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luzulaMy Yuletide story was written by ![[archiveofourown.org profile]](https://p2.dreamwidth.org/b164c54b26e4/-/archiveofourown.org/favicon.ico)
Borusa and my dSSS story was written by dessert_first. Thank you so much, both of you! I loved both my stories. ♥
Besides my two main gifts, I also got a Paksenarrion drabble that I loved! It's got just the elements I wanted in a Paksenarrion fic. Also, it was written bykeerawa, which I suspected. Thank you!
For due South Seekrit Santa I wrote Slow Burn (Fraser/Thatcher, 5,700 words, NC-17) forwintercreek. It was fun to write, and I especially enjoyed writing the porn. I did kind of lose confidence in it towards the end--I don't know why exactly, maybe it was just the natural up and down of my writing brain--but malnpudl got me back on track. akamine_chan also gave me feedback that improved the fic, and I am grateful to them both! ♥
For Yuletide I wrote The End and the Way (Left Hand of Darkness gen, 12,200 words, PG-13) forbliumchik.
Wow, was I surprised by this fic--it's the third longest fic I've ever written, and the last week I wrote about a thousand words a day. For me, 400 words is usually a good day's writing. Anyway, the recipient wanted a story about what it might mean to be queer on Gethen, and I wrote about a "pervert", that is, someone who is physiologically either male or female permanently, like the majority of people on Earth (whereas on Gethen most people are sexless most of the time and go into "kemmer" once a month, when they turn into either a man or a woman). I think it's perfectly readable without having read canon--it's all about original characters and won't spoil you for the book.
Le Guin calls everyone in the book by the male pronoun (or rather the POV character from Earth does), but apparently she regretted that later, and there's a short story where everyone is called "she" instead. I decided to solve it by omitting male/female pronouns except for perverts and for people in kemmer. That was a bit of a headache, and I felt that it got awkward at some points where I had to repeat people's names too much, but several people said in comments that they didn't even notice it until the end notes. So it seemed to work out well, after all.
Anyway, besides being about queerness, it's also about coming of age and finding one's place in the world, about religion, and about long winter journeys. It's this last thing that made me feel like the story was very recognizably mine, especially coming on the heels of that ghost post-CotW story.
I'm grateful toexeterlinden and to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
karanguni for beta-reading! Both gave me feedback that improved the fic a lot. I did feel rushed towards the end, and there are a couple of places where I would have liked time to polish and expand the fic more, but OTOH, I wouldn't have written this at all if not for Yuletide, so overall I'm very happy with it. I thought I would feel more intimidated writing Le Guin fic, because she's one of my favorite authors and I fangirl her so hard, but my original character was so vivid in my mind that it overrode that and I just wrote (and wrote and wrote).
I feel overwhelmed and so happy with the comments I got on the story and the recs I've seen for it--probably this is the most feedback I've gotten on anything since last year's holiday exchanges, and such thoughtful and interesting comments, too!
dessert_first. Thank you so much, both of you! I loved both my stories. ♥Besides my two main gifts, I also got a Paksenarrion drabble that I loved! It's got just the elements I wanted in a Paksenarrion fic. Also, it was written by
keerawa, which I suspected. Thank you! For due South Seekrit Santa I wrote Slow Burn (Fraser/Thatcher, 5,700 words, NC-17) for
wintercreek. It was fun to write, and I especially enjoyed writing the porn. I did kind of lose confidence in it towards the end--I don't know why exactly, maybe it was just the natural up and down of my writing brain--but malnpudl got me back on track. akamine_chan also gave me feedback that improved the fic, and I am grateful to them both! ♥For Yuletide I wrote The End and the Way (Left Hand of Darkness gen, 12,200 words, PG-13) for
bliumchik. Wow, was I surprised by this fic--it's the third longest fic I've ever written, and the last week I wrote about a thousand words a day. For me, 400 words is usually a good day's writing. Anyway, the recipient wanted a story about what it might mean to be queer on Gethen, and I wrote about a "pervert", that is, someone who is physiologically either male or female permanently, like the majority of people on Earth (whereas on Gethen most people are sexless most of the time and go into "kemmer" once a month, when they turn into either a man or a woman). I think it's perfectly readable without having read canon--it's all about original characters and won't spoil you for the book.
Le Guin calls everyone in the book by the male pronoun (or rather the POV character from Earth does), but apparently she regretted that later, and there's a short story where everyone is called "she" instead. I decided to solve it by omitting male/female pronouns except for perverts and for people in kemmer. That was a bit of a headache, and I felt that it got awkward at some points where I had to repeat people's names too much, but several people said in comments that they didn't even notice it until the end notes. So it seemed to work out well, after all.
Anyway, besides being about queerness, it's also about coming of age and finding one's place in the world, about religion, and about long winter journeys. It's this last thing that made me feel like the story was very recognizably mine, especially coming on the heels of that ghost post-CotW story.
I'm grateful to
exeterlinden and to karanguni for beta-reading! Both gave me feedback that improved the fic a lot. I did feel rushed towards the end, and there are a couple of places where I would have liked time to polish and expand the fic more, but OTOH, I wouldn't have written this at all if not for Yuletide, so overall I'm very happy with it. I thought I would feel more intimidated writing Le Guin fic, because she's one of my favorite authors and I fangirl her so hard, but my original character was so vivid in my mind that it overrode that and I just wrote (and wrote and wrote). I feel overwhelmed and so happy with the comments I got on the story and the recs I've seen for it--probably this is the most feedback I've gotten on anything since last year's holiday exchanges, and such thoughtful and interesting comments, too!
