January 2018 – Anne-Maree Gray

I was talking to someone about me and not getting my work done, and I said ‘I have comparisonitis but I’m not comparing my achievements to other people, I’m comparing my work output to the me of a few years ago.’

I’ll show you. This week I got one of those reviews that make all creators happy.

I’M CRYING I’M GONNA MISS THEM THESE WERE MY FRIENDS OH MY GOD. But seriously this was so beautiful. I love the complexity of the relationship and the smut was *italian chef kissing fingers* but I also love that it was never out of place, they only diddlied when the time was right. Bella and Molly Swan’s similarities in being like “screw the system, I’m gonna do what I want”, also amazing. I LOVE EVERYTHING AND I’M GENUINELY UPSET THAT MY FRIENDS ARE GONE BUT THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR CREATING SUCH AN AMAZING PIECE OF LITERATURE. DEFINITELY MY FAVORITE. I’M GONNA GO MOURN THE LOSS OF MY FRIENDS NOW THANKS.*

How good is that? And I agreed (I always respond to fanfic reviews) that I felt the exact same way. I could not let these characters go because they went together so well, right from the start. They were solid; from day one.

It is for ‘Best friends share Everything’; my most popular fanfiction work. It’s just shy of three million hits. I have often asked myself what I got right about this fic. People tell me all the time, that they love it. And it was a really risky thing: three people, a permanent polyamorous relationship, m/m/f meaning the men have sex with each other as well as with the woman, the men are two secondary characters from the books, those men are rarely written in fanfic, and it covers an entire decade of their life.

At over two hundred thousand words it’s basically two novels.

There is no reason why this should be a popular fic. But it is.

I got something right. And to this day, I don’t know what it was.

Maybe that my love for these characters shone through? I don’t know. (In fact, I’ve asked reviewers what I got right.)

But it was 2012. As I often did, I wrote a quick sexy one shot and posted it on Jan 24, 2012. But people asked me for more. And I couldn’t let these characters go. I finished it Apr 21, 2012. What is that? Twelve or thirteen weeks for 208,077 words.

That’s nuts. I mean, that’s 2,250+ words a day.

And *whispers* that wasn’t the only thing I was writing at the time.

I reread one chapter that the reviewer commented on – I had honestly forgotten what happened in it – and I kept reading. I did one of those ‘hey, this isn’t so bad’ things. I head hopped a little. I noticed a few mistakes. But it was okay. And it was years ago.

I just need to stop choking myself. I published my fanfic and let it go. And I really need to get over choking myself over my original stuff. Good, bad, indifferent… it can’t even be read unless it’s out there.

*thank you LovingVillians

Links:

Best friends share everything

And listening – yes, I count audiobooks as books; who doesn’t?

I did aim for a book a day. I read 424 for the year but my stats break down like this:

Rating	number
5 stars – amazing	58
4 stars – really liked it	156
3 stars – liked it	96
2 stars – it was okay	61
1 star- did not like it	18
Did not finish	35
total	424

If you take out the dnf’s then I still make a total of 389, so I count that as above my target of 365. I have a giant Scrivener file that holds all my reviews. I even have a separate folder for boxed sets. I try to keep track of whether I’ve finished a whole box set. I have an estimated 180 of them. I also count a humble bundle as a ‘set’.

My cute Goodreads graphic looks like this:

gr 2017

… but it’s wrong.

Sherlock Holmes: The Definitive Collection of four novels and five short story collections – which I counted as ONE book – had 2,435 pages. And it clearly hasn’t counted it. I feel cheated.

If I had less works, I’d check the page total as well, but I can’t be bothered. And it counts audiobooks as none or single figures. See Charles Paris on the 1 page side? That book has 196 pages, but it’s been turned into a radio play and who knows how many pages that becomes after editing. More than one, at any rate. Plus, I read a few epic fantasy and they are always bigger than a thousand pages.

Goodreads, you are flawed.

It averages out at 182 pages per title. *shrugs*

I suppose it works out, as I do break boxed sets up into single titles, so that I can review each one. It’s hard to give a mark to a set that has varied works in it. Do you average them? That seems unfair to the good titles. You see my problem.

This year, I discovered library audio and ebook borrowing. Very dangerous indeed.

For 2018 I’ve set the target as 365 again.