yuletide_coal | The Girl with the misspelled Tattoo

It's been about a month since the original writing goal post, so I thought it was high time for a progress report! How are you guys doing?

Original goal
Assignment + 4 treats

Current status
Assignment: 5000 words ...of notes *whimpers*
Treat 1: Finished! It's for my main recipient as well, but I wanted to write it as a warm-up since I've never written in this fandom before. I'd planned on something short, maybe even Madness-length, but it ended up being 6000 words. Oops?
Treat 2-4: I've saved several letters and have quite a few ideas, but I need to decide which ones to write. Can't do them all, unfortunately! I think I'm gonna focus on my assignment first, even though that might mean I'm left with very little time for these treats. We'll see how it goes, I guess.

Goal: At least 20k words in at least 2 stories

Current status: over 5k on my assignment...and so much more to go. Also, got distracted punching out all the words for my assignment for the OTHER holiday fest I signed up for. Giving myself a couple more days on that one, and then it's back to the Yuletide grind. But I'm totally gonna make that 20k minimum.

My very rough draft is finished... just shy of a thousand words. I hate it. This is my first year; should I default now to give my recipient a shot at a really awesome and inspired fic? Maybe I could treat them with my fic instead of it being their assignment? They requested at least three VERY popular fandoms so I know someone with a lot more passion would probably fill for them. I just know I would be disappointed to receive the story I wrote for them. :(

Don't be so hard on yourself, coalie! Could you send the draft to an alpha reader and get a different perspective on it? It could be way better than you think! You might just need to step away and come back to it in a week or two. Don't default!

AYRT

Thanks! I found out we have another few weeks until the deadline, so I'll keep at it until then. I'm dreading putting any more length in it, though, and I don't feel good about giving someone a gift that's like 1001 words long. I may send it to my alpha reader, and maybe they can psych me up about it and recommend things I could add.

Do you have any other ideas? Could you try starting from scratch with something else, maybe even written for one of their other fandoms?

Chances are you're just being too hard on yourself. Sometimes -- especially right after you've been working on it for a while -- you're just too close to the story. So you can't look at it with an unbiased eye, and judge it unfairly.

I think you should give it a little bit more time, leave it for a few days and then go back and read it again. Was it as bad as you originally thought? Are there scenes that could be modified or changed entirely? The length does sound a bit worrying, so maybe you could try adding to it a bit?

I know finding a beta can be very daunting, and sometimes might not even help -- but that might be another idea for you. If you don't know who to ask, I could perhaps try to help. I've not really into any of the big Yuletide fandoms though, so if you specifically want a canon beta I'm probably not your guy.

/Sparanero

AYRT

Thanks, those are good suggestions. Sadly, I have no other ideas, especially because my recip only requested prompts that already have at least 5 fics each, if not way more by now. (They exclusively want shipfic for the most popular canon relationship of a very popular new fandom, and it's like "A/B live happily ever after, just like in canon! A/B do the thing they always talked about doing!") I tried really hard to put a new take on one of their prompts, but it was painstaking and I can't bear the thought of repeating the process. I would only do that if I decided to go ODAO on them and at that point I'd rather just default.

Fortunately, the fandom is huge enough (just new) that I have plenty of alpha and beta readers willing to help me. Thank you so much for the offer,though!

Original goal: Assignment and two treats.

All done!
Assignment: 6k
Treat 1: 7k
Treat 2: 2k

I want to write more but none of the letters are inspiring me. Maybe when the pinch hits come out I can grab one.

Goal: Assignment + two or three treats.

Progress:
Assignment: canon review done, most of the research done, outline done, 500 words written.
Treat 1: outline vaguely done
Treat 2: I have some ideas.

Goal: Assignment + more treats than either last year or year before (= 5 or more).

Progress:
Treat 1 - complete! 5k.
Treat 2 - 2.5k of outlines, 4k of actual words.
Treat 3 - 6k of outlines, 0 actual words. Haven't decided whether to cut this up into three stories and give the recip the whole series, or make it one fic with three parts/sections.
Assignment - 1.2k of outlines, almost 100 actual words! \o/

I definitely have enough prompts collected to reach the number of treats I want to write, but I feel like I need to try to finish some of these ridiculously long ones (and, you know, my assignment) before I start planning any more.

Goal: at least two thousand words, across as many stories as necessary
Progress: my assignment is over a thousand words and not done yet, I'm considering making up whatever's left on drabbles (and yes, I know everyone hates them)

Goal: Assignment + 4 treats

Current status
Assignment done!
Treat #1 - 1k so far, I'm stalled at a scene transition but I know where I want it to go.
Treat #2 - IF, it's planned and I'm working on conversation nodes
Treat #3 - also IF, I've just switched formats so I'll see how it goes
Treat #4 - no ideas yet D:

/Kat

I'm halfway through my assigned fic, and making good progress. Plus, I've written 5 treats, so I'm feeling pretty good about things. My main fic is definitely going to need a lot of revising after this first draft, though.

Original goal:
Assignment + 6 treats

Current status:
Assignment = 5000 words of rough notes, 200 words of fic which may or may not get scrapped. (Apart from three lines of COMEDY GOLD, which are going to stay no matter what. I don't care if changing the rest of the fic means they no longer make sense, they are IN.)

Treat 1-3: Finished! 1 & 2 are both over 1K, 3 is a little under. Leaving them for a few days then going back to revise with a clear head.

Treats 4-6: some letters are bookmarked, some ideas are percolating, but nothing has been actually written. YET.

Goal: Assignment + At least one treat

Current status

Assignment: Stuck. Very, very stuck. And I want to write something else, because lately I've been getting the urge to write stuff that's more substantial than what I usually write, but I don't know what. I don't know any of their other fandoms, and none of them are relevant to my interests anyway, so doing something for one of those is out.

I was doing so well at first. I really hoped I'd have a rough draft done/almost done by now. :(

Treat(s): Still haven't picked a letter to treat. I have several bookmarked, but none have sparked anything yet. Sigh. I'll go through them again soon. Hopefully something will jump out at me.

- Pocketwatch

:(

How are the traditional methods going? (Taking a shower while thinking about your fic, going to bed early and thinking about fic and putting a notepad or computer in easy reach, going for a walk while thinking about your fic?)

What happened to your first idea? Have you written the plot into a corner, or just lost interest, or...?

Goal: 4-5 fics total

Progress:
Canon review done. Two different attempts made at my assignment, each about 300 words long.

I'm finding it very slow going, but I don't hate either of my attempts yet, and each deals with a separate aspect of my recipient's prompt, so it's possible I could turn them into two fills.

I've never had my assignment done before December, and I always manage at least one other fic, so I am on track. I just wish I were writing a little faster.

-Afkaf

Goal: assignment plus 3 treats.

Assignment is finished.

treat 1: 7K of words, plus outline for the parts that are missing.

treat 2: Rough outline. Feels like it will be 1500-2000 words long, so I may write that before finishing #1.

treat 3: I've written about 1.5K plus rough outline. Not sure this one will get written.

treat 4: Have a rough plot, but also not sure about writing this one.

Original goal: Assignments + 6 treats

Current status:
- one assignment in rough ideas form
- one assignment being snowflake-plotted right now!
- picked up a pinch hit for which I need to do some serious canon review, but that will come later
- more than 6 treat recips identified and rough ideas sketched out

yeaaah... I need to actually put some words on the page now. Although to be fair, I don't plan to get much treat-writing done until after the deadline. Will definitely be in need of last minute betas on the 24th!

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