Yuletide
OMG THE BEEPING MAKE IT STOP
I came into lab today to discover that the building's cold rooms -- all of the building's cold rooms -- are not cold. There was some power failure... somewhere... so they are above their normal temperature. Unfortunately whatever failed does not also control the power to the goddamned temperature alarm, which is beeping, and which is behind a locked piece of plexiglass (lest someone accidentally turn off the cold room's power) and the beeping won't stop and I can see the "alarm override" switch and I can't touch it and please please let the beeping stoppppppppppp...
*dies*
Anyway, the Yuletide authors have been revealed. The story I received was Yes, Virginia by Raven, set in the universe of Connie Willis' To Say Nothing of the Dog. The story is awesome and captures the tone and feel of the books perfectly. Plus there are terse, gay Swedish time travelers. And Ned and Verity are postdocs worried about funding. With fiber-optic sheep. What's not to love? I think this is my life, actually, only with slightly more timelag.
The story I wrote was The Ambush in Steven Brust's Draegarean universe, and my recipient was delurker, who wanted Vlad and Morrolan, post-Issola. I'm not entirely happy with what I wrote -- it was written under the gun because I'm a horrible procrastinator, and could have used a fandom-specific beta for sure. I realized after the assignments went out that I did not, as I had thought, own all the books in the series and that I could not actually remember what, precisely, Vlad had done to be forced into exile, which is kind of a major plot point in the series. However, I did find a wiki for the series which was pretty helpful in writing. Anyway, the conflict and the ending are a bit rushed and I may try to "fix" the story later on... but I did stick to my outline, which was:
I. A problem arises.
II. Forces are gathered.
III. There is an argument about what should be done.
IV. A plan is hatched.
V. There is a brief flurry of action.
VI. There is a meal.
And that is all you need to write a Dragaeran universe story. :S
Speaking of meals...
I came into lab today to discover that the building's cold rooms -- all of the building's cold rooms -- are not cold. There was some power failure... somewhere... so they are above their normal temperature. Unfortunately whatever failed does not also control the power to the goddamned temperature alarm, which is beeping, and which is behind a locked piece of plexiglass (lest someone accidentally turn off the cold room's power) and the beeping won't stop and I can see the "alarm override" switch and I can't touch it and please please let the beeping stoppppppppppp...
*dies*
Anyway, the Yuletide authors have been revealed. The story I received was Yes, Virginia by Raven, set in the universe of Connie Willis' To Say Nothing of the Dog. The story is awesome and captures the tone and feel of the books perfectly. Plus there are terse, gay Swedish time travelers. And Ned and Verity are postdocs worried about funding. With fiber-optic sheep. What's not to love? I think this is my life, actually, only with slightly more timelag.
The story I wrote was The Ambush in Steven Brust's Draegarean universe, and my recipient was delurker, who wanted Vlad and Morrolan, post-Issola. I'm not entirely happy with what I wrote -- it was written under the gun because I'm a horrible procrastinator, and could have used a fandom-specific beta for sure. I realized after the assignments went out that I did not, as I had thought, own all the books in the series and that I could not actually remember what, precisely, Vlad had done to be forced into exile, which is kind of a major plot point in the series. However, I did find a wiki for the series which was pretty helpful in writing. Anyway, the conflict and the ending are a bit rushed and I may try to "fix" the story later on... but I did stick to my outline, which was:
I. A problem arises.
II. Forces are gathered.
III. There is an argument about what should be done.
IV. A plan is hatched.
V. There is a brief flurry of action.
VI. There is a meal.
And that is all you need to write a Dragaeran universe story. :S
Speaking of meals...