Favorite Bits From the Year

From Defying Gravity (G, humour):

"MAJOR! IF YOU'RE NOT DOWN HERE IN FIVE SECONDS, I'M PUTTING YOU ON REPORT!"

From this distance, it was difficult to tell exactly what Carter said, but it definitely didn't have the proper, respectful tone due to a superior officer. Jack sighed, and gave in, staring up at his 2IC along with the rest of his team.

"You know," he said, "If someone had warned me that Carter was going to grow wings, I'd've expected something more Tinkerbell than... Batman."

---

From Decree Nisi (PG-13, Jack/Sara):

The new place is nice, although there's a month of pure blankness, a month he can only remember moments of, later, before he realizes this. He stands at the kitchen window with a mug of coffee, fraying his socks on a crack in the wooden floorboards, and thinks distantly that Sara would have liked the house, but would probably have thought that the trees shaded the garden too much. She likes sunshine on grass. She'd have got him to cut them back – well, she'd have said he should get a man in to do it, and he'd've insisted he could do it himself, and they would have argued, perhaps playfully, perhaps not, depending on how they were feeling, and ultimately she would have let him make a botched job of it, and brought him ice-cold lemonade whilst he worked, exaggeratedly swinging her hips and blatantly ogling his bare chest.

She'll never look at him like that again, half amusement, half desire, but she let him take the microwave.

---

From Out Go The Lights 2: Actions Speak Louder (PG, Sam/Jack):

"You're probably wondering what the hell I'm playing at," he tried, hoping she'd start talking sometime soon, and intercept the foot he'd got headed for his mouth. What were 2ICs for, after all, if not to prevent their commanding officers from making idiots of themselves?

Any time now, Carter.

"Yeah. So. About the-" He gave a wave of his hand, meant to encompass the whole grabbing-her-and-hustling-her-into-an-alien-storage-closet experience. "It wasn't – I mean, I didn't – I didn't expect – I wasn't..." Oh dear god make it stop. "It's not-"

"Did you want to tell me something, sir?"

Oh thank Christ. "Er... tell you something?" No. Not really. Talking hadn't been high on his agenda when he'd bundled her in here. He'd mostly been thinking he might kiss her until her lips fell off.

"Something... secret?" added Carter, raising her eyebrows and looking significant.

Ah, no - no, he was pretty damn sure he didn't want to tell her anything secret. "Well, er, I, that is..."

"Something pertaining to our mission, perhaps? Something you couldn't tell me in front of the others?"

"Oh!" Finally, the penny dropped. She was offering him an excuse. Oh, she was good. She was the best 2IC he'd ever had. Not that he'd had her, obviously.... argh! "Yes. I wanted to... to warn you. To watch out for... bad... stuff."

Oh good grief.

---

From Not Dark Yet (But It's Getting There) (PG, Sam/Jack-ish):

The nausea recedes, thankfully, and the headache has been a permanent fixture for the last few days so he's learnt to ignore it. He glances sideways at Carter, and realizes with a jolt that she's crying, silently and unselfconsciously. Her face is tilted up to the light, brows contracted and mouth turned down, the tears washing pale paths down her grubby cheeks. They have to get out of here, though: now is not the time for either of them to break.

---

From the sappy kidfic with no title (G, Sam/Daniel):

"Jack," said Daniel, with exasperation. "What have you been feeding Ben?" The boy was giggling delightedly, making zooming noises, as Teal'c (with exasperatingly good abdominal strength for someone nearly a century old) swayed him through the air.

"Cereal," said Jack, shrugging innocently, at the same time as Vala said, "Oatmeal," Cam said "A bagel," and Teal'c said, "An apple," and the child in question yelled, "Popcorn!"

Sam and Daniel looked at one another. Daniel shrugged.

"It'll be Teal'c he throws up on," he said, philosophically.


Substantial Works in Progress I Intend to Finish Sometime

The Valentines series (which has been going since 2006, ffs), my apocalypse_kree fic, and the reel_sg1 fic (SG-1 crossover with Labyrinth),


My Favorite Stories of the Year:

Heart Of Glass (PG, Jack/Sara), because (thanks to a prompt from vickyocean) it got me started on Jack/Sara, and it became a pairing that I find strangely emotionally appealing.

Out Go The Lights 2: Actions Speak Louder (PG, Sam/Jack), because I feel it's what I do best – funny and romantic.


My Best Stories This Year:

Decree Nisi (PG-13, Jack/Sara). Although I do feel that I could improve it – and I may revise it sometime. But I still feel that it was one of my more 'grown-up' stories, and it had an emotional arc that felt right, and some lines of which I was pretty proud.

Not Dark Yet (But It's Getting There) (PG, slight Sam/Jack). It was brief but very vivid, and I felt I managed to get across a strong sense of the physical sensations, and that worked.


Stories most under-appreciated by the universe, in my opinion:

Well, honestly, I'm always thrilled by the feedback I get – it's usually much more than I anticipate. I guess I could say Ambition (the Mens Rea remix), but it was a ficathon fic, and they seem to get less comments sometimes – plus I didn't really pimp it on my own lj, so it's not that I feel it was under-appreciated, more that it was under the radar.


Stories I Wrote That I Never Thought I'd Write:

All To Myself, Alone (NC-17, PWP, humour). Auto-erotica, ahem. Really never expected to write that.

And, well, pretty much any pairing involving Sam or Jack that isn't Sam/Jack. Of which I've written Sam/Cam (badly), Jack/Felger (crackily), Sam/Teal'c (chickenshitly), Sam/Makepeace (bad!Sam-ly), and Jack/Sara (seriously).


Most Fun Stories:

All the jack_built ones – that was strange and fun to be part of the madness. And the Sam/Daniel kidfic ones that I wrote with abyssinia4077 – I enjoy writing with other people – the evolution of a universe that way is such a lot of fun.


Sexiest Stories:

All To Myself, Alone, I guess – I don't really write sexy stories. Oh, maybe the second spacepirate one – although it's more funny than sexy. But it involves leather.


Hardest Stories to Write:

I had the hardest time with my two remix fics, Those Eyebrows-! (Methods of Governance remix), and Ambition (Mens Rea remix). I didn't want to screw up with someone else's plot. Plus, with both, I was writing something new to me – for Those Eyebrows-!, I was writing Cam and Daniel friendship, and I find Cam really, REALLY difficult to write. For Ambition, I was writing AU bad!Sam, trying to keep it close to the normal Sam but slightly twisted. They were both challenges, and involved a lot of research and plotting and thinking and timelines. I was pleased with what I ended up with for both.


Easiest Stories to Write:

All the crackfics. They come naturally. Go figure. :) Particularly Defying Gravity, which just seemed to appear.


Favorite...
Sam Carter: The ALTERNATE Alternate Universe - a wee ficlet that made me realise how much I tend to view Sam in the light of who she's paired with.
Daniel Jackson: Stepping Into The River - a Sam and Daniel friendship fic, and Daniel just seemed to start talking.
Jack O'Neill: Decree Nisi - Jack surviving the loss of Charlie on his own (pre-team, post-Sara leaving him), in the year after Abydos.
Teal'c: Tiggers Like Everything - this is (damn) pretty much the only Teal'c fic I've written this year. I love it, but it's probably more of a Jack fic. I love the friendship between the two of them.


Looking back, did you write more fic than you thought you would this year, less, or about what you'd predicted?

Way, way, WAY more. Although once I got started, it came easily, and I wish I'd got a few more finished.


Did you take any writing risks this year? What did you learn from them?

I did a few things that I'd not done before – porn, pairings other than my favourite, fics with (gasp!) no pairing whatsoever... I've learnt that I can write stuff beyond what I naturally gravitate towards, and that actually, I tend to enjoy the results more when I push myself beyond my comfort zone.


Do you have any goals for the New Year?

Loads of fanfic goals. More Teal'c fic. I'd like to write a Teal'c/Jack fic, actually. Finish the ficathons I started, and some of my WIPs. A Sam/Daniel fic without the kids, actually trying to write them as romantic partners. A Jack/Daniel fic, just to throw people. A Cam/Vala fic, because they're cute and I hardly ever write either of them (perhaps after I've finally seen season 10). A more serious Sam/Jack fic, because I always write them as cute and funny. Follow-ups to several of my fics.

Plus I want to focus on writing some original fic. And I'd like to go to a con or two.