Dear Yuletide Writer
Nov. 3rd, 2019 08:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elisemDear Yuletide writer,
Thank you for being part of this, for signing up, and for coming to read this letter. I feel lucky that I got you. Yay! I've done Yuletide several times now, and I am always surprised and delighted when someone writes something for me. Thank you for liking the fandoms and for being up for trying to build something nifty for me to read!
Here are details, but if you are looking for a short summary instead of long format, I would prefer no embarrassment/humiliation, no grimdark just for its own sake, and no non-consensual sex, please. What I do like in fic is slow burn -- in friendship, in lovers, in sex itself - the careful building of something which earns the payoff. And I like characters who are better at the end than they were at the beginning. It's your call what "better" mean. Have fun with it. I know you care about the characters or you wouldn't have signed up, so I trust you, and I am definitely open to being surprised. The thing you write might turn out to be a thing I love and never knew existed.
My name on AO3 is MixolydianGrey. If you look at what I've posted there, I enjoy working with short pieces of fiction, verse, song lyrics, or plays/musicals.
Details:
1. The thing I most love in fic is competent people being competent, or learning to be competent, and learning to know themselves and to connect with other people. It is fine and lovely if this takes a while. (See also "slow burn.")
2. Ensemble casts are awesome. Interactions in groups fascinate me. I adore stories where people build their own families-of-the-heart. If it's complicated and sometimes difficult and requires a leap of faith, I adore it even more.
3. Any rating is fine; if you're inspired to write a glorious boink-fest, go for it. If there's no sex, no romance, whatever, that's fine with me too. Go where the writing takes you.
4. I'd rather not read non-consensual sexual contact in this year's fic, please. Nor embarrassment/humiliation, please. I'm not currently into grimdark, so if you get grim or dark or both, please make sure there's a point to the story beyond just grim and dark, yah? My rather tattered heart thanks you.
5. Um.... I may add more here. Because I live at the crossroads of ADHD Boulevard and Afterthought Avenue. So maybe check back again in a few days, yah?
OK, let's talk fandoms.
Goblin Market - Christina Rosetti
I love fic that turns a story a little bit inside out and shows me something I never knew about the characters. Feel free to move this one anywhere, anytime. (If you wind up writing me a Food Truck AU of this I will utterly bliss out, I confess, but you can stay trad if you like; you should go where your muse takes you, even if it's the original setting. I just mean it's unlikely your muse will take you further than I will go.)
Please have a good time!
Hallelujah - Leonard Cohen (song)
The odder you get with this one, the better, as far as I'm concerned. Throw extra characters in there if you like; cross over with whatever other fandom floats your boat; heck, do the whole thing in limericks as recited by various Tom Stoppard characters if you feel moved to do so.
Or if you want to write something quietly moving, that's all good too.
As long as you love the song, it's all good. Write from that place in your heart. I will love it. Even if it's deliciously cynical around the edges and daringly earnest in the middle. Go for it.
Transients in Arcadia - O. Henry (short story)
O. Henry has a special place in my heart. When I was a kid, before I turned 13, I bought a battered second-hand pile of books for ten cents apiece at a library discard sale. They were volumes from a collected works of O. Henry. They were old books and therefore presumably Actual Literature, and I was allowed to have them. (I grew up a long time ago in a very strict family in a very strict religious community.) O. Henry was where I learned to look at people and try to understand what made them tick, and to not believe everything they told me the first time.
Please write something that plays with the story in ways that might surprise and delight the adult who was that kid. I've long since escaped from the strict places, but could use a little affirmation of what the characters in the story are exploring and accomplishing. Most of all, please write something where the characters love themselves at the end. Thank you. (Other than that, you can put it on a submarine, or set it on the moon, or turn it into a crossover with Eloise at the Plaza, or whatever you like. Go for it!)
Thank you, dear Yuletide writer! Thank you so much! I hope the writing brings you joy too.
Thank you for being part of this, for signing up, and for coming to read this letter. I feel lucky that I got you. Yay! I've done Yuletide several times now, and I am always surprised and delighted when someone writes something for me. Thank you for liking the fandoms and for being up for trying to build something nifty for me to read!
Here are details, but if you are looking for a short summary instead of long format, I would prefer no embarrassment/humiliation, no grimdark just for its own sake, and no non-consensual sex, please. What I do like in fic is slow burn -- in friendship, in lovers, in sex itself - the careful building of something which earns the payoff. And I like characters who are better at the end than they were at the beginning. It's your call what "better" mean. Have fun with it. I know you care about the characters or you wouldn't have signed up, so I trust you, and I am definitely open to being surprised. The thing you write might turn out to be a thing I love and never knew existed.
My name on AO3 is MixolydianGrey. If you look at what I've posted there, I enjoy working with short pieces of fiction, verse, song lyrics, or plays/musicals.
Details:
1. The thing I most love in fic is competent people being competent, or learning to be competent, and learning to know themselves and to connect with other people. It is fine and lovely if this takes a while. (See also "slow burn.")
2. Ensemble casts are awesome. Interactions in groups fascinate me. I adore stories where people build their own families-of-the-heart. If it's complicated and sometimes difficult and requires a leap of faith, I adore it even more.
3. Any rating is fine; if you're inspired to write a glorious boink-fest, go for it. If there's no sex, no romance, whatever, that's fine with me too. Go where the writing takes you.
4. I'd rather not read non-consensual sexual contact in this year's fic, please. Nor embarrassment/humiliation, please. I'm not currently into grimdark, so if you get grim or dark or both, please make sure there's a point to the story beyond just grim and dark, yah? My rather tattered heart thanks you.
5. Um.... I may add more here. Because I live at the crossroads of ADHD Boulevard and Afterthought Avenue. So maybe check back again in a few days, yah?
OK, let's talk fandoms.
Goblin Market - Christina Rosetti
I love fic that turns a story a little bit inside out and shows me something I never knew about the characters. Feel free to move this one anywhere, anytime. (If you wind up writing me a Food Truck AU of this I will utterly bliss out, I confess, but you can stay trad if you like; you should go where your muse takes you, even if it's the original setting. I just mean it's unlikely your muse will take you further than I will go.)
Please have a good time!
Hallelujah - Leonard Cohen (song)
The odder you get with this one, the better, as far as I'm concerned. Throw extra characters in there if you like; cross over with whatever other fandom floats your boat; heck, do the whole thing in limericks as recited by various Tom Stoppard characters if you feel moved to do so.
Or if you want to write something quietly moving, that's all good too.
As long as you love the song, it's all good. Write from that place in your heart. I will love it. Even if it's deliciously cynical around the edges and daringly earnest in the middle. Go for it.
Transients in Arcadia - O. Henry (short story)
O. Henry has a special place in my heart. When I was a kid, before I turned 13, I bought a battered second-hand pile of books for ten cents apiece at a library discard sale. They were volumes from a collected works of O. Henry. They were old books and therefore presumably Actual Literature, and I was allowed to have them. (I grew up a long time ago in a very strict family in a very strict religious community.) O. Henry was where I learned to look at people and try to understand what made them tick, and to not believe everything they told me the first time.
Please write something that plays with the story in ways that might surprise and delight the adult who was that kid. I've long since escaped from the strict places, but could use a little affirmation of what the characters in the story are exploring and accomplishing. Most of all, please write something where the characters love themselves at the end. Thank you. (Other than that, you can put it on a submarine, or set it on the moon, or turn it into a crossover with Eloise at the Plaza, or whatever you like. Go for it!)
Thank you, dear Yuletide writer! Thank you so much! I hope the writing brings you joy too.
