acchikocchi

What kind of questions?

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About yuletide, I mean.

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Right, okay, one is - when you fill out a request, if you specify more than one character, will you be matched with an author who's offered to write both/all of those characters, or just at least one of them? (I say "just" but it would be a good thing, as I'm trying to figure out how to allow for the most flexibility on the part of potential writers!)

...and I just realized I was assuming this, but you do have to stick to the extant character tags for offering/requesting characters, right.

Edited Date: 2010-11-19 05:48 am (UTC)

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I *think* you're only guaranteed one. I know you're only guaranteed one fandom match but I'm not positive about characters. Obviously, they have a LOT of matching to do and there's always the chance that a person is only going to offer so much in a specific fandom. So, the matching is kind of a lowest common denominator process, for the most part. Especially if it's something especially obscure.

Of course, you can write a yuletide letter if you like, and hopefully your author will take your specific taste into account when writing. I've had okay luck, the years I've joined, but I tend to like smaller exchanges better.

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Thanks for clearing that up! I'm totally okay with just the one character match - that's preferable, even, because I can mention totally unrelated characters (relatively) and be equally happy with a writer picking any one of them. I just didn't want to specify more than one if the potential writer had to be willing to write *all* of them in one fic. It'd make matches impossible, for one thing. *g*

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Yeah, I would just say to mention in your prompt or whatever that you're down with whichever character and don't need all of them. >D

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meretricula.livejournal.com

you are guaranteed a match on the fandom and ALL the characters you request. (and whatever request you are assigned is guaranteed to fit inside the subset of what you offered.) the person who is assigned your request may not be prepared to write these characters together in a romantic fashion but he/she will have volunteered to write them all. if you ask for, like, four characters and actually just want a fic with Characters A and B, or B and C, or A and D, you can mention that in your details, but otherwise your author is required to use all the characters you formally list in your request. (you are NOT guaranteed a match on anything else, btw; all the other tags are optional, and your author is not technically required to pay any attention to your "additional details".)

hope that makes sense!

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AHA. Thank you, that's exactly what I needed to know! I knew everything else was option but the characters were throwing me for a loop. :)

(What fandom could I possibly referring to that has a whole raft of unrelated "characters", cough cough.)

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meretricula.livejournal.com

hee! yeah, I'm like 75% responsible for how ridiculously long the list of characters for football is, I went through and added every name I recognized from the Not Just a Game archive. =/ whoops. let us pray for adventuresome volunteers who pick "any"! (or in my case the extremely rare "Barcelona slash fan" hurr.)

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There's at least - *counts* - two or three of those that I know of! ...besides you! XD <3

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meretricula.livejournal.com

we may be few in number, but we compensate in spirit and volume. :D

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wintersjuly.livejournal.com

actually i want to ask, because i find it interesting - how do you start writing something? as in, what gets you to the point where you go, "i have a story i want to write?" do you need to plan it all out? or it is pure imagination/where the pen (hur hur hur) takes you?

and also, what's the easiest and the most difficult fic you've written?

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I've never had success with extensive planning ahead of time, but I've never written anything with plot threads complex enough that they *needed* to be plotted ahead of time. It varies a bit - sometimes I have a general idea where I want the story to go and the marks I want to hit along the way (TAY*J), sometimes I just know the end and make up everything else on the fly, and on very rare occasions I have literally no idea what's going on until it comes out on the page. And by very rare, I mean it happened once. Maybe twice. XD

Incidentally, the longer I wait to start, even for the best intentions - like wanting to flesh out an idea that really needs it, say - the less likely it is to happen, no matter how much I love the idea and how clearly I see it. The majority of my completed fic is *not* ideas I loved and cherished and really wanted to write, it's ideas spontaneously generated for challenges and such. Which doesn't mean I'm not pleased with how they turn out in the end, it's just I've got even more trapped in my head! The other effective goad is seeing as how I write mostly RPS fandoms, if there's a really inspiring canon situation that's pinging me, I'll be more likely to try and jump on it before it becomes irrelevant.

Easiest: TAY*J. Like falling off a log.
Hardest: toss-up between Can't Go Home Again and Dry Season. Which are not incidentally probably my two best. XD

From:

wintersjuly.livejournal.com

Incidentally, the longer I wait to start, even for the best intentions - like wanting to flesh out an idea that really needs it, say - the less likely it is to happen, no matter how much I love the idea and how clearly I see it.

...I KNOW EXACTLY WHAT YOU MEAN. i wonder if it's because the instinct to edit as you write can cripple you? or maybe it's because the idea is so perfect in your head that you agonise yourself to death while writing it and get no where? i mean, it's the perfect fic! so EVERYTHING has to be right! and so you edit and edit and rewrite and rewrite and plan and set things up and then... it never gets finished ):

(it may have been hard to write but can't go home again is basically amazing, so, yay? XD)

also i love how a meme about writing means there are writing snippets. it's like, Hey, Have A Magical Surprise On Mer! \o/

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What's one fic you've really wanted to write but for whatever reason you couldn't get into it or finish?

Or, alternatively, did you have to cut anything from Tay*J that you wish you could have kept in?

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What's one fic you've really wanted to write but for whatever reason you couldn't get into it or finish?

ARGH, EVERYTHING. There's an Akame fic I've been waiting to write literally from my first couple active months in fandom (around September 2006), there's Shuuji and Akira's world tour, there's AU Akame do Europe... all of these exist in embryonic form on my HD but I've never been able to really get them going. There's a soccerball AU idea that I'm worried is going to join them. Basically, the longer I incubate an idea the less likely it is it'll get written, and I tend to want to incubate ideas I really like. :|

did you have to cut anything from Tay*J that you wish you could have kept in?

FUNNY YOU SHOULD ASK. Yes, actually! There was a scene I really liked, with bored Jin and Pi killing time the day before the single release - they hang out with at a Juniors rehearsal and pick out their backdancers (a pair of tiny rivals, hee). I can't even remember why I had to cut it. Possibly it was just too much of a tangent. Huh, I don't see it in my cuts file, though. *frowns*

Everything else, I pretty much wrote what I felt like. Discipline? What's that? XD

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...If you ever find that scene, we wants it, precious.

I'm the same way, actually. I still have lists of ideas that I had and went, "OOOOH," over, but the longer I wait to write them, the less likely it is I'll ever do it.

Why do you feel the need to incubate yours? With me, I keep thinking that it's so good I should wait to write it. Which is a weird thought process when I already know I'm prone to not writing something when I wait too long.

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As a matter of fact, I did find it! Apparently I liked it enough to polish it up and save it in a separate file. If you really want to read it I'll post it here!

That is exactly what I think. Like I can't do justice to it if I just start writing, or something. Or occasionally I'll have something where I know the basic idea is really good but I don't know the deatils, so despite the fact that my best fic has come from writing around a good seed without knowing the details I feel the need to wait until I do, at which point I naturally don't write it after all. Logic is not my friend. XD

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GIMME. *GIMME HANDS*

Nor is it mine, since I think the same way constantly. Like, if I let this sit in my head long enough, all the best ideas will come to me and flesh it out and that won't happen if I just write it. And like you said, that's ridiculous because some of the most fun I've had writing was when I jumped into something.

I nominate you to kick me if you ever hear of me doing this.

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That's part of why I do challenges, to force myself to Actually Write Things instead of just huddling over my precious idea seedlings. I accept your nomination if you will return the favor.

Rereading the scene and the original, I think it got cut because Johnny called a surprise meeting to toy with Jin instead. *g* I may have recycled bits of the transitions elsewhere but I can't remember, so here's the thing in its entirety.

--

"Actually, there isn't really anything to do here, anyway, except wait for tomorrow. You might as well go on home."

Jin and Yamapi exchanged a look.

"Okay," Yamapi said, turning back to Terada, "we'll just hang around here for a while, then."

Terada blanched. "What?"

"There’s no way we're going to be able to distract ourselves from thinking about tomorrow," Jin said with a shrug. "So we might as well stick around."

"Are you sure?" Terada said, unable to keep a hint of desperation from creeping into his voice.

"Don't worry," Yamapi said cheerfully, "you can still do whatever it is you usually do when we're not around. Just pretend we're not here."

Terada dropped his head down to rest in his hands and muttered something under his breath that sounded like "I wish."

It was getting harder and harder to keep a straight face. "Uh, just a second. We'll be right back," Jin said quickly, biting his lip, and made for the door. Yamapi took the hint and followed.

"You're awful," Jin said, trying not to laugh, when they were out of the room.

Yamapi grinned mischievously. "Come on, this is better than going home and having nothing to do but think about tomorrow, right? We can go and visit the juniors. It'll be nostalgic."

"We could have tried Yuu. Or Ryo," Jin pointed out, just to be contrary.

"Oh, don't try and tell me you'd be able to think of anything except the single,” Yamapi scoffed. "Ryo would kill us after about an hour. Besides, they probably have work."

Jin let his grin escape. "Okay, okay. You're right. This sounds like fun."

"I'm always right," Yamapi said in satisfaction. He motioned his head at the door. "Back?"

With effort, Jin schooled his expression into neutrality and nodded. They re-entered the room, where Terada was scribbling on one of his ubiquitous papers a little more wildly than usual.

"We're going to go watch the juniors practice," Yamapi announced. “So you can keep working."

"All right," Terada said faintly, without taking his eyes from the paper in front of him. Jin glanced over at Yamapi and almost lost it.

"We'll be back later," he said, grabbing Yamapi's wrist and pulling him out the door. Yamapi's skin was hot under his fingers.

It looked like there was one thing he could think about other than the debut after all.

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The instructor was surprised, but nevertheless agreed to let them sit in on the intermediate dance class he was leading. They took a seat on the floor against the far wall and tried to look as attentive as possible; they had an example to set, after all.

Jin hid a smile at the juniors whispering and darting glances in their direction until the instructor cleared his throat meaningfully and they snapped guiltily to attention. Apparently they were learning a routine for the next Shounen Club episode; Jin tried to recall if he’d noticed any of the boys during TAY*J's last Shounen Club appearance but couldn't recognize any of them. He made a note to try and remember at least a couple faces.

"Hey," Yamapi murmured, nudging Jin in the side, "want to pick out our backdancers?"

Jin stifled a laugh. "Seriously?"

"Sure, why not?" Yamapi said. "Maybe they'll let us use them for the next single."

"Okay," Jin agreed. "Let's see." He tapped a finger against his chin as he examined the array of dancing – or flailing – young juniors. "Start with the short kid in the front. He’s pretty good."

Yamapi scrutinized the boy in question. "Yeah, not bad," he agreed. "How about the older-looking one at the end?"

"Really?" Jin said, surprised. "I guess he’s okay, but..." He trailed off.

Yamapi grinned. "No, but we should have someone just for their looks."

"Oh, like you," Jin said, feigning understanding; Yamapi shoved at him and he toppled on his side, giggling. Heads turned in their direction and Jin sat up quickly, both of them bowing an apology to the instructor and trying to muffle their laughter.

This was fine. This was good. This was how Jin wanted it to be.

They eventually picked out eight possible candidates, more in jest than anything else, but Jin couldn't help but wonder if they’d eventually be allowed to choose their own backup for real.

"When do you think we'll get to have a concert?" he wondered aloud.

Yamapi considered. "Maybe next summer?" he offered. "Or even spring. Probably after we release an album, anyway." He laughed at Jin’s crestfallen face. "There's still the Countdown Concert," he said consolingly, putting a warm arm around Jin's shoulders.

Jin repressed a shiver.

The juniors, of course, got to break much earlier than Jin and Yamapi usually did. They immediately clustered in little groups, several of which edged unobtrusively toward Jin and Yamapi. Finally, a little troupe of five or six boys, apparently bolder than the rest, approached them. Jin noticed that it included two of their "backdancers", including the short boy he’d picked out first.

A different boy, apparently the designated spokesman, spoke up. "Thank you for coming to our practice, senpai!" he said, the words clearly rehearsed. "We're doing our best!" They bowed in somewhat ragged unison.

Jin worked to keep his expression serious. "You're welcome," he said. "Keep it up."

The short boy, who up close looked younger than the rest of the group, had been frowning. Now he leaned over and whispered to the boy acting as spokesman, loudly enough for Jin to hear, "I know Yamashita-senpai, but who's the other guy?"

His friend's eyes went wide. "That's Akanishi-senpai, idiot," he hissed, digging a bony elbow into the short boy’s side. "Didn't I tell you to keep your mouth shut?" He looked over at Jin to see if they had been overheard, and when he saw Jin looking back, immediately bowed so deeply he was parallel to the floor. "I apologize for this kid's rudeness!” he said loudly. "He only entered a few months ago, so he still doesn’t know anything. Please forgive him!"

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Jin looked at the short boy. His eyes were so wide they seemed ready to pop out of his face and he looked absolutely terrified. "S – s- sorry," he stuttered. "I'm really sorry!"

He crossed his arms over his chest. The boy looked ready to die on the spot.

Jin was almost surprised to find that it didn't even sting. It was just – funny.

"Well," Jin said, pretending to consider it, “I guess I'll let it go this time. Since you've got such a good friend willing to take responsibility for you."

The apologetic friend in question jerked upright and the look on the short boy's face abruptly switched from terrified to horrified. "We're not friends!" he exclaimed.

"Shut up," the spokesperson said, glaring at him.

Beside him, Jin could hear Yamapi valiantly struggling to muffle a snort of laughter. His own mouth was twitching. Before he could say anything, however, the boys were saved by the return of their instructor, clapping his hands and calling the class back to order. As they returned to their formation, Jin could hear the short boy complaining, "Don't tell them I don’t know anything! I knew Yamashita-senpai, didn't I?"

The older boy shot a glance back at Jin and Yamapi and cringed when he saw Jin watching them. "Just stop talking," Jin heard him say desperately.

As they slipped out the door with a nod of thanks to the instructor, Jin thought that the smart one could be one of their backdancers, too.

It was still too early to leave for lunch, so they returned to the consulting room where they'd left Terada. He appeared not to have moved an inch in the last few hours.

"Did you miss us?" Jin asked brightly, as Yamapi pulled the whiteboard over to the table and searched for a new marker. Terada merely made a faint, pained noise.

Several games of hangman later (the words had included "debut", "single", "number one", and "million-seller"), Jin and Yamapi were bored again and there was a wild look in Terada's eyes. "I could teach you this game I learned in American called charades," Jin had just suggested, when Yamapi looked at his watch and declared it was time to go eat. It had been a while since he’d seen Terada look that relieved, Jin thought.

They passed a TAY*J poster hanging in the window of a record store on the way to the little soba shop nearby.

Back at the jimusho offices, Terada said he had a meeting with upper management and told them to please, please just not cause any permanent damage. Jin and Yamapi nodded obediently and went to find an empty dance studio.

The push-up competition was Yamapi’s idea. Jin had kept in decent shape in Hawaii, between the swimming and the surfing, and the workouts since he'd returned had been pretty intense, so he figured he had at least a fighting chance. When he finally collapsed in a moaning heap, however, Yamapi was still going strong and showing no inclination to stop. Jin rolled over to watch, too exhausted to sit up.

That had been a bad idea, Jin realized a moment later, mesmerized by the drop of sweat trickling down Yamapi's neck and the flex of his arms.

Jin shivered, and then gritted his teeth. Oh no. He was not going there.

Yamapi finally and sat up, grinning smugly. "You're out of shape, Akanishi."

"Am not," Jin retorted automatically.

"Are too."

"Am not!"

--

aaaand scene. :D

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Ahahaha! Okay, that was a thing of pure beauty, oh my god.

TAY*J TORMENT JUNIORS. MAGICAL.

I have to ask - did you have anyone in mind for the two juniors or are they super awesome OCs that you should include in a future TAY*J story that you should write off the cuff right now? *beams*

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They are OCs that were going to grow up and hook up in thinly disguised origific for

bb_shousetsu. IS THAT MORE OR LESS WHAT YOU HAD IN MIND. XD Morimoto Ryu and... shoot, I can't remember the other one's name. Now I have to go back and look through my notes again.

(This was before a junior named Morimoto actually debuted. They have nothing in common, for the record. -_-)

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I THINK YOU HAVE LET THIS IDEA INCUBATE LONG ENOUGH AND YOU SHOULD WRITE IT NOW WITHOUT HESITATING.

...

C WAT I DID HERE?

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I THINK THIS HAS GONE PAST INCUBATION AND INTO BURIAL

but I'll keep it in mind. >_>

(I can't find my other notes! argh! they may be on my dead computer. D: that would be said, as I'm fairly sure they're in the same file as the notes about the story where Jin and Yamapi decide Terada needs a girlfriend and they'd make great matchmakers...)

(in my head he turns out to be gay and I'm pretty sure he gets to hook up with the hot choreographer. without pin's help, natch. XD)

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BUT

BUT

MAKE NEW NOTES. THEY WANT TO COME OUT (hee) OF YOUR HEAD MERFACE THEY TOLD ME SO THEMSELVES.

I really, really hope those notes exist, though, because that is just spiffy. I love Terada.

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snowqueenofhoth.livejournal.com

Ooh, this looks like a cool meme. *steals*

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pithetaphish

What's your process? Where do most of your ideas spawn from and how do you go about translating that into words? You've said you rarely plan, so how do you get from build up to climax to denouement? I seem to recall you saying you don't write linearly?

Also, bonus q, how do you feel pressure and/or deadlines affect your work/process?

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Most of my ideas never make it out of my head because I'm too busy coddling them and building up exactly what I want to happen and then I just don't have the drive to write them out. Therefore, if something gets written, it's more likely to be something unplanned. Does that make sense at all outside my head? Fics written for challenges are generally entirely new ideas generated for the occasion, often after I've tried and failed to wrangle a WIP/extant seedling into service. They come from metaphorically throwing things at the wall until something sticks. Lots of false starts.

Non-challenge ideas that get finished are usually connected to some canon event, situation, or state of being - I want to finish them before being Jossed. Non-challenge ideas that get significantly fleshed out, if they're not finished, are usually mainly comic and die once I've written out the initial jokes. Elaborate AUs of the everyone-is-a-pirate type rarely get beyond planning roles and cackling at my own cleverness. >_>

I have written both linearly and non-linearly in the past - I would say that linear order has a bit of an edge, partly because of the reasons above. But that's not hard and fast. I... go entirely by instinct. Ahaha. I mean, most of the time I generally have at least some idea of where I want to end up so I rely on instinct to guide the pacing. This is why I regularly hit classic "AND THEN WHAT HAPPENED" walls, which I can force myself over if there's a deadline at hand and which result in Certain Stories taking three years to finish if there's not. -_-

The effect of deadlines: as previously stated, I can force myself over walls I don't have the will to tackle otherwise. There is actually an extremely predictable pattern, which goes as follows:

- Whoa, I have so much time until the deadline! I could do this or this or this or this or - so many choices! Yeah, this time I'll wrangle my idea ahead of time and spend a weekend intensively writing early so that I have time to edit and things! Yay!
- *weeks pass*
- The deadline's in how many days?? Oh my god I can't default now PICK SOMETHING AND MAKE IT WORK.
- *false start 1*
- *false start 2*
- *repeat as necessary until something takes*
- *writewritewritewritewritewritewrite*
- *break to sleep or eat when absolutely necessary*
- omg so close to the end I can taste it
- *writewritewritewritewritewritewrite*
- no really, this time I'm almost there!
- *writewritewritewritewritewritewrite*
- FOR THE LOVE OF GOD WOULD THIS THING JUST BE OVER ALREADY
- oh my god this sucks doesn't it I'm a second-rate hack and no one will ever read anything I write again
- it doesn't matter because I have TWO HOURS LEFT
- *writewritewritewritewritewritewrite*
- *finish on stroke of deadline/extension, or possibly slightly after*
- God that was awful. And it has my name attached. I've been glued to my computer for the past 2389132 hours and probably gave myself a stress ulcer - for that. I can't even look at it. Why don't I ever learn? This is absolutely the last challenge. I'm never doing this again.
- *several weeks pass*
- .....huh. Huh. That fic's... not half bad. I'm actually quite pleased with how that one part turned out. And I don't even remember writing that part. Wow!
- Ooh, another challenge?

From:

pithetaphish

We are so alike it's not funny.

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