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.

Just have to say first, Happy Birthday, Melli! Even though by the time you see this it’ll be a day late.

I have been writing recently. I have a first draft of my Yuletide fic, although it is only 700 words and needs the ending changing.

Apart from that I’ve been writing Doctor Who. Since SJA started I decided I was going to write fic putting Harry in it, but I wanted to wait till it finished before I did. It was after Whatever Happened to Sarah Jane? where I had an idea of Harry turning up after events in it. So then I wrote Strange Men and Old Girls. Although I put Luke in it and I had more fun writing him than the Sarah & Harry banter. But I just really like the idea of Harry and Luke together.

There’s one I’m going to post tomorrow, if I can come up with a title, set during The Lost Boy. And one I’ve started and can’t work out where to finish, involving Sarah/Harry, his uniform and a UNIT Christmas Party. And another I want to write involving Sarah/Harry, Luke staying at Maria’s and pink fluffy handcuffs.

I also have a plan for my TARDIS Big Bang fic, which is putting Sarah and Harry into Chalet School (Austrian era). So it’ll be Chalet School canon and Doctor Who AU, but staying as close to DW facts as possible. I have half a book to go then I’ll have re-read all the Austrian ones. The first draft is due mid-March and the final thing at the end of May. So my plan is:

December: plan the plot and work it out into chapters, so when I come to sit down and write it it’ll be a series of shorter bits rather than 20,000+ words. And using the technique I did on my script then hopefully it’ll make it easier to write when I know exactly what’s going to happen in each chapter.

January: write first draft

February: write second draft. On experience so far my second draft has always involved changing half the plot, and since my second drafts are pretty much page 1 re-writes, it’ll be closer to the final thing for artists & vidders to work with

March-May finish it and get it betaed. With as long as possible for betaing.

If I get things done before then, that’s great, but that’s where I have to be by the end of each month.