I know it's been almost a week since official reveals, but I've been solidly down with a doozy of a cold. At last, I can concentrate and read and even think! Yay.

I wrote one assignment and one treat for Yuletide this year:

North of Everywhere (8316 words) by Dorinda
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Shetland (TV)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Duncan Hunter/Jimmy Perez
Characters: Duncan Hunter, Jimmy Perez
Additional Tags: Cooking, Pining, Post-Season/Series 05, Everyone Thinks They're Together, Feelings Realization, Getting Together, First Time
Summary:

There was a part of Jimmy—still too strong a part, the one who lived alone, stood alone, drew the firm line round himself—that kept wanting to say, Thanks but you didn't have to do that. Thanks but you're already welcome to stay. Thanks but I'm used to shifting for myself.

Thanks, but.

He shook it off as best he could. And instead, he walked behind Duncan as they both left the kitchen, and put his hands on Duncan's shoulders.

I love the crime show Shetland, which just ended its 5th season (and with a lovely present for the Jimmy/Duncan shippers)--it's beautiful, atmospheric, well-cast and acted, interesting dynamics among the characters. And I especially love the relationship between Jimmy Perez, the lead, a widower with one daughter, and Duncan Hunter, the ex-husband of Jimmy's late wife as well as the biological father of Jimmy's daughter. They're different in such interesting ways, but they work so hard at their co-parenting, and as Cassie grows up and leaves home, their de facto marriage still remains.

I had never tried writing Shetland before, but at last I felt brave enough to offer it, and I had a great time! I wanted something gradual and cozy, and I wanted Jimmy not to realize just quite how married he is (and how married he wants to be) until he's neck-deep in it.

I also wrote a treat:

The Breath at Your Shoulder (2705 words) by Dorinda
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The Sting (1973)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Henry Gondorff/Johnny Hooker
Characters: Henry Gondorff, Johnny Hooker, Alva Coleman
Additional Tags: Yuletide Treat, Con Artists, 1930s, Dreams and Nightmares, Survivor Guilt, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Family, Found Family
Summary:

By the time he finally felt he might be sleepy, it was the truly wee hours. And over the quiet breathing of a dozen other people, he recognized Hooker's voice at once.

Too soft to be a shout, too thin and high to be a groan. It was as if Hooker was on a train heading the other way, and this quiet keening noise was all Henry had left as he faded into the distance.

I am no great shakes at coming up with prompts when I sign up for challenges, but I greatly admire those who are. And I found myself struck by nahnahnahnah 's prompt for The Sting (1973), reminding me that Johnny was so close to Luther's family. I had never considered the likelihood of his survivor's guilt before, and I enjoyed getting to do that.


Plus, the authors of the gift stories I received were:

* Exorcist story: every saint has a past (every sinner has a future) is by fabulous_but_evil

* Guardian treat: The Light is by trascendenza

* Exorcist treat in Madness: Pray For Us Sinners is by CousinShelley

* The Sting treat: smiles were made, dear, for people like us is by indigostohelit, and may I add here again that if you haven't read it yet--I get it, there's a lot to read, and it's almost 19K--I encourage you to download it and give it a whirl!

talk about your creative process(es)

I'm much more of a planner than a pantser--the early stages of anything I write are usually full of thoughts, noodling with friends, and jotting down notes. I tend to say I'm an "outliner", but by that I don't really mean Roman numerals and stuff; I have bullet points or scene/emotion beats, usually, that I follow like stepping stones across a foggy moor: I like to have something to aim for, the next stepping stone, and a sense of what the ending will most likely be.

(For more complex things, like "The Buried Treasure Racket" for The Sting, I had more detailed plans--in this case I had four columns, since some scenes had to do a number of different things at once: the Buried Treasure con, Henry's emotional story, Johnny's apparent emotional story as far as Henry assumes, and Johnny's actual con on Henry.)

However, it's not unusual for me to discover something as I'm working my way to the next stone, and that's certainly allowed to affect the characters, the themes, and if necessary the direction. And often these days once I'm at the spot that I thought was going to be the ending, I end up taking a break, realizing I was rushing just to be finished, then coming back to it and finding out that the ending should be a little longer, so I write my way to a new stopping place.

There've been a couple of times I specifically tried to entirely pants my way through a story, just sit down and start writing without having jotted down any stepping stones first. And unfortunately, thus far I've always ended up seriously bogged down and trapped, writing myself into a hole and not enjoying the stuff I've written so far. I still have those drafts in progress (some quite long!), and I feel like maybe someday I could dig them up and revise/finish them into something, but sadly, for me it will require some planning instead of just pantsing my way out.

I admit, sometimes I feel bad about this. So many writers I really admire are able to just create the story as they write it, apparently without planning. And I've lost count of the pro writers who, in roundups of writerly advice, are always like "STOP OUTLINING. FUCK OUTLINES. JUST WRITE YOUR WAY INTO IT AND OUT AGAIN." But I dunno, I've just not had any luck with that, and more, it wasn't fun.

So, I just have to remind myself that the way to write, is whatever way actually gets the story written and finished. And for me, that's the thought-noodling-notes-stepping-stones method, with flexibility left for changing things on the fly as I find them.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

A couple years ago I signed up for the getyourwordsout community, in an effort to keep my writing up all the year round. It wasn't as successful as I'd hoped--I pledged a level that the comm considered a small amount of words, but for me it was too many, and I couldn't keep up. So I didn't sign up again last year. (Not that participation depends on you hitting your stated goal! I just found it demoralizing, and the bar too high.)

This year, though, they have a new set of added challenges, Habit Pledges, counting days on which you write rather than wordcount. And the lowest rung is 10 days/month, which I feel is doable for me. So I signed up again, and we'll see how it goes. I think it'll be good for me to focus on creating a regular habit, vs. worrying about how many actual words said habit produces.

Which reminds me, I better get back at it. :D

While at work, I took a peek into my email and HEY LOOK MY ASSIGNMENT. Wooooooo! \o/

Assignment Day feels second-only in excitement to Collection-Opening Day. The past couple days have been like an extended Christmas Eve... "Did Santa bring me an assignment yet? How about now?" That feeling of tenterhooks and possibility.

Now I have my assignment, which I can't tell you about or else I'd have to kill you, and I am excited and nervous in the best way. So I better get brainstorming.

Oh, and, the first batch of pinch-hits are out--if you felt like strolling through them, they're here:

https://nightonficmountain.dreamwidth.org/25610.html

I have at last clawed my way out from beneath months of extra work at my job. Sheesh. It was really too much for a while there, and now I am pretty much in disarray. My apartment is a shambles, I haven't had a haircut for far too long, I'm behind on everything, blah blah.

But! I do get today to myself, to think about restful things like stories and writing and whatnot. \o/

On that topic, I noticed that nominations are open for Night On Fic Mountain, until the end of March.

Here's the tagset so far. I can see two things in there I could offer to write (one definite, one tentative), but you need to offer at least 5. So I'd need to nominate three more things. Hmmmmmm, it'll take some thought.

Master & Commander is already in there, to my delight; I'd love to write that some more. I also notice someone has nominated a 2006 movie that klia showed me back in the day, "The Guardian", a slashy movie about Coast Guard rescue swimmers (older grizzled traumatized officer trains troubled young hothead, they butt heads, then they impress each other, until they become super bonded protective pair--you know how those military-slash movies go. :D ). I've never thought about writing it till now, but I'm considering whether I might be brave enough to offer it.

Someone nominated Nero Wolfe, but only Archie/Saul. (Nothing against Archie/Saul of course, I adore Saul, but I don't know if I'd have any ideas for writing it.) Someone nominated Elfquest, but I don't think I could write any of the characters they included; I don't know them well, and don't have any ideas.

I wonder what else I might nominate? And can I think of things that other participants might want to read and/or offer? There are many times I wish I could read minds, and this is one of them.

Even though hc_bingo was just about to turn from the regular posting period to the amnesty period, I still requested a card. Because I found it so inspirational last time!

Although I noticed only today that, although I eventually completed a bingo across the bottom row of last year's card with five stories (serial killers: Peacemakers, exhaustion: Almost Human, cages: Rejseholdet, hostile climate: Sinbad, drugged: The Sting), I never did post links to my bingo fills on the official comm. Why? WHOOOO KNOWWWWWS. o____O

( So here's this year's card: )

That center row across looks nice: fire, imprisonment, [wild card], bites, torture. Or the row right beneath it: deals with demons, brainwashing/deprogramming, hugs, hallucinations, begging. I mean, you know how much I love brainwashing :D :D

Really, most of the squares seem totally doable for me. Not sure what I'd pick for "mercy killing", though, hmm. Given my general tendency not to kill off the main characters. I mean...attempted mercy killing, maybe? I-have-to-mercy-kill-my-beloved-partner-oh-wait-no-I-don't? Mercy killing of an OC?

And tentacles. Tentacles. Hmm. I admit, I always wonder why tentacles is on a Hurt/Comfort Bingo card. I mean, they fit just fine on the more general Trope Bingo card, but H/C is hard to fathom. All the other squares are obvious engines of either hurt or comfort. But tentacles? You can work them into either aspect, I suppose, but they don't really help you figure out which one or how. And tentacle-sex is not my kink, so it'd have to be something else. Calamari...aliens...sea creature attacks a ship...fighting naturalist dissecting a cephalopod...

Authors and artists have been revealed for this year's Night On Fic Mountain exchange (welll, they were revealed a little while back, but then the weekend got away from me and hmm mutter mumble). Here was my contribution:

The Steel-Wire Tightrope (6609 words) by Dorinda
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The Sting (1973)
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Henry Gondorff/Johnny Hooker
Characters: Henry Gondorff, Johnny Hooker
Additional Tags: Con Artists, 1930s, Rescue, Angst, Misunderstandings, Nonverbal Communication, Drugged Sex, Broccoli Test
Summary:

Henry's in trouble. But when Johnny finds him, that's when their trouble really starts.

Awww yisssss, I got to write The Sting again! \o/ \o/ \o/ I rewatched the movie once during the writing process, and then I rewatched it last week with some friends, just because. I've seen it so many times, and show no signs of burning out or getting tired of it. I love the characters, and the milieu, and how amenable it all is to fannish extrapolation. Robert Redford glows like a sun god and runs like a deer, Paul Newman's eyes gleam a piercing clear sapphire, they both have arms and shoulders to make me weep in the best way, and Johnny and Henry come to care about each other SO MUCH you guys. So much. Not to mention that Henry is an Olympic-class secret worrier. ♥_____♥

Course, in this story, Johnny gets to do most of the worrying for a change. Just for a nice switcheroo. But this is my second story in which I was reminded that AO3 does not have a plain old "Drugged" tag! I mean, wat? "Drugged Sex", sure. But not just "Drugged". Which seems SO WEIRD, given the venerable age of the trope, you know--'oh no my partner got knocked out and doped and now I must rescue him', which was canon all the time at least back in the day, and which lends itself so well to tender h/c, and then perhaps sex that is not itself Drugged Sex, because everyone is now sobered up. So I used the Drugged Sex tag, even though that is not precisely how it goes (it sort of is at first, and then it isn't, and I think the story explains itself best).

Is there a way to propose they set up a canonical Drugged tag? I am ashamed to admit that my knowledge of the inner (or, in fact, outer) workings of the AO3 tag system is not the best.

Anyway, I'm excited to have had a chance to write these guys again! I fell into a weird throughline blockage during the writing process, but mary crawford and klia got me out of there and fixed it up, and I am really happy about it.

In the course of writing this year's I-Man story for Yuletide, I suddenly (suddenly! without warning!) remembered that I had never put an older I-Man story of mine into AO3. Not on purpose--I just somehow forgot.

So I imported it and added summary and tags, during the lull after Yuletide story reveal but before author reveal, and here it is!:

Killing Bobby Hobbes (4811 words) by Dorinda
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The Invisible Man
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Darien/Bobby
Characters: Darien Fawkes, Bobby Hobbes
Additional Tags: Canon Related, Dreams and Nightmares, Hypnotism, Angst, First Time
Summary:

The phony psychic insisted that Darien was going to kill Bobby, just like in Darien's nightmares. But screw him. They got past it just fine and everything was going great.

Then Darien's dream came back.

Originally written for the 2009 ficfest on the Invisible Man LJ comm hot_donuts.

Looking back in my journal, this is the same day that Yuletide assignments went out last year. And just like last year, I wanted to take this opportunity to remind myself of Toothpaste For Dinner's chillingly accurate map of my creative process:



I cracked the whip at myself last year to avoid the panic and crying portion of the program, and ended up so glad I did. So I better dig that whip out again and see if it still cracks!

Good luck to everybody who's playing! And if you're sitting out this year, there are plenty of letters out there you might enjoy browsing, to get inspiration for writing treats:

Letters in database form

Letters in a Google docs spreadsheet. There's a "Fandom Listing" tab at the lower left if you want to see them by fandom.

These aren't every single letter, of course, only the ones people voluntarily submit to the letters post on the Yuletide comm. But there's a lot to peruse, should you feel perusish.

Happy Yuletide to all, and may story ideas start leaping into your brain in 3...2...1...

Welp, kerithwyn just made it look too tempting, so I've nominated a few fandoms for the small fandom fic exchange nightonficmountain (on LJ it's ficmountain). Nominations close tomorrow (March 31), and signups begin April 1 and close April 15. (Here's the current tag set.)

I nominated The Sting (1973), Trapeze (1956), and Sinbad (TV). There are some other very tempting items already in there--Spy Game, for instance. And Elfquest, and Isaac Asimov's robot series, and Almost Human. And MASH, and the Tale Of The Five book series, and the Less-Than-Epic Adventures of TJ and Amal. Etcetera. I'm sure there'll be four things I'd like to ask for in there, and five to offer.

The writing period does overlap with a trip I have planned. But on the other hand, that trip is to visit like-minded friends, and I'm sure they won't mind if I'm still writing while I'm there, or maybe picking their brains, or making big sad need-a-beta eyes. O______O

Look at how sad they are. Makes you wanna beta for them, doesn't it? DOESN'T IIIIT.