Reading Room for Christmas?

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

I've been toying with this idea for a while, but can't seem to come to a conclusion about it, so I thought I'd throw it out there for thoughts and opinions (and hopefully volunteers to play too *g*)

The Hatstand used to put up a fab Advent Calendar every December, which stopped a couple of years ago, and which I've really been missing. She posted a link to a Pros Christmas-based fic each day (as well as a picture and a piece of Christmas-y music) and it was a lovely thing to have in my flist. The Hatstander livejournal has now moved to Hatstander at dreamwidth, but I'm assuming the Calendar won't be renewed, as it doesn't seem to have come up over the last couple of years.

So... I thought it might be nice to have our own Christmas Prosfic posts here at CI5hq, giving us a Christmas/Winter/December etc-based story each day to read and/or chat about in the lead up to Christmas, and I've been trying to think of a way we could do this - and wondering whether anyone else would like to join in. I could just do it myself, but it would be nice to spread the days and ideas around other people as well.

All we'd need is for people to post a link to/rec/review if they wanted, a Christmas/Winter/December etc-based story on a day/s that they'd chosen - we could list just for organisation who was going to post each day, rather than the story titles (cos if we listed the story titles we might as well just make it a storylist *g*). It could be lots of people posting just once or twice, or a few people working together to create a month of posts, or... any combination, really. And it could be done any way that people chose - a bare link to a story, with nothing else, and then readers could comment/feedback/discuss the story if they wanted, or if individuals wanted to get fancy and include graphics etc then that would be even more cool.

If people do fancy it, then I'll make another post asking for volunteers for the days, and screen the comments so that you can either claim specific stories that you'll post about, or else just claim a day and jump headfirst posting about whatever stories haven't already been taken. But to start with... does anyone else fancy this? And/or have other ideas about how it could be done? Would anyone else be interested in choosing the fic and making the posts?

Comments

[msmoat.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I think that would be cool. I've been missing the advent calendar, too. A story recommendation would be wonderful, especially if the poster included just a bit of a why. Good idea!

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

It was fab, wasn't it... I'm crossing fingers that we might manage something ourselves! *g*

[cornishcat.livejournal.com]

Yes I do fancy it.

The idea of having topical recommendations right through the festive season is very exciting.

How did it work last time? Did people find daily posts quite intensive? I suppose that some of the stories will be shorter than others and therefore quicker to read ... obviously. Also, promptly-left comments are not necessarily compulsory (you know me, I can be soooo slow!) *g*

Yeh, another inspired suggestion.

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

Oh good!

Well, the way the Hatstand worked was simply to post the name of the fic and a link (and also a link to a pic and to a piece of music), so it was very much - here's the story, read it or not! And it was posted to a website, rather than the lj, so there was no interacting with it.

I did wonder whether one a day might be quite intense, but if we all accept that it's just having the idea for reading the story in front of us that's the fun thing, even in a kind of "remember this story?" kind of way, then there shouldn't be any pressure, right? As you say, comments can be left anytime or not at all, it's just... for the inspiration to read a Pros-y Christmas story if we want to and when we want to... So much easier than thinking "right, I want to read a Christmas story, now where's the list, what shall I pick?" etc etc, right? *g*

[jgraeme2007.livejournal.com]

I like the idea. I even have a story to suggest -- though it's not online, but we did a couple of those for the old RR so I guess it would work. I could do a more in-depth review perhaps?

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

Excellent! And yeah, I don't see why we shouldn't include non-online stories - if nothing else, I think we need to keep them alive in people's minds so that they don't just fade away and die, and if it encourages people to try and get hold of them, then that's got to be good, right? Some zines are still in print, others are available second-hand, and there's always loiteringpalely... *g*

And yes to an in-depth review, if that's what you fancy doing! I reckon it'd just be fun to have a Christmasy/Wintery/Decembery fic for each day again!

Looks like there might be a few people up for participating, so it could be a go-er... *g*

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

Hiya - hope you get this. Just a heads up to say that very unfairly (since you were one of the first to volunteer) your story's just been gazzumped! It's been recced by Starlite today - I knew she was going to do a zine story, but I didn't know she was going to do the story you'd chosen *headdesk* On the bright side, you're not up until the 24th, so at least there's lots of warning... It's the one downfall of the system, I'm afraid...

[jgraeme2007.livejournal.com]

Hiya - hope you get this. Just a heads up to say that very unfairly (since you were one of the first to volunteer) your story's just been gazzumped! It's been recced by Starlite today - I knew she was going to do a zine story, but I didn't know she was going to do the story you'd chosen *headdesk* On the bright side, you're not up until the 24th, so at least there's lots of warning... It's the one downfall of the system, I'm afraid...

Thanks for the head's up. I'll probably still go ahead with this one -- only dip more deeply into the writing and themes. As I'm going next to last, chances are good anything else I picked could be recced as well.

[constant-muse.livejournal.com]

Sounds good to me.

I think it was only last year there was no Advent calendar, 'cos it was done in my first Christmas here (2008), and I regret that I didn't really fully appreciate the wonder of it.

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

It might have been just last year, but it feels like so much longer! *g*

And yeay, even though I know Christmas-Pros isn't your favourite genre... *g*

[merentha13.livejournal.com]

I like the idea and could probably find a story or two to recc, but you already know how good I am at posting links and such....(*g*)

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

Oh excellent, and heeeee! Your rec was perfectly good! I just wish it wasn't so quiet around lj at the moment, it deserved more chat! And you know, you can always just copy and paste the URL for a story or post, so that it looks like this: http://community.livejournal.com/ci5hq/150749.html The other way is really just getting fancy... though all it really takes is practice, so yeay if you fancy some more... *vbg*

[potztausend.livejournal.com]

A good idea - maybe I could rec a story *thinks about it*. I'm sure I have read much christmas stories but I don't remember the titles.

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

Oh excellent and yeay! *g* There actually are Pros Christmas story lists over at Hatstand and ProsLib (I don't think I have one yet for palelyloitering) if you need some inspiration... or you could click on the Christmas challenge banners over at Discoveredinalj's user info page, and find loooooads of stories you might like, too... I know what you mean about remembering them though, that's always the hardest bit for me too! *g*