circadienne

Every Land: Bibliographic Notes



Yeah, okay, okay, I am going to the Special Hell for naughty historians. At least I know the company will be good. Also, anyone who's laughing at me for writing a Yuletide letter that said, "Given a choice, I'll usually prefer a cheerful adventure story to something gloomy where everyone drinks a lot, contracts painful diseases, and perishes horribly," is...um, also in good company, because I am still laughing pretty hard at myself over this one. Longest story in Yuletide? Fuck, what was I thinking? (Mostly, "It's not quite done yet, is it? Hunh. I guess I better go write some more.") That said, I did write a cheerful little story for Yuletide this year, but only five people read it. Mostly people read "Every Land," in which the characters drink like fish, have unhealthy sexual relationships, pine for each other, get raped and enslaved, go mad, commit suicide, and die of puerpal fever, though at least I had the good taste to let her do that offstage. Um.

I could go on at ridiculous length about the thinking behind this story, because there was quite a lot of it. If you have questions, feel free to ask.

There was, as commenters have noted, considerable background reading, though not quite as much as you might think, given the other things I do with my time. *cough* Regarding historical accuracy, there is nothing in "Every Land" which is, insofar as I am aware, directly contradicted by the primary record (though, of course, interpretations will vary), and I believe that everyone was, physically, where I've put them on the dates in question. Which should provide something of an object lesson in historical "certainty" to the observant reader. I've thought for years that it would explain a few historical weirdnesses if Lewis were gay; this was a chance to play with that idea, and explore some other thoughts I've had about sex, gender, frontiers, and the opening of the West.

I had wonderful beta help from Amy, Cofax, and C., who listened to me wombling on about this for most of two months and were very patient! Also, you can thank them for telling me to leave the sex in ("I'm afraid I wrote 2,000 words of utterly gratuitous smut last night. I feel kind of weird about it. Do you think I should cut it?" "No, no, no, the sex is good! Leave the sex alone! This other bit over here, though....")

Thank yous also to everyone who read this and commented and recced it -- to send this out in the world and have people say such wonderful things about it, well, it really doesn't get more awesome than that. And Dizmo, my recipient, actually stayed up and read this on the night the archive opened (and I know how long this sucker takes to read!), and left wonderful feedback, which totally made my Christmas morning. Thank you!

I am constitutionally incapable of skipping the annotated bibliography, so here goes.

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Hey there! Despite the fandom adventure that the run-up to Yuletide's been this year, I'm looking forward to this (esp. since I just got my nifty keen prompt, huzzah). I hope you are too.

This is my infrequently-fic-writing identity, which, yeah, there's not much there here (here there? Here here? Hear there? Hair? Hare? I'll stop now). For which I apologize; I know some folks really want to know about their subject, and that's...not happening so much with me, at least when I'm wearing this hat.

But the way I see it is, I requested three fairly oddball fandoms. You like at least one of them well enough to volunteer to write it. We already have a lot in common. I tried to write pretty nonrestrictive prompts, and truly, since I've never even seen fic in two of these fandoms? I'm going to be so cheerful about reading whatever you come up with.

I've been thinking about major squicks and things like that...about the only things I can come up with are (1) I find really gory stuff distasteful, especially when kids are involved; and (2) really egregious spelling and grammar problems tend to throw me out of a story. Neither of which I honestly think is very likely to come up, so I'm hesitant to even say anything.

Given a choice, I'll usually prefer a cheerful adventure story to something gloomy where everyone drinks a lot, contracts painful diseases, and perishes horribly, but really, if the latter is what you're feeling the urge to write, you can probably sell me on it.

Have fun, and I'm really looking forward to seeing what you come up with!

ETA: WEEEELL, crapsies. Goodbye, awesome prompt, but I live in hope that the dawn will appear bearing an even more awesome prompt. In the meantime, I'm going to bed.

ETA II: And HELLO, even more awesome new prompt(s). I may have to write two. Truly, the Yuletide fairy has been good to me. Hopefully you feel the same way, kind stranger.