two mutton pills and a stein of mead

Merry Christmas, friends and well wishers! I wrote a thing!

I definitely could've used an extra day or two to tighten it up a little, and I know it's not gonna be everyone's cup of tea, but I can honestly say, with utmost confidence:

It exists!

When my beloved MtYG challenge announced it was ending this year, I knew right away I'd be writing something anyway. (Make no mistake, though. My mourning period's not over yet. It may never be over.) But I was feeling defiant and sorry for myself, and fully expected the whole process to be a grim, iron-jawed, almost masturbatorial affair. Just me, alone in a room, typing furiously with a dying sprig of mistletoe hanging over my head. Like the Unabomber, if the Unabomber'd had a taste for boyband smut.

Then musicboxgirl suggested we do a swap, and suddenly everything felt festive again! Christmas restored!

I'm too dramatic for my own good. I know it. But I also know this: It's Christmas Day and I just posted a popslash fic. All is calm. All is bright.

:)

MtYG reveals were yesterday, which means I'm finally free to shake my fist at the heavens and howl the anguished howl of the sorry son of a bitch whose recipient is her beta. And not just my beta - she's also my major idea bouncer off-er and all-around headcanon twin. BLERG. (I know I'm not the only one who's been through this. Show yourselves, my brethren-in-pain! COME, COMMISERATE WITH ME.)

So...yeah. I drew the name of the graceful, swan-like zebraljb and for her I produced this fine example of overwrought Bassez melodramaz, aka The Hippie and The Yuppie, aka Screw The Establishment: A Love Story. It's an idea fragment I've been kicking around forever, JC as one of those 'free hugs' guys you always see in Midtown, and one I'm sure I've blathered about many a time to many a person - but mostly to one person in particular. Ahem. And frankly, just the fact that the 20th came and went without any word from me should've been a dead giveaway that I was her author; but then, on Christmas Eve night, I received the most timidly-worded email of all time ("...um, pardon me, miss, I hate to be a bother but...did you perchance write this Bassez AU?", etc.) and I rolled my eyes so hard that one of them actually got stuck up there. I had to reach into the socket with a plastic coffee stirrer and spin it back around. It was terrible. :)

The writing process, shockingly, was not the worst. Or, at the very least, this wasn't one of those times where you click 'submit' and then wake up the next morning with twenty-five incredible new ideas you'll never get to incorporate. (I hate those times.) I feel like my sex scenes were kind of bland, and about three days before the deadline, when it was far too late to do anything about it, I realized that the whole thing really should've been written from JC's POV instead of Lance's (a realization that set off my intermittent eye twitch) - but, mostly, I'm cool with the way it all came together. (Today. I'm cool today. Ask me again in six months.)

As for me, I think I made out pretty darn well. Santa brought me some tooth-decayingly sweet domestic!TrickC (with dogs! Sad, orphaned CHRISTMAS DOGS! And JC as a deceptively hot accountant!) AND one of his drunker elves decided, bizarrely, that it'd be a good idea to name a fictional baby after me (immortality = ACHIEVED!) which, before now, isn't something I ever really thought I wanted, but...then JC changed my infant namesake's diaper and crooned to her in a gentle, soothing manner and it occurred to me that yes, I really, really did.

This is my (slightly late) submission for the Anti-Valentine's Day fic challenge over at the popsoundboard lj. Special thanks to Lara, for convincing me not to set my laptop on fire and run screaming through the streets of Queens.



( Happiness is a Thing Called Joe )