Twas the night before Christmas

[olivermoss]

I was working on 3 Christmas fics leading up to Christmas and had a goal of completing 2, but the last few days have been hot messes. Cold, evacuations in the cold, loud sounds that I cannot make stop, needing to secure my stuff in case of indoor rain, etc. I just can't write under those conditions.

I do have one done, sort of. It needs polish. It's currently at 4k words.

It's not quite this meme, but yeahhh...

I could try to polish it and finish it tomorrow, so sort of by Christmas... but I forgot I live on the West Coast of America and that means Christmas will be over for most of the world by then. I'll probably keep working on it and post it when it's polished even if it feels dumb to post then. I still hope to have that and at least one other project done this year.

I'd be in much better shape, but I'd been doing a lot of getting an idea while writing, then pausing to do a full beat sheet and theme summary so I don't lose the idea. That is not a bad thing. Arcs and having stories with a good ending not just a interesting opener were something I struggled with for a long time. For a long time I really, really wanted to write but didn't know what I wanted to write, or how to make arcs that I found satisfying. So, now that I can just plot/beat things out I am wanting to do so a lot. It's sort of good and bad. On one hand it's great practice and is going to help get me where I want to go, but at the same time I plotted out in detail a Steddie version of a Christmas move I saw because it was an interesting idea, but I was never going to get it done this year. It was... okay I can't see a list of what I've seen recently on Amazon Prime but it was something about two people each surprising each other at Christmas by going to each other's family's house on Christmas eve, getting snowed in and then being stuck alone with each other's family for Christmas. If I had just not worked on that, maybe I'd be in a lot better shape. Ah, well.

However the rest of the year shakes out, I am going to keep working on stuff.

Comments

[mistressofmuses]

Ugh, I hate when shit out of your control gets in the way of the things you planned on! Though the absolute garbage weather, plus the alarms and potential flooding/neighboring flooding is absolutely the kind of stuff you can't write as normal through!

I definitely know the feeling of having a thing not really completely ready when you planned on... But I definitely prefer posting a better-quality thing at a less-opportune time than posting something I'm not happy with.

And tbh, I do think it's a very good thing that you've been able to pause and get your ideas out so that you'll be able to return to them. That's so much better than realizing later that you've forgotten an idea that you'd been interested in. Maybe that "snowed-in-at-each-other's-houses" can be a thing for next year!

But hooray for continuing to work on things!

[olivermoss]

Yeah, it has been insaaaane... but that wouldn't have tripped me up if I'd been more organized. I hate feeling like I am up against deadlines this way. But, Cookie story is complete at least. Also, yeah, there should be another Christmas before season 5 airs. That might be a good time to post the family swap story, maybe hype will be building.

I don't think anything coming up is a deadline I want to plan ahead for. Not doing Valentines stuff, etc. I have a snowy story but it's still winter for a bit. Nothing that is nearly a deadline like Christmas, though. Christmas and Halloween are the big fic deadlines :)

[mistressofmuses]

Eh, even with good organization, that's a LOT to be having to deal with in a short timeframe.

I think having the family swap story ready to go at the end of next year could be good. It does mean that you may have to sit on it for a while, but it could be a great time to post.

Halloween and Christmas ARE the big fic deadlines, it's true. I think there's always a *bit* of a tail on the Christmas ones, because people are still on breaks and things, or want to prolong some of the holiday vibes... but those are the ones where the date matters most.

[olivermoss]

Yeah, there is a bit of leeway with Christmas fics but we'll see. I need to do a lot of organizing and taking stock of fics with the new year coming up. I might focus on other stuff.

And yeah, that was a lot. I couldn't write because my brain was just waiting for it to all happen again. I think we have 9 alarms in total and most were at least half an hour. The building wide alarm is many times more load then the in-unit ones and also there are flashing lights.

[mistressofmuses]

I need to start looking ahead to next year's writing goals, too... I have no idea what I'm planning to do, lmao. I hope you are able to organize your plans and find the things you want to focus on!

Ugh. Alarms are awful. And I get it! They should be un-ingnorable! But we had our in-unit alarm go off for the first time about a month ago, and that combined with the classic repeating-blaring-three-blast-plus-lights fire alarm in the hallways was deafening and gave me a headache for the rest of the day. Fortunately it was a false alarm, and they shut it off after about fifteen minutes, so I can't imagine dealing with 9 of them for a much more prolonged time!

[olivermoss]

I have a lot I want to do and need to make sure I don't lose track of projects, or the specific themes I want to write. Mostly, I just need to make sure I am working on stuff consistently.

Portland has far more serious fire safety laws than most places. We kept needing actual firepeople to turn off the alarms, and they were busy. When I was still running cons, we had a code change the reduced occupancy in the event spaces we were using by 20. One con hotel actually removed their bar just to regain a bit of occupancy. You know it's bad when the alcohol sales aren't as important as being able to have a few more people inside.

[mistressofmuses]

Yeah, that sort of organization is priceless in the end, especially (in my experience) when it comes to the themes and such that you want to convey. And consistency is super helpful!

Oof, that's really rough, especially with so many repeated alarms. Fortunately it seems that someone in the building here was able to turn the alarms off, but whenever we've had one go off at work we do have to wait for the fire department. Last time that happened a few months ago it was literally an hour and twenty minutes before they arrived. (Hopefully they were already aware it wasn't an actual emergency at that point, but yikes!)

Holy crap! A hotel choosing to remove a BAR in order to up the occupancy?? That's insane to me.

[olivermoss]

Yeah, fire codes and enforcement are next level here. I am not typically one to complain about safety stuff, but it is a giant pain here.

[mistressofmuses]

I'm very pro-safety! And for the most part, I know WHY the rules exist, and I'm glad they do... but sometimes it causes so many more issues.