So, it is party time again, folks!

[wiseheart]

Each year this time, we launch my virtual birthday party, which starts on October 1 and ends on October 9 at midnight, sharp. The goals of the party are to post as many comments and collapse as many threads as possible, on as many new pages as we can. It is always great fun, as you can see if you check out the similar entries of the last few years.

This year, I'll also throw the real party at mid-time - and post the recipes of all the food that will be there for you, so that you can all participate if you want to. Virtual food has no calories.

Fandom-related discussions are as welcome as the ones about coffee or chocolate (just to name a few favourites from previous years), and, of course, pictures and recipes of birthday cakes. ;)

So, drop by, tell your story, post your pics or silly poems, ask questions you always wanted to ask and have a good time!

Soledad, in excited expectation




Oh, and by the way, to provide birthday gifts hobbit-style, I've got a revived story and a Kansas 2 update for you.

Enjoy!

Comments

[jenn-calaelen.livejournal.com]

Yes, but I've ended up with rather a lot more than I need, and don't have much storage space, so need to organise it all at some point.

[jenn-calaelen.livejournal.com]

Good luck getting it sorted out. Gardens are lovely and the skill (and time) to keep them in order is very impressive.

[jenn-calaelen.livejournal.com]

It hasn't been as much work as in the past (simplifying the rules are really helped), but there is always a degree of checking and sorting out of problems to do, but it is mostly done, and I know I did much less than in the past - part of the virtue of a having a good team, in that it ended up being nicely shared out and people could mostly deal with areas they know, and so it ended up going very quickly.

[jenn-calaelen.livejournal.com]

Over 650 comments!

And to give this thread a topic: current reading?

At the moment I'm reading the Amelia Peabody mysteries by Elizabeth Peters - I think I'm on the 6th one now and enjoying them. Amelia is a great character and I really like the mixture of the archaeology and random mysteries - and the narrative voice.
I'm also intermittently rereading the Valdemar books by Mercedes Lackey, as my partner has decide he wants to read them, and he kept asking me questions. I'm not sure when I last read most of them, but they are still fun, although I am very glad to be reading them spread out, as all the angst.

I'm also looking at the Yuletide tagset and trying to decide what I should read from it to help get a head start on what I might be assigned, but there are so many choices.

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

Thanks for all the effort you are putting in! There seems to be quite an admin burden associated with hosting nominations on AO3, but perhaps in the pre-AO3 years it was always much smaller. The first year I participated (2004) I think there were only a few hundred of us! As you write it does allow bringing in a big pool of tag mod volunteers.

I must admit I'm really looking forward to seeing this year's tagset. I shall be interested to see what effect reducing noms to three has had -- beyond an increase in dental services. And obviously what fandoms I might want to offer.

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

Thank you! We have little time and no skill, so we need all the luck we can get!

[jenn-calaelen.livejournal.com]

Thank you! :)

I'm not sure how much work it was pre-AO3 - I know it worked differently, for example there was a list of banned fandoms that was automatically coded, so they didn't need anything doing. However, I got the impression that it was still a lot of work - and I have no idea how Elyn and Shalott managed it all themselves.

My overall impression this year is that there has been a lot more coordination in nominating, and the tag set is a bit higher than 2012/2011, but lower than last year. However, splitting up rpf fandoms will have had some of the impact. It will be very interesting to see how well matching works, especially as it turned out very well last year (but some people didn't like having to request at least 4 fandoms) and work out the numbers for next year from that.

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

We've beaten last year already!

I'm currently still ploughing through my bookmarks from last year's Yuletide, trying to pick out my recs set before sign ups open. I'm down from 150 to 11 to reread and some 15 more I'm undecided over, but many of the remainder are novellas.

I've got a big pile of books on my long-unread heap (which is well over a hundred books now); some of them are Yuletide perennials so I might try to get my brain in gear for one of them -- Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, Stardust or Cloud Atlas perhaps.

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

My To Read heap is approximately as high as my DVDs To Watch heap. Basically, I read and watch things I need for my writing.

Currently, I am digging through the Torchwood novel Skypoint (donated by the lovely red_day_dawning) and the WETA books about the making of The Hobbit, simultaneously. For pleasure, I mostly read fanfic. Yeah, I know. I am slowly becoming a barbarian. But that is what I still enjoy. The rest is research.

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

I've just got home from work, less than an hour ago, and am a bit drained. But it was a useful day. I managed to commandeer one of the computers in the teachers' room, and in the three otherwise completely useless hours I have to rot there between shifts, I typed up the nearly finished 14th part of Kansas 2. Go me!

Not that i'd have a rat's chance to gain back the once steady following of that story - a ten-year-hiatus is simply too long - but getting it on tha roll again is fun. Despite the idiots I have to block regularly. I've written seven chapters in a row, usually ten to twelve pages each, and I am determined to bring it to the end (which would mean Chapter 54, according to plan. Even if I will get nothing but grief for my efforts. I love this story. Somebody has to, right? :)

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

I stopped buying books for myself unless I was sure I was going to read them immediately several years ago, but people keep buying me books for presents. I've had to tell them not to, which is embarrassing. Maybe one day I'll get my head in gear & get back to reading hundreds of books a year, but these days I'm lucky if I get into double figures of new books annually, rather than rereads of old favourites.

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

It's nice to be paid to type in fanfiction ;) How easy is it to commandeer a computer?

[jenn-calaelen.livejournal.com]

*hugs* Great progress.

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

I can't imagine how Shalott & Elyn managed; they must be superhuman! It's easy to knock the current system, but the ability to edit stories without having to e-mail Elyn is worth a lot of hassle.

I get the impression (I read coal when I'm having trouble sleeping sometimes) there's been a lot of sock-nominating -- there are multiple anons talking about having used 3 or 4 socks to nominate. I think the most useful thing for matching might be persuading people to check that someone (other than them) has requested at least some of the fandoms they've offered; most people I know check obsessively but I suspect others don't know how to or don't realise how important it is.

[jenn-calaelen.livejournal.com]

Very impressive. I always fail at reccing fic, mostly because it is so hard to try and explain what is good about it (I hated writing book reports at school for the same reason - well that and the fact that the teacher didn't believe what I was reading and the fact that I could get through books very quickly).

I'm not sure how many books I've got on my to read list - I've been trying to avoid acquiring more paper books as they are bad for my hands to try and read, but this makes the heap less visible.

[jenn-calaelen.livejournal.com]

Nothing wrong with reading whatever you want! Research is such fun - even if it can just keep growing.

[jenn-calaelen.livejournal.com]

I don't think there have been a lot of people using socks. I suspect it is a very small group of people, but there is no way to confirm this with the current info. I'd love it in the future if we could see who had nominated, and what (as I suspect some of the really not rare noms come from socks eg Buffy). As far as I can see from everything, most people do try to follow the rules and participant in good faith - it is just a pity that some people don't, especially given how much time ends up being used trying to sort out the problems.
*nods* Encouraging people to check is the signup summary is good and possibly emphasising that if there are people with no possible recipients that it will hold up everyone getting their assignments. Hopefully explaining more agout how everything works will help.

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

It's never clear how many people are replying to coal and how far the culture spreads among ordinary participants. I'm relieved the knowledgeable view is that it's a tiny minority. Some of the big fandom noms were weird -- someone really seemed to be arguing for Teen Wolf, of all things! At least those are easy to discount.

More explanation is always good, I think. It's easy to forget that there are newbies every year and not everyone is particularly savvy with AO3.

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

I find that too -- also I'm spoiler allergic, so I really don't want to do what a lot of recommenders do and review in such depth that it gives away much of the plot. There again, recs that just give the link don't tend to entice me.

I've had to split my to-read pile into two, not just because the piles started to teeter but because it was just getting psychologically overwhelming. At least now I have a single downstairs shelf for things I think might appeal, as well as the huge piles upstairs...

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

So, 667 comments -- can we get to 750 today, do you think?

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

Jenn asked about current reading, what about current watching? I've almost given up watching live television (never convenient and so much of it is garbage) and at the moment we're watching Lewis DVDs, what was supposed to be the final season but they seem to be doing just one more...

[jenn-calaelen.livejournal.com]

We can certainly try!

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

We are awesome!

[jenn-calaelen.livejournal.com]

Current tv: Doctor Who (although not really feeling very into it) and Only Connect (which is a very fun quiz).
Rewatching: Yes, Minister - which as ever remains very topical

There are several things I really should catch up on: Sherlock, BBC Musketeers, etc. The pvr is fairly full of stuff, not to mention dvds, and I don't even remember what is there. Hopefully now my partner has finished and handed in his MA dissertation, we will get round to catching up or deleting things.

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

It is a very cosy and relaxed thing to do. ;)