The Almost Series Completion Post

I’m kind of dorky and love playing with stats and all that, so bear with me as I do my…

Fic Post Mortem!

First post: July 16th, 2007
Final post: August 6th, 2013
Six years and twenty-one days.

Word count:
Almost Clark – 75,918
Almost Chloe – 60,633
Almost Lois – 81,213
Almost Partners – 181,413 (yikes, that part became more involved than I planned)
Almost Whole – 136,110
Almost Friends – 90,310
Almost Lovers – 179,197
Final series word count: 804,794

Hit counts as of now:

Kryptonsite:
Almost Clark: 52,580
Almost Chloe: 38,280
The rest (aka Chlois and Clark, awful title, blah, blah): 268,160 (as of this moment, 53,632 if divided by five books)
Full hit count: 359,020 

Blogger (only counting the views on chapters with actual content as the intro posts have high views, but probably only from people coming back and catching up):
Almost Clark: 12,241
Almost Chloe: 4,481
Almost Lois: 4,958
Almost Partners: 5,735
Almost Whole: 3.673
Almost Friends: 3,306
Almost Lovers: 4,640
Full hit count: 39,034

Between both: 398,054

Note: Obviously, those are all just as of now. In both, some of those hits are my own (except the blogger ones as I set it not to count my hits) and some are repeat readings. 

I’d take the time to divide it all by chapters to get a reader base idea, but it wouldn’t be accurate as I know I started out with way more readers than I finished with due to the stops and starts and the fear this fic would never end. It’s more how you end and if you kept their interest that counts. To wit…

As of the end, I have about 150-200 hundred readers on Ksite, 5 of whom comment religiously -- you know who you are.  -- and 60-115 on Blogger going by chapter view counts (four of whom comment religiously), so I’m guessing my reader base is about 262 people by the end with a 4% commenters and 96% lurkers.

Awards:

Not all stories were eligible for the awards last year and it was only going by the ones written during the eligibility period, so it’s only the last two books. Almost Lovers was only 5 chapters in by then, so no surprise on it not being nommed. But the Almost Friends segment was nommed for Best Chlark and Best Completed. I didn’t expect it to win either or even run-up (and it didn’t) as it was probably the least exciting period in the story. It was a building period, really. But color me surprised when this series won Best Series. I think it was just handed it because people could see it was a monster with so many words. Just for sheer perspiration. 

My feeeeeelings:

I feel like I grew a lot as a writer and matured a lot as a woman during the time spent writing this and other fics. Sometimes, I feel embarrassed at some of the style and annoyed at some of the gender politics in early parts of this fic, but it grew as I did, as the characters did with me. So it feels fairly organic by the end.

There were times when I wrote something and thought “how the hell do I resolve this sh*t?” But then I sat down and just did it and tried to make it as realistic as I could (for the kind of story it was, obviously). 

Met Vista was definitely a swamp once I stepped into it. I remember thinking that those people had been missing for months. I couldn’t have Lois and Clark just find it out and rescue everyone before anything happened as something HAD to have happened by then. Then I thought of how interesting it would be to check in with each couple. It was tough, putting them into something that turned out so dark and hard to resolve, but by the time I got in there, I knew I had to see it through. In retrospect, it may have been better to simplify the story and have that be a whole other fic. But it had so many elements threaded throughout it that ended up being important by the end.

I had a very rough outline of what was going to happen for that section (and my outlines are very rough, some funny lines written ahead to give me a treat to look forward to and then stuff like “somehow, people get rescued and stuff”), but I never knew just how much it would take to plot it out, bit by bit, or how things would end up. I knew I wanted Lois and Linda teaming up with Bart as the sort of underestimated heroes of the day, but the technicalities of getting there were a lot of work. 

I also, as I said before, indulged myself quite a lot as in “I want to write THIS” and then just goddamned doing it. Linda’s “oh-so-secret” pregnancy was fun for me, Clark working with Sawyer and Turpin was fun for me, I liked giving Lois a possible love interest, then a friend outside the gang in Pammie. I mean, there’s so much crazy that I just wanted her to have someone normal (also plus-sized. There are too few plus-sized characters that aren’t just comic relief). I had a blast writing this and it’s practical, too. I kind of think that, in my romance novel endeavors, I have quite a few choreographed sex scenes and sexually tense scenes I can use.

On that note, I am likely not going to pull a 50 Shades and erase my fanfic from the net and remake it as a “real novel.” I’d like to think I have enough of an imagination to write something fresh without resorting to that. I have three novels in the old noggin so far. Can’t wait to give them more attention, but I have promised fics to work on first and I put them first for now because, I can’t say this seriously enough:

Fic is important in and of itself. It’s not a means to an end and thinking of it that way kind of takes the joy out of it. It’s a safe place to grow and nurture a love of telling stories. It’s not a completely selfless act as the writer gets to grow throughout and see the benefits. But there is a beauty in it as it has no tangible reward. It’s just fans sharing their love for what was and what could have been.

And I just want you all to know that I never would leave a fic unfinished for any reason (other than my untimely death, obviously, as that would be hard to help) because, as I said above, fic is important for the writer and the reader. And none more so than the fics for ships that didn’t happen in canon.

Sometimes I think ships that didn’t happen often attract the most passionate and dogged writers simply because they didn’t happen. The people that wanted to see them come through have a drive and a focus on getting their idea of “here’s what could have happened” out there so they feel that, in a way, it did. And they give that back to readers that also wanted a glimpse into what could have been. 

That’s what this fic was. This fic was, start to finish, like most fics, something I wish had happened. The fact that it didn’t happen in canon stopped mattering some time ago as it’s all fiction in the end.

I’m mostly proud of this fic. I just wish it had been more succinct as I know the sheer length of it made people drop off before the end and would make newcomers leery of starting it now. I’d love to have more readers (and more comments) as it’s the only wages you get in fic. But that’s mostly my own fault for playing around so darned much.

But what’s done is done. I’m proud that I worked through and resolved things and saw it through to what I feel is a satisfying finish. 

The minute I wiped her memory and did a sort of reset to Supes canon, I knew I'd lose people. But it's where I felt I needed to go and I had every intention of getting her memories back, but I wanted to give her time to get there and I wanted to do the work necessary to get her back there with a healthier, more well-adjusted mind.

And I knew that would be no fun without our duo having some investigative adventures along the way. 

So I indulged myself. I put them under cover, I created new characters, I brought in Intergang and Granny Goodness, I gave Lois a love interest outside of Clark, I just played around quite a lot. I always knew I wanted to bring Lana back as a sort of unwitting villain of the piece as the person behind Grady's sudden rise to prominence. At the time, I thought she could be like season 7 Lana, fostering meteor freaks and patting herself on the back, thinking she was helping Clark by doing so. But it didn’t seem like quite enough for her to do. 

It wasn’t clear until Met Vista started and I thought of that kindly faced female doctor Lex brought in when Lana had her “miscarriage.” How creepily subversive could she be? Then I thought of Helen and how she was never fully explained and how interesting it would be to have three women, all trusted by Lex at one point, screwing with him and using his base of work to further their own sick projects that they were convinced were better or more noble than his, while doing just as much, if not much more, damage. 

Some of that was about creating sympathy for Lex and some of that was about showing that not all villains are obvious and they don’t start out intending to be villainous.

But I never took my eyes off the prize and never stopped helping Clark/Superman become the man I wanted him to be. That was a lot of the reason for the powers loss (which wasn’t really a loss, just a mental block). I didn’t feel like going into his training with Jor-El in depth during Almost Chloe. SV’s Jor-El was kind of boring to work with as he wasn’t a full-fledged person and has to be boring as all hell to interact with. 

I liked the idea of Clark leaning on his JL buddies (and a few of my OC’s ) to retrain himself and kind of getting the picture about how amazing they are and how much they rally behind him, how he doesn’t even know how important he is. They hammered it in a few times, but I still don't think he ever will get it.  As much power as he has, I never want him to be conceited about it.

Anyway, I’ve worked hard, so I’m going to list some of the things I’m proud of in this fic in no particular order: 

Bringing Martha Kent back to Smallville: I’m a big Parks and Rec fan and have often thought of Leslie Knope while writing Martha—not as a person, just the situation. Leslie Knope always talks about wanting to be the first female POTUS, but I think she will always love Pawnee too much to leave it. And I would be perfectly happy with the last shot of Parks and Rec being Leslie finding contentment as the mayor of Pawnee, the ultimate representative of what she feels is the best town in the world. 

I think Martha, for all she could achieve, is content knowing she could have it if she wanted it. But she doesn’t. She wants to be in her son’s life and she wants the town she adopted to stay an idyllic and beautiful place. I wanted to find the balance between the lone widow from other canon and the politician from the show and I feel like I struck it in the end. By the way, you just know there’s a Mayor’s office in her future.

Murray Takamoto: Every time I think of bringing in a new character, I try to think of DC canon and who I can use. I searched and searched for a Star Lab’s guy to help Supes with his costume that didn’t turn into a villain and came across this barely-known guy who worked with one of the Blue Beetles. I really enjoyed fleshing him out and bringing him around now and then as a kindly presence.

Thomas Hart/Nicodemus: As I said above, I like mining DC for overlooked characters and also liked having him as a possible intro to Gotham later, should I ever use it (though Intergang can help with that as well). I enjoyed the challenge of giving him a little villainous origin.

Helen Bryce: to have her end as just after Lex’s money with all the work the show seemed to put into her (before they discarded her) seemed so hollow. I’d much rather she was a dedicated scientist who was after his research. Seemed cooler.

LINDA! I didn’t want to go Chlois by killing off SV’s Lois. As much as I didn’t see her as my ideal Lois Lane, I kind of liked her flippant ways and lack of filter and finesse. I often thought that, if she had just any other name, that she’d be so much fun to write. Because I loved the Chlo-Lo relationship when the show actually gave it attention and pointed out that these women had a history and connection and loyalty to each other. I also loved the words I could make come out of her mouth. She’s very fiercely protective and fun and so barely impressed with this hero world. I’ve counted more of her lines and moments among the ones that echo in my head long after they’re written: offhand, her calling Wonder Woman “Flag Day,” her hugging Lois and telling her she “gets all the gold stars,” her barely flinching at deciding to help Chloe hone her powers in Almost Clark, that moment when she took over by Cottonwood Creek in Almost Chloe and never broke down until it was over. She’s been a rock throughout this fic and an absolute pleasure to write. 

There’s more, but that’s all I can think of right now.

But I'm most proud of my final chapter because, through all of it, the biggest and clearest thing in my mind, all along, was this scene to come. I’ve typed in bits of dialogue from it for years. I knew that these two had to come back to that room in Maine, older and wiser and altogether different people than they’d been the last time. 

And I’m so overwhelmingly grateful to those of you who stuck with me all along, through all the stops and starts and kept me going with your comments. 

This isn’t a perfect fic and I know I lost readers along the way, wondering if it would ever end. But quite a few of you were there for every bit of it and don't think I'm not grateful.

Love you guys!!!!!