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

[iugularemortuos.livejournal.com]

Can artists fill requests too?

[thedamnraven.livejournal.com]

This is a good idea. To bad my birthday was just 4 days ago. *sigh*

[laughinggas13.livejournal.com]

Brilliant idea!

[niektete.livejournal.com]

Big round of YAY for this suggestion ^^ And may I add, should we try to make it as many stories as there are years, if possible? We did this in the Prison Break fandom for chanchito's 40eth birthday; she got 40 stories :)

[hephaistia.livejournal.com]

Oh, too bad my birthday was in May. But all the same, great idea!

[lady529.livejournal.com]

Love the idea, even though my birthday was last month : )

The Lady 529

[blackletter]

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.

Although I like the idea in theory (anything that incites the production of fic!), how would we go about ensuring that everyone gets fic? I also fear the possibility of disappointment, envy, and sadness arising if, say, one person got 50 birthday fics and another person got only 1 or 2.

[mxdp.livejournal.com]

Weeeeelll... My Birthday is the 3th of July... I'll be 20 :)

[ancilla100.livejournal.com]

I'd love it but I'm a reader of fic not a writer and i don't do art or anything. I just absorb everyone else's talents to make me happy and amused. Taking that into account is it fair that i should get stories written for me but not be contributing anything really?

You won't get any complaints from me if i can have that but some people might not be happy with that arrangement.

[storyfan.livejournal.com]

This is a good idea as long as we work out any bugs so that disappointment can be avoided. Here are a few things to consider: A wishlist limit, word limit (only in that few people would be willing to write an epic so these shouldn't be asked for, probably), type (drabble, full fic, dialogue only or anything goes), how long the program will last (those who just celebrated birthdays might still want them a year from now - will everyone be keen to go that long?). I'll say right now that I'd write a story for someone, but I'd want to limit it to about 2,000 words.

[peak-in-darien.livejournal.com]

You could try doing batched posts with multiple birthdays - maybe three posts for the year, each covering 4 months of members' birthdays. That way it would be like three birthday fic fests, instead of a constant number of new birthdays and fic requests. It might be easier to make sure everyone gets a fic that way.

Just a thought. :) Like a poster above I think we could all discuss practicalities, but I don't want to knock the idea down - I think it's great when people get up ideas like this!

[peak-in-darien.livejournal.com]

Also agree with storyfan's point about word limit - a minimum word limit usually works well because then people can choose to expand to something longer or not, but at least nobody gets a drabble.

[amethystaura.livejournal.com]

PROBLEM 1: Disappointment at someone getting 40 stories & another getting too few.
SOLUTION 1: I think we should drop the idea of writing as many stories as there are years. It's a tempting prospect for some birthday recipients, but let's be frank, it's unfair to some others. Above all, writers struggle to finish writing stories they have already promised, let alone write such huge amounts of other stories. Goals will not be met. Unless they're drabbles, in which case it won't be too hard to give every birthday recipient a good number of drabbles. But then again it might lead to information overload.

PROBLEM 2: Limiting the no. of requests a birthday recipient can make.
SOLUTION: Let the birthday boy/girl pour out his/her heart. If you must impose a limit, make it something like 10 stories at the most. What I said was to try and write as many stories as possible, not all.

PROBLEM 3: Disparity in word limit, such as drabbles and epics.
SOLUTION: The standard is a story of 2000 to 5000 words. It may exceed that, or may fall short. If a birthday recipient requests something much longer, writers can flock together and write it as a joint enterprise, and not focus too much on the other requests. That way the possibility of it getting written is more, and the writers' burdens fall. We'll impose a restriction, such that if the recipients at all wants a story that exceeds 5000 words by a really wide margin (like something that has chapters), he/she can only issue one such request.

Anything else? Is someone willing to re-post the birthday announcement with these changes? And with a link to the original post?

[mllesatine.livejournal.com]

And nobody will judge or criticise a writer for what he/she chooses to write.
What?

I don't state the date of my birth in my profile and I'm not planning on changing that.

I like the idea of a basic holiday exchange but I wouldn't tie it to birthdays.

[feanix.livejournal.com]

Damn...Mine's tomorrow, lol. Aw.