This was my second Yuletide, and the first time I'd actually signed up. I wrote six stories:
Rewritten (Incompetent Time-Travelling Saxophone Haters)
Thursday Next and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Fic (Thursday Next)
Patron Saint (The People)
Postscript (The People)
Recalled to Life (Oxford Time Travel Universe)
Revenant (Oxford Time Travel Universe)
Last summer, I took a look at the Some Day My Fic Will Come spreadsheet and saw that there was a request for Zenna Henderson's The People short stories. I'd read them a long time ago, and decided that if I could get my hands on the canon, I'd write a treat. As it turned out, I double-matched to my recipient (on The People and OTTU), so they got an unexpectedly bountiful Yuletide.
Patron Saint is a response to a prompt to show how the People might use present-day technology, such as the internet, to locate lost members. Originally, I thought of having some sort of gift for computers/networks be a new Persuasion, but then decided it would be more fun to tell the story from the POV of someone not in the know, which eventually led to the idea of a video game: something that could be widely dispersed to a general audience, which would serve as a message to scattered members of the People who remembered the Crossing, and might be used to locate unaware descendants.
Postscript is a direct sequel to one of Henderson's stories. Gilead tells how Peter and Bethie found their way to Cougar Canyon and the People, but ends with a hint that Peter isn't going to instantly blend in. Postscript takes up the action from there, and details Peter's struggle and journey of self-discovery.
Revenant is the third story I gave my Yuletide recip. Actually, it was begun first, before I could get my hands on a copy of Ingathering, but sat unfinished for some time. It shows us Kivrin a few years after the events of The Doomsday Book. Although she's mostly recovered from her practicum, Kivrin is trying to gather her courage to return to Ashencote and bury Roche. I enjoyed showing her interacting with Dunworthy, but spent a ridiculous amount of time looking up things, especially medieval saddles. I spent a lot of time researching saddles, and ended up scrapping nearly everything I'd written about them.
Thursday Next and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Fic is an idea that had been floating around in my head without really congealing for months, and it seemed likely to stay that way, since I was the only person who requested Thursday Next for Yuletide. While skimming through the letters looking for treat ideas in general, I was intrigued by one which said, "Any of these prompts or anything I've requested for any previous Yuletides." I didn't know any of their 2015 prompts, but their letter made me curious about their previous letters. When I saw a request for meta for Thursday Next, preferably set early in the series, I decided it was time to gather my half-ideas and set them down. I'd like to say it took me a lot of time to find all those tropes and badfic crimes but that would be a total lie.
Rewritten was a treat that became a post-deadline pinch hit. I'd loved the idea of Incompetent Time-Travelling Saxophone Haters from the moment I first encountered it, during nominations. I even offered it, thinking I'd probably write some sort of slapstick about incompetents who spent more time arguing over which instruments should be erased from history than actually achieving anything. I didn't match on it, and put the Saxophone Haters on the "maybe" pile. When the request went out for a pinch hit the first time, I almost bid for it, but held back because I didn't have a solid story idea and Revenant was getting longer and longer. By the time I actually sat down to write something, my initial idea had morphed from incompetent comic figures to a usually-competent-but-mysteriously-foile
Recalled to Life was the last story I wrote for Yuletide. I'd considered treating the "show Dunworthy and Polly, either in 1941 or after their return" prompt from the time that letters went up, but didn't have any ideas that seemed workable to me. When the request went out for a late pinch hit, I decided to redouble my efforts to come up with a story idea for a treat. I wanted to write about how Dunworthy felt during the days when he believed that he hadn't broken history after all, but believed he wouldn't be retrieved before his deadline. I was still struggling with not-quite-connecting bits and pieces the evening I had to go sing in the chorus for a Messiah sing-along. Sometime during the solo "The People That Walked in Darkness", I realized I had the glue I'd been looking for.
Looking back, it was fun to write in a lot of different fandoms. (Last year, I wrote four treats, but they were all in the same fandom.) Next year, I'll probably try to do the same, although next year I'll know that 5-minute fandoms don't lead to 5-minute fics!
Rewritten (Incompetent Time-Travelling Saxophone Haters)
Thursday Next and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Fic (Thursday Next)
Patron Saint (The People)
Postscript (The People)
Recalled to Life (Oxford Time Travel Universe)
Revenant (Oxford Time Travel Universe)
Last summer, I took a look at the Some Day My Fic Will Come spreadsheet and saw that there was a request for Zenna Henderson's The People short stories. I'd read them a long time ago, and decided that if I could get my hands on the canon, I'd write a treat. As it turned out, I double-matched to my recipient (on The People and OTTU), so they got an unexpectedly bountiful Yuletide.
Patron Saint is a response to a prompt to show how the People might use present-day technology, such as the internet, to locate lost members. Originally, I thought of having some sort of gift for computers/networks be a new Persuasion, but then decided it would be more fun to tell the story from the POV of someone not in the know, which eventually led to the idea of a video game: something that could be widely dispersed to a general audience, which would serve as a message to scattered members of the People who remembered the Crossing, and might be used to locate unaware descendants.
Postscript is a direct sequel to one of Henderson's stories. Gilead tells how Peter and Bethie found their way to Cougar Canyon and the People, but ends with a hint that Peter isn't going to instantly blend in. Postscript takes up the action from there, and details Peter's struggle and journey of self-discovery.
Revenant is the third story I gave my Yuletide recip. Actually, it was begun first, before I could get my hands on a copy of Ingathering, but sat unfinished for some time. It shows us Kivrin a few years after the events of The Doomsday Book. Although she's mostly recovered from her practicum, Kivrin is trying to gather her courage to return to Ashencote and bury Roche. I enjoyed showing her interacting with Dunworthy, but spent a ridiculous amount of time looking up things, especially medieval saddles. I spent a lot of time researching saddles, and ended up scrapping nearly everything I'd written about them.
Thursday Next and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Fic is an idea that had been floating around in my head without really congealing for months, and it seemed likely to stay that way, since I was the only person who requested Thursday Next for Yuletide. While skimming through the letters looking for treat ideas in general, I was intrigued by one which said, "Any of these prompts or anything I've requested for any previous Yuletides." I didn't know any of their 2015 prompts, but their letter made me curious about their previous letters. When I saw a request for meta for Thursday Next, preferably set early in the series, I decided it was time to gather my half-ideas and set them down. I'd like to say it took me a lot of time to find all those tropes and badfic crimes but that would be a total lie.
Rewritten was a treat that became a post-deadline pinch hit. I'd loved the idea of Incompetent Time-Travelling Saxophone Haters from the moment I first encountered it, during nominations. I even offered it, thinking I'd probably write some sort of slapstick about incompetents who spent more time arguing over which instruments should be erased from history than actually achieving anything. I didn't match on it, and put the Saxophone Haters on the "maybe" pile. When the request went out for a pinch hit the first time, I almost bid for it, but held back because I didn't have a solid story idea and Revenant was getting longer and longer. By the time I actually sat down to write something, my initial idea had morphed from incompetent comic figures to a usually-competent-but-mysteriously-foile
Recalled to Life was the last story I wrote for Yuletide. I'd considered treating the "show Dunworthy and Polly, either in 1941 or after their return" prompt from the time that letters went up, but didn't have any ideas that seemed workable to me. When the request went out for a late pinch hit, I decided to redouble my efforts to come up with a story idea for a treat. I wanted to write about how Dunworthy felt during the days when he believed that he hadn't broken history after all, but believed he wouldn't be retrieved before his deadline. I was still struggling with not-quite-connecting bits and pieces the evening I had to go sing in the chorus for a Messiah sing-along. Sometime during the solo "The People That Walked in Darkness", I realized I had the glue I'd been looking for.
Looking back, it was fun to write in a lot of different fandoms. (Last year, I wrote four treats, but they were all in the same fandom.) Next year, I'll probably try to do the same, although next year I'll know that 5-minute fandoms don't lead to 5-minute fics!