One Wank After Another

[coalcube]

A blank assignment is a funny thing, isn't it? When you have it, you don't appreciate it, and when you miss it, it's gone.

Wednesday 10 December: Default deadline (9pm UTC)
Wednesday 17 December: Assignment deadline (9pm UTC)
Wednesday 24 December: Main collection works reveals (9pm UTC)
Thursday 25 December: Madness collection works reveals (9pm UTC)
Thursday 1 January: Author reveals, end of event (9pm UTC)

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Comments

Trapped in a cage I built myself

[(Anonymous)]

How do you make Yuletide more difficult for yourself, coalies?

Personally, I game specifically to get requests for fics that take time and effort to write (which I do enjoy), and then set the bar so high for myself that I end up scrambling in panic. I literally just scrapped two draft ideas because they were "too simple". I'll be back in December to cry about how I won't make the deadline.

Re: Trapped in a cage I built myself

[(Anonymous)]

I gamed for a request that, now I have it, I'm not sure I can actually write. /o\

Re: Trapped in a cage I built myself

[(Anonymous)]

+1

Re: Trapped in a cage I built myself

[(Anonymous)]

sa

lol finished with literal hours to spare \o/

Re: Trapped in a cage I built myself

[(Anonymous)]

I'm the one who was complaining in the other thread that I always go crazy with background/historical research but this time I might have bitten off more than I can chew. I'm realizing it's not just the research part; Yuletide is all I've written in the last 2-3 years and so I don't have that core obsessive familiarity you do when you're writing in a regular fandom and can slip right into the world and the character voices. I never offer anything I've written before, so really I make Yuletide difficult for myself by having to get into a new fandom so quickly.

Re: Trapped in a cage I built myself

[(Anonymous)]

+1. 100% this.

Re: Trapped in a cage I built myself

[(Anonymous)]

cyrt

And then I always let it get down to the wire and it isn't as good as I want it to be! I think this year I have to set a firm deadline for myself to stop researching and start writing. The perfectionism takes over and I can't write until I back myself into a panic corner, and then it flows, but I hated that feeling as a student and I hate it now.

Re: Trapped in a cage I built myself

[(Anonymous)]

I always say, "I will write my assignment AND multiple treats!"

Then I don't get started on anything until December 15th.

Re: Trapped in a cage I built myself

[(Anonymous)]

Outline your fic right now!

Re: Trapped in a cage I built myself

[(Anonymous)]

CYRT This is excellent advice but, alas, I am incapable of following it.

Re: Trapped in a cage I built myself

[(Anonymous)]

I'm doing the interactive fiction I kinda suspected I would match to

Re: Trapped in a cage I built myself

[(Anonymous)]

👀 Hoping this is for me, coalie!

Re: Trapped in a cage I built myself

[(Anonymous)]

cyrt

There will be an Easter Egg for you at the very least!

Re: Trapped in a cage I built myself

[(Anonymous)]

I somehow let coal convince me that I don't need to game, it'll be fine.

Narrator: It was not fine.

Re: Trapped in a cage I built myself

[(Anonymous)]

offer something that needs canon review, put off doing canon review until december

Re: Trapped in a cage I built myself

[(Anonymous)]

That's exactly what I usually do to myself, every single year.

Except this year I threw in a kind of wildcard offer, wasn't really expecting to get it, and now don't really have the OPTION of that big effort. I'm not sure how I could create it out of this request. (Of course, I could surprise myself.)

... now I'm probably going to challenge myself to write too many treats, or to write a really intensive and difficult story for a treat. And if I fail to finish, I'll be really disappointed in myself. I guess we'll see.

Re: Trapped in a cage I built myself

[(Anonymous)]

I know a number of my friends will read the fic for my canon and I am already stressing about whether they'll hate mine while it's still anonymous.

Re: Trapped in a cage I built myself

[(Anonymous)]

Usually it's just that I decide I HAVE to write a bunch of treats, with the number I set as my goal growing more and more as the date approaches. But this year I also offered a book I haven't read yet and now that is my assignment so I have no idea if it will be good or bad or what.

Re: Trapped in a cage I built myself

[(Anonymous)]

I don't game. then I ALWAYS end up having to write characters i don't care about.

sometimes the fic turns out good and sometimes I find the caring along the way, but it makes everything more of a slog than it should be

Re: Trapped in a cage I built myself

[(Anonymous)]

lol do you think "gaming" includes "only offering characters you want to write"? lmao