So, I'm working on my het big bang and I'm using my speech recognition software because my arm is still very painful. Unfortunately, I keep forgetting that it's on. Which meant that when the cat jumped on my keyboard to get to the window, my word document included the following words spread across the middle of a sentence: what do you want oh is it the birds birdie birdie birdie can you see them silly kitty leave the birdies alone.

Of course, this would happen in the middle of a very serious, emotional scene. And a few sentences back from where I was actually dictating.

Good job I spotted it before I sent it to beta, eh?

I was talking to moonlettuce either today about posting stories to websites and how I hadn't updated mine in forever, and probably hadn't crossposted stuff to the ARC in ages either.

AO3 is easy because of the import function, and I'm trying to be good about posting it there when I post announcements to comms, because it's about as much work. The rest? Not so much.

I've just checked. The last time I updated my website was in July 2010. Apparently I've had 38 posts of fic since then, given that I had to go back two pages to find the last stories posted to my site, and that's assuming that I've remembered to tag all my fic with not only the fandom and pairing tags, but the fic: all tag, which is the one I usually forget.

Oops.

God only knows when I last crossposted to the ARC. Only thing is, it's so long now since I updated it's like a mammoth task to do so and I'm far too lazy. Plus, I have all that fic to post in my 'fic to post' folder, which mostly consists of legendland and kissbingo stuff that I haven't got around to posting yet. I think that counts as a double oops. Or doubly lazy. One of the two.

Oh, dear God. And it's not even half past ten!

(The Proposal this time, in case anyone was wondering.)

Not content with fucking up to epic proportions last week (although thankfully I was spared that fiasco) McAfee decided to install an update tonight that, completely without warning, closed down my network connections. Including the connection to both my USB connected drive and my network drive. The network drive that stores my WIPs. Including the document I was working on, which happens to be my ficathon due tomorrow. Which was open when McAfee decided to kill the connection to the place it was opened from. Cue lots of panicked flailing while I tried to save it anywhere in any form when Word informed me of that fact. Which also failed.

Thank God it didn't lose the document entirely, which I have had happen at work before (as have other people - it turned out that the path names were long enough to cause problems when combined with the utter robustness of work's servers) but I have lost a lot of the stuff I've done tonight.

I could cry, I really could. I found this so bloody hard to write and it was finally starting to come together (because my brain completely hates me) and then this happens.

And I'm updating from my phone while my computer reboots because of fucking McAfee!

I have never flaked on a ficathon yet and never will bar death or dismemberment (not necessarily mine) but I hate the fact that I might be late with it.

::sobs::

ETA: And to completely cement this evening's fail, I have spent the last hour throwing up. Joy.

So, now that the yuletide stories are no longer anonymous, I can do the reveal thing. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain ::g::

I was originally assigned to write for Dessie, matched on Press Gang. Much as I love that show, it was the same fandom I was matched on last year, so there was a teeny element of 'okay ::sigh:: but I've done that'. So when I realised that she'd also requested a fic in another teeny fandom of my heart, of a kids' show that I utterly adored (and already owned the boxed set of series 1 for, even if I'd put off buying the rest of the series until they came down in price) but hadn't spotted to offer, I may have gone 'eeeee!' rather a lot.

If nothing else, it meant I could buy the rest of the boxed sets and then make up my mind which to write. And, as it happened, they had come down in price quite considerably, meaning that it was obviously meant to be.

The fandom? Maid Marian and Her Merry Men, in all of its anarchic, proto-feminist glory, wherein Marian is female and utterly fabulous, and she's the one who leads the Merry Men in battling the Sheriff of Nottingham and his very gay for each other soldiers, Gary and Graeme. Dessie's request was a story in which Robin realises that he loves Marian and what he does about it, and I noticed from her Dear Yuletide Goat letter that she also loves 'five things' fic. It was therefore logical to write a story in which Robin tries to woo Marian in five different ways, failing each time of course, and attempt to capture some of the zany spirit of the show, up to and including the musical interludes.

In short, I learnt how to html code musical notes. I am still very proud of that ::g::

The end result was Woo The Day. Writing it made me happy and I managed to work most of my favourite characters in, including Gladys and Snooker, even if I didn't quite manage to get the Sheriff, Gary and Graeme, or King John in.

After I finished the fic, I watched the pinch hit list avidly and volunteered for a few as they sailed by before the list died a death due to the moderator being banned for spamming. Eventually, I managed to nab a pinch hit for twistedchick who, among her requests, listed 'any' for Primeval. I wrote Watermarked for her, an Abby and Connor fic set after the end of series 3, where Abby and Connor make it home. It's quiet and self-indulgent, but I know that twistedchick tends to write thoughtful, character driven and introspective stories, so I wanted to give her back something I hoped she'd enjoy.

Official assignments out of the way, I went on a bit of a tear, writing fics for people I love where I could, and one additional story for Primeval and Abby/Connor for someone I wrote the same pairing for last year. The stories were:

Last Christmas for moonlettuce, which is Primeval and Nick/Stephen (with some canon Nick/Helen). Apparently Claire accused temaris of writing it, which promptly resulted in Tem turning around and pouncing on me (thereby earning herself a ficlet). Equally apparently, I should stop thanking 'A' for the beta in my notes, because Claire's reasoning was that that was me betaing for Tem, and Tem's was that that was Aithine betaing for me. Dashes. Foiled again.

'Twas the Night for temaris, which is a gen Dresden Files (the books) story. Not a fandom I've ever written in before but one that she requested that I recognised. The only one of her requested fandoms I recognised. I didn't recognise any of aithine's, but more on that later. Tem claims that she has her suspicions, but wasn't sure, but just confirms that I should stop thanking 'A' as my beta until after the reveal.

Then I wrote Mistletoe Mishap for cadhla on the grounds that she had the good taste to request Abby/Connor Primeval fic again this year, and when have I ever passed up the opportunity?

I thought I was done, especially as I couldn't write in any of the fandoms that Aithine requested. Come Christmas Day, however, I realised that there were only 665 stories in Yuletide Madness, and that since aithine actually had her main assignment, I could write her anything in any Yuletide eligible fandom if I thought she'd like it. The conversation went something like this:

Me: I totes could write an extra madness fic and be number 666
Tem: It would have to be less than 1,000 words
Me: I totes could do it!
Tem: *eyes me*
Me: I could write Primeval for Aithine!
Tem: Consider it a challenge!

I hit 980 words and went like this \o/ only to realise that madness uploading had closed. But the main Yuletide collection was open, and so I ended up adding enough words that it qualified for that (like that's ever a problem for me - it's not like I ever know when to shut up at the best of times ::g::). aithine came online just as I was uploading it, and guessed straight away that it was me, but yes, I did write Christmas Caresses (Abby/Connor, R) for aithine, just as a small thank you for everything she's done for me this year :)

The Nibble and I spent the evening at davechicken and alinak's, who kindly let me use their washing machine so that I didn't a) have the send the Nibble to school in dirty school uniform next week or b) have the spend a couple of hours in the launderette with a bored Nibble. So we watched Dr Who and davechicken and the Nibble played on their Wii with the Nibble's birthday games, much to the amusement of alinak and myself. Especially with the hiding in bushes and shooting bushes with bazookas and other such Freudian slips.

I took the new, very shiny laptop in an attempt to write more ficathon, but only managed 800 words. Still, I am part way through scene three at least, with several more to go. I'm trying not to think of the 'several more'. I was going to write more once we'd got home and I'd put Nibble to bed (very late) but apparently the cats missed me and instead of having a lap full of laptop I ended up with a lap full of cat. Two of them, in fact - Widget and Jura. Jura seldom purrs, not because he isn't a very content little kitty but because some cats just aren't the purring kind. Fluffy, for example, is quite possibly the most affectionate and cheerful little kitty that I've ever met, but I don't think I've ever heard her purr. She goes all limp with pleasure, with narrowed, sleepy eyes, especially when she ambushes me on the loo and ends up being cradled upside down like she's a big baby (the way she used to nap as a kitten, by the way), but no purring.

However, Widget, as I may have mentioned previously, purrs like a traction engine and apparently Jura decided tonight that as she was lying next to him, he'd do the same.

He's only just jumped off, which is how I can write this, but I suspect more fic today will be a loss. Ah well. At least we have clean clothes :)

Time for sleep, methinks.