Measured Words

Dear Amazing Yuletide Author:

Thanks, first of all, for writing! That is really the most important thing, and I will be delighted with whatever I wind up getting. I am scamming most of this from my last year’s letter (including this line!), so hopefully it will retain some amount of coherency.

( General likes/dislikes )

( Where to find me! )

On to the specifics! Please note that these are in no particular order :D

( Hadestown - Anais Mitchell )

( The Shadow (Pulps) )

( Invisible Light - Scissor Sisters (Song) )

( My Imaginary Well Dressed Toddler Daughter )

( The Death of the Necromancer - Martha Wells )


( The Witch's Son )

Whatever you write me in any fandom, wonderful author person, I am sure to love it, so thank you!

So! This year I have been rather busy, and I didn't get to write half the things I had ideas for Yuletide. I haven't *read* half the things I would like to either, though of course I have found a hundred zillion really lovely stories! Anyone who is interested (for those of you might read this who aren't already Yuletide-savy) should Check out the main archive for 2011 and also the stuff in Yuletide Madness, which is mostly shorter stories and still frequently of very high quality :) Maybe some year I will be organized enough to make some kind of coherent rec post, but this is not that year!

I wrote two things this year, with a total word count of about 18000 words - about 4000 words and several stories less than last year, but ( I am very happy with both! )

I have seen a few stories from madness getting recced, but as a lover of sort form fiction, I thught I would try and give some of the stories (especially the shorter ones) a little more love. So here are... (this is me counting) twelve stories in as many fandoms, including one written just for me, noted in previous OMG stories for me! post :D

( Arkham Horor, A Study in Emerald, English and Scottish Popular Ballads, Fairy tales and Related Fandoms, Forever Knight, General Computer Anthropomorphic, Greek and Roman Mythology, Othello, Quantim Leap, Slings and Arrows, the Little Mermaid )

The Decemberists - The Hazards of Love
Rating: PG
Summary: What ever happened to that freaking baby, anyway? :V
Notes: Yuletide gift for Tris B. Thanks to curtana for betaing :)

( The Sister's Bargain )

I meant to do this weeks ago, but with travel and whatnot, never got around to it!

First up. Things I received!

The True Death of Frank Gardiner. This was my gift, written for me based on my Lovecraft Mythos post from my Dear author post. It's really well conceived, and just exactly the sort of thing I was hoping for with my prompt. Thanks again to my author, mattador, about whom I know nothing -_-

I also received a lovely drabble in Yuletide Madness! I Wot There Lies a New Slain Knight, based on my Childe Ballads request :) It delights me because it is wonderfully done, and I love the hell out of drabbles (as those playing along at home may well know. I knew who my author, Gileonnen, was, because beta'd the other Childe Ballad fic s/he wrote, and this was basically a pay off for all of my gushing (well deserved gushing - it is based on Betsy belle and Mary Grey, and is over here: Bell and Burial).

Okay, then, on to Things I Wrote! I will be posting these directly to my journal in a bit, but these links go directly to the Archive Of Our Own site, where Yu;etide was hosted this year.

My primary assignment was for tinpra, who matches with me on a Martha Wells - Fall of Ile Rien request! Small fandom is small. Only one other Wells fic this year, and t was for her first book, the Element of Fire (over here: Fire Dance by Snarkydame). Hem. My assignment, as I chose to accept it, was essentially to write a post-series fic about Nicholas Valiarde. Which was tricky and fun! I came up with The New Game, which is him and Gerhard in Post-series Vienne, dealing with some aftermath. Very spoilery, if you haven't read the series.

I decided to wrote a full-length treat as well, for Tris B, whose LJ name I forget -_- She asked for a Decemberists - Hazards of Love fic examining the character of The Queen in more detail. She also said she liked stories about women being awesome! I had already been thinking about writing a story looking at what happened to the baby, and this provided the perfect outlet. It is a mix of prose and verse, and I was really quite pleased with it: The Sister's Bargain

I then wrote a bunch of shorter things for Yuletide Madness!

Two linked short pieces for Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser series: Aremistia of the Sad Eyes and Aremistia of the Resolved Heart. I wrote the first one on a basic 'show me these two being themselves' type prompt from Kujaku, and the response drabble from Loligo's request to include a feminine gaze into what is a very male-centric/mysoginist series -_- (although I love the hell out of it :x) Also note: the second one was curtana's fault. She wanted me to write slash, though I didn't have time in the end ;)

An Aliens drabble, looking at a Ripley moment before they get to the planet: Face Forward. This was on a prompt from Silveraspen, who was one of the people who didn't have a story in the archive on the 23rd or so, so their prompts were all released to the public to fill :)

My most popular story: an Indiana Jones Drabble based on Eiso5j's request to see Indiana doing real archaeology! There were a bunch of really good responses to this prompt, and my contribution is Indiana Jones and the Profile of Soil. Asd far as I can tell, there are a fair few archaeologists in the Yuletide fam :)