WIP Challenge Check-in, Day 15 -- Tuesday

[linaewen]

Hello on Tuesday!  What kind of a writing day has it been today -- or if you haven't begun yet, what do you hope for today?

• I thought about my fic once or twice
• I wrote
• I did some planning and/or research
• I edited
• I've sent my fic off to my beta
• I posted today!
• I'm taking a break
• I did something else that I'll talk about in a comment

For Discussion:  A monthly writing challenge community I am involved with recently opened up its annual Yule fic exchange challenge.  The Yule exchange adds a dimension to the usual challenge of writing to a prompt, an assigned element or a specific word count in that you are writing for a specific person who has provided the story idea.  Do you take part in such challenges where you are writing for a specific person?  What do you like about it?  What do you dislike?

Comments

[linaewen]

I have a busy day ahead with meetings and a conference to go to. But I'm going armed with a small notebook and some story outlines, and maybe -- just maybe -- I'll get a chance to scribble some notes or even some sentences over the course of the day!

I find it interesting to write for someone else; some of my best stories have come from taking part in such exchanges. It's a bit restrictive in that you have a deadline as well as the worry about whether what you are writing will be well-received or not, but that's part of the interest, I think. I wouldn't want to do it all the time, but for a now and then kind of challenge, I really do enjoy it. What I dislike about exchanges is when the person you wrote an awesome story for doesn't comment on it or acknowledge it! That only happened once to me, thankfully.

[merryghoul]

I got a lot of writing down! Almost done with spook_me, and will move on to femslashex before it's too late.

I do like participating in exchanges. I like most aspects of it: writing for someone without knowing whether they'll like your story or not, working from prompts, meeting a word count. There are a couple of aspects I hate. I don't like working on exchanges and not getting any response back from the recipient, for one. This happened to me in my very first exchange, and since then, I keep an eye out for that person whenever I sign up for exchanges, just so I can avoid them. I also am not a fan of very detailed prompts--this happened to me in another exchange, and I felt like I was going to suffocate trying to include every detail the recipient wanted. I really wanted to anonymously say to the recipient to keep their prompts and work on their prompts themselves, but I couldn't.

[lilly_c]

I got some writing done. I finished a ficlet for a forgotten about prompt table, added some new scenes to my kidficstory big bang and I did a little fixing on several old fanmix that I'm going to be reposting soon.

I did participate in an exchange once and I haven't done one since then, it kind of put me off. I liked it because it was for a pairing and fandom that I was fond of at the time and that there were both word and time limits and the recipient offered several prompts to work with. I didn't like that most of the matches at the reveal days were people who were friends away from the challenge (for me that defeats the purpose) and although my recipient commented on the fic at the time it seemed as though they were indifferent to my efforts.

[lea_hazel]

I made a single character edit. Kind of mentally tapped today.

Writing for anon prompts is something that I love. It gives me concrete ideas, it inspires me and it's low-risk, in that people won't hold it against me if I wrote something bad/that they don't like. As for non-anon exchanges, I've had good and bad experiences. It all depends on the size of the community and how generally social it is. Signing up to an exchange full of relative strangers is, I feel, a large-ish risk to my self-esteem.

[juliet316]

No writing, lots of errands today.

I haven't done a lot of pure anon prompts, but I have done some fic exchanges. It is high - risk/stress in that there's a deadline (and in some cases a word limit) and you have to wonder if the person you are writing for is going to like your efforts. But it really is rewarding when you manage to get it done in time and your recipient really really likes what you wrote (especially if your pinch - hitting at the last minute).