(no subject)

fic_corner isn't happening this year- instead hh will be hosting a children's TV exchange called youcandothatinfanfiction. I won't be participating, as I don't feel all that fannish about children's TV.

fic_corner's not the only exchange to try this alternating related exchanges approach. invisible_ficathon is trying something similar, and I likewise didn't participate in the Lost Library iteration of the exchange. It's a little frustrating as a model to me, because I figure it has to reduce overall participation in the sub-exchanges and make it harder to the exchange to build momentum and community. Invisible Ficathon's 60 works went down to 30 works for Lost Library. But I guess we'll see what happens. Hopefully if the mods run Invisible Ficathon again, the people like me who left will come back.



jukebox_fest stories revealed!

I received a really sweet, nostalgic "Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard" fic:

don't know where I'm going (1389 words) by evewithanapple
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard (Song)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Summary:

Most of the people who live there now probably never heard about what happened back in the day.

I judge based on the narrator's choice of beer that she is Rosie, the so-called 'queen of Corona'. There is a petty and parochial part of me that is irked that this version does not acknowledge the most likely actual explanation of that line, which is that Rosie is a major community figure in Corona Park, Queens, NY. But that part of me is overwhelmed by the part of me that just enjoys Rosie's incisive, sentimental mythologizing.




I wrote an 8675309 dystopia taking my recip's suggestion that the number might be some sort of registration number. In general I did my normal Jukebox thing of taking a non-genre song and writing an extremely tropey SF story.

number on the wall (1378 words) by seekingferret
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: 867-5309 / Jenny - Tommy Tutone (Song)
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Characters: Jenny (8675309)
Summary:

Jenny don't change that number, he says, bafflingly.

I have mixed feelings about this story. Except for the first two hundred words and the last thirty, this was written in a half hour sprint the day before stories were due. It was really good writing, one of those moments where you just have the right words, and it was helped by a computer crash that lost me my first pass, because I got to rewrite those inspired words even more sharply. Still, the time pressure wasn't all positive, I think. The story has an unsettling brutality to it that comes from its abrupt, economical pacing. This was partially by design, but it was also a necessary economy driven by timing. I didn't have time in the story to dwell on backstory or detail, but I also didn't have time to think up backstory or detail. The last thirty words written, the paragraph beginning "She thinks of the office, of her job with Jefferson Accounting." was written after the submission deadline in order to back off the brutality of the ending just enough. I'm not certain I did it right, but the comments, particularly morbane's, suggest the pacing worked well enough. I dunno, the story works, so I shouldn't be too bothered by my bad process.

I need to get out of the habit of writing exchange fics in half-hour bursts the day before they're due, though. I've been really out of writing of late, defaulting on purimgifts, which still bothers me. I need to get back to writing. I'm hoping that some of the advice and ideas from Balticon will help with that.