Yuletide reveal day! I got a little carried away and wrote six stories this year. I have listed them in the order I wrote them.

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( 1 ) Loving Bonds -- The Dark Is Rising, 2,800 words. There is a fierce long age between Arthur's reign and the final Rising. Any number of things could have broken a chain of descent and prevented the Light from having a Pendragon on their side. Why, then, did the Dark allow Bran to remain in the twentieth century? Contains discussion of premature birth and the death of a premature child, and a threat to a living child. (Written for rizny.)

Thoughts: This was my assignment story. I had offered to write The Dark Is Rising not because I had any particular drive to write for it, nor any ideas, but because it is a canon I am familiar with, and it has enough gaps and loose ends that I figured I could find something to hang a story on. Rizny's optional details said, among other things, "I would really love a story with Will or Merry or Arthur or John Rowlands as one of the main characters, doing with fierce determination what must be done to save the world, whether it's a scene left out of the book or the Dark returning somehow or whatever," which seemed promising.

The trouble is that when I started rereading canon (focusing on The Grey King and Silver on the Tree, because they are the only books containing John Rowlands), I discovered that what I desperately wanted to do was explore and explain Blodwen Rowlands. *headdesk* So I beat my head against a metaphorical wall for a while until my subconscious coughed up the idea of John convincing Blodwen to let Bran stay at Clwyd with Owen Davies.

The bit about the premature birth of the Rowlands' child came out of freaking nowhere as I was typing up the opening section (which I had written longhand at work). On reflection, I think it snuck in mostly because one of my real life friends is pregnant right now. Her pregnancy is going swimmingly, but apparently I am still worrying in the back of my head. *shrug*

Initially I called this story "Guardian Angels." I swapped that out for "The Fate of Men," and then "While Shepherds Watch Are Keeping," but I didn't like any of those titles. (The first is stolen from 'All Through the Night,' the second from Silver on the Tree, and the third from 'What Child Is This?') So I went with "Loving Bonds," as did two other people this year -- it is the most obvious title for any story about love and families in this fandom -- but whatever, it works, and I'm not sorry.

I am fairly sure I lifted the line about a 'fierce long age between X and Y' from one of Andre Norton's Time Traders books, but I cannot remember which one offhand, and I like the phrase too much to change it. *sheepish*

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( 2 ) The Geographic Cure -- American Gods, 2,100 words. Artemis and Apollo go to America. (Written for Minnow.)

Thoughts: I got my assigned story up before the last minute this year, and then had a few days with nothing much to do and a lot of real life stuff I didn't want to think about. So when the list of people who still needed pinch hits went up, I scrolled through it and minnow1212's prompt jumped out at me. American Gods didn't really work for me as a novel -- I could never connect with it properly -- but the idea behind it is genius, as I think the number of responses to Minnow's prompt shows. *grin*

I have very little to say about this story as a story; it kind of happened through me as I typed, without much conscious direction on my part. So no, I don't know why the twins were in England, nor how long they'd been there, nor where they'd traveled and what they'd done since Rome went Christian. I do know why they went to Charleston, though -- Charleston was apparently quite the melting pot in colonial times (they had a notable Jewish population, among other things), and I also wanted more of a stratified society (and closer social connections to upper-class England) than New England would have provided. I also did some actual (though glancing) research on women's saddles and foxhunting and consequently inserted a little one-sentence handwave about how and why Artemis is out hunting with the men.

(Not research-related, but possibly relevant: I think that when the Romans adopted the Greek pantheon, Apollo had no troubles whatsoever, not having a Roman counterpart, but Artemis and Diana fought a vicious battle that ended with Diana dead and Artemis taking on her name as a new title and absorbing the worship and power that had previously gone to Diana. *nods firmly* Furthermore, the little bit about Jesus that ended up in my story? That is there very deliberately, because one of my main issues with American Gods was the way Gaiman left out Christianity and Judaism and Islam. I am not sure if he was setting those religions on a higher plane -- true gods, rather than human-created gods -- or was just trying to avoid religious backlash, but it annoyed me. What I did not manage to make Artemis say is that in my view, this world's Jesus is a god like any other god, but he is currently vastly more powerful and so he can and does completely ignore the old pagan gods and the new technology gods.)

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( 3 ) And Both Shall Row -- Seaward, 900 words. Cally and West meet again after several years. (Written for Lesserstorm.)

Thoughts: I saw lesserstorm's 'Dear Yuletide Writer' post in November, and tucked away the idea of writing Seaward fic as a treat. I promptly forgot about it, because my mind is a sieve, but when all the requests went up for Yuletide Madness the memory rushed back and so this was the first thing I wrote off that list, before I began scrolling down alphabetically.

I had a file somewhere in which I explained my reasons for deciding Westerly is from Pakistan, but I seem to have misplaced it. Basically, it comes down to his physical appearance (black hair, dark eyes, dusky skin); to the book in his fantasy room (written in a language and script that Cally, who is pretty obviously from England, cannot recognize -- possibly Arabic or Urdu); and to the idea that his country is in political turmoil in the late 1970s (since the book was published in the early 1980s), has a seacoast, and probably (by implication) has a mostly temperate climate. Also, given the scene at the harbor near the end of the book, his name does genuinely seem to be 'Westerly,' not a word that translates that way, so his country must have had heavy British or American influence in the not-too-distant past -- and Pakistan is a country that would be familiar to a British writer like Cooper.

The title is a line from the song "The Water Is Wide," though I assure you the later verses have no connection whatsoever to this story. *grin*

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( 4 ) thy daughter in law, which loveth thee -- the Bible: Old Testament (Book of Ruth), 1,100 words. Naomi loves Ruth, but not quite as Ruth would wish. (Written for Summercloud.)

Thoughts: This one is kind of WTF for me, because while I do spend a lot of time thinking about religion and while I have played textual games with Judeo-Christian religious traditions in an original novelette (Finding Marea: Truth and Change in the Circle of Kemar, if you are interested), I had never thought of writing straight-up Biblical fanfic. But the prompt jumped out at me when I was scrolling down the Yuletide Madness page, and it's really easy to reread the Book of Ruth and spend half an hour doing a little internet research on what redemption means in that context. So I thought, why not?

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( 5 ) whatever a sun will always sing is you -- The Darkangel, 150 words exactly. Erin is always at Aeriel's side as they build their world and their lives. (Written for fresne.)

Thoughts: I wrote a Darkangel fic for aishuu earlier this year, and discovered that while I enjoy reading post-series Aeriel/Irrylath, I do not believe in it strongly enough to write it myself... at least not without an awful lot of space to work up to it convincingly. And yet I had never thought about Aeriel/Erin, which is odd because I love how female-centric the series is, and I always liked how Aeriel and Erin's friendship and loyalty to each other was made much of. So it was interesting to step sideways and look at canon again and say, "Oh, right, femslash!"

The story is still pretty gen, but that's partly because I fail at sex scenes, partly because I was trying to stay within the bounds of Pierce's own treatment of sex and sexual desire, and partly because, well, the story's only 150 words long. Where was I going to put any sex? *wry*

The title is a line from an e.e. cummings poem.

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( 6 ) Princess no Go -- Enchanted Forest Chronicles/Hikaru no Go, 350 words. Cimorene and Mendanbar play Go. AU. (Written for pentapus.)

Thoughts: The prompt for this story was "Cimorene and Mendanbar, AU. Go." The entire story is therefore an elaboration of a play on words. If it had not been ten minutes to midnight and if I had not been so tired, I think my better mind would have self-censored this into non-existence rather than post it, but what the hell, it's kind of cute and I never claimed my sense of humor was any good, so what do I know. *sheepish grin*

1. We did not do inventory after all -- PM decided we just did not have enough staff on such short notice, so she put it off until next week. That was okay; we used the extra staff we did have (because she extended ET's and MS's hours) to get stuff done that often is put off until Tuesday.

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2. Today was bitterly cold with gusts of wind up to 40mph. I was awakened several times last night by the windows in my living room rattling in their frames, so this evening I stuck some folded paper around their edges to help pin them in place, and stuffed rolled up paper towels into the cracks where the upper frame meets the lower frame, because those gaps were leaking frigid air into my apartment.

Tomorrow I am going to buy cling wrap and seal the windows up properly until spring. I would have done that today, but the only cling wrap I have to hand is translucent rather than transparent, and has tacky red-and-green line art all over it. I suspect I bought it on sale two or three Christmases ago.

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3. All six of my Yuletide stories have been commented on, which is nice. So far, one of them seems to be the clear winner in terms of recs and comments... and I am not surprised, really, because it's in probably the most 'popular' fandom, insofar as Yuletide fandoms are popular in the first place. (Well, one of the others is also in a popular small fandom, but it does not focus on the beloved woobie characters, so I am not surprised that it's a bit less noticed. And I have nothing against said beloved woobie characters -- they are my woobies too! -- but yeah, in any canon source, there will always be some characters who will get more attention than others.)

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4. I really must put together a recs post tomorrow, since I have some stories that I really like, and also I want a more public forum in which to proclaim the virtues of my own gifts, because so far I am the only person who has commented on Ankhanan Justice, and that is a crying shame. (To Play the Picochet has been noticed by four people besides me, which is still not nearly enough, but is at least something.)

Seriously, I don't care if you have never read Heroes Die, The Blade of Tyshalle, and Caine Black Knife. Go read Ankhanan Justice. It works as a standalone fantasy adventure (though admittedly, some of Caine's side thoughts make more sense if you know the canon background), and it is a lot of fun! Also violent and bloody, but I think that just makes it more fun!

I wrote six stories for Yuletide this year. If you guess any of them before the author reveal, I will write you a ficlet of your choice.

Here are three hints:

1. Four stories are in fandoms that I have never written in before. (In two cases, they were not even fandoms I offered to write in.)

2. Two stories are femslash, two are het, and two include background het but are classed as gen because sex and/or romance is not the point. (This being me, even the stories that are about romance are not particularly romantic -- and there is no sex whatsoever -- but I did try.)

3. One story is complete and utter crack.

Dear Yuletide Writer,

I'm pretty easy to please -- so long as you write a grammatically correct story that isn't simply a long sex scene, I'll be thrilled just to get a fic in one of the fandoms I asked for. *grin* But I realize that's not terribly helpful, so here's the (very!) long version.

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( General Information )

Okay. On to specific fandoms.

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( The Lions of Al-Rassan )

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( The Acts of Caine )

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( Song for the Basilisk )

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( Lucifer )

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And that is that.

Wrote two more Yuletide treats. That makes six stories total. Granted, they are not all full-length (i.e., at least 1,000 words), but still. That is a lot of writing in very little time!

I also made notes for another potential New Year's Resolution fic, because again, the prompt is very interesting but I do not have the canon at hand.

Anyway, I think I will continue searching the prompts list for ideas, but I am done writing for tonight. The archive may be open soon anyway. I hope it's soon!

*crosses fingers, anticipates*

Work was okay. MS was still sick/recovering from being sick, and AO was out with sinusitis, but JM and I were very productive so I think MS, BW, and PM will be able to manage the afternoon and evening, busy though it will be.

My dad arrived shortly before 12:30 and picked me up as I was walking home. So we were able to leave Ithaca at 1pm exactly, and we arrive home slightly before 5pm, having stopped a few times en route for lunch, gas, and a rest area on account of having eaten lunch and drunk Coca-Cola to stay alert while driving.

My mom is now on her way back from her yoga class, and will pick up take-out Chinese on her way. So that is good.

Also, I realized I needed to do some more historical research on a couple points for my Yuletide treat, which resulted in, oh, two lines being changed and a half sentence to handwave any remaining historical inaccuracy. I also fixed a bit of business later on, and tried to make the theme more coherent/visible. So that is also good. (I love that this year we are able to edit our stories! It is amazing how many stupid errors you never notice until after you send a story out into the world.)

Tomorrow morning I will have breakfast with Susan, and then go make nifty things out of glass. Beyond that... who knows? (Well, church in the evening, obviously, but aside from that my afternoon is pretty much blank.)

Yuletide story is edited and posted! \o/

(Editing included a new title -- this is the third time I have changed the title of the blasted story -- but while the new title is kind of, hmm, on the nose, it is at least not as pretentious as title #2, nor as blatantly stolen from a Christmas carol as title #3, nor yet as blatantly stolen from a lullaby as title #1. So I am okay with title #4, all things considered. *grin*)

And that is that.

Got a call from the tailor (well, his assistant, technically) at 4pm saying my coat was ready. So I will pick it up Friday afternoon when I go into town to mail packages.

Talked to PM on the phone this evening. I mentioned that Ardis's funeral would be in January, exact dates currently unknown. PM said of course I could have time off to go. So that is a tiny bit of weight off my mind.

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In other news, I have fixed part A of Problem 2 in my Yuletide story, and am about halfway through fixing Problem 1 and part B of Problem 2. The story has grown a bit longer in the process, which does not surprise me. I do chop extraneous stuff out when revising, but I tend more toward the 'oops, I forgot to put in the chain of thought that explains character X's choice here, and also character Y should probably say something in reaction to what just happened' school of writing, which means my second drafts are usually first draft + 10% rather than the other way around. Basically, what I do when I revise is switch from 'but it makes perfect sense in my head!' which is useful for getting some words -- any words! -- on the page, to 'oh right, readers cannot read my mind,' and elaborate accordingly.

...

Also, I think I have figured out where the whole seriously, Liz, WTF??? plot development came from. It is only partly organic to the story; mostly it is related to something in real life that has been on the periphery of my consciousness for a couple months. It would not have appeared in this story if it were not at least partly organic to the situation, but without this bleed-over from my real life, I don't think the possibility would ever have occurred to me as a potential explanation for a particular thing I needed to happen.

...And wow, is that vague and convoluted. I will explain after New Year's, I promise.

Have finished Yuletide story.

Well, more accurately, I hit all the points I wanted to hit in said story (to some degree, at least), and kind of threw up my hands and said, "Ending! Now!" and half-assed a lame conclusion onto it.

It rambles horribly, in thematic terms. Way too much thinking, not enough doing. Also, I lost half the original intention of the story somewhere along the way -- unfortunately, it was the half that met my recipient's optional details rather than the half that plays into my current obsession with a specific character and associated world-building (world-explication? whatever). Must figure out how to dredge that particular theme up again and make it stronger. Must also integrate surprise angsty development into story so it does not overwhelm everything else or jolt readers out of the narrative and make them go "...seriously, Liz, what the fuck???" at me.

Still. Words are on the page. And it is much easier (for me, anyway) to fix something that already exists than to create something out of nothing.

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Bed now. I have to be awake for potential calls on Thursday.

Things I have done today:

1. Taught RE. Today's lesson was (surprise, surprise), Christmas. We only had one kid, so it was me, Celia, and Emily our amazing assistant (plus Celia's husband, who sat in for kicks), essentially talking at Celia's daughter. We did a tiny spiel, and then I freely adapted the text of an Aztec version of the Nativity, translated from the actual Aztec version written by some Aztecs and a Spanish missionary priest back in the 1500s. The text, I think, does not quite work as an American's children's book, but the general gist is interesting, especially the long digression about flowers and jewels as the angels sing to the shepherds, and the illustrations are both gorgeous and fascinating, since they pull the standard trick of illustrating the Holy Land as if it were the illustrator's own homeland -- which, in this case, means Tenochtitlan before it became Mexico City.

Then we made ornaments for all the kids who weren't there, because next week after the lesson (which will be Yule), everyone troops downstairs to decorate the tree in the sanctuary while the adult congregation sings carols. I am not teaching, but I may or may not show up to assist and stuff.

2. Failed to do laundry, on account of freezing rain. Bah. (Did change sheets and towels, though, and now they are in laundry baskets for whenever the weather is decent and I have two and a half hours to spare.)

3. In related failure (because I'd expected to have freshly cleaned pants and was discombobulated when I could not do laundry), forgot to dig out spare pants and went to work still wearing my jeans, which is against the dress code. *headdesk*

4. Wrote 200 words toward Yuletide that are not actually part of the story I am going to write, but are instead a sort of prologue that explains the situation to myself. I am weird and obsessive like that, yes, I know.

Anyway, the problem with Yuletide this year is that my recipient did not specify any characters (ze marked 'any'), but in hir optional details, ze did say it would be great to have a story about one of a few particular characters being awesome in a particular fashion. Unfortunately, when I went back and refamiliarized myself with canon, the character I suddenly, desperately wanted to write about A) was not one of the requested characters, and B) by definition cannot perform that particular action. *sigh*

But! Luckily I have thought of a situation that includes both my new object of fascination and one of my recipient's requested characters (actually two, but one is mostly passive for reasons that shall be obvious the minute I can tell you anything specific), that can be interpreted to satisfy the requested action, and that is also (I think) pretty cool.

Now I just need to find the right entry point and write the damn thing.