Yuletide Reveal
I decided not to sign up for Yuletide this year: part depression, and part a late default last year (hint: do not sign up for Yuletide if you are going to be moving out of your apartment in December and then overseas the third day of January).
I did add myself to the pinch hit list, figuring I might write something if The Perfect Prompt caught my eye.
The Perfect Prompt never appeared, but I found myself taking a late pinch hit on December 23rd, to quell the anxiety that always comes the first couple of days of reacquainting myself with my numerous in-laws. It was a dumb idea, it caused some friction between T. and me when I wasn't finished by Christmas Eve dinner (which in his Sicilian family starts at about noon and goes until Midnight Mass, practically), and it was one of the most affirming things I've done recently. I have not thought of myself as a "Writer" since high school, and I have not really even thought of myself as a "writer" since then either. Going to a difficult university and focusing on a technical, scientific subject felt like it burned all the creativity out of me, or channeled it into other arenas (like improv comedy and handcrafts and RPGs--two of which are still story-tellers' activities).
But despite not writing regularly, I strained and researched and sweated and got a six hour extension through 1,021 words. In the end, I was mostly satisfied with my work (although all three of my Yuletide fics could have used a few days to rest and then a good beta--the perils of a pinch hit), and had an enormous amount of fun.
That fic was There Must Be Other Rivers, an xkcd 1190 (Time) fic for
ladysorka.
I am not entirely sure whether I succeeded with the tone--translating the sparseness of an incredibly slow-motion webcomic epic/movie into text is difficult. I wished at least five times that I was at home, where I have my old Ecology of the Mediterranean textbook. I wished even more frequently that I had more time and better references on catastrophic ecosystem change during the Messinian salinity crisis and subsequent Zanclean flood. Randall Munroe had months and months as well as extensive consultations with colleagues to create his geography and ecosystems. I had thirty hours and a sketchy BBC site on modern plants and animals of the Mediterranean. Fortunately, I am an ecologist by training, so I made guesses.
T. listened to each scene read aloud as I wrote it. He is an ungracious editor and I am an ungracious editee (especially from my perfectionist spouse), but I rewrote scenes when he said they were too on-the-nose or that the dialogue didn't make sense, and he listened and encouraged and cuddled around me while I wrote, and literally held my hand through parts of the process.
It was incredibly, enormously fun.
And I have not felt as excited and proud of anything recently as I did when someone from my flist left kudos on my work. :D
*
Then, because I am an idiot (or a genius), I picked up a last minute urgent pinch hit at 11:45 PM on Christmas Eve, and pounded it out by 2 AM.
The result was La Belle Laide, a Twisted Princess (Disney Fanart) story about Beauty & the Beast for
opalsong. The foreshadowing was crappy and T. thinks the dramatic tonal sentences stop meshing with the linear narrative about half-way through. It also completely ignores the Disney Beauty & the Beast source that the fanart draws from in favor of all the Robin McKinley I have ever read.
I had fun. :D
*
Finally, there was a story that I started as soon as I saw the pinch hit on the mailing list on December 23rd--and then I didn't get the pinch hit. There Must Be Other Rivers consumed all of my time, so I didn't get to finish it (time for a New Year's Resolution!), but I posted the bit I had written as a Treat in Yuletide Madness and it got a positive response. This one came easy through the combination of a lyrical goldmine of a song, a storytelling goldmine of a music video, a lot of idle Googling--seriously, I pretty much Googled something between every sentence, and my Old Testament/Hebrew Scriptures class, which a: has me reading a lot of ancient writing, and b: has a wonderful textbook that touches on a lot of comparative Caananite and Egyptian religions of the time (the textbook is John C. Collins's Short Introduction to the Hebrew Bible).
Scars, a "King and Lionheart" - Of Monsters and Men fic for
strix_alba.
I do intend to continue this as a NYR fic.
*
In the end, Yuletide did for me what it's probably supposed to do: woke up the writer part of my brain and got me excited about writing again. I'm going to try to write a NYR fic each month this year, because why *not* write small fandoms ALL THE TIME and give people random presents?
In conclusion: OMGWTFYULETIDE!!!
(
comments at Dreamwidth. Comment there.)
I did add myself to the pinch hit list, figuring I might write something if The Perfect Prompt caught my eye.
The Perfect Prompt never appeared, but I found myself taking a late pinch hit on December 23rd, to quell the anxiety that always comes the first couple of days of reacquainting myself with my numerous in-laws. It was a dumb idea, it caused some friction between T. and me when I wasn't finished by Christmas Eve dinner (which in his Sicilian family starts at about noon and goes until Midnight Mass, practically), and it was one of the most affirming things I've done recently. I have not thought of myself as a "Writer" since high school, and I have not really even thought of myself as a "writer" since then either. Going to a difficult university and focusing on a technical, scientific subject felt like it burned all the creativity out of me, or channeled it into other arenas (like improv comedy and handcrafts and RPGs--two of which are still story-tellers' activities).
But despite not writing regularly, I strained and researched and sweated and got a six hour extension through 1,021 words. In the end, I was mostly satisfied with my work (although all three of my Yuletide fics could have used a few days to rest and then a good beta--the perils of a pinch hit), and had an enormous amount of fun.
That fic was There Must Be Other Rivers, an xkcd 1190 (Time) fic for
ladysorka.
I am not entirely sure whether I succeeded with the tone--translating the sparseness of an incredibly slow-motion webcomic epic/movie into text is difficult. I wished at least five times that I was at home, where I have my old Ecology of the Mediterranean textbook. I wished even more frequently that I had more time and better references on catastrophic ecosystem change during the Messinian salinity crisis and subsequent Zanclean flood. Randall Munroe had months and months as well as extensive consultations with colleagues to create his geography and ecosystems. I had thirty hours and a sketchy BBC site on modern plants and animals of the Mediterranean. Fortunately, I am an ecologist by training, so I made guesses.
T. listened to each scene read aloud as I wrote it. He is an ungracious editor and I am an ungracious editee (especially from my perfectionist spouse), but I rewrote scenes when he said they were too on-the-nose or that the dialogue didn't make sense, and he listened and encouraged and cuddled around me while I wrote, and literally held my hand through parts of the process.
It was incredibly, enormously fun.
And I have not felt as excited and proud of anything recently as I did when someone from my flist left kudos on my work. :D
*
Then, because I am an idiot (or a genius), I picked up a last minute urgent pinch hit at 11:45 PM on Christmas Eve, and pounded it out by 2 AM.
The result was La Belle Laide, a Twisted Princess (Disney Fanart) story about Beauty & the Beast for
opalsong. The foreshadowing was crappy and T. thinks the dramatic tonal sentences stop meshing with the linear narrative about half-way through. It also completely ignores the Disney Beauty & the Beast source that the fanart draws from in favor of all the Robin McKinley I have ever read.
I had fun. :D
*
Finally, there was a story that I started as soon as I saw the pinch hit on the mailing list on December 23rd--and then I didn't get the pinch hit. There Must Be Other Rivers consumed all of my time, so I didn't get to finish it (time for a New Year's Resolution!), but I posted the bit I had written as a Treat in Yuletide Madness and it got a positive response. This one came easy through the combination of a lyrical goldmine of a song, a storytelling goldmine of a music video, a lot of idle Googling--seriously, I pretty much Googled something between every sentence, and my Old Testament/Hebrew Scriptures class, which a: has me reading a lot of ancient writing, and b: has a wonderful textbook that touches on a lot of comparative Caananite and Egyptian religions of the time (the textbook is John C. Collins's Short Introduction to the Hebrew Bible).
Scars, a "King and Lionheart" - Of Monsters and Men fic for
strix_alba.
I do intend to continue this as a NYR fic.
*
In the end, Yuletide did for me what it's probably supposed to do: woke up the writer part of my brain and got me excited about writing again. I'm going to try to write a NYR fic each month this year, because why *not* write small fandoms ALL THE TIME and give people random presents?
In conclusion: OMGWTFYULETIDE!!!
(
comments at Dreamwidth. Comment there.)