Singing in the Dark

This year I left my job at the start of July as by May I had come to terms with the fact that actually I was pretty miserable at it and it likely was never going to get less stressful. This turned out to be a good thing because as part of the 'why is my heart rate bonkers' (which yes partially was constant work adrenaline) was also it turned out related to some medical stuff so I spent the majority of my summer doing health-fixing things and laying flat, which it turned out meshed up well with giving 9-1-1 a second shot (season 1 didn't do it for me, apparently I needed to meet Eddie Diaz to be sold hook, line, and sinker on this show). I'd hoped to have my life figured out and know what I'd be doing next by the end of summer, that emphatically didn't happen, but this fall I have been looking into other careers, talking to people about their work experiences, and figuring out what qualifications I might need for what I might want to do next (definitely not the field I've been in the last 7 years so...). I've been very grateful to my spouse for support through this process. I'm not entirely sure what's next, but I'm hoping to move forward on something in the new year (even if it's trying a workplace out and finding out it doesn't work and moving on to try something else [if folks will hire me]). We've also been thinking about the potential-child question so that's also at play in this as a consideration about what may (or may not) be next in life. So I've been a bit in a waiting place where I'm gathering lots of information, and trying to get myself together (particularly medically) so I can move on to the next phase of my life, whatever it is, from a good foundation.

Podfic

Podfic
This year I recorded 31 podfics totaling 57.6 hours. That’s more than twice last year and very related to the fact that I’ve been recording 9-1-1 podfics on the longer side (this number does not include the project I’m currently working on which is…another long 9-1-1 podfic). I recorded in 11 fandoms, primarily 9-1-1 which accounted for more than half of my podfics this year.

Most popular: Right in front of your eyes by rainbownerds by both hits and kudos

Personal Favorite: Evan Buckley & The Coma-verse of Madness by Daisies_and_Briars, I'm also particularly proud of the cover art I did for that podfic as it's the most complicated cover art I've ever made (I am very new to this cover art thing and not much for graphic design or whatever so in general as basic as I can get is how I go, but I was inspired to do something more complicated [at least for me] for this one)

What’s next (goals)
- Complete my current WIP
- Do at least one of the two BP fics from my topodfic list
- Continue to have cover art on all my podfic
- Continue to go where my fannish joy takes me and make as little or as much as strikes my fancy (save the above which I’ve already committed myself to)
- Maybe do VoiceTeam? [since drafting this post I took part in VoiceTeam Mysterybox, so I guess I can check that off the list, but also will leave it here as encouragement to maybe do so again in the future, as it was less stressful than I was worried it'd be]
+/- Additional goals thought of during VoiceTeam that are possibly pipe dreams:
- Get all my stuff duplicated to SquidgeWorld so I have diversification from everything being solely on AO3 (need to look into if I can get a script to do this)
- Get all my stuff backed up onto the audiofic archive (need to look into if I can get a script to do this - this would probably require me having access/mod/some sort of status in order to upload things)
- Try doing something with accent work? I suck at accents and so I'm scared to try bc I feel like I'll sort of inherently be offending people, but I can't figure it out if I never try... (but maybe I do things and don't share them? Or do them and share them with tags and warnings that I'm not trying to be an asshole and folks shouldn't listen if they might have issues with my lack of skill, but trying anyway to practice). But like listening to the murderbot audiobooks I'm like 'that, that's what I want to be able to do as a next level in podfic'.

Completed goals
- I hit ‘read more fic so I find things I want to record’ out of the park
- I also definitely went where my fannish joy took me and made as much as struck my fancy which this year was a lot (though I have had more productive years in the past hour wise, but who cares, I’m going with my joy so these numbers are good)


Vids
I made first or final drafts of a total of 21 vids this year. 10 vids were already at first draft in December of last year and had a final draft this year. 9 vids I did a first and final draft of this year. And I have 2 vids in-progress at the moment at first or middle draft status.

Fandom wise I had 9-1-1 (8), Beyond Evil (3), Semantic Error (2), Burning (2), Little Women (2), Chicago Typewriter (1), Eternal Yesterday (1), Kabe Kaji Nekoyashiki-kun Desires to Be Recognized (1), and Reset (1). So that reflects coming off Beyond Evil fannish focus from the end of last year and heavy on festivids, then working on one-off vids for small sources which premiered at summer Cons, before a lag while watching and then clipping all of 9-1-1 before getting into clips-on-a-timeline status for 9-1-1 this fall. Working in DaVinci Resolve has made me more willing to make one-off vids when inspired (normally I’ve only vidded a source if I had multiple ideas for it).

Personal Favorite: I had a lot of vids I’m really pleased with this year. In my current feels I guess I’d pick ‘Firehouse 118’ for the warm fuzzy emotions of it all.

Viewer favorite:
YT - Fixerupper
AO3 - Loathing

Most fun: Odds Are - this song is great (and has been well vidded accordingly) but it’s just so perfect for 9-1-1 as a source. This was the first 9-1-1 vid I made and this vid idea is what convinced me I had to clip the source. I deeply appreciated that this show provided me with both a shark and a meteor (and all the lightning).

Vid w/ sexiest moment: Every time I get to use Buck’s ‘hand on belt hips forward slide towards Eddie’ from their conversation in his kitchen (which is in Odds Are and At Your Pace).

Hardest to make: The Last Thing had a frame rate issue in one episode of the source that was in every possible version of the episode I could get (I checked), so that was annoying. I think I worked around it okay though playing with speed and timing (and also minimizing use of clips from the problem episode).

Things I learned this year: I started using clean credits to make masks for on-screen credits for the first time this year! (9-1-1 why you gotta put credits on all the important stuff!)

Goals:
- another collaboration w/ sandalwoodbox (we exchanged a lot of beta and support but no collabs this year)
- Make at least the 3 other 9-1-1 vids I have planned
- Send vids to VidUKon and Fanworks - not sure what other Cons I’ll be up for but I definitely want to keep those two as virtual attendance staples.
- Keep growing diversity of my music collection but also listen more to songs of artists I've liked so I can be familiar with them/know them well.

Completed goals:
- I made both my Jae-yi vid and my Jeon Seoul vid!
- I made a Kabe Koji vid
- I did vid more women (see first line), but also with 9-1-1 ensemble and some vids which are headed to TGIF/F 2024.
- I continued seeking out and listening to non-white artists in my general music consumption, but the actual songs I wound up using for vids still were a majority from white artists (often songs I've liked/been aware of for quite a while) so I need to keep working on broadening my music horizons but also re-listening to things I've found that I've liked by artists of color is also important bc it's not just knowing of an artist it's being very familiar with their music that makes me likely to remember/use a song.


Fic
I did not sign up for Yuletide this year because it felt like too much pressure and I didn’t have anything I wanted to receive strongly enough. But I decided to set myself the goal of writing more in November (which is better than ‘nothing at all’ that I’d been previously doing) and was able to write two Yuletide fics for a total of about 5k words. That’s not much, but I did it because I wanted to not because I had to and that seemed nice. Maybe I’ll be able to keep it up. When I start a new job I expect that writing will be the first thing to go again, so I’m not making any goals here, other than writing if I want to and feel like it.