Yuletide etc.

[tadorna]

I would like to offer great and heartfelt thanks to boniblithe, who wrote Enough To Go By and zeldaophelia, who wrote Good Girl, for making my yuletide such a nice one. :)

My story was this Narnia fic: Growing Up. I feel I should probably apologise to my recipient, because I do have a feeling it wasn't quite what she was after (although of course she left a very kind and gracious comment). I started off writing quite a different story, but I wasn't feeling very good about it and in the end writing what I wanted to write was the only way this was going to get done at all. I do hope she got something out of it. Possibly I'm being paranoid, as usual. Anyway, I have to say that the whole experience ended up being a very positive one for me, despite a bit of a rocky start, and the hackers and that.

I've also been rooting around in the archive and found some excellent stuff, but I feel I've only just scraped the surface. I'll try and gather up a few recs - I knew I should have taken notes...

All the Earthsea fics are good, but this is my favourite: Seasons in the Archipelago. Ged and Tenar. I've actually only read the Earthsea books quite recently, and this is really lovely.

This is a lovely Good Omens fic: A Precise and Accurate History of Monday, Eleven Years Later.

Just Between Us. Ab Fab fic! And it's perfect.

Regrets and Reminiscences. Mansfield Park. This was the only one whose author I guessed correctly (in fact I think it was the only one I guessed at all). Because she's been Jane Austen before, and she's frighteningly good at it.

The Lives of the Really Really Ridiculously Good Looking. Heeee! Zoolander.

A Different Road. A rather lovely Little Women story.

I have read some other good stuff, but these are the ones that made most impression on me. There will be more, I've no doubt.

I've just noticed that I say 'lovely' far too much. Limited vocabulary, tut tut.

ETA ETA!!!

Damn, I knew I'd forget something. I meant to credit lazlet with her invaluable beta-ing skills. I was having real problems with it at one point and she basically pointed me in the right direction, so yay for Laz!

Comments

[coffeeandink.livejournal.com]

I hope your recipient did enjoy "Growing Up"; all I can say is that I adored it. I'm very wary of fic about my childhood favorites, and you won me over completely; "Growing Up" seemed both respectful of Lewis and his work and a much-needed complement to/critique of some of the loose ends (and some of the ideas about gender and sexuality and what they mean for faith and redemption). That all sounds cold, and it's a very warm story, and gets sisterhood just exactly right.

I'm so glad you wrote it.

[sheldrake.livejournal.com]

Oh, thank you! I feel the same way about childhood favourites, and that's partly why I found writing this so incredibly difficult. I've never attempted Narnia fic before, and I had no idea it would be so hard, or that my feelings about the books would turn out to be so complicated. I realised I wouldn't be able to write the fic without addressing some of those issues, so I went ahead and gave it a go. I'm really pleased if you feel I've got it right. :)