Yuletide 2014 nominations are open

[dorinda]

Nominations for Yuletide started today, and will close in a week.

On the one hand, hooray! I enjoy writing for Yuletide, giving someone a gift that they really want. On the other hand, the nomination process feels strangely chaotic and claustrophobic to me these days--especially the frantic communal spreadsheeting, trying to make sure that everything everything absolutely everything gets nominated, spreading the net as wide as possible. I don't always believe a wider net makes things better.

But of course, if I don't nominate anything at all, I run the risk of there not being anything I feel I can write for. So I very well might enter a wee fandom or two, if I really feel a strong desire to write for them and think people are likely to request them.

Hmm, that means I better start my Traditional Yuletide Introspection right now! I'm not someone who feels able to offer three dozen things, so I should give some serious thought to the question of what I currently feel not just able, but excited to write. Pay no attention to the grinding noise and the clouds of smoke; it's just my pondering engine revving up.

Comments

[gwyn]

I feel ya. I've been really waffling about it -- I'm always busiest that time of year, and then I throw in Festivids, and wanting to write my own stuff for Captain America, and I start panicking, but I do love to give gifts…and then there's the fact that right now I am completely monomaniacal about previously mentioned fandom, so can I wrap my head around anything else? But if I don't nominate and I don't sign up, then…bleh. My pondering engine is malfunctioning.

[dorinda]

I see your dilemma--it's hard to figure out if you'll feel like writing something else, when your heart is all aglee with Cap and Bucky! There are always pinch hits, which have the advantage of not being a surprise, although of course also usually having the disadvantage of a much much shorter time frame. But then, sometimes a year off helps refresh the valves. I sat out in 2008--just couldn't pull together the energy, what with one thing and another, and I didn't pinch-hit either. Didn't write anything at all in 2008, in fact, IIRC. I think I was completely overworked and overanxietied with grad school at that point (even more than I usually was :D ), and my writing tubes were clogged.

[ceares]

I'm definitely waffling this year because I'm down to very few fandoms I can offer, stuff I feel good about writing in has either gotten too big or there's little to no interest in it anymore.

Oddly, last year I signed up and got my go to, which is commercials, wound up intrigued by another request on the recipient's list, consumed the whole canon and wrote something for that too.

I never know whether to nominate stuff I'll write in though, so it's there just in case, or stuff I want a story in.

[dorinda]

Well, the 'little-to-no interest' is kind of the Reason For The Season, though, isn't it? (Okay, maybe not the 'no', but surely the 'little'?) If there's just one other person with whom you share a tiny fandom of the heart, your gift will be a rare and precious gem to them. Though I get what you mean, if you feel stuck in an in-between zone where you don't feel you'll have enough choice. Sometimes hanging back and waiting for pinch-hits can be a fun and less-involved way to play, though of course it's a gamble (and often a rush to grab the pinch) and has a shorter deadline. Or maybe you'll meet a new fandom on someone's request list, as you did before. I've never tried tackling a new canon like that, but I hear it can really bring on a blaze of freshness and energy!

As for me, I'm always much more tense about what I'll be assigned to write than what I'll receive, as my writing energies are not always flexible or easily redirected. If I can't find excitement in me to write something, I have a helluva time, unlike some folks who are much better at loving the one they're with. So I nominate things purely with an eye toward writing them, since I'm much more wide-open and happy to receive stories I might not feel able to write myself--I feel like there are guaranteed to be things available I want to read, whether I nominate them or not.

[ceares]

Well, the 'little-to-no interest' is kind of the Reason For The Season, though, isn't it? true but there are fandoms that even Yuletide doesn't love any more, or rather that hit their Yuletide popularity a few years ago and a couple I write, the last few years have just had no requests as far as I can tell eg...Entourage and Fastlane.

On the other hand, I do love Yuletide, and I've done no challenges this year except Pic for 1000, which next to Yuletide is my favorite(on purpose)so I'll probably just jump in anyway. I like your plan though and maybe I'll just nominate stuff I feel like I can write for and hope for the best.

[dorinda]

a couple I write, the last few years have just had no requests as far as I can tell

Ugh, yeah, I see. I noticed there had been, a little while ago, a thread on the non-admin Yuletide comm in which people were drumming up support for--basically, advertising--their chosen little fandoms. And that's great and all, I love when people enthusiastically describe their fandoms and what they love about them... but I admit, the prospect of having to recruit, to advertise, it feels exhausting.

I guess I'm just more miserly of my energies, these days.

[ceares]

I actually did nominate, a compromise, 1 I can write for, 1 I want to read and 1 that's both. I guess I'll see what fandoms make the list and if I can come up with 4 to offer from that before I sign up.