Year in Review

[mer_duff]

Because all the cool kids are doing it...

I started compiling this to satisfy my own curiosity, but it was an awful lot of work (procrastination), so I thought I might as well post it.

And I wanted to say how wonderful it was to have found such a great community of writers and readers. I'm not as involved as I'd like to be, but I still feel connected to people all over the world in ways I could never have imagined before.

In summary:
30 stories; 97,892 words - if work hadn't got in the way in the first few months of last year, I might have broken 100,000
Longest story: 12,983 words
Shortest story: 100 word drabble
Apparently instead of going on vacation last year, I wrote about House.

January:
The A-Z of House - 3936 words (including the headings, so I suppose I should subtract 78).

I stole this idea from emmastark, who wrote some of my favourite A-Team stories. All my best ideas come from someone else :) They're not quite drabbles and it's not quite a story, especially with the random Y thrown in (but D said it turned him on, so it stays), but I have a soft spot for it anyway.

Favourite line: House makes a note: the death of love presents in broken bones and ruined flesh.
Favourite non-drabble: U is for...

Burns - 634 words

Written on Burns Day while remembering the VRC's awesome Burns Supper. I think I was on a bit of a genealogy kick at the time as well - I'd noticed there was a James Wilson in my family tree, which made me very happy. Two weeks until this year's Burns Supper!

Favourite line not written by R. Burns: They stood silently, looking out at the grey January sky, words written two centuries before hanging heavily in the air.

February
Yard Sale - 100 words

Just a drabble written for Black Tuesday (aka Valentine's Day). Only notable in that I pillaged half of it for my last story of the year.

April
Loss - 6654 words

It was non-canon by the time I finished it and a little too emo-Wilson, but I posted it anyway. I'm glad I did, if only because nightdog_barks kept Tommy Linder from fading away.

Favourite line: “Are you comparing our friendship to a life sentence?” he asked.

May
Against the Current - 12,983

My longest story by far and my first for hw_fest. This one came about because I'd noticed that "Histories" and "Detox" were back-to-back (although I don't think that was the filming order) and it seemed to me the bet had to be connected to Wilson's memories of his lost brother. My first attempt at Wilson backstory - I think it will end up falling outside of my 100_situations universe, if only because I want another shot at the House/Wilson first meeting and Michael's disappearance. It gets way too sappy towards the end, but I still like it because I think it mostly achieved what I'd set out to explore.

Favourite line: Dead muscle didn’t grow back, whether it was in the leg or the heart.

House Rules - 2867 words

I've always been a little surprised by how well this one went over. I remember sending it to my mother to proof with a note commenting that it wasn't very good, but I was running out of time and had to post. I thought it was a little unsubstantial - I still think it is, but now I've realised that's not necessarily a bad thing.

Favourite line: Wilson is surprisingly entertaining for a man who wears a pocket protector.

June
A Single Light - 1922 words

This one was a rewrite of an old Starsky and Hutch story I'd written. I can no longer remember why I felt the need to adapt it to House-verse, and while I think it works better in House, it's still not quite there.

Favourite line: It wasn't a marriage, but it was a life.

Filling the Holes - 529 words

My first story for 100_situations. I'd been looking for a challenge community to kickstart some writing, and I loved the prompts in this table, but I'm still horrifed at what I've committed myself to :) The original plan was to write two stories a week and finish it in a year, but that pace only lasted a few weeks. If I finish before Hugh Laurie's contract runs out, I'll be lucky.

I think this is my favourite story, mostly because it felt like I'd created the start of something with it. This is my James, though I hope it's David Shore's Wilson as well.

Favourite line: Sometime during the past month he had grown taller than her and her body felt fragile under his hands; bones too prominent, skin too loose on the flesh.

External Signs - 1233 words

This was an extension of "X is for..." in the sense that I was playing with the idea of internal pain being reflected externally. And something creative had to come out of the number of times I've destroyed my big toenail :)

Favourite line: "You're pretty cavalier about parts of your body falling off."

Listen and Learn - 802 words

And this one was an extension of "I is for..." Or rather, it started out as a larger piece that I edited for "The A-Z of House." If House were actually social, I'm sure he'd be as obsessive about creating personalized playlists as I am.

Favourite line: "No woman will ever know you as well as I do."

Brothers - 823 words

My introduction of Wilson brother, the younger. One of my best friends at work went on maternity leave just as I was writing it, so I had babies on the brain. I have plans for Peter, I just haven't figured them all out yet.

Favourite line: He hunched over Peter, wondering if Michael was one of the big kids he had to protect him from.

July
After the Fall - 2115 words

And I killed Michael off, which could make things challenging down the road. But I'm less concerned by that than by the fact that I used a title that pwcorgigirl had already used for a far better story (and I thought I'd only stolen it from Arthur Miller). This one turned out a bit more ambiguous than I'd intended.

Favourite line: "And I push and pull at you, and one day I'm going to break you, and I don't know how to stop myself."

Going Home - 3045 words

House completely hijacked the second half of this story. The nosy bastard wasn't even supposed to be in it, but he insisted on following Wilson. Copyright to KF on the porn line. One day I'll let Wilson use his chocolate cake analogy.

Favourite line: "The kind that started at eight this morning," Wilson replied, somewhat surprised that the words "work" and "ethic" co-existed in House's vocabulary.

Whing and Dining - 2067 words

I deliberatley set out to write a funny story with this one and mostly succeeded, I think. Which begs the question, why do I write humour in the present tense? It was also an attempt to bridge two pieces of dialogue into one story. Except the pieces of dialogue were written sometime around 1997, so I find it interesting that it still seems to be relatively IC. I'm fairly certain David Shore wasn't hanging out at the Jolly Alderman in the mid-90s, but you never know...

Favourite line: "Neapolitan." (the rest of the actual sentence is superfluous)

Hallmark Moments - 500 words

Written for a housefic_pens challenge. I had more fun with the links than the actual writing, though tracking the lives and deaths of House's canes was pretty fun too.

Favourite line: "Nothing says I love you like a long, hard stick."

August
In the Big House - 4411 words

One of the few titles I actually like and I think my first time using a POV that wasn't House or Wilson. I wrote this one because of how much I loved their interaction at the poker table in "All In." Their dynamic reminds me a little of the one I have with K and D - I didn't use that here, but it might be fodder for the future.

Favourite line: It was just one of those dreams where you woke up still crying, or laughing, or wondering how you were going to get the alligator out of your basement when you knew perfectly well that you didn't have a basement.

Paying the Price - 2079 words

This was one where the prompt on the table drove the story (as opposed to the ones where I write the story and try to find a prompt to fit afterwards). I started it in present tense, which worked well for the choking section, but didn't work for the rest. Besides, it's not very funny.

Favourite line: "But it's Christmas all year round!"

Fresh Blood - 3094 words

My first Chase POV story. I realize Chase wasn't House's first fellow ever, but he was the first of the current batch, so I took some liberties with backstory. A friend of mine actually bought another friend that wonderfully obscene lighter in Vegas.

Favourite line: "You have to admit you have a record of going out of town when I need you."

September
Weight and Worry - 4059 words

Another young Wilson story. There's a lot of me in this one, probably too much, but more in action than emotion. Young James is far more responsible than I was at that age. I have plans for Trevor as well.

Favourite line: Obviously his mother preferred to think that her oldest son cared about school and her middle son wasn't an idiot.

Götterdämmerung - 1889 words

I blame the CBC for this one. It's a post-ep to "Cane and Able," but it was inspired just as much by Wagner-fest. What struck me most was a discussion about Brunnhilde as protector and destroyer. That seemed very House/Wilson to me (even moreso after this current arc). Still, it got a bit over-wrought and I'm not sure Wilson would ever express that much remorse, even if he felt it.

Favourite line: "I don't know how to separate the two."

Twilight - 1495 words

This was supposed to be a happy balcony story for purrla, but it turned out a little darker than intended. Still, Wilson wasn't in actual danger on the balcony this time... I spent most of a really boring field hockey game studying the sky at twilight for relative accuracy.

Favourite line: He looked up and searched for the first star of the night, even though any wish now would be superfluous.

October
Observer Effect - 734 words

This one was supposed to be a nice little fluff piece, but it didn't quite end up that way, even in my own bizarro world definition. The way that House tests Wilson in "Daddy's Boy" stuck with me - I figured he must have quantified his friendship with Wilson in his own Housian way.

Favourite line(s): House calculated the number of times Wilson had answered his pages and summons without question, subtracted every lie and manipulation, factored in the deliberate risks to career or marriage, and multiplied by each night Wilson had listened to him rave in pain and anger and despair. He came up with an answer that would stand up to any corroborating test.

Into the Fire - 7873

I like to put Wilson through the wringer as much as the next author, but I'm happy to leave the major bodily harm in nightdog_barks far more capable hands. But sometimes I just can't resist. The prompt. The prompt made me do it. Part of the baby conversation in "A Life Never Lived" started here, but it the angst was just getting a bit much, so I gladly cut it when I saw the Fest prompt.

Favourite line: "Are you worried about spotting?" he asked.

November
Things Unseen - 2401 words

Cameron POV - I was interested in the way the show was hinting that Wilson and Cameron talked off-screen. The title and my favourite line came about by accident when I realized that Wilson couldn't watch a sunset from the balcony in one story and a sunrise in another. It was a fortunate accident - there hadn't really been much of a point to the story before.

Favourite line: "Just because you can't see something, doesn't mean it's not there."

The Dog at your Command - 1300 words

Another drabble challenge from housefic_pens. I love drabbles - they force you to concentrate everything in such a small number of words that when they work, they're wonderfully intense. Not all of these work as well as I'd wanted, but some came out better than I'd hoped. I'm a little bitter, though, that I wasted one of my few good titles on an exercise.

Favourite line: But still he couldn't stop looking for the missing piece of himself in every woman he met.
Favourite drabble: Whoever it was that brought me here will have to take me home

The Essential Friend - 7172 words

In a way, this story is an expanion of "U is for..." I'd wanted to write about what House got out of the friendship, but it ended up being as much about why Wilson sticks around. The Foreman goes rogue section was lifted from a story that I'll never finish - it's slowly being cannibalized for other stories.

Favourite line: "Telling me that I'm an approval-seeking sycophant with bad fashion sense doesn't qualify as a staff evaluation," Chase retorted.

Lost Sleep - 4092 words

I wanted this one to be about House doing something nice for Wilson - but in a Housian way, since House and nice aren't really synonymous. It was supposed to be set some time after "House vs. God," but then it turned out Wilson was living in a hotel and it didn't work any more.

Favourite line: I just want it all to stop.

December
A Tune for the Taking - 7721 words

First of three for this round of hw_fest. Another example of "What was I thinking?" Three prompts seemed completely doable in September. Particularly since I'd had the idea for this one back in the spring after going to a drag show fundraiser (yes, everything in my life reminds me of Wilson and/or House). The prompt let me turn it into a story.

Favourite line(s): "He likes disturbing. It's why we're friends."

The Best Medicine - 4065 words

One of the few stories I planned competely in advance and then stuck (mostly) to the plan. As soon as I decided that it would be divided into encounters throughout the day, I jotted down a summary of the encounter and then struggled mightily to think of how they could be amusing. Tommy Linder made a reappearance, mostly because I wanted to show why Wilson had been so upset in "Loss" (still justifying myself 8 months later!).

Favourite line: "Not looking at you, not looking at you," Wilson chanted, fixing his gaze almost desperately on Cuddy.

A Life Never Lived - 5375 words

And the last story of the year. If I hadn't gone to a New Year's Eve party, I would have been editing this one until 11:59pm. I coveted the prompt as soon as I saw it - any excuse to torture Wilson emotionally. It bothers me slightly that it doesn't work with canon, and it could use some more editing, but it turned out better than I'd expected.

Favourite line: "I couldn't think of anywhere else I wanted to be."