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aruanA dear friend of mine was dealt a grave injustice tonight, in the form of a Christmas present of all things. She had a very simple wish, something heartbreakingly endearing like the little boys who ask for socks from Santa. She wanted a story. About two boys and a third element. She wrote her own for someone else, a pairing that she herself wouldn't go out of her way to write, but did her absolute best to remain faithful to its integrity.
I understand about being new to the fandom. *waves hello* Been here barely five months, nice to meet you. I understand about wanting to become a part of it by participating in events and challenges. But Don We Now Our Gay Apparel was different from its inception, because the idea was that these were *gifts* for *other fans* for the holidays. You weren't writing for yourself - the creative masturbation was for an audience now, and the analogy works because the idea behind undertaking this task was the confidence not only that you could meet the requirements, which you wouldn't know until they were *assigned* to you, but that you could rise to the occasion to write something that can objectively be qualified as good. This was supposed to be meaningful and pleasing, and my friend ended up with a fic that was obviously unbetaed, and we're not just talking a few commas, whose tone was downright snide toward the pairing and resentful of the single other request she made regarding the story's content. My friend has been anticipating this with all due right, and she's now upset that she had any influence in the genesis of this story. This was a huge undertaking, and participation should've meant that the would-be author understood all the risks she ran by tossing her hat into the ring and felt competent enough not to write but to write *for someone else.*
If you've been keeping up, I had a bit of a crisis over the course of this past week. There was the inherently traumatic flat tire which resulted in my not getting back from Orlando International until 4 o'clock in the morning of the day my Literature paper was due, of which I had at that point 3/10ths written. There was the Literature paper, and the frantic, stress-filled, agonized three days I spent in no other pursuits but formulating it. Then there was the packing as I was being kicked out of house and home for the winter break, and the inexorable drive home, which concluded in my plopping down in front of the computer at 10 o'clock on Saturday night to do anything but want to tear at my hair for the first time pretty much since a week before that.
Then there was the quick and vexing death of DSL not half an hour into my attempting to catch up with real (lowercase 'r') life on Sunday night. It was not resusitated until later on Monday, but that didn't matter as I spent both days in also aforementioned pursuits - chained to my sofa with Douglas, frantically working on the Secret Santa challenge fic I had about 3/5ths done. I did, however, manage to read the first page of my mail before it kerplunked and discovered that I had received one from the admins stating that since I hadn't responded to their previous email (sent earlier that morning) in the given twelve-hour timeframe, my recipient had been reassigned to receive a story from someone else.
This e-mail was about twenty minutes old when I got to my account. I quickly fired off a brief response, reassuring them that I was in fact close to completion and would finish well before Christmas, if a little belatedly as far as the original deadline is concerned, but well before they're due to be posted. Then Webmail died. So, I locked myself up and wrote some more, finally sending them a message from no fewer than two e-mail accounts, with my story coded to Don We Now Our Gay Apparel specifications as in-message text, an attached .txt file, and as an .html document. They didn't accept it. The person they asked to write the replacement story couldn't have known about their task for more than half an hour, and it's not like any one of them hadn't already done her fair share for the challenge.
There's also another essay formulating in here about people who can just sit down at any time of day or night, and make it happen on the page. It's like, if they didn't have to go to work or take care of life things, they could just sit down and this stuff would flow out of them in an uninterrupted stream. The replacement story my recipient got was great, I do not contest, it's just that whoever wrote it did it in the span of about a day, whereas I bled, cried, agonized, and possibly got myself that much closer to that ulcer at 30 than I'd been before. But I loved every minute of it. I knew my recipient, kept her in mind every time I opened it or scribbled down a random thought in the middle of a class as this story took shape. It's still hers, so far as I'm concerned, but there's a whine about that 'principle' thing in there.
My friend deserved better.
I deserved consideration.
*deep sigh* So it goes. My friend, in her infinitely kind and giving spirit, wants to write me happy!JoLa and I couldn't possibly love her more but there it is. I'm already onto planning what I'd like to choose for my next challenge, because apparently that's the way to get me to write, but whatever else it's going to be it's going to have all kinds of comfort food [pairing of choice] because babe, you were wronged and that's just deserving of a redress of grievances, and since we're all still only human, I'll do what I can.
P.S. My own Secret Santa's story was epic and amazing. Joey and Lance, Christmas in New York, and the author spun introspective!Joey magic from that. It's also interesting that a lot of the same themes that I explored in mine came up here, and sometimes even in the same wording. Heh. Great minds, tralala.
"If all that was true and, really, the only part Joey got was the bit about the Ugly Duckling, then Rudolph should be Lance's favorite movie, not Joey's. Because Lance was the one who hadn't fit in, who'd been lost and unwanted. He was the one who'd stepped in for Jason at the last minute, who the Germans had tried to nix their record deal over, the supposed liability who didn't belong, except he did. He always had, and *NSYNC wouldn't be *NSYNC without Lance, who was proving everyone wrong now, who was the swan he'd always been destined to be, the leader of Santa's little team of reindeer, not a reject. Except maybe Lance didn't know that, given how hard he was struggling to overcome his perceived failure.
Maybe that was why Rudolph wasn't Lance's favorite. Maybe Lance was the only one who didn't know he was a swan."
-On the Twelfth Day of Christmas
I understand about being new to the fandom. *waves hello* Been here barely five months, nice to meet you. I understand about wanting to become a part of it by participating in events and challenges. But Don We Now Our Gay Apparel was different from its inception, because the idea was that these were *gifts* for *other fans* for the holidays. You weren't writing for yourself - the creative masturbation was for an audience now, and the analogy works because the idea behind undertaking this task was the confidence not only that you could meet the requirements, which you wouldn't know until they were *assigned* to you, but that you could rise to the occasion to write something that can objectively be qualified as good. This was supposed to be meaningful and pleasing, and my friend ended up with a fic that was obviously unbetaed, and we're not just talking a few commas, whose tone was downright snide toward the pairing and resentful of the single other request she made regarding the story's content. My friend has been anticipating this with all due right, and she's now upset that she had any influence in the genesis of this story. This was a huge undertaking, and participation should've meant that the would-be author understood all the risks she ran by tossing her hat into the ring and felt competent enough not to write but to write *for someone else.*
If you've been keeping up, I had a bit of a crisis over the course of this past week. There was the inherently traumatic flat tire which resulted in my not getting back from Orlando International until 4 o'clock in the morning of the day my Literature paper was due, of which I had at that point 3/10ths written. There was the Literature paper, and the frantic, stress-filled, agonized three days I spent in no other pursuits but formulating it. Then there was the packing as I was being kicked out of house and home for the winter break, and the inexorable drive home, which concluded in my plopping down in front of the computer at 10 o'clock on Saturday night to do anything but want to tear at my hair for the first time pretty much since a week before that.
Then there was the quick and vexing death of DSL not half an hour into my attempting to catch up with real (lowercase 'r') life on Sunday night. It was not resusitated until later on Monday, but that didn't matter as I spent both days in also aforementioned pursuits - chained to my sofa with Douglas, frantically working on the Secret Santa challenge fic I had about 3/5ths done. I did, however, manage to read the first page of my mail before it kerplunked and discovered that I had received one from the admins stating that since I hadn't responded to their previous email (sent earlier that morning) in the given twelve-hour timeframe, my recipient had been reassigned to receive a story from someone else.
This e-mail was about twenty minutes old when I got to my account. I quickly fired off a brief response, reassuring them that I was in fact close to completion and would finish well before Christmas, if a little belatedly as far as the original deadline is concerned, but well before they're due to be posted. Then Webmail died. So, I locked myself up and wrote some more, finally sending them a message from no fewer than two e-mail accounts, with my story coded to Don We Now Our Gay Apparel specifications as in-message text, an attached .txt file, and as an .html document. They didn't accept it. The person they asked to write the replacement story couldn't have known about their task for more than half an hour, and it's not like any one of them hadn't already done her fair share for the challenge.
There's also another essay formulating in here about people who can just sit down at any time of day or night, and make it happen on the page. It's like, if they didn't have to go to work or take care of life things, they could just sit down and this stuff would flow out of them in an uninterrupted stream. The replacement story my recipient got was great, I do not contest, it's just that whoever wrote it did it in the span of about a day, whereas I bled, cried, agonized, and possibly got myself that much closer to that ulcer at 30 than I'd been before. But I loved every minute of it. I knew my recipient, kept her in mind every time I opened it or scribbled down a random thought in the middle of a class as this story took shape. It's still hers, so far as I'm concerned, but there's a whine about that 'principle' thing in there.
My friend deserved better.
I deserved consideration.
*deep sigh* So it goes. My friend, in her infinitely kind and giving spirit, wants to write me happy!JoLa and I couldn't possibly love her more but there it is. I'm already onto planning what I'd like to choose for my next challenge, because apparently that's the way to get me to write, but whatever else it's going to be it's going to have all kinds of comfort food [pairing of choice] because babe, you were wronged and that's just deserving of a redress of grievances, and since we're all still only human, I'll do what I can.
P.S. My own Secret Santa's story was epic and amazing. Joey and Lance, Christmas in New York, and the author spun introspective!Joey magic from that. It's also interesting that a lot of the same themes that I explored in mine came up here, and sometimes even in the same wording. Heh. Great minds, tralala.
"If all that was true and, really, the only part Joey got was the bit about the Ugly Duckling, then Rudolph should be Lance's favorite movie, not Joey's. Because Lance was the one who hadn't fit in, who'd been lost and unwanted. He was the one who'd stepped in for Jason at the last minute, who the Germans had tried to nix their record deal over, the supposed liability who didn't belong, except he did. He always had, and *NSYNC wouldn't be *NSYNC without Lance, who was proving everyone wrong now, who was the swan he'd always been destined to be, the leader of Santa's little team of reindeer, not a reject. Except maybe Lance didn't know that, given how hard he was struggling to overcome his perceived failure.
Maybe that was why Rudolph wasn't Lance's favorite. Maybe Lance was the only one who didn't know he was a swan."
-On the Twelfth Day of Christmas
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no subject
Date: December 26th, 2002 04:58 am (UTC)It's fiction.
It's speculation.
It's not fucking real!!!
Ergo, honey, it's never going to be "right", because, frankly, the characterisations of "the boys" don't exist outside their authors/readers minds. It really is as simple as all that. As somebody else said, you really are taking this too seriously - and yeah, sure, your journal and your perogative to whine/bitch/complain about the sheer unfairness of life... but by putting this complaint of yours into a public forum is just throwing salt onto a wound as far as many of us other participants in the whole Secret Santa "thing" are concerned.
Many of us *are* new to writing in this particular fandom; many of us *don't* know the people we were writing for. I have no clue what the person I wrote a fic for even *likes*, given that all I had was a name, a pairing, and a setting. That was it. Many others had Live Journal addresses to go poke around in, or websites, to get a clue about what was/wasn't permissible. I didn't, and I'm sure I'm not the only one who was, literally, writing blind - but I know that we all did the best we fucking could to meet what was a very reasonable deadline.
You talk about how you're going into journalism as though that somehow makes you a writer. It doesn't. Journalists are *not* writers. Otherwise they'd both be called the same thing. It's probably why you had such a hard time meeting the deadline - not that I wish to assume anything about you, mind. When push comes to shove, though, *you* were the one who fucked up and trying to heap guilt in the directions of those running this project is hugely unfair. They did what anyone else would have done to ensure that everyone got their story on time. For Christmas. Because they had a website and/or coding to pull together prior to a few hours before the site went live, in order for that to happen. The fact that your story wasn't ready when it should have been isn't/wasn't their problem - and it was incredibly moronic of you to assume that they should be the ones to sit idly by twiddling their thumbs waiting for you to get round to finishing your story.
Whilst I'm sure you're actually a very nice person generally and/or in Real Life, by doing this, all you're coming across as being is incredibly selfish, immature, and with a ridiculously large ego. The Secret Santa project does not revolve around any one person, but was set up to bring smiles to the faces of *many*.
To paraphrase someone who left an earlier comment: get the fuck over yourself.
no subject
Date: December 26th, 2002 02:40 pm (UTC)It's speculation.
It's not fucking real!!!
It is fiction, that much is certain. And granted, we have a *lot* of leeway in our individual interpretations of what we imagine the guys would say/do in a given situation. Even the fact that there are fairly broad, objective blanket statements that one can make about their personalities (i.e. Chris is the funny, crazy one) is irrelevant because that's not necessarily relevant to what the fic is dealing with (i.e. Chris can also be the shrewdly understanding or the incredibly insecure one).
But *inaccurate* characterization wasn't my issue - my issue was *malicious mischaracterization* of the boys and the pairing, which is what I feel happened here. This is my opinion first and foremost, and regardless that I'm not alone nor do I feel any measure of uncertainty about it, I have every right to call 'em as I see 'em. This wasn't a lack of understanding the characters and pairing, but a lack appreciation for the elements of the fic and its recipient.
Ergo, honey,It's as simple as that, and I don't need your patronizing commentary to know I didn't do or say anything wrong.
by putting this complaint of yours into a public forum is just throwing salt onto a wound as far as many of us other participants in the whole Secret Santa "thing" are concerned.
There's a wound here? Forgoing my friend, I didn't recognize Don We NowOur Gay Apparel had wounded anyone in any way, directly or not. And how were my comments any more offensive or rude than a lot of other people who said that, yeah, the challenge had its fair share of bad fic? My complaint wasn't that the fic wasn't up to some 'par,' but that it was demeaning to all concerned - my friend, the boys, and the author herself for writing, much less submitting it.
Many of us *are* new to writing in this particular fandom;
As am I. Since July, and like I've said I understand about that and have nothing but the most profound and sincere respect for all of you who chose to undertake the enormity of this challenge as one of your starting points. It was brave, and I respect that. I respect every single person who wrote with the intent to make their recipient happy, no matter if they themselves were an established author or someone just starting to make their way. The issue with the fic wasn't that the author might be new, but that the content of her story was snide to my friend and deliberately insulting to the boys featured, not to *mention* the pairing, and we're not even coming close to touching on the outright *disdain* expressed for my friend's single other request regarding the story. If you felt you could do justice to the request of your recipient, whatever that may end up being, you had every right to participate. My issues with this fic were not a matter of the author's "being new" or "not having a grasp of the characters," however.
Continued...
no subject
Date: December 26th, 2002 02:41 pm (UTC)The idea was only to write something you felt the other person would like based on their specifications. If they chose not to express anything further about their likes/dislikes in any sort of forum that was fine, because your criteria remained the same whether they've been on LiveJournal since its inception or just got online yesterday and don't know the first thing about e-mail. I didn't know my recipient before I received the challenge specifications either. But these were all risks we knowingly accepted and willingly took on by signing up for the challenge. You weren't obligated to go anywhere above and beyond the call after it was issued - I felt no pressing obligation to look up my person's LiveJournal or interests, but I had the opportunity and did so on my own time and choice. That was never a requisite part of the challenge though.
You talk about how you're going into journalism as though that somehow makes you a writer.
If you'll read back over what I wrote regarding that, you'd see that journalism was a demonstrative example, *not* an analogy or illustration of my alleged highbrow superiority. I *never* held myself up as the standard for anything much less fanfiction, which is what you seem to be implying here. That would be stupid as I know my limits and send feedback about the seeming lack of it on others' abilities on a regular basis. She made an offhand and dismissive comment, I responded with salient illustrations that I knew full well the implications she claimed I was ignorant of. Nothing more.
I'm a writer because I put words on a page. I'm a writer because I pick up pens/keyboards on regular basis and string together letters and words into the coherence I've spent the past fourteen years of my life learning. I'm a writer, and that doesn't mean I'm good, it just means I'm an literate, verbose, evolved ape. That's all I was saying, but thanks for leaping to conclusions.
Journalists are *not* writers.
Alright then, I have to say this is where things changed. None of this, not anywhere in the previous comments or otherwise has this become a fight, but that comment right there is a call to arms.
How dare you. Some journalists have spent their whole lives writing, from the time when they could first control their fine motor functions enough to grasp a crayon right down to each new assignment they receive. They love their craft and weave their stories as intricately as any other author, and possibly with a greater consciousness of the details because their forum, *the public,* demands it. They are judged daily and more harshly than any other person in the writing profession.
And if what they do is not writing, what would you call it? Do you think they translate mathematical equations into language, or just conjure their work from thin air? Do you think they spend thousands of dollars on graduate school and poring over books of every kind from grammar to ethics, learning the nuances of their craft as well as its implications, for their own health? No, they do it so they can be the best kind of writer in the niche of the writing world.
All journalists *are* writers, but not all writers are journalists. Eight grade Algebra, and boy did I never think I'd have use for that but there it is.
Continued...
no subject
Date: December 26th, 2002 02:42 pm (UTC)You know what, you *don't* know the first thing about me, and it was incredibly presumptive of you to put words into my mouth at that.
If anything, having been involved in Journalism should've honed my deadline-writing skills. Forgoing that I've never missed a deadline in either the class nor my freelance work for a local paper, I did in fact fall down on the job here, and have acknowledged that over and over but *nowhere* did I in *any way* blame Pet or Georgina for my own disappointment at my own failure regarding that. I may have taken a moment to pout about my hard work not being recognized as I wish it could've been, but the mature adult within always knew that it was my own damn fault in the end, regardless of every other difficulty, technical or otherwise. None of the rest of the drama after their initial reply that no, sorry, there was no way they could unreassign me would've happened had I actually received that e-mail when it was sent, which was promptly after my own to them.
And it wasn't a matter of "getting around" to finishing my story at all, though thanks once again for presuming to know something about me from a few hundred word post. Most times, writing isn't something that comes naturally for me. There's a process of sitting down and making it happen, and sometimes yeah, it's just that easy to make it happen but most of the time it isn't. I spent most/a *lot* of the past month doing something in some way to make my story happen. The post was spawned of my own disappointment in myself, not out of any particular resentment of the admins, whose decisions were not only fair but entirely proper.
*outright snip mini-rant about my selfishness and immaturity at taking saying something about what I felt was a wrong dealt to a friend and for my toeing the dirt like a three-year-old in my subjective viewing of the facts while the twenty-year-old within has more than acknowledged the rightness of the decisions made, all in my own journal*
The Secret Santa project does not revolve around any one person, but was set up to bring smiles to the faces of *many*.
And that was *never* any contention of mine. I've said from the beginning how wonderful a project this is and know *exactly* what the Christmas spirit is, thank you. I personally have gushed and will intend to do so further to my own Secret Santa. I've not in any way undercut the work that my reassigned Secret Santa did, have in fact praised it, and took care of my own issues as far as my submission in my own way.
To paraphrase someone who left an earlier comment: get the fuck over yourself.
Take your own advice. And while you're at it, go get some more informed opinions, even if you have to borrow from others.
no subject
Date: December 27th, 2002 12:49 am (UTC)Journalists very often are set to word deadlines. You should already know this. They get deadlines thrown at them from every conceivable angle. Which is why *I* say that they're not writers, in that they aren't permitted the same verbose flow that writers of creative, even non-creative works are. Yes, there are some word boundaries in creative fiction, but they're not as stringent as articles for front-pages of tabloids. Which means, therefore, that they are not writers, but journalists, and should not be lumped into the same fucking category as the other. I wasn't demeaning journalism and/or journalists, given that I spend an awful lot of my working hours in their company and I have a lot of respect for those who take their work seriously. I know how tough the work is, and I admire those who have made it to the "big leagues".
I also wasn't saying that you aren't/weren't entitled to your own opinion. Everyone is, just as they're entitled to voice said opinion. Which was why I voiced mine. And I apologise if it pissed you off, or if you saw it as patronising/condescending in any way [I have a houseful of small children, sometimes my irritation tends to get thrown in the direction of innocent parties and for that I also apologise], but I am not going to recant it. You are taking the whole thing *far* too seriously than can possibly be good for anyone involved... although, I have to confess, I *am* intrigued by the "malicious mischaracterisation" bit. Either that bit's not in your original posting, or I missed it, but what do you mean by that?!? Because *how* can somebody maliciously write about characters, without having done their research and knowing them inside out?!?
As for getting over myself - I'm not the one who's just spent god alone knows how long typing out three replies to one. With reference to my opinions; whilst not perfectly informed [who, amongst us *is* perfect, after all?!?], are generally more than I can ever be bothered in responding to pettiness.