Yuletide Is Love

[lunabee34]

alixtii wrote a really wonderful post HERE about Yuletide and how awesome it is and why everyone should participate. I completely agree and would like to expand on his post.

Even though I entered fandom in 2005, I waited until last year to particpate in Yuletide for a couple of reasons.

Reason #1: I didn't know it existed. Shocking, yes, but oh so true. But once I realized that I could read fic for Toy Soldiers and Dead Poet's Society and M*A*S*H and Villette and OMG Little House on the Frakking Prairie, I was hooked. I spent a great deal of those four years between 2005 and last Christmas devouring the archive at Yuletide. And after awhile, I really wanted to participate, but...

Reason #2: Yuletide looks scary. There appear to be a lot of rules. It seems confusing. And if you screw up, they can BAN YOU FOR LIFE! Eeeeep. When I finally took a deep breath, I realized that all those rules basically boiled down to: Write what your recipient has requested to the best of your ability, and turn your story in on time. That I can so do. But wait, I had still more reservations.

Reason #3: I had done ficathons before and either I didn't get stories in return, or the people for whom I had written never said a thing. This has consistently happened to me with every exchange ficathon I've participated in since I got into fandom (including this year's Remix), EXCEPT FOR YULETIDE. Everybody gets a story. Period. And while I'm sure some people are dicks and don't leave their authors feedback, by and large, I do not think that's the usual experience.

So, even if you haven't done so before, I would urge you all to particpate in Yuletide this year. Yuletide has become my number one favorite thing about fandom. It's a place where I find the most interesting and creative fic writing; it's a place where I find fic for shows and books and movies that I never thought people would ever write fic for. It's a place where I am continually and pleasantly surprised at the awesome things that we can create. Fandom nominations just opened.

I nominated A.S. Byatt's "Angels and Insects," Beowulf, Bible OT, David Eddings's Belgariad and Mallorean, Friends and Frasier.

Go forth! Yuletide!

Comments

[tabaqui]

I want to be involved *so bad*, but i don't think i know any weird, small fandoms enough to actually *write* anything! But i'm pining hardcore for some cj cherryh 'rider' 'verse fic.

*flails*

[lunabee34.livejournal.com]

I bet you do, though! You could Rudyard Kipling it up! Or traditional fairy tales! Or, or..... Whatever your favorite book is that you've read four million times, I bet you could write that!

:)

But it's fun from the reading side too. :)

[tabaqui]

It's possible. I'm so damn intimidated by it all, though. It's huge and full of rules and just....freaky. Heh.

I'm going to just wait and watch and see and maybe sign up next year, if i can figure out some bitty fandoms. :)

*Kipling, check...Little Princess/Secret Garden/Swiss Family Robinson/Watership Down, check....*

[lunabee34.livejournal.com]

I completely know where you're coming from. I was really intimidated too. But there's really one a couple of true rules: fics have to be 1000 words long, they have to be turned in on time, and write what your author requests to the best of your ability (basically using the characters they ask for is what that boils down to).

That being said, I so understand being intimidated. I watched really closely for a couple years and read everybody else's Yuletide posts and then felt comfortable enough to go forward. So do that this year (and I'll make a few more posts than I did last year about the process to make it more transparent).

(And see? You gots fandoms! LOL)

[tabaqui]

Yeah. They just seem confusing to me. Or i'm misunderstanding. It *seems* that you have to request like...multiple fics, and i really only want the one, heh. Or it could be two, i suppose, if someone actually did both pairings, but i don't want anything else.... I dunno. I'm already committed to the apocabigbang and i have some other things to finish up so i'm thinking that getting 1000 words of a rather obscure fandom out by Yule might not work this year, anyway.

But i'm thinking next year for sure for sure.

*smishes you*

[lunabee34.livejournal.com]

No, you're not misunderstanding. Because these are relatively obscure fandoms (CareBears, really? LOL), what happens is that each participant requests 3 (I think) fandoms and offers to write in at least 3 fandoms ( I think you can offer to write at lot more than you can request). That way it's much easier to match people on stories.

Yay! Next year.

[tabaqui]

Ah, yeah. I was thinking the number was six, which really is not possible, heh. Three is a little more manageable.

[lyr]

Woot! I am Yuletiding again this year, as usual. I haven't signed up yet, though, because I am still trying to narrow down what I want to offer/ask for. There're so many choices! But I'm so glad you're playing again this year---it's such a great experience.

[lunabee34.livejournal.com]

OMG

I am so excited.

Yuletide is always awesome, and I'm really excited to give it another go.

[lyr]

I am so excited.

Me too! I finally fiished my sign-up, and now I can't wait to see my assignment.

[lunabee34.livejournal.com]

Oh man, me too. I signed up for something because I anticipated that someone on my flist was going to request it and then they didn't. LOL So serves me right if I end up with someone else's request for this fandom that I have pretty much never read.