Write every day! October 2019 - Day 7

[zwei_hexen]

Tally:
Welcome post

Day 1: alexcat, alexseanchai, auroracloud, bookherd, carenejeans, china_shop, cornerofmadness, fadedwings, falkner, lferion, mergatrude, sanguinity, silveradept, schneefink, sylvanwitch, yasaman, ysilme (17/17)

Day 2: alexcat, alexseanchai, auroracloud, bookherd, carenejeans, china_shop, cornerofmadness, fadedwings, falkner, lferion, mergatrude, nafs, sanguinity, silveradept, schneefink, sylvanwitch, trascendenza, yasaman, ysilme (19/19)

Day 3: alexcat, alexseanchai, auroracloud, bookherd, carenejeans, china_shop, cornerofmadness, fadedwings, falkner, lferion, nafs, sanguinity, schneefink, silveradept, sylvanwitch, yantantether, yasaman, ysilme (18/20)

Day 4: alexcat, alexseanchai, auroracloud, bookherd, carenejeans, china_shop, cornerofmadness, fadedwings, falkner, lferion, lilacsigil, mergatrude, sanguinity, silveradept, schneefink, sylvanwitch, trascendenza, umadoshi, yantantether, yasaman, ysilme (21/22)

Day 5: alexcat, alexseanchai, auroracloud, bookherd, carenejeans, china_shop, cornerofmadness, fadedwings, lferion, sanguinity, sakana17, silveradept, st_aurafina, sylvanwitch, trascendenza, umadoshi, yantantether, yasaman, ysilme (19/23)

Day 6: alexseanchai, auroracloud, bookherd, carenejeans, china_shop, cornerofmadness, fadedwings, lferion, lilacsigil, nafs, sanguinity, sakana17, silveradept, st_aurafina, sylvanwitch, umadoshi, yasaman, ysilme (18/24)

Day 7: china_shop, lilacsigil, st_aurafina

Let us know if we missed you or if you didn't check in for a while, so we can add you. Of course joining the fun is possible at any point.

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ysilme here: that Christmas story seems about to be happening after all. The last idea finally took root, and I've about 100 words so far I think I'll keep. I still don't know if it leads somewhere useable for the purpose, but at least something is happening. :o)

sylvanwitch here: Today, I absolutely did not write 266 words of that SGA story I'm not writing. ;-) Otherwise, it was a day of grading, writing of college recommendation letters, and an evening obligation at work. *sighs*

Comments

[silveradept]

At this point, it's tipped over from "I know the Suck Fairy has visited" through "it can't keep getting worse, can it?" and now we're at "it's fascinating looking at the local wildlife at the bottom of this miles-deep trench the authors have dug." Which is, to some degree, enjoyable, because there's a certain amount of "now I can say, with exhaustive study, that this is a series that needs a lot of fix-it fic."

[sylvanwitch]

If I can ask (and please, if you'd rather just point me in the direction of where it all started, I'm happy to find the answer for myself), what inspired you to start what sounds like an enormous project? (I haven't read the Pern books--I think that's what you're reviewing (?)--but I know there are MANY of them and that they're something of a sacred cow for a certain demographic of the SFF community.) I mean, it sounds like worthwhile work that contributes to fan and discipline discourse, but it also sounds like...just a ton of heavy lifting.

[silveradept]

Yes, it's the Pern books. It started mostly because I had read several of them when I was younger, and inspired by others who were doing good deconstructing work with popular media of the time, I thought I would tackle them, thinking I'd have a few things to say about them here and there, but mostly going "dragons! And improbable science!"

And then I got into them, and they were so much more than that, and I've been doing it as a weekly post well away from where the fandom congregates in the idea of trying to keep an old community alive, and I'm into the second author's work by now, so there's still a few books to go, but I want to have the whole set done, including the newest one, as, I dunno, maybe my attempt at constructing a big statue for a legacy of some sort? And because it's giving me a reason to actually finish out a series that I probably would have thrown against the wall a long time ago?

Someone else has suggested importing the work to AO3, which sounds kind a good idea for having a backup copy available, and also means the possibility of the fandom finding the project I've been doing for the last several years and having an opinion about it.

[sylvanwitch]

I love that you view critique as a tribute because it SO much is, but I think some folks have a sort of knee-jerk reaction to ANY criticism as "ruining" the original work(s). I also like that you're still engaging with the texts even though they're disappointing you, especially since some of the series were influential for you when you were a younger and different reader. That balance of enjoying something for what it is, taking it at face value, and then, too, challenging its fallacies and assumptions and holding the cracks up to the light--that's delicate.

[silveradept]

It is tribute, even if what it is ends up being "Here be dragons" about the series, and since I still see people reading the series, I want them to go in with some knowledge of what is happening.

I also think that for some part of fannish history (and now), the people having a reaction that all critique is bad sometimes includes the authors of the work themselves. So there's also a certain amount of spite involved in creating out, since the author was very protective of her series in life.