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This year's Yuletide marked a year of fest craziness during which I branched out into more genres, pairings and fandoms than I'd anticipated, wrote some extremely rare characters, and drove my poor beta to distraction with my shameless flakiness. I should probably write a list of all the things I did to put it in perspective, but since that requires effort, I'll save it for when I don't have an essay deadline in two days.
Instead, I'll write about this year's Yuletide. This will make a lot more sense if you've read the fic, which can be found here.
This year, I prepared. This year, I didn't stumble across a reference to Yuletide in a fit of depression while half-way through eating a bag of fried insects. I actually nominated fandoms this year, and while no one wrote for most of them, it meant that I was actually keeping track of things. There was a level of organisation which was unprecedented.
This meant that this year, I signed up for fandoms I was more comfortable with and didn't panic over what my assignment would be. I still, miraculously, ended up with Discworld again - Monstrous Regiment, to be exact, because the tagging was different this year. Cool beans, thought I, reading through my prompt. This is awesome. I can totally do this.
So far, so good. Right?
I re-familiarised myself with the book. I read it during the painful, hour-long lunch breaks my employer has only recently started to give, and it brightened my days. I read Carpe Jugulum as well, for further Disc-vampire mythology, and whaddaya know - it mentions Borogravian vampire lore. (Incidentally, I not only got egg wash all over both of these books, but discovered that I am the only person in my workplace to have read them.) I got started, in a fit of enthusiasm, on a 'five times' fic that involved underwired nightdresses.
Now, if you clicked the link above, you know fine well that that's not what I wrote. So. What happened?
As mentioned in last year's version of this post, I have an attention span of roughly the same length as a mayfly's life. I left the fic. I got distracted. I failed.
I flailed about over my degree for a (very necessary) bit, wrote about five (six?) other fics for other fests and deadlines, did all the hours at work, and then worked my way back around to Yuletide only to discover that what I'd started was not the fic that I wanted to write. It's...not terrible, but it wasn't something I could continue. The moment had left me, and in its wake was the cold, sinking feeling of having to start all over again.
So I did. My prompt asked for H/C and vulnerable!Mal, so I gave that as best as I could. I thought about Strappi and the possible psychological effects of slowly losing your mind while trying not to eat the buffet surrounding you; I thought about Polly and her tough-as-nails attitude. I dragged in some references to Borogravian gypsies from Carpe Jugulum, drank a lot of coffee, and wrote.
I ended up with Faith, and you know what? I'm pretty pleased with that.
Instead, I'll write about this year's Yuletide. This will make a lot more sense if you've read the fic, which can be found here.
This year, I prepared. This year, I didn't stumble across a reference to Yuletide in a fit of depression while half-way through eating a bag of fried insects. I actually nominated fandoms this year, and while no one wrote for most of them, it meant that I was actually keeping track of things. There was a level of organisation which was unprecedented.
This meant that this year, I signed up for fandoms I was more comfortable with and didn't panic over what my assignment would be. I still, miraculously, ended up with Discworld again - Monstrous Regiment, to be exact, because the tagging was different this year. Cool beans, thought I, reading through my prompt. This is awesome. I can totally do this.
So far, so good. Right?
I re-familiarised myself with the book. I read it during the painful, hour-long lunch breaks my employer has only recently started to give, and it brightened my days. I read Carpe Jugulum as well, for further Disc-vampire mythology, and whaddaya know - it mentions Borogravian vampire lore. (Incidentally, I not only got egg wash all over both of these books, but discovered that I am the only person in my workplace to have read them.) I got started, in a fit of enthusiasm, on a 'five times' fic that involved underwired nightdresses.
Now, if you clicked the link above, you know fine well that that's not what I wrote. So. What happened?
As mentioned in last year's version of this post, I have an attention span of roughly the same length as a mayfly's life. I left the fic. I got distracted. I failed.
I flailed about over my degree for a (very necessary) bit, wrote about five (six?) other fics for other fests and deadlines, did all the hours at work, and then worked my way back around to Yuletide only to discover that what I'd started was not the fic that I wanted to write. It's...not terrible, but it wasn't something I could continue. The moment had left me, and in its wake was the cold, sinking feeling of having to start all over again.
So I did. My prompt asked for H/C and vulnerable!Mal, so I gave that as best as I could. I thought about Strappi and the possible psychological effects of slowly losing your mind while trying not to eat the buffet surrounding you; I thought about Polly and her tough-as-nails attitude. I dragged in some references to Borogravian gypsies from Carpe Jugulum, drank a lot of coffee, and wrote.
I ended up with Faith, and you know what? I'm pretty pleased with that.
