will help me make it better than it would've been back in April/May.

5. Complete reviewing all remaining things from my long list by March or so.
I still have 30-ish pre-2016 things to go through. But there is time...

6. Start and run the three interesting - two myself and one with Findswoman
The three interesting what? I hate it when I don't f



Anyway, none of these has been complete, but I'll work on them. I mean, we'll work on them. I mean, yeah.

7. Read an even wider variety of stories. Perhaps even *gasp* SONGFICS.
This has never been an issue. I am still behind (huh-huh, she said "behind") on Legends stuff because I can't mass-consume anything, but so I am on CW and Rebels, too.


So, in 2017, I resolve to get the prizes I owe to people done as soon as possible, and everything else remains open. But yeah, finishing all I have going on is probably a tentative resolution. I got myself to the point where I do have most things written, but it's not fair to my readers to update so many things at once.

 

If I am able to complete my current fanfiction, Ashes of the Phoenix, I will be more than happy.

 

Last year, I procrastinated on setting resolutions so long that I completely forgot about them and never set any at all.

This year, my resolution is simple: stop procrastinating and write. Something. Aside from the half-baked prologue to my failed Fifty Titles fic, I haven't written anything other than an occasional RPG post since last year's fic-gift exchange. I want to actually write some pure fanfic this year. I'm not picky how much, as long as I get something.

 

Yikes. Things did not go so well for the 2016 resolutions.

1. Flamed out after one entry.
2. Flamed out after one entry.
3. Hmm, I really should have been more specific, because it took me a while to decide what story I was referring to. But I think it's safe to say it didn't get updated even once.
4. Same as above as far as I should have been more specific. But I think I did in fact update that story once in 2016 (though not here on TFN).

I remember feeling weirdly motivated in January of 2016. A lot of that motivation had dried up by February. Still, I feel pretty okay about what I accomplished in 2016 - I wrote a decent amount, it just wasn't what I expected in January to be writing. In that spirit I just hope that in 2017 I write something. It doesn't matter what, I can't control the muse and am not going to try to, but if I can get some words on the page I'll be happy.

 

nm

 

Start back into Star Wars Fanfiction with my blending of canon, Legend, and my notoriety for crossovers.

My most immediate goal is write my first sentence on googledocs to start this story.

 

Hmm. Well, I normally avoid resolutions, since they tend to be so easily broken ...

But, I want to finish the AU NJO trilogy I'm working on before leaping about in said timeline (the second story is actually finished; the first, however, I started literally 8 years ago, and I kept spinning pieces of it off into one-shots, or getting distracted by other ideas ... )

That, and no timeline-hopping (at least, not without clear labelling that the other story is a different AU) ! I think I've infuriated a few readers by doing that, and I sincerely apologize.

Finally, no attempting to cram in every character and the kitchen sink. It's bad for characterization and just hard to keep track of, for both readers and myself.

 

I have only two resolutions and I already broke one. lol!

 

Didn't someone say something about the longest journey starting with a single step?

I've got one in the works, which I'm having a plot issue with, and bunnies for a bunch of others. My resolution is to finish at least one. Keep the bar low & easy to reach, LOL!

 

Truth. It's a Chinese proverb I think.

 

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step was said, I believe by Chinese philosopher Lao.

 

Thank you, JediMaster_Jen. I think I may write the first scene from the Wolfenstein part of my Star Wars/Wolfenstein/Kingdom Hearts crossover, since it's the one most immediately in mind at the moment.

 

Sooo...I don't know if I'd classify myself as a fanfic writer. Yes, I have witten a few short stories for an old group I was in called Red Squadron (based around the old X-Wing PC flight sim games) in which all of the characters were OC of our group members. Aside from that, and pretty recently, I developed an idea for an OB1 based trilogy (I was thinking films at first, but think a tv mini series or book (with 3 parts) could also work). It takes elements of official canon (new canon) and Legends and adds some speculation to tie TCW with Rebels with the OT with the ST. The spark of the idea came from something I read where someone hypothesized that Rey is somehow related to OB1.

I wrote up a very brief synopsis of each of the 3 parts of the story, with more detail in the first part. I then started "writing out" more of the first part. However, even though I've really wanted to write more, I stopped because I thought Rogue One or Rebels may "disprove" my idea. RO didn't, but the second have of Rebels season 3 may. So, I'm going to wait and see how Rebels plays out before I write more. I guess you can say that is my "fanfic resolution for 2017".

BTW, I've posted this idea on these boards. I call it "The Kenobi Connection". My thread got merged with another thread though, so my stuff is buried in the middle of the thread. http://boards.theforce.net/threads/kenobi-possible-spin-off-discussion.50020939/page-51
Mav Edit: The link above takes you to the Spoilers Allowed section of the boards. Proceed at your own risk.