posted by ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
stunt_muppet at 09:36pm on 06/11/2009 under life, why did i sign up for a ficathon, writing
stunt_muppet at 09:36pm on 06/11/2009 under life, why did i sign up for a ficathon, writingSo I finally bit the bullet and signed up for Yuletide.
I signed up for 24 fandoms, because I'm an idiot (though even that was paring down my list considerably, throwing out any fandoms I didn't have ready access to and hadn't already completely seen/read), but I realize now that I completely misunderstood the character-selection system, and not only never selected more than four characters but have also potentially selected combinations that would be difficult for me to write. Also I picked "Any Characters" for some of my fandoms based on which characters I could write, period, neglecting to take into account that this also meant I was also offering to write any ship and with my luck I'd end up with a request for the one possible way to work shotacon incest into whatever fandom I picked.
I am debating whether I am arsed enough to go back and correct every single one of those 24 fandoms (not including duplicates that would arise from trying to select more than four characters or specifically eliminate any pairing I didn't want to write) or just suck it up and take my chances.
Pleh.
Anyway, I have spent most of the past few days working, and when I have gone on the computer it's been to write or try to draft my Dear Yuletide Writer letter, but now that I've got a bit of free time I thought I would sit down to take a quick and highly informal survey:
When you're reading a written work (as opposed to watching a movie, reading a comic, playing a game, et cetera) what do you find scary? What stories do you feel do the best job at creating atmosphere? Do descriptions get you? Specific themes?
In the interest of full disclosure and transparency I am asking because I've started writing a couple of horror-themed pieces in my scattershot NaNoLiteMo scribblings (well, a couple more horror-themed pieces, anyway, but I already know what I want to write into Made Up Your Mind Chapter 2 even if it's only scary for me) and while I don't much like being scared I love scaring people. I don't know; maybe it's revenge.
(Although I have to admit I did make it through one of the High Octane Nightmare Fuel web shorts without getting nightmares or anything. Possibly I'm not as easily scared as I thought I was. I hope so. I'm not taking my chances with any of the really bad stuff yet.)
---
New Topic Time!
It occurs to me that I never talked about my Very Exciting Weekend! Saturday was the Halloween party; I didn't dress up because I was too lazy to get a costume and also because it was pouring down rain Halloween night and I feel awkward trick-or-treating at my age anyway, but M, J and E invited us over for candy apples and apple-bobbing (which I'd never done, and is far more difficult than I anticipated) and playing a game where you tie a string around a doughtnut and hang that string from the ceiling and try to eat the doughnut off the string - also more difficult than it sounds, but completely worth it for the homemade doughtnuts and licking cinnamon-sugar off one's face afterwards.
After that we played Cranium (which I performed very badly at because I aparently wasn't thinking that night) and watched Hocus Pocus, and it had been a long time since I'd seen it so I didn't realize that Thackery Binx is played by Sean Murray - wee McGee! He made an awfully cute kid, with his puffy pirate shirt and apple cheeks and all. :)
Sunday, M, E, L, J and I went out to City Near Collegeland to go see the Reduced Shakespeare Comany live! The theater was unexpectedly tiny, which was nice because I could actually see all three performers. An unexpected surprise was that one of the original memebers was apparently not present, and his replacement was Matt Rippy - yes, as in the real Captain Jack Harkness. I would not have expected him to have such nice comic timing and talent for slapstick just from seeing him in Torchwood. He also looks really cute in a dress, even with the intentionally bad wigs, but maybe that's me.
Anyway, they repeated the skits I'd already seen on the DVD (with some updated jokes, of course), but the three of them had so much stage presence that it was all still funny, and everything's funnier when you're in a live audience anyway. Also our teacher fast-forwarded through the Tidus Andronicus sketch when we saw the DVD, so it was my first time seeing that.
And then I got all three of them to autograph my program afterwards! All in all, a Sunday well spent.
---
One more topic, and then I must go to do laundry before it gets to be stupid-o-clock in the morning:
Because I'm panicking a lot about all my upcoming ficathon deadlines and Yuletide, and have realized that all my best fics are written under time pressure and/or deadline panic, I've decided to followmary_pseud 's suggestion and ask for prompts. Tomorrow, when I get an uninterrupted hour, I'll see how many I can fill in that hour.
So...prompt me? :D
---
And now, a link that I'm sure all of you've seen before I go off on my epic laundry quest:
"I'm an elder god of the damned! I can't have any ribbons on me, you wretched shrew!"
I signed up for 24 fandoms, because I'm an idiot (though even that was paring down my list considerably, throwing out any fandoms I didn't have ready access to and hadn't already completely seen/read), but I realize now that I completely misunderstood the character-selection system, and not only never selected more than four characters but have also potentially selected combinations that would be difficult for me to write. Also I picked "Any Characters" for some of my fandoms based on which characters I could write, period, neglecting to take into account that this also meant I was also offering to write any ship and with my luck I'd end up with a request for the one possible way to work shotacon incest into whatever fandom I picked.
I am debating whether I am arsed enough to go back and correct every single one of those 24 fandoms (not including duplicates that would arise from trying to select more than four characters or specifically eliminate any pairing I didn't want to write) or just suck it up and take my chances.
Pleh.
Anyway, I have spent most of the past few days working, and when I have gone on the computer it's been to write or try to draft my Dear Yuletide Writer letter, but now that I've got a bit of free time I thought I would sit down to take a quick and highly informal survey:
When you're reading a written work (as opposed to watching a movie, reading a comic, playing a game, et cetera) what do you find scary? What stories do you feel do the best job at creating atmosphere? Do descriptions get you? Specific themes?
In the interest of full disclosure and transparency I am asking because I've started writing a couple of horror-themed pieces in my scattershot NaNoLiteMo scribblings (well, a couple more horror-themed pieces, anyway, but I already know what I want to write into Made Up Your Mind Chapter 2 even if it's only scary for me) and while I don't much like being scared I love scaring people. I don't know; maybe it's revenge.
(Although I have to admit I did make it through one of the High Octane Nightmare Fuel web shorts without getting nightmares or anything. Possibly I'm not as easily scared as I thought I was. I hope so. I'm not taking my chances with any of the really bad stuff yet.)
---
New Topic Time!
It occurs to me that I never talked about my Very Exciting Weekend! Saturday was the Halloween party; I didn't dress up because I was too lazy to get a costume and also because it was pouring down rain Halloween night and I feel awkward trick-or-treating at my age anyway, but M, J and E invited us over for candy apples and apple-bobbing (which I'd never done, and is far more difficult than I anticipated) and playing a game where you tie a string around a doughtnut and hang that string from the ceiling and try to eat the doughnut off the string - also more difficult than it sounds, but completely worth it for the homemade doughtnuts and licking cinnamon-sugar off one's face afterwards.
After that we played Cranium (which I performed very badly at because I aparently wasn't thinking that night) and watched Hocus Pocus, and it had been a long time since I'd seen it so I didn't realize that Thackery Binx is played by Sean Murray - wee McGee! He made an awfully cute kid, with his puffy pirate shirt and apple cheeks and all. :)
Sunday, M, E, L, J and I went out to City Near Collegeland to go see the Reduced Shakespeare Comany live! The theater was unexpectedly tiny, which was nice because I could actually see all three performers. An unexpected surprise was that one of the original memebers was apparently not present, and his replacement was Matt Rippy - yes, as in the real Captain Jack Harkness. I would not have expected him to have such nice comic timing and talent for slapstick just from seeing him in Torchwood. He also looks really cute in a dress, even with the intentionally bad wigs, but maybe that's me.
Anyway, they repeated the skits I'd already seen on the DVD (with some updated jokes, of course), but the three of them had so much stage presence that it was all still funny, and everything's funnier when you're in a live audience anyway. Also our teacher fast-forwarded through the Tidus Andronicus sketch when we saw the DVD, so it was my first time seeing that.
And then I got all three of them to autograph my program afterwards! All in all, a Sunday well spent.
---
One more topic, and then I must go to do laundry before it gets to be stupid-o-clock in the morning:
Because I'm panicking a lot about all my upcoming ficathon deadlines and Yuletide, and have realized that all my best fics are written under time pressure and/or deadline panic, I've decided to follow
mary_pseud 's suggestion and ask for prompts. Tomorrow, when I get an uninterrupted hour, I'll see how many I can fill in that hour. So...prompt me? :D
---
And now, a link that I'm sure all of you've seen before I go off on my epic laundry quest:
"I'm an elder god of the damned! I can't have any ribbons on me, you wretched shrew!"
sleepy
(no subject)
Which fandoms are you signed up for? Would help with prompting. (Also, holy crow, you are crazy! Does that really mean you have to produce 24 fics?)
(no subject)
And you're actually not supposed to talk about your fic in public, not even which fandoms you listed, because the fics are anonymous when they first go live. Right now I'm just looking to write *something* that isn't a fragment of another fic, to break the habit of stalling and self-editing, so prompts don't have to be for my Yuletide fandoms or even fandom-specific. (And thank you for offering to prompt!)
(no subject)
If I think of any general prompts, I'll save 'em up for you.
(no subject)
hi hi
Anywayz happy Novermber, and yea that your weekend sounded quite interesting. Cheers!
(no subject)
Thanks for your input - a lot of my stories are written in tight third-person, which in theory should make it easy to write about a character seeing something without knowing what it is, but I tend to associate scary things with visuals and, most particularly, sound, so conveying that in text is tricky for me.
Happy November to you as well!
(no subject)
(no subject)
(Thank you so, so much for all your help, by the way - I do check the FAQ and the main comm before I do things, but sometimes there's just so much information up there I get lost or forget things.)
(no subject)
*nods* I think most people do try to include all the request details. But it's a sanity-saving thing to know you don't have to if the details include something you absolutely can't write.
(Oh, one point of fact--you really can only sign up to write four characters at any one time, unless you pick "any." But you can sign up to write the same fandom multiple times with different character combinations. So, if Doctor Who were a fandom, you could offer to write any combination of the Second Doctor, Jamie, Zoe, and Victoria, and also any combination of the Third Doctor, Jo, Sarah Jane Smith, and the Brigadier, *and* any combination of Jo, the Brigadier, Benton, and Yates.) This system is simultaneously a useful tool (if you don't want to write the Second Doctor and the Brigadier in the same fic, say) and a giant pain in the ass. I think they use it because of software limitations.
Yuletide can be really complicated, yes. It's just so big, and it gets more complicated because the mods work hard to accommodate people (by, for example, allowing writers to specify which characters they're willing to write). But it's worth all the confusion, really! *grins*
(no subject)
(no subject)