I have managed to read all the fandoms I know in the Yuletide archive before the reveal. I was going to do a recs post but I realised that although I was bookmarking things on A03 to start with, I haven't for a while, so I can't remember what I thought was good any more. Also, the Yuletide comm has so many recs posts, it's just got boring now (and it's not helped that someone's set the RSS feed to just show the first line, so half the posts I have to open just to find out that either the recs are in a different post, or I don't know the fandoms).

So instead, since I've been saving them for this, I'll talk about the fics I got:

everywhere you're leaving something (4308 words) by Anonymous
Fandom: Spooks
Characters: Erin Watts, Dimitri Levendis, Beth Bailey, Tariq Masood
Summary: Erin comes to terms with the workings of Section D.

This is a great story about Erin joining the team and getting to know Dimitri. It's just the story I wanted about the time between series 9 & 10.

Star Wars on Bannerman Road (772 words) by Anonymous
Fandom: Sarah Jane Adventures
Characters: Luke Smith, Sky Smith, Rani Chandra, Clyde Langer
Summary: Luke is home for the holidays, so it's time to work on Sky's pop culture education.

A bonus Madness story! It has lovely friendship stuff between all four and sibling stuff between Luke and Sky.

I am rubbish about saying why I liked these things, but I did. The best bit is I put both these fandoms on my list because they just had their last ever episodes this autumn and I got fic for them both!

(And why does A03's share button create some lovely html, then randomly put paragraph tags around the summary so it appears two lines below the bit that says 'Summary:'?)

I have finished my Yuletide fic. And uploaded it. After I had it opened and the form filled in for ages while I tried to think up a summary (the title on the other hand came quite easily). I usually try to get it finished early, but I don't generally manage quite this early. The difference this year is that work hasn't been so busy for so long and I haven't had Rotaract. Usually I'd be dealing with our stall at the Christmas fair at the start of December, Cheese & Wine in January, various Christmas dinners and all the usual Rotaract stuff. It's actually been a quiet time of year, which makes a nice change.

Next I have six fandom_stockings to write. And I've signed up to write a 2000-5000 word Five Things fic for fivetimesbb. That's 400 words a thing it can't be too hard, can it? (famous last words). The current working summary for it is Five songs Johnny Chess wrote based on the stories his parents told him of their adventures with the Doctor in the TARDIS.

Along the same lines, but not involving actual writing, I am reccing for calufrax the first week in January. I know there were fics I wanted to rec last time but had to narrow it down. If only I'd written them down...

Of course, there's still Yuletide Treats. I haven't decided if I'm going to write any of those yet.

Dear Yuletide Writer,

Thank you for writing a story for me. The optional details are optional. I've just tried to give you some ideas of what I might like to see, but if none of them are your thing feel free to disregard them. I am sure I will love anything you write with the character(s) I've requested. Feel free to us any other characters you'd like - there are none that I dislike in any of these fandoms.

What I like:
- Stories that explore the relationships between characters
- Stories that explore characters
- Scenes/fic that is like it could be (part of) an episode

What I dislike:
- Sex scenes, so nothing over PG-13 please
- British people using Americanisms and American people using Briticisms
- Relationships other than those in canon (and the exceptions noted in my optional details) - but you can never go wrong with gen

I know there are two Sarah Jane-related fandoms on this list. Don't think that I'd like one of those more than the other two - I want each of these requests equally.

Below are my prompts: Read more...

Despite the lack of official announcement, it looks like the authors on Yuletide have been revealed. So I can reveal that I wrote:

In Need (Doctor Who/Sarah Jane Adventures/Sarah Jane Smith audios) for luthien. I've written a lot of Sarah Jane Smith, but given that this Yuletide had such a short writing period, that was just as well. And it's hardly as if I don't enjoy writing her. Luthien asked for something showing the difference between Sarah in School Reunion and SJA or with past companions in. So I sort of did both in one by using Jo to show how much she's changed. I also got to put Jo's character tag in as Jo Jones, as that's how she's credited in SJA.

Since I managed to get this off to beta with a week to spare, I went through my friends list to see who had asked for something I could write without a lot of research. So I ended up writing three Treats, none of which made it to 1000 words:

Making Up (Make it or Break it) for jedinic. I had really wanted to write something for this, but Nic wanted Payson/Sasha and I just couldn't bring myself to write it. But she suggested something from Lauren's POV, which I could do. And then I found that I really liked writing Lauren. The scary part came when I had to ask a stranger to beta because Nic is the only other person I know who watches Make it or Break it. But thenewradical was lovely and did a great job.

Rumours (Blake's 7) for lost_spook. Lost_spook suggested something from the POV of a Federation guard and I thought that would be a really interesting POV to look at. Although given that my first draft came out at 150 words (including the biggest plot hole in the world ever), I thought a double drabble would be the best thing to do.

Just Visiting (Sarah Jane Adventures/Doctor Who) for luthien. I kept thinking about the other companions Sarah talked about at the end of Death of the Doctor and about the people online who decided that Sarah saying that she'd come across a rumour online must be true, and I wondered how a rumour like that could come about. This niggled at me for a while and I only had the time on 23rd, so I just wrote a double drabble for this.

Now I just have to upload these to all sorts of archives...

Somehow I managed to read all the Yuletide fics before New Year. The Madness ones I read the same morning they opened. It helped that the static version was really quick, no matter what time of day. But the real versions seem to be pretty quick now, even when the Americans are up, so I'll link to those.

Here are my recs (in alphabetical order of fandom): Read more...

It's been so nice to have a break from work and other (mostly Rotaract) activities. So this week I have:

• Read a couple of books, one on my Dad's ebook reader. I discovered that wearing gloves indoors makes your hands sweat after a while, but by that time the ebook reader has generally warmed up enough to touch it
• PC World had the latest Sony ebook reader and it is much better than the old one. I want one! But since one of the things I was going to read on it was Sherlock Holmes (I haven't read any and they are out of copyright) and my parents bought me a book with all the stories in, I have even less reason to buy one now
• Also because I bought a new netbook... I've wrecked the old one, and it did have a crap operating system to start with (Linux Linpus). The new one is red and I'll be putting Ubuntu on it at Christmas.
• I've played with my sister's iPad. For half an hour and that was enough. I don't feel the need to spend any more time on it at all. So I definitely don't want one of those.
• The cat is just as mad and sweet as ever. And likes sleeping on the printer...
• I have finished my Yuletide fic! For some reason I only managed to get anything written on this on Mondays, but it has gone off for a beta, so I can get started on some fandom stocking stuff. And by started I mean I have a list of names with links. At some point I'll have to decide what to do for them...

Dear Yuletide Writer

First of all, feel free to ignore anything I've said in the prompts. If you can write any of those then that'll be great, but they're mostly just some ideas of what I'd like and something to give you ideas if you'd like them. At the end of the day I'd far rather get something you're proud of than something you're less happy with but fits in with what I’ve put down. I put in a few different prompts so hopefully there will be something in there to suit you. I'm not in any way expecting all of them - and some of them are mutually exclusive. Feel free to add in any other characters you like - as long as the one(s) I've requested are in there, you can bring in to the story whoever else you like. There aren’t any characters in these fandoms that I dislike.

Generally speaking, I love stories that have an emotional punch in some way. Whether it makes me laugh, cry, be happy, be all gooey inside, be shocked etc. What particularly fascinates me are parent-child relationships, particularly when they're not related. If you can write something that has that in, that would be amazing, but don't feel that you have to. I also like stories that explore the relationships between characters, whatever that relationship might be. I don’t mind whether you write something shippy or gen for any of the prompts, so long as you stick to canonical ships. I’d just rather not have any sex above a PG-13 rating.

If you're writing for one of the British TV show prompts and you're not British, then please get your fic Brit-picked. There's nothing likely to annoy me more than characters being out of character because they’re speaking American English when they should be speaking British English. If you're writing for one of the American TV show prompts and you're not American, then please get your fic American-picked, although I am less likely to notice this.

If you want to do more research then my fic recs can be found on this site. There are recs from a few people on there, mine are the ones that say they are recced by Paranoidangel.

For reference, here are my prompts: Read more...

Now that the Yuletide authors have been revealed I can reveal that I wrote a 5000 word Press Gang story, Hoops and Bumps. I didn't intend to write any full length treats because I knew I wouldn't have time. But while I was writing this one I had some Spike and Lynda banter I couldn't fit into the story, but wanted to use. So I made a story out of it and ended up with 1003 words for selenay936: Memories Are Not Made of This. I had wanted to write some short stuff on Christmas Eve, but I was just too tired and work had been too busy and I didn't have the energy or time.

Although I didn't mean to, I managed to read everything I wanted to in the archive on 30th December and therefore two days before the author reveal (as that was quite late yesterday). In the past couple of years I've done a recs list of everything I've read and enjoyed (and therefore commented on) but it was just never going to happen this year. But I have already reviewed nine (I think it was nine) stories for Sel's site.

And on a completely different subject, I took some photos of the cat (the first three of these). He is very sweet and a complete idiot.

I think there were other things I've been meaning to blog about, but I'm buggered if I can remember what they might have been.

I thought this last week would be quite quiet, I'd get lots of things done... I don't know why I thought that. It didn't help that I kept waking up at 6am - except on Friday when I woke up at 5am. Monday it snowed during the day, and I was sick of waiting in the freezing cold for a freezing cold bus and getting home half an hour later than I would have if I'd driven, so I drove to work on Monday. I contemplated leaving my car at work, but decided to drive home. It was the scariest thing I'd ever done - not helped by two police cars and two ambulances going past me in the opposite direction with their blue lights flashing. They couldn't go above 20mph the same as the rest of us, though, so the blue flashing lights didn't exactly do them much good.

But now I know what it's like, I won't be driving in the snow again. But I'd only ever seen it snow and settle during the day once before, so I assumed it was a freak event and it would just go back to snowing in the night again. But I also live further North than I grew up, and there it snows every year, which I find utterly ridiculous weather, but moving back South would mean I was living far from anywhere, so I supposed I'm stuck with it. If the Gulf Stream ever goes away, we're seriously buggered.

On the plus side, I have a week off work and it is now Boxing Day, which is miles better than Christmas Day. Except that for some strange reason all the good TV is on on New Years Day.

And I have a Yuletide fic! The site's really slow, so it's best visited in the mornings before the Americans get up, but it's a Quantum Leap fic: Returning Home and Meeting Memories for the First Time. Reading through the rest of the archive is taking time, not just because of the slowness, but also because I find the contrast between the text and the background gives me a headache. But fortunately, the other week I came across a site called Readability, where you can decide what you want the page to look like, then create a bookmarklet. So all I have to do, once the fic is loaded, is press on the bookmark, then hey, presto, I can read it! And to think that when I found it I never thought it would be useful...

Which I've been meaning to write for the past week...
Read more...

I am so busy at the moment, it's crazy. Yesterday at work was terrible - I worked straight through lunch and didn't leave till late. Today I didn't think it would be quite so busy. I did get a lunch break, but didn't quite manage to start on today's work until 4pm and then left late. Tomorrow I have so much to do I can't see how I'm going to start on tomorrow's work. Then I'm off on Friday and Monday and going to the Balance Clinic on Tuesday afternoon. Which means the only way I can get tomorrow's work done in time is going to be to do it at the weekend, I think. Everyone else is busy at work too. The only good thing is that at least there are only two weeks left after this one.

I'm still catching up with stuff I need to do at home after spending my week off ill. I got really anxious about Yuletide and wrote the first draft while I had a really bad cold and felt awful. Which is something I've learnt to do from being ill for so long, it's just something I'd rather not do until I have to. And then I had to work hard to get it into something vaguely readable. Tonight I managed v3 - of 5500 words! I should just have to read it through a couple more times, then it can go to beta. Which is good because I need to get it out of the way so I can do betaing, treats and my TR secret santa. And maybe catch up on my viewing.

I keep meaning to update more often but I'm just so unmotivated by everything at the moment. I think all that time reading and watching videos and not doing a lot else and I've got used to it. But there isn't nothing on tonight (I'm most upset that The Bill's off for Celebrity nonsense), so I am determined to do something constructive with my evening.

In Yuletide news I am currently reviewing the source material in the hopes that I might manage a plot at the end of it. I'm quite excited about what I'm writing and it helps that my recipient likes a lot of the same things that I do. I'm hoping that writing that will help remind me about the whole doing something constructive thing.

It's Children in Need tomorrow, so it's guaranteed to rain, since it's not that cold. Normally I'd be running around in the road with a bucket before work, but I'm not well enough to do that, so I am counting money after work instead. I don't think I can quite cope with the idea of not doing something for Children in Need any more.

I'm having a week off work next week, which I will mostly be spending listening to the tennis, since the BBC aren't showing much. I was very excited by a twitter post of Andy Murray's today because he revealed that he's playing Sunday afternoon and that's when I'm going. We're further back than we were for the gymnastics, so expect pictures of ant-sized people.

I am most distressed my today's paper when they announced they are discontinuing the Technology section in the Guardian. I liked it best when it was the Online section with the Science section inside, but it's still been worth buying the paper once a week for it. Without it there'll be no reason to buy the paper any more - and I don't like reading the paper online, it's not the same. These days I tend to get my news from Radio 5 on the way home from work.

Dear Yuletide Writer

First of all, feel free to ignore anything I’ve said in the prompts. If you can write any of those then that’ll be great, but they’re mostly just what I’d most prefer to get. At the end of the day I’d far rather get something you're proud of than something you’re less happy with but fits in with what I’ve put down. Feel free to add in any other characters you like to these prompts - as long as the one(s) I've requested are in there, you can bring in to the story whoever else you like. There aren't any characters in these fandoms that I dislike.

Generally speaking, I love stories that have an emotional punch in some way. Whether it makes me laugh, cry, be happy, be all gooey inside, be shocked etc. What particularly fascinates me, as you might have gathered from my prompts, are relationships between characters, whether they’re romantic or not. I don't mind whether you write something shippy or gen for any of the prompts, so long as you stick to canonical ships. I’d just rather not have any sex above a PG-13 rating.

If you're writing for one of the British TV show prompts and you're not British, then please get your fic Brit-picked. There's nothing likely to annoy me more than characters being out of character because they're speaking American English when they should be speaking British English.

If you want to do more research then my fic recs can be found at this site. There are recs from a few people on there, mine are the ones that say they are recced by Paranoidangel.

Just a few notes about the prompts: Read more...

I am off to see the World All Round Gymnastics Finals tomorrow, in the Millennium Dome, so I have tomorrow and this afternoon off. Which is probably just as well because I'm quite dizzy and a bit snotty. I suspect the two things are related. On the plus side, when I'm recovering on Saturday there is at least plenty to watch, despite there being no Merlin (the TV series).

Everyone who signed up for the Sarah & Harry ficathon got a story in, which I am glad about. I wrote Not Just a Pretty Face. There was quite a bit of time between me putting everything into the posting box and actually coming up with a title...

I got all excited looking at fandoms for Yuletide. How I'm going to narrow it down to four, I don't know.

I've been watching Leverage and really liking it. It reminds me of Hustle. I love all the exciting stunts and I hope they keep not delving into the character's pasts because I don't really care that much. I just like to see them in action.

I recognised the name Christian Kane before it started, although I couldn't work out why. Once he was on screen, though, it was obvious - he was Lindsay in Angel. But there's another character in it - Sophie Devereux - and I spent the whole of the first two episodes wondering where I recognised her from. Her flambouyancy seemed familiar too and it drove me mad, until I remembered to look it up on the imdb. It turns out she was Jane in Coupling.

Apart from that I have no broadband at home until Monday But tonight is my only night in this week until Sunday, so I'm probably not going to notice too much. I have a whole load of things on my PVR to watch too, and a Star Trek DVD from lovefilm - when I've watched that one I'll have seen every episode of every Star Trek series. Including the animated ones.

I did get hold of Band of Brothers to try, since so many people on my friends list think it's the best thing since sliced bread, but I didn't even make it all the way through the first episode. Which wasn't that much of a surprise because it's not really my sort of thing.

Also, I might have a soya intolerance. Or a stomach bug, but I'll wait till Christmas to find out where I can be ill in comfort. I finally managed to upload my Yuletide fic. It was typical - I got it done before I moved, but then the uploads went wonky if you or your recipient's name began with P-Z and that includes me since my name starts with P. Once it was back, then I had no internet.

My Yuletide fic is up to second draft and 2000 words. I ought to have it finished this weekend. It was helped a lot by my neighbours being surprisingly quiet, although not helped at all by work being stupidly busy. Today was one of those days where every time I started to do something I got interrupted by having to do something more urgent. But I got two projects launched and another should go tomorrow so that'll help a lot. Maybe I'll even get a chance to listen to the SJA audios I bought at the weekend.

I've been watching Lost in Austen courtesy of Lovefilm. I didn't watch it when it was on TV, I think it was because it clashed with something else. I liked the idea of modern girl in Pride and Prejudice, I'm just not that excited about the book. I've never actually read it, but I've seen a couple of adaptations. I think. I have a feeling the only part of the Colin Firth one I've seen is the bit where he comes out of the water. But I am liking Lost in Austen, it's interesting. But only half of it was on one DVD, so it'll be a little while before I get the next part, depending on what Lovefilm decide to give me - you never can be sure with them.

I finally managed to get myself out of holiday mode and cleaned the house yesterday. It's hard to motivate myself to do it when I know I'm going to be moving out of it, but I'll be even less motivated when I'm not living in it, and the dirtier it is then, the worse it's going to be to clean. But it does all look so much better now I have cleaned it.

I also finished the book I started while I was away and it felt never-ending. I'm now a third of the way through The Graveyard book. I have two piles of books from the ones I bought in Canada and the Pratchett I finished just before I went. They're just the right size to fit my laptop on in front of the TV, so I can plug the TV into it. Now I've changed the books the two piles are more level too.

I made the mistake, when I got back, of watching all four Spooks episodes, which included the one from BBC3. So although I put it on last Monday because I was too tired to take it in much the first time, it's not the same as watching it new. So now I am back on watching them on Mondays because Monday needs something to look forward to, since I only watch SJA every other week. Suffice to say I enjoyed tonight's, even if I spent most of it wondering where I knew the bad guy from. Turns out it was one of the recent Poirots.

And just to make all the other people doing Yuletide jealous: I have a first draft of mine. At 1200 words I'm doing better than last year where I managed 1006 (but any padding to that one would have been just that, padding). I'm aiming to get it finished by the end of the week and hopefully writing every night will get me back into it and who knows, I might even get round to the requests I asked for back in June that are sitting in my inbox...

I'm so excited about Yuletide this year. An eighth of my LJ friendslist are participating and I am excited about my assignment for four reasons, none of which I can give because then it wouldn't be secret any more.

Dear Yuletide Writer

First of all, feel free to ignore anything I've said in the prompts. If you can write any of those then that'll be great, but they're mostly just what I'd most prefer to get. At the end of the day I’d far rather get something well-written than something you’re less happy with but fits in with what I’ve put.

I don't have anything to add specifically about the fandoms I requsted. Generally speaking, I love stories that have an emotional punch in some way. Whether it makes me laugh, cry, be happy, be all gooey inside, be shocked etc. What particularly fascinates me, as you might have gathered from my prompts, are relationships between characters, whether they're romantic or not. I'm quite happy to read about canonical ships, but you can't go wrong with gen. I'd just rather not have any sex above a PG-13 rating.

Yesterday, while driving back from swimming, I suddenly picked my four fandoms to request for Yuletide: Spooks, Quantum Leap, The Hobbit and Merlin. They're not necessarily the four that I'd most like to see, out of all the fandoms listed, but they are the four that I can think of something specific (ish) that I want. There were some that I'd love to see stories in but couldn't even decide which characters I wanted. Although The Hobbit feels a bit like cheating because that way I get Elrond fic. I was surprised to see it in there given that they'd disqualified all fandoms that were part of a larger one. But I'm not complaining. But I am looking forward to reading all the fic at Christmas.

I also wrote a fic! Well, actually I wrote it just before I went to Canada. It's Jo and the Eighth Doctor getting the goodbye they should have had in the Eighth Doctor book, Genocide. I put up a poll ages ago about whether I should crosspost my fanfic blog to LJ. The results came out even, so I decided I'd go with the answer that involved the least amount of work. But, the other day I've temporarily got a paid account to see if I'd use any of the extra features that it has (so far I have, but it has required extra effort, which isn't quite the point). With that I was able to set up an LJ for the RSS Feed for the fanfic blog. Sadly, though, LJ has decided it doesn't like it and won't update. So you can read the fic here instead.

Yay for me for I have finished things. I posted the 118th story in the Yuletide archive and was seven words over the minimum. It's small and perfectly formed.

And then I finished the two Sarah/Harry fics I've been battling with for a bit, and sent them to beta. So now I have no excuse for not working on the TARDIS Big Bang story.

Except that I need to do things with the Rotaract website. And update mine. And play with the blog some more (not least sort out re-tagging quite a bit of it).

It's a strange combination of things I've been watching and reading that led me to thinking that given that Harry Sullivan (Doctor Who) was in MI5, wouldn't it be cool if his boss was Harry Pearce (Spooks)? If only because they're both called Harry.