Yuletide Reveal!!
Jan. 1st, 2009 05:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rosie_ruesSo, I may have gone a little bit crazy with Yuletide this year. It was pretty much my only fannish activity of 2008, so I decided to throw myself into it whole-heartedly (2009 will probably follow the same model because it worked well this year). I wrote ten pieces in all, listed under the cut by fandom. I loved writing every single one of these, despite the fact they are all very different in terms of style, setting and plot.
Diana Wynne Jones - Chrestomanci (2 stories)
Rhinegold for Becky.
Charmed Life was the first Diana Wynne Jones book I read, when I was seven. I loved it so much, for the setting and the magic and for Cat. The book is all about the way he starts to take control of his own life, but it is only a beginning. I always wondered what kind of enchanter Cat would make. When The Pinhoe Egg came out, I loved it. I loved the way that Cat was developing quiet self-confidence, particularly in his magic. I loved Marianne and I adored dwimmer (hence The Murder at Missel Hall which was one of last year's Chrestomanci stories). I first spotted this prompt when I was reading through people's Yuletide letters, but wasn't quite fast enough to claim the pinch hit. I wrote it anyway, as a Yuletide treat, after dark on Christmas Eve. When I first started thinking about Cat, Tonino and Marianne as adult enchanters, I wanted to write about them on a Grand Tour, being awesome and competent. In the end, I didn't have time to do the research to pull that off. The realisation that I could send them to Series Seven was a last minute thing - I then looked up what Conrad said about Ludwich, spotted the mention of the Little Rhine and knew that I had to write about rhinemaidens. It just seemed like a very DWJ plot. The decision to write about them as not much older than in the books wasn't made until I had the blank page in front of me.
I loved doing the world building for this. Worldbuilding is one of my favourite things, whether writing fanfiction or in my original stories, and I love the way DWJ tosses out little comments which create a sense of a whole world. Fleshing out the little hints about Series Seven was very fun. The whole rationale for Ludwich was that little comment one of the kids makes about pictures on chocolate boxes. If you've ever seen the old-fashioned boxes of Christmas sweets with snowy London street scenes, you'll know what I had in mind.
Appearances for Annakovsky.
This was just a tiny thing. I love the rivalry between Julia and Gwendolyn in Charmed Life, and was amused to see Julia and Janet as bosom friends in the later stories. This was just a little scene exploring how that transition might have happened. I think this was the very last thing I wrote on Christmas Eve.
Robin McKinley - Damar
The Truth in Dreaming for Rhyana.
This was my main story. I've never written Damar before and, not because of the prompt which was fun, I probably won't volunteer it again. These books drove me insane. As I mentioned above, I like worldbuilding, and I like consistent materials to build my worlds on. If I mention that I found a quote where McKinley explained that Damarian geography and history were deliberately contradictory from story to story, you'll probably understand my frustration. I ended up drawing on A Pool in the Desert which is my favourite Damarian short story for a couple of locations and then just made up something plausible sounding. Geographical niggles aside, the character aspects of this were fun - I loved the sections of Corlath's pov in The Blue Sword, so once I realised that this was his story I was really pleased. He was fun to write. The idea of this came from something he says to Harry at the end of the book - I have loved you long, though at first I did not know it; but I knew it when I sent you into the Hills with Mathin and Tsornin for your teachers, for I saw then how I missed you. I wanted to explore that - to show how this man who is utterly devoted to his country could also fall in love with a woman, and how the two loves were intertwined (which was why I kept hitting geography snarls, of course).
Wanderlust for Carnadine.
This was inspired entirely by a passing comment the recipient made in her LJ, which I've paraphrased in the first line. It seemed to me that Jack Dedham would feel the same way, and he's one of my favourites, so I dashed this off as a last minute treat.
David Eddings - Elenium
Blessings for Tali.
The Diamond Throne was the first 'proper' fantasy novel I read, and I'll never forget that sense of wonder. My issues with Eddings are wide and various these days, but there's still part of me that wants to be a Pandion :) I saw this prompt and went Vanion/Sephrenia! Snarky Pandions! Whoo! and that pretty much explains the whole story :)
Fairytale
The Garden of the Nightingale for Cyn.
I've always loved this fairytale. I wanted to write about the characters in the sidelines, which turned into this quiet little story about the little kitchenmaid and her decision to go in search of the nightingale. It's also about freedom and friendship. And pretty gardens, because, yes, see above on worldbuilding.
Verity for WhiteCat.
*grins* This was my official pinch hit, and I loved writing this. Rapunzel always annoyed me because it had such a victim of a heroine. So I decided to rewrite it with a better princess. Simple role reversal would have been boring, so there's more to the plot of this than Verity rocks, but that was the starting point. I wish I'd had a year to write this, although it would be a novel in that case. There's a lot in here I just didn't have time to explore - the link between Zel's need for revenge and the way he builds himself into the tower didn't make it, and there's a hell of a lot about the role played by Verity and her family as conquerors which should be explored more. I still don't know what the villain's motivations were, and I was horribly dismissive of the older sisters. That said, I wrote it in 20 hours on December 23rd, so I kinda love it as it is. This is the closest I've come yet to writing the sort of fairytale I wanted to read as a kid.
E. M. Forster - A Room With a View
Carpe Diem for Calliope85.
This prompt fascinated me. From the moment I saw it, the most obvious place for Freddy and Cecil to meet again was during WW1, in a time and place which eroded class boundaries and expectations. That said, Forster's voice, which is ironic and kindly, is not well suited to war. I'm proud of this one, because it was the most technically challenging of the lot and because it's as historically accurate as I could make it (I had a lot of tabs open to various accounts of Passchendaele and WWI medical procedures while I was writing). The other difficulty I had with this one was that I didn't know how it would end until I was halfway through the final scene. I knew from A View Without A Room that Freddy survived the war, married and started a large family. Forster never made it clear what happened to Cecil after WW1 or even if he survived at all. I wrote this story with the uneasy feeling that I was being carried towards a tragic ending. In the end, though, I decided that Forster himself would have preferred an optimistic ending.
*grins at![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
penhaligonblue* Thought you might get that one ;) Name your prompt!
Gouhou Drug aka Legal Drug
Midnight for Opalmatrix
So, just before Christmas, my local WHSmiths started stocking manga. I picked these up on a whim, and then saw this prompt come up during Yuletide Madness. I looked it and thought, Hey, I can write that and I can make it smutty! And promptly wrote something rather angsty. Prophecies and distractions and speculation.
Merlin
Much Sorrow We Walk In for Kishmet.
Barely more than a drabble, but Mordred fascinated me on the show, and I wanted to know how he would get to the point where he would become Arthur's nemesis. Title loosely from an early medieval lyric:
Fowles in the frith,
The fisshes in the flood,
And I mon waxe wod
Much sorwe I walke with
For beste of boon and blood.
And, finally, a proper thank you toescalove for my gift, The Problem With Being An Older Brother :)
Diana Wynne Jones - Chrestomanci (2 stories)
Rhinegold for Becky.
Charmed Life was the first Diana Wynne Jones book I read, when I was seven. I loved it so much, for the setting and the magic and for Cat. The book is all about the way he starts to take control of his own life, but it is only a beginning. I always wondered what kind of enchanter Cat would make. When The Pinhoe Egg came out, I loved it. I loved the way that Cat was developing quiet self-confidence, particularly in his magic. I loved Marianne and I adored dwimmer (hence The Murder at Missel Hall which was one of last year's Chrestomanci stories). I first spotted this prompt when I was reading through people's Yuletide letters, but wasn't quite fast enough to claim the pinch hit. I wrote it anyway, as a Yuletide treat, after dark on Christmas Eve. When I first started thinking about Cat, Tonino and Marianne as adult enchanters, I wanted to write about them on a Grand Tour, being awesome and competent. In the end, I didn't have time to do the research to pull that off. The realisation that I could send them to Series Seven was a last minute thing - I then looked up what Conrad said about Ludwich, spotted the mention of the Little Rhine and knew that I had to write about rhinemaidens. It just seemed like a very DWJ plot. The decision to write about them as not much older than in the books wasn't made until I had the blank page in front of me.
I loved doing the world building for this. Worldbuilding is one of my favourite things, whether writing fanfiction or in my original stories, and I love the way DWJ tosses out little comments which create a sense of a whole world. Fleshing out the little hints about Series Seven was very fun. The whole rationale for Ludwich was that little comment one of the kids makes about pictures on chocolate boxes. If you've ever seen the old-fashioned boxes of Christmas sweets with snowy London street scenes, you'll know what I had in mind.
Appearances for Annakovsky.
This was just a tiny thing. I love the rivalry between Julia and Gwendolyn in Charmed Life, and was amused to see Julia and Janet as bosom friends in the later stories. This was just a little scene exploring how that transition might have happened. I think this was the very last thing I wrote on Christmas Eve.
Robin McKinley - Damar
The Truth in Dreaming for Rhyana.
This was my main story. I've never written Damar before and, not because of the prompt which was fun, I probably won't volunteer it again. These books drove me insane. As I mentioned above, I like worldbuilding, and I like consistent materials to build my worlds on. If I mention that I found a quote where McKinley explained that Damarian geography and history were deliberately contradictory from story to story, you'll probably understand my frustration. I ended up drawing on A Pool in the Desert which is my favourite Damarian short story for a couple of locations and then just made up something plausible sounding. Geographical niggles aside, the character aspects of this were fun - I loved the sections of Corlath's pov in The Blue Sword, so once I realised that this was his story I was really pleased. He was fun to write. The idea of this came from something he says to Harry at the end of the book - I have loved you long, though at first I did not know it; but I knew it when I sent you into the Hills with Mathin and Tsornin for your teachers, for I saw then how I missed you. I wanted to explore that - to show how this man who is utterly devoted to his country could also fall in love with a woman, and how the two loves were intertwined (which was why I kept hitting geography snarls, of course).
Wanderlust for Carnadine.
This was inspired entirely by a passing comment the recipient made in her LJ, which I've paraphrased in the first line. It seemed to me that Jack Dedham would feel the same way, and he's one of my favourites, so I dashed this off as a last minute treat.
David Eddings - Elenium
Blessings for Tali.
The Diamond Throne was the first 'proper' fantasy novel I read, and I'll never forget that sense of wonder. My issues with Eddings are wide and various these days, but there's still part of me that wants to be a Pandion :) I saw this prompt and went Vanion/Sephrenia! Snarky Pandions! Whoo! and that pretty much explains the whole story :)
Fairytale
The Garden of the Nightingale for Cyn.
I've always loved this fairytale. I wanted to write about the characters in the sidelines, which turned into this quiet little story about the little kitchenmaid and her decision to go in search of the nightingale. It's also about freedom and friendship. And pretty gardens, because, yes, see above on worldbuilding.
Verity for WhiteCat.
*grins* This was my official pinch hit, and I loved writing this. Rapunzel always annoyed me because it had such a victim of a heroine. So I decided to rewrite it with a better princess. Simple role reversal would have been boring, so there's more to the plot of this than Verity rocks, but that was the starting point. I wish I'd had a year to write this, although it would be a novel in that case. There's a lot in here I just didn't have time to explore - the link between Zel's need for revenge and the way he builds himself into the tower didn't make it, and there's a hell of a lot about the role played by Verity and her family as conquerors which should be explored more. I still don't know what the villain's motivations were, and I was horribly dismissive of the older sisters. That said, I wrote it in 20 hours on December 23rd, so I kinda love it as it is. This is the closest I've come yet to writing the sort of fairytale I wanted to read as a kid.
E. M. Forster - A Room With a View
Carpe Diem for Calliope85.
This prompt fascinated me. From the moment I saw it, the most obvious place for Freddy and Cecil to meet again was during WW1, in a time and place which eroded class boundaries and expectations. That said, Forster's voice, which is ironic and kindly, is not well suited to war. I'm proud of this one, because it was the most technically challenging of the lot and because it's as historically accurate as I could make it (I had a lot of tabs open to various accounts of Passchendaele and WWI medical procedures while I was writing). The other difficulty I had with this one was that I didn't know how it would end until I was halfway through the final scene. I knew from A View Without A Room that Freddy survived the war, married and started a large family. Forster never made it clear what happened to Cecil after WW1 or even if he survived at all. I wrote this story with the uneasy feeling that I was being carried towards a tragic ending. In the end, though, I decided that Forster himself would have preferred an optimistic ending.
*grins at
penhaligonblue* Thought you might get that one ;) Name your prompt!Gouhou Drug aka Legal Drug
Midnight for Opalmatrix
So, just before Christmas, my local WHSmiths started stocking manga. I picked these up on a whim, and then saw this prompt come up during Yuletide Madness. I looked it and thought, Hey, I can write that and I can make it smutty! And promptly wrote something rather angsty. Prophecies and distractions and speculation.
Merlin
Much Sorrow We Walk In for Kishmet.
Barely more than a drabble, but Mordred fascinated me on the show, and I wanted to know how he would get to the point where he would become Arthur's nemesis. Title loosely from an early medieval lyric:
Fowles in the frith,
The fisshes in the flood,
And I mon waxe wod
Much sorwe I walke with
For beste of boon and blood.
And, finally, a proper thank you to
escalove for my gift, The Problem With Being An Older Brother :)![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2009-01-01 09:47 pm (UTC)I'll be back with that prompt before long. I need a bit of time to consider - in the words of an American politician currently getting too much press, "I've got this thing, and it's f---ing golden!" In the meantime, may I ask which of Forster's other works you'd be able to write?
no subject
Date: 2009-01-02 01:26 am (UTC)I'm a bit rusty on a lot of his books - Maurice, Room With A View and the short stories are the things I've reread most recently. That said, writing this has put me in the mood for rereading, so I think I'll start with The Longest Journey next week and go from there (what better author to read as my bus rattles down narrow little Surrey lanes?). The only one that I'm not keen on is A Passage to India which always feels too forced and self-conscious to me.
no subject
Date: 2009-01-02 09:01 pm (UTC)The Name of the Rose (Umberto Eco) – Severinus the herbalist
Henry V (Shakespeare) – Henry/Katherine (preferably sometime during their courtship)
The Longest Journey – Stuart Ansell
Harry Potter – Tonks/Charlie Weasley
And thank you so much! I'm looking forward to whatever you write.
no subject
Date: 2009-01-02 11:15 pm (UTC)*ponders* Hmm. I think I have an inkling for one of those. ^_^
no subject
Date: 2009-01-02 11:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-02 01:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-02 01:28 am (UTC)I'm glad you liked it ^_^
no subject
Date: 2009-01-02 02:10 am (UTC)Oh. My. God.
You only just read the canon the first time a couple of days before you wrote the story?
I am awestruck. And I really loved the treat you wrote me.
The awful thing about Legal Drug is that there are only those 3 volumes. CLAMP starts a lot of manga series and only keeps up with those that are selling especially well. So because there is no more canon material about Kakei and Saiga, your story is especially precious. Thank you again!
no subject
Date: 2009-01-02 11:12 pm (UTC)I'm glad you liked it. I really enjoyed writing it - it's the first non-book fandom I've written in, and it was fun to try and translate the visual style into words.
no subject
Date: 2009-01-02 03:20 pm (UTC)(Also, I love the fact that I've come across that lyric in my studies. *English major*)
no subject
Date: 2009-01-02 11:13 pm (UTC)Hee, I was a medieval geek in my student days and I always loved the sheer weirdness of some of the early lyrics. Have you come across the Medieval Baebes recording of that one?
no subject
Date: 2009-01-03 02:09 pm (UTC)