My Five-year Sherlock Anniversary!

My five-year Sherlock anniversary!

In my busyness with my upcoming move (6 days now!), I completely forgot to mark my fifth anniversary of having started to write fic in this fandom! I’m almost a week late! On June 15th, 2013, I posted the first chapter of my first Sherlock story, Resurrection. I’d been out of any fandom activity for over three years and in a way, it felt like my own resurrection, the resurrection of my identity as SilentAuror, of my “other” life, etc, and I was hella nervous about it. I had no idea if anyone would read my story, since I was a complete nobody in the Sherlock fandom. I’d had a massive readership in my Harry Potter days, but didn’t know if any of those folk had migrated over to the Sherlock sector (in happy news, some had! Big wave to you guys who’ve been reading my stuff since back in 2003!!!). I had formerly written over 1.4 million words of fiction in HP, so starting from scratch in a whole new fandom universe was a bit daunting. Back in the old days, we used to say that “a day on LJ (livejournal for you wee ones!) is like a week in the outside world”. I’d been gone for three years, so you can imagine how different the landscape looked! No one was on LJ anymore and the old archives I’d traversed were all ghost cities. Meanwhile, fandom had migrated to tumblr and ao3 was were everything was happening. It was wild. 

Since that time, I’ve now posted over 1.92 million words of Sherlock fiction (well: 4 of those are Freebatch, but it’s Sherlock-adjacent!) in 79 stories, with an 80th en route. Between them, my stories have an average of 16,700 hits, 1,014 kudos, 318 bookmarks, and 322 comments, and 2,254 currently voluntarily receive an email to find out when I’ve posted something. I still absolutely boggle at that, that anyone has subscribed to me that way! It’s really, really incredible. My most popular story remains, far and away, Best of Three, which currently has 104,861 hits, 686 comments, 1,933 bookmarks, and 4,502 kudos! You guys absolutely blow me away. 

On TOP of that, as if having my stuff read and generally (ha! There are always exceptions to keep one humble! Well, exceptions and haters, lol!) wasn’t enough, some of you also donate to the humble cause of keeping me clothed and fed and generally alive, which is beyond anything I ever could have expected, particularly in the summer of 2016 when I was hit with an unexpected and rather devastating financial crisis. I won’t embarrass (or expose!) any of you, but let me just say thank you, yet again. Some of my closer friends here beat me about the head with metaphorical sticks for not mentioning it more often (you know who you are, lol), so here it is: if you’re simply dying to become a monthly supporter of mine through Patreon, follow this link. If you’re more of a one-time donation sort and want to do that, you can find me on PayPal through silentauror@yahoo.com. This isn’t a request, to be clear: this is just me putting it out there for those of you who have the itch and good will and means to donate! You guys are beyond amazing, and if it helps, I believe wholeheartedly in karma and hope that it will come back around for you in ways beyond what you could imagine. <3333333333333

If you follow this blog but haven’t read any of my stories and would like to start, but aren’t sure where to start given how many there are (people do occasionally mention this as a deterrent!), I’ve just updated my Guide to (My) Fics! People also often ask what my favourite of my stories is, and I really can’t answer that one without listing half of them. (But really quick, in no particular order, I would HAVE to mention these, at the very least: Against the Rest of the World, Vena Cava, The Wisteria Tree, Bridging the Ravine, The Book of Silence, The Impossible Word, Right Hand Man, Love Is, The White Lotuses, A Case for Domestic Propinquity, The Unfinished Letters, Flesh and Blood and Bone and Heart, Scars (heed the warnings!!)…) You see what I mean. Impossible.  

It’s a bit poignant to me that the five years of my living in Québec (which started on June 1st, 2013) ties in so closely with my life in this fandom, but don’t worry - while I am moving away next Wednesday, I have every intention to go on writing stories about Sherlock and John for the foreseeable future, muses permitting! The Johnlock cookbook project is underway (recipes specifically from my fics!), and my sequel for The Book of Silence is now 16,800 words in and still going strong, and I have other stories planned for after that! It’s actually a great comfort to me to have the anchor of a story that I’m knee-deep in to help me transition from one place to another! Meanwhile, huge, huge thanks to any and all of you who have read my stories, whether you started way back with Resurrection or jumped in at any point since, whether you’ve read one fic or all of them, and for following me here on tumblr, for being my friend, for sharing the love of these characters and the actors who play them, for all of the discussions and all the rest of it. I love you guys and I’m hugging you all right now. <33333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333