Jooster Stories as Birthday Gifts

[amethystaura.livejournal.com]

Tally ho! I have a suggestion about how this nifty little community can make its members' birthdays really memorable. Provided the moderators have no objection.

Birthday boys/girls: All those whose birthdays are coming up should each formulate a wishlist of the stories you crave as birthday gifts. Since disappointment is the last thing you want, these wishlists should be posted to the community at least a fortnight before your big day, so as to give other writers sufficient time to select the stories they wish to write, and then write them. And again, to avoid disappointment, try not to wish for stories you know can't be completed in two weeks. Your posts should be titled "All I Want for my Birthday is..."
Don't forget to state your birth date!!!

Writers: Select the story/stories you're willing to write. Since it's marvellous for someone to receive multiple gifts from many members of the community, please aim to fulfill as many requests as you can. You can even discuss among yourselves to decide who'll wite what. But stories must be written wholeheartedly and posted latest by a couple of days after the recipient's birthday. Promises should be kept, and you needn't be on someone's friends' list to write for them. In fact, you may even reply to the wishlist post, stating in the affirmative that you will write, and if you've decided, what you will wite. The recipient would then have something to look forward to. Your posts should be titled "Happy Birthday *recipient's screen name*".

Nobody will be allowed to judge or criticise a birthday boy/girl for the kind of stories he/she requests, provided they're essentially Jeeves and Wooster. And nobody will judge or criticise a writer for what he/she chooses to write. It's called birthday indulgence.

And please stick to titling your posts as directed. The reason is that many busy members only find time to check their e-mail notifications rather than actually visit the community to see what's new. So only the titles get their attention.

Lastly, nobody who posts his/her birthday wishlist in time (and stating the date) should go without atleast one story as a gift on his/her big day. We must ensure that.

So do you think that this is a good idea?

Comments

[pantropia.livejournal.com]

*Oh* hell yes. I don't tend to work with a beta because of the way I work - I tend to hammer at something, making little tweaks, and occasionally going back and *completely* rewriting something, or bunging a line in somewhere several chapters back, and I will be working on it pretty much the whole time I'm awake. I looked into it, and I think I've vomited out about 50,000 words in the last two weeks. By the time I got the thing back from a beta's readthrough, it would have changed. Sometimes I think I ought to be checking what I write into CVS, it goes through so many revisions. The other reason is that if I take too many suggestions from someone else while I'm working on a piece, I'll either get completely disillusioned with the piece and not finish it, thereby having wasted someone's time and effort, which makes me feel bad, or end up feeling that it's not really *mine* any more.
HOWEVER, I *love* getting feedback once I'm done. Especially when it's telling me what I've got wrong, or just could have improved. Once it's done and out there, I just don't feel the same way about suggested changes, I don't know why. I often will read a piece through after getting a comment, and go 'hmm, yep, they're right' and change it. If not, I'll try to bear it in mind for the next piece. Ego-inflating comments are great, but there's not a lot I like better than a good detailed comment telling me what worked and what didn't. The crit is of lasting use. A "Squee!" is a passing thrill.

[storyfan.livejournal.com]

I wish I could work like you do. My beta works with me throughout the story, offering advice and ideas and letting me know when Jeeves or Bertie are stripping out of too many waistcoats (3 extra ones were found in one story). I fear that if I didn't have one I'd make grievous errors. The stories that I post only on my LJ are usually unbeta'd. They're usually just little gifts for my flist.

I'm sorry if I hijacked this thread. I still like the idea of birthday fics!