Tag: febuwhump

Febuwhump 2022 Wrap Up

~ Liz Harrison ~ Leave a comment

February has come and gone, and with it was Febuwhump! This was my second time participating in Febuwhump, and I had a blast with it (even if I lost steam for a bit due to job search related shenanigans). I’m really happy with how everything came out. Please enjoy this quick little write up about the entire event!

As with my other challenge write ups, I’ll be following my Whumptober Wrap Up set up, to break down the event in a few different ways. I’ll be touching on some of my favorite fics, as well as the ones that did amazing.

Challenge Overview

Before we get into the major breakdown, let’s go over the full challenge.

Over the course of the challenge, I wrote 29 fics between February 1st and March 1st, 2022.

My total word count for the event was 35,376 words, focused on 9-1-1 and 9-1-1 Lone Star, with brief crossovers with The Old Guard, Criminal Minds and CSI:NY.

As it’s been a bit over a month since the end of the challenge, I’ll be putting up the top three for each section below. However, since there are some that are more popular than others, I’ll be noting the ones that repeat and then including the next ones until I have three fics per section.

Most Popular by Hits

To my upmost surprise, “Hidden Bruises” has been a fic that consistently gets hits and kudos every day. I was having a very hard time with the prompt for this one, if I remember right. I’m glad that people enjoy it, as it’s my requisite “Buck pushed himself too much #2” fic. 

Though the theme of the entire challenge is “whump”, I really wanted to do some lighthearted fics as well. “Accident Prone” is one of them, taking place in a nebulous time after Lone Star 3×04. Just having Carlos both worry over and tease TK was a balm my heart needed.

“Stumbling Out” was a little fic that I came up with at the last moment, as I had just had some bad work-related news. I don’t really remember what was my inspiration behind this, but it worked. I think it got popular simply because it was pretty current to the season.

Most Popular by Kudos

I already have talked about “Hidden Bruises” and “Accident Prone.”

I personally love “His (Head’s) Own Worst Enemy.” It’s probably one of my favorite fics I wrote during February, and I got to make a crack at the lack of care Buck let’s himself get during 5×06. Writing characters that can’t outright describe where they are due to injury is something I love doing, and writing Buck with a head wound is always fun.

All I can really say about “Please Don’t Go” is this. It’s very personal to me, because it’s some of the same thoughts I had when my father died. It was a dark time for me, and wow did it come out on paper for this.

Something I planned early on for Febuwhump was to have a fic with a character in a fever. I decided to place “Fever Guardians” early in Season One, simply because I was doing my rewatch at the time, and wow Buck has had some character growth.

Most Popular by Comments

“How Long? (Check the Clock)” was an absolute blast to write. I’d wanted to do a 5+1 for a while, and this just made it possible. It also helped with me getting over my issues with Chimney this season, and wow am I happy with how this came out. This is one of the best fics I wrote in 2022.

“Kidnapped Away” was an indulgence fic. I’d been quietly planning to write a 9-1-1 Lone Star / CSINY fic for a while now. This is the the beginning to a much larger fic that I really want to work on this year, once I get out of my writing funk. It got a good reception.

“Separated at Birth” is based on a fan theory that popped up right after the character Lucy Donato was announced, and I absolutely ran with it. I’m still happy with it, though the second chapter isn’t as good as I wanted it to be, due to the fact that I ended up rushing it. But it’s a fun non-canon fic.

Most Popular by Bookmarks

I already have talked about “Hidden Bruises,” “His (Head’s) Worst Enemy,” “Accident Prone,” “How Long? (Check the Clock),” “Kidnapped Away” and “Fever Guardians.”

Something I’d already planned on doing during the first part of 2022 was write the second chapter to “Rude Wake Up Call”. Chapter 2, called “After” was one that slowly came into being and just happened to work for this challenge. I’m happy with how it came out, and that it has hopefully set up a satisfying conclusion. At some point, anyway.

There’s a lot about Buck’s past that we have only touched upon, and “Cold Shoulder to Thanks” was a story that just poked at one of those times. (Seriously, it’s one of my only peeves with Buck Begins, as it’s more of a Maddie origin story compared to a Buck origin story…). I always figured there were reasons that Buck never stayed anywhere long until joining the LAFD. Here’s a fun answer as to why.

I have no real idea why I made “Misunderstanding on an Epic Scale” as crazy as it ended up being. I did go to Target that day, and I did have an argument with someone in the book section (but it was about me still wearing my mask, which apparently was infringing on this guy’s rights or some other nonsense…). But my brain got weird and this popped out. Go brain?

Length

I already have talked about “How Long? (Check the Clock).”

“Gettin’ Taken for a Hike” is the sequel to one of my favorite fics from Whumptober. I had a lot of fun with this, mostly because I really really wanted to do a sequel to the first fic. It’s somewhat annoying that it didn’t get as much love as I feel like it deserves, but fine, people are lame.

“Learning Boundaries” ended up being the latest in my Criminal Minds/Old Guard/9-1-1 series. I always gave fun adding new stories to it. This one was actually attempt number two, as I ended up having to set aside my first attempt because I completely messed up the timeline. I really enjoyed touching on some of the highlights of Season 3, but adding an immortal twist.

I absolutely wanted to do at least one Bob Evans fic, and “Falling on the Highway” was one of them. I was in a pretty angsty mood when I wrote this, but it’s one of my favorites. I really took the time with every part (and made a fun reference to my county while I did it!). I also put a lot of love in it, and I’m glad that people have read it.

My Favorites That Didn’t Get a Mention

Though I flat out will say that this fic is a bit of a mess, I still loved working on “All the Scars We Cannot See.” And dammit, I’m in love with the title, and I will fight people because of it. It’s a good fic about the consequences of words. (And, fun fact, it was always the fourth fic on each of the categories for above, once the already mentioned fics were removed per category.)

I absolutely had to write a crack fic, and “It’s a Pasta Hostage Situation” is absolutely that. It’s just fun, and I had a good time working on it. Oh, and I got Thin Mints for writing this, so it was absolutely worth it.

One of my other favorite pairings is 4 Alarm Fire, and thus “Burning Hot and Cold” was born. The title is a pun, but wow did I like writing this one. It was supposed to be a text fic that I quickly lost interest in formatting as such, so instead it because a full fic and I think it worked out better like that.

My other Bob Evans fic was “Untriggered Breakdown.” There was a joke running around the Discord was on that everyone was writing breakdowns for Buck and Eddie. So, this was my contribution. I also didn’t plan to write Bob Evans, but I’m glad it kinda happened all on its own.

And finally? “Clowns in School” was the additional prompt, affectionately titled FebuClown. I absolutely had fun writing this, because I got to bitch about Pennywise the Clown. I don’t like clowns, I actively avoid them, and wow was this fic therapeutic. 

Wrap Up

Febuwhump was a good show of my writing skills, working with prompts that I normally wouldn’t touch, pairings that aren’t well known or well liked in the fandom. For the most part, everything was very well received and it was a real confidence boost when I needed it. I’m taking a bit of a break from writing right now, for a few reasons. If things work well in April, I’ll probably get back to writing in a few days. (Provided that Lego Star Wars The Skywalker Saga stops sucking my soul in.)

If you want to read any of them, they are all up on my AO3 account! Just look for any that are part of the “Remy’s Febuwhump 2022” series. They are all in prompt order.

Until next time!

Febuwhump Update: FINALLY DONE!

~ Liz Harrison ~ Leave a comment

It only took until the early hours of May 8th, but it’s finally done.

Oh. Thank. God.

So, let’s recap, since it’s been a bit since I really discussed what the heck Febuwhump is. Febuwhump is a writing challenge that’s hosted on Tumblr. There’s a set amount of prompts, one per day, as well as ten alternative prompts for when you just can’t think of something. The challenge runs from February 1st through the 28th, with final posting supposed to be going up in the first few days of March.

And yet, I didn’t finish until May.

So what happened?

A couple of things, actually. One reason is that I just got burned out. I was trying to write longer and longer stories, and I just couldn’t finish in a day. So then I was trying to write ahead, and also post consistently on this blog, and stream on Twitch, plus do my normal duties here at home. It just became too much, and something had to give. So, I took a step back and took a breath.

Another thing is that I gave myself several unrealistic deadlines, then didn’t live up to them. The first was obviously March 1st, which I blew by. Then, I aimed for March 28th, so one month late. But by that point, I was knee deep in the 9-1-1 fandom and just burned out with The Old Guard. So, I figured April was a good goal, and aimed to be finished by midmonth. My goal was to have everything completed, then I was going to send it to be put into book form at an independent book printer (since this is fanfiction, and I wasn’t actually publishing it). I wanted to give my mom a copy of all the stories on paper, as she has trouble navigating Archive of Our Own.

And that didn’t work out as well, because I got stuck with three prompts left. Actually, it was only one prompt, which was the finale of The Immortal Genius, but that’s a gripe for another day. When I finally pushed through that barrier (almost five thousand words later), I just had two fics left, and those because love letters to the TOG community, as I decided to set back fully from the fandom until we get more sequel information.

That’s a topic for another day.

To get back to the story, I posted the last story on the afternoon of May 8th, and immediately set to work printing every story in a logical manner, before carefully putting them in a three ring binder and presenting it to Mom for Mother’s Day the next morning. (Yes, there were tears). And that almost didn’t happen, but that’s because my printer decided it wanted to take a ten to fifteen minute nap between every twenty pages. But I got it done and finished and now I can breathe.

So, let’s hit some statistics, because I honestly haven’t looked beyond just a quick glance at my nightly “You’ve Got Kudos!” email from AO3.

AO3 allows you to sort your top five fics in a few different ways. I’ll go through a couple of them, and then give a couple things I noticed on my own.

In terms of Hits, the top five stories (of 28 total) were “Poisoned” with 705, “Identity Reveal” with 588, “Who Are You?” with 577, “Hallucinations” with 555, and “Memory Loss” with 526 total hits. Fun fact, only “Hallucinations” is not a fic in the Immortal Genius series.

In terms of Kudos, the top five stories (of 28 total) were “Identity Reveal” with 73, “Who Are You?” with 71, “Burned” with 62, “Hallucinations” with 60, and “Gunpoint” with 58.

In terms of Bookmarks, the top five stories (of 28 total) were “Poisoned”, “I Didn’t Mean It” and “Recovery” all with 6, and “Who Are You?” and “Identity Reveal” with 5.

In terms of word count, the longest fic was “Recovery” at 4,825 words, which was the finale of the Immortal Genius series. The shortest was “Take Me Instead” at 269, which was an introspective look at Booker’s mindset during the beginning events of The Old Guard. I lost my train of thought on that one real fast, so it wasn’t a successful one.

The fics that I’m the most proud of, for a variety of reasons, were “Impaled” (because I went for comedy, and it made me laugh), “Mind Control” (because I wanted to see if a different explanation for Booker’s choices though TOG could have been different if he didn’t know he was doing the damn thing), “Buried Alive” (because at that point, the fandom had buried everyone but Copley, and it was his damn turn). “Betrayal” and “I Can’t Lose You Too” (where I delve into Nile’s relationship with her brother, and upon meeting him again, has to walk away. It’s heartbreaking.), and honestly “I Can’t Lose You Too” (which had me in tears as I got into the meat of the idea. It deals with death, and saying goodbye, and I was legitimately sobbing as I finished).

I’ll only mention it here (I have a whole post planned later), but I also really enjoyed where The Genius Immortal took me. What was initually just supposed to be a few short stories became ten, and I’m not done yet. Also, I managed to cross in 9-1-1 right towards the end, which means that sometime soon I need to sit down and get to plotting.

But yeah. Here’s a few more fun stats, because why not. I received 8504 hits across all twenty eight fics. More were on the first twenty, then it dwindled, which makes sense, as it was getting pretty saturated with Febuwhump stories on AO3. I had 59 bookmarks in total, as well as had 21 different comment threads across the stories. Some stories received a lot of comments, most did not. I’m totally cool with it.

Oh, and the total word count? 30,373 words. Here’s a quick fun fact. I joined AO3 in 2012 and ported over a bunch of fics that year, as well as all of my 1sentence challenge posts from LiveJournal. Most of what was posted was pre-2012. That year I “wrote” 17,056 words. Every year since? If I published anything on AO3, it never was more than about two thousand words total. In four months, I’ve almost doubled my AO3 word count. Four. Months.

And for the record? I just did that math while writing this post. My phone is on the calculator app on my lap. And I’m still kinda in shock.

So. Yeah. That just happened.

What’s Next? You might be asking?

Well, I’m taking a short break from writing. I got my second vaccine shot on Tuesday (edit note: this was mostly pre-written on May 9th, but edited to go up on Thursday, because I ended up feeling like getting hit by a truck), and I’m just taking a couple days to myself. I’m finishing my clean up of Lego City Undercover, and planning my run for Persona 5 Royal on stream either tomorrow or next week (I may push back, not sure). I’m about to start a good book that I’ve been sitting on (Good Girls, Bad Blood by Holly Jackson, sequel to one of my favorite books of 2020, A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder). And honestly? Taking a breath has been a good idea.

I’ll jump back into writing soon. And who knows? Maybe I’ll finally get back to a couple of my passion projects I’ve been sitting on.

Maybe.

Don’t count on it. 🙂

Until next time!

Back in the Grind

~ Liz Harrison ~ Leave a comment

At the beginning of March, I said that I had broken my writer’s block. And I had.

Kinda.

The thing is, I started writing again. But I wasn’t writing anything worth reading. Everything just felt… flat or boring or just plain not worth it. There were words on the page, but it just wasn’t clicking.

Back in February, I made a promise to myself that I would finish Febuwhump, even if it took me into March. And it did. Because as of today, I have four prompts left.

Because yesterday, after a damn month of writing and rewriting, and changing plots and fighting with characters, I finally finished Day Twenty Four.

What does that mean? Basically, I finally posted my twenty fourth prompt story onto AO3 yesterday afternoon. It’s part of my Old Guard x Criminal Minds crossover series, and it leads into the the ending of the series, though I have plans to do some other fics to fill in some of the gaps. The “natural conclusion” will hopefully be posted in just a few days, with prompt twenty six. Maybe. Unless I drag this out some more. Because I can, if I want to make myself cry.

There are only four prompts left: car accident, recovery, “I wish I had never given you a chance,” and “You have to let me go.” I’m working on the first one right now, with the second one planned (that’s the OGxCM fic). I’m not sure about the third, but I’m getting some ideas, and I have time. As for the last one… Well. it depends on if I want to make myself cry or not. I have two complete ideas. Heck, I may write both! One now, and then the other when I’ve completed the damn challenge.

I plan on doing a full write up of Febuwhump when I’m totally completed, which will hopefully be by this weekend. It all depends on how this goes when I work on tomorrow’s prompt, because that’s when things get long and detailed.

I will say this, this has reminded me why writer’s block is a fickle beast. It ebbs and flows. Inspiration comes and goes like the damn tide.

But I’m writing.

And I posted something.

So that counts for now. And I’m happy about that.

Until next time!

My Writing Challenges

~ Liz Harrison ~ 1 Comment

It’s been a long couple of days.

As I’ve said before, I’ve been working on a writing challenge called Febuwhump. Every day there is a new prompt and I’ve been writing a fic to go with it. Of course, the prompt list was released weeks ahead of February, but I wanted to further challenge myself and write every day. And for the first three weeks, I did just that! Sure, there were days that my fics were only three-to-five hundred words. Or I would post right before midnight, but I wrote something every day.

And then came Monday.

Here’s the thing. I try to write my blog posts the night prior to posting, mostly because staying home for a year has destroyed my sleep schedule. When I’m posting later than noon, it’s a day that I couldn’t pre-write, or I’m going freehanded because of something that is going on (such as the “wear-an-adult-mask” day from a few weeks ago). So on Sunday, I wrote my fic, then my 9-1-1 blog post. Then I went to bed.

And tossed.

And turned.

And got sick.

Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

I ended up having food poisoning, and spent nearly all of Monday in bed. I could barely read, I absolutely could not write. I didn’t get Monday’s fic up.

So, Tuesday was spent on damage control. I wrote that day’s fic, just so it would be done. Then I worked on Monday’s fic, which took most of the day, because it is was for my ongoing series, and I had a lot to pack into each story. I got it up right before midnight. I knew writing up today’s blog post wasn’t in the cards – I was feeling the writing burnout hard. So instead I watched the beginning of Season Three of 9-1-1 with a split of wine, then went to bed tipsy. (I am a fucking lightweight. This is why I don’t drink.)

Today, I was working on my fic when I realized that I’d completely forgotten about today’s post. So here I am now, completely changing my planned topic, typing as fast as I can string together letters.

And honestly? That’s what I meant about writing challenges. I didn’t mean Febuwhump or Nanowrimo. I meant about things that make writing difficult. The past few days are but one example of a writing challenge.

Another good example is writer’s block. I’ve discussed it before, but here’s the refresher. Writer’s block is when you are having a mental block in creativity. This could be professionally or personally. I’ve had years where writing was just not in the cards, due to stress or personal challenges. Heck, last year I barely wrote at all, even when I was trying to. I made a personal point to do Febuwhump, and I’m going to treat myself with two books if I complete the challenge.

Inspiration can be a major challenge to writing. This month has been an eye opener on how I write. I’ve realized that, while I can totally write with a prompt to use as a jumping off point, I can’t always make what I write fit in the perimeters of the rules of the challenge. Basically, I want things to be happy. Or I want to make prompts be funny, or “crack” as it is described in the fanfiction community. Trying to make everything whump is almost impossible for me.

Honestly the biggest challenge I face with writing isn’t writing based at all. It’s time. I’ll be the first to admit that creativity doesn’t really like being scheduled. There are days that I can write in the morning right after I wake up. And then there are nights when I can only focus between the hours of ten and midnight. Giving myself a time limit can usually work, but other days it’s what hinders my progress, because I’ll keep checking the clock instead of focusing.

And with that, there the time management issue. I can plan out 99% of my day, but forget trying to say “ok, I will write between the hours of noon and two.” I can guarantee you that I will not get anything done, then will scramble after a stream to finish.

As I’ve said, writing challenges are a thing. But you know what makes the thing better? Being able to conquer them. Which is why I’m pushing myself through Febuwhump. It’s only five more days (including today). After that, I can rest.

And then find another prompt week/month to focus on.

Until next time!

Febuwhump 2021!

~ Liz Harrison ~ Leave a comment

I’ve tried doing fanfiction writing challenges before. And I usually fail. Spectacularly.

In years previous, I’ve tried taking part in the 100Fanfic challenge over on LiveJournal (now a dead or mostly dead community), 1sentence (also dead LiveJournal community), and one that I set for myself (write a SRMT fic a day leading up to its release on Disney+). It’s not very pretty. The only thing that ever saw success was the twelve fics that came out of the 1sentence challenge. If you’re curious, you have fifty prompts and write a sentence for each prompt. Everything is focused around a pairing. It’s also one of the only things I still get kudos for on AO3.

In essence, I don’t do writing challenges anymore.

However. In October, a bunch of writers on AO3 did a challenge called Whumptober. 31 days of prompts, one a day. And a bunch of those fics were in The Old Guard fandom.

And I started thinking.

I wanted to really get back into writing in 2021. Thanks to the lovely pandemic, my writing enthusiasm has basically dropped to zero. But for some reason, I wanted to take part. I almost jumped into Whumptober, but by the time the itch hit me, it was already almost halfway through the month.

So I waited, figuring I’d have to just nick the prompts and do it myself. Until I saw someone on Tumblr promoting Febuwhump. It’s the exact same thing, just with 28 prompts, one a day in Febuwhump.

So. On February 1st, I started.

As of writing this post, I’ve written one a day for nine days. I’ve fought through insomnia and food poisoning to get each one done on time. I also am only working on each one on the day it is to be posted, instead of writing ahead (which is totally fine if you ever want to!).

I’m only writing in the Old Guard fandom, along side four other people.

If you’re curious about this challenge, here is where you can get the prompts and all the info about the challenge.

As for where to read my own stories, hop on over to my Archive of Our Own profile, or even into the series I set up here.

I’ll check in at the end of the month with my (hopefully) completed table of stories.

I will say one more thing. Some of the prompts are very dark and trippy. I’m trying to focus on the sad-then-happier type of stories, because I want some happiness. Others out there just head straight into sad-no-please-ville and don’t come back.

But, to each their own. Happy writing!

Until next time!