Time to celebrate!

[dizzydrea]

I am woefully behind in posting here, I know, but I just did a quick check on AO3, and almost came unglued.

Here it is, ladies and gents, my first fic to reach 50 Kudos and 2000 hits! /does a happy dance in her chair/

When I wrote Unpretty Today, I had no idea it would resonate so well with the fandom. It was the first time I'd written a genderswap story, so I was naturally apprehensive. How was I going to take a male character and write him as female without losing the essence of what makes that character who he is? Turns out, it's not as hard as I made it out to be. It is, of course, romantic in nature, because as everyone knows, I'm a romantic at heart. It also features a somewhat less popular pairing (and yet, though we lovers of Nick/Renard are few, we are mighty). And much to my surprise, the story spawned a prequel, and will, quite likely generate another, which I haven't written yet. Color me surprised.

And, in a bit of a shocker, I've also experienced my "fastest to 1000 hits" story, as well as the fastest ever to 50 Kudos (it sits currently at 49, but as I just published it a couple of weeks ago, I'm fairly positive it'll get to 50 shortly).

The Superhero Girlfriends' Lunch Club was a lot of fun to write. I really have no idea where the idea itself came from, other than to say that I thought that the women who love our favorite superheroes would probably form fast friendships because they all live with and love very similar men (yes, they have varying personalities, but the challenges they face are quite the same, in that they are regularly called on to save the world). It grew from a simple few scenes in which our girls would bitch to each other about the men in their lives, until it was over 6000 words of fun. Of course, since it's me, Coulson lives. Also, because this story wasn't quite finished when the previews for Agents of SHIELD came out, Don't touch Lola also makes an appearance.

What I am most pleased with, regarding these two stories, is that they are both seeing some fandom love in fandoms that I love. It's nice to know that people enjoy what I write. It's not what keeps me motivated, though. I write for the love of writing; and I write the ideas that I'd love to read. But it warms my heart when other people find what I write of some value to them. I get a little grin every time I get an email from fanfiction.net or AO3 with a list of people who've favorited or left kudos on one of my stories. To me, it's validation, that I'm doing something right, and that even if we don't always agree about pairings or plot twists, we still all love the same fandoms for the same reasons.

So, kudos to me (heh heh). And if you haven't read either of these stories, go do it. Not because I wrote them, but because your fellow fandom fans are saying they loved them. What's better than a recommendation from 50 of your closest friends and relatives?