yuletide reveal

[raven]

Seriously, what is it like to be able to sleep at night? I'm genuinely interested in knowing. What do you do with all that spare time?

(On a related note, this story made me FURIOUS, quite possibly irrationally, but still, how dare they basically imply that depression is your fault for going to bed too late. If you just went to bed early you'd be happier! It's essentially "early to bed, early to rise....", isn't it, and the people who say that are always heading for justifiable homicide. I'm maybe just cranky, but it's six degrees below, I have no heating, I cannot use the kitchen because the fuses have all gone so none of the lights are working, and I can't sleeeep, waaah.)

Anyway, a brief note: I want to make a post about various new-year things, but before that, a quick and final yuletide note. I wrote these:

Advent (Connie Willis' Oxford time-travel universe) for scintilla10
This was my assignment, and it was hard work, but in the end I was pleased with it. (Especially with the pun in the title, because I'm a dork like that.) My recipient wanted a story about Verity, but I had read Doomsday Book much more recently than To Say Nothing of the Dog, and the finished product had something of a sense of gloom. Interestingly, last year's story was also a story about Verity, and although I do try not to repeat myself, I can't resist writing all my stories in the same universe. Once again, shimgray sorted out the plot holes for me very nicely indeed.

Oh, and! It has a cameo by absinthe_shadow in it. I was trying desperately not to make it too obvious, but finally bowed to the inevitable, asked her permission and wrote her in.

Prawn Crackers (dinnerladies) for lilka
dinnerladies is not actually a fandom of mine - in the sense that, I love the show very much and think it's wonderfully written, but I've never wanted fic for it. Only, a few weeks ago I went over to see lilka, we had a lovely evening drinking wine and watching the Christmas episodes, and when I saw her request drift past I couldn't help myself.

(Also, a little of this story may have been drawn from life. Just a little.)

Boy Trouble (Discworld) for duckgirlie
This one was the definition of a last-minute treat. I wrote it the night before the deadline, the hour before, even - I wish I'd had time to make it longer, actually! - and enjoyed myself far too much in the writing. On a serious note, it was fun to write the "ordinary" Discworld women (i.e., the ones who don't have the benefit of being able to do magic), and show up their small human awesomnesses, and on a truly frivolous note, I had great fun with the jokes. I had a vague sense that the joke in the first paragraphs isn't translating very well - if it helps, British hen parties traditionally involve L-plates. No one knows why.

Ingenué (Slings & Arrows) for beautifulside
Again, I wish this one was longer. I had as much again written, and it was becoming a story of sorts, about returning and going home and other overdramatic themes like that - but then it was the night before the deadline and I didn't want to scrap it, so I rescued these 500 words and realised I liked them by themselvs, after all. I do love Kate. And Geoffrey, but that goes without saying.

I'd like to apologise, also: I really, really appreciate (and, indeed, encourage!) the feedback I've got on these stories on AO3. But I just can't reply to comments right now - I am trying to take a bunch of exams and apply to grad school simultaneously this week, which is sort of why I'm awake at 4.58am - and so in lieu, I am just saying thank you here. Thank you all.

Onwards and upwards, I guess. I do wish I could sleep.

Comments

[msilverstar]

Study leader Dr James Gangwisch said although it it was possible that youngsters with depression struggle to sleep...

OH FUCKING DUH!

Am a parent. "Setting" a 17-year-old's bedtime is a polite fiction.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Yes, that one annoyed me as well! When I was seventeen I was an insomniac and cranky, but I also had five A-levels to work for, a job, university applications to be getting on with - grown-up things! How does parents-setting-bedtime even come near it?

[shehasathree]

oh butbutbut OF COURSE correlation implies causation!!1! (how would it even be possible to tease such an issue apart, when it is extremely well-documented that a very high proportion of people experiencing depression also experience sleeping problems?!)

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

But NORMAL PEOPLE go to bed on time! And NORMAL PEOPLE aren't depressed! Ergo, etc. *grooooan*

[47-trek-47.livejournal.com]

I see I am not the only person to show up here saying that those studies should really be more careful about implying what causes what. Of course kids with depression sleep less at night. DUH. I need a mental health icon...

[fyrdrakken]

txtriffidranch has an oft-recurring rant about science reporting -- seems that even if the reporter understands the subject well enough to boil down the findings of a study accurately for a lay audience, their editor is all-too-prone to coming along and either A) making some changes to "jazz it up" (like an exciting-but-misleading headline, or attempting to link the subject to popular sci fi) or B) trimming for space in a way that just happens to introduce errors or eliminate necessary explanations. And once he got me started, I got into the habit of reading these things trying to guess which bits actually reflect the actual scientific findings and which are the journalistic skew to make it an "exciting story."

(Anti-feminist bias in reporting findings of gender-difference studies are something I've really gotten practiced in spotting. My personal favorite was the piece that linked high IQ and advanced training in women with lowered chances of marriage, and outright stated that it appeared that men really don't want to marry smart women. The alternate explanation, that smart women are less likely to settle for a bad relationship just to get married, and/or that successful career women can support themselves more easily without needing that second income, wasn't even suggested.)

[tau_sigma]

I don't have time to read properly, as I'll be late for work (this job thing, it is odd), but oh, that makes me SO ANGRY too. And on a skim read, I can't help but think that they haven't considered that they may be mixing up cause and effect. Bugger them, anyway. Bugger them with a spiny anteater and NO LUBE.

(Shall return to read the rest of your post, after work.)

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

"spiny anteater and NO LUBE" made me laugh! Bugger 'em, just so. :)

[tau_sigma]

I still have not managed to read these fics (well, those for which I know the fandom a little, anyway). *sigh* I'm going to get there.

:) I have, over the last few days, watched 'The Anal Lube Show' (extended episode of Mock the Week from the second DVD) at least twice. *g* It is clearly having too much influence on what I say...

[tau_sigma]

I have finally got round to reading these, all except Slings and Arrows, which is one fandom I find doesn't really work if you haven't watched it.

I have posted comments on 'Advent' and 'Boy Trouble', but it won't let me do so for 'Yes, Virginia'; I don't think I read it last year, probably because I thought 'ah, I don't know the fandom, there's no point reading it' but oh, there really is, I should have known, especially when it's you. And I love it, words cannot describe how good I think the whole plot and ending are, really. On more trivial bits: I love the fibreglass sheep, and the Pop Tarts, and the snow angels, cherubim and seraphim, and how good a writer you are, that you can write that and it ties in with the ending, and I have only just noticed.

And 'Prawn Crackers'; I haven't watched an awful lot of dinnerladies, but I liked it. :)

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Oh, honey! I am so glad that you liked all of these. It's particularly nice to hear what you thought of "Advent" and "Yes, Virginia" - they were written as "real" stories, you know, as getting-it-right stories rather than my burbling whatever I like on the page, and I am so glad that they worked for you. And, of course, I am glad you liked the others, too! Thank you for reading me. :)

[tmpe5t.livejournal.com]

Duh, when you're depressed you can't sleep either. This just is more evidence to me that as far as mental health goes (although doctors i've had have called it 'psychological wellness, which means they must think i'm REALLY barking in a 'please don't hurt me' way...) medical science is still in the 'a course of leeches' stage.

I actually think that for depression (having lived with it in a bi-polar sort of a way for years), addiction is a better model to work with. But anyway... Love the discworld fic! Being transgender but in a 'running jumping climbing trees putting on makeup*' sort of a way, i really have identified with Cheery, and you capture her (and all the others too) brilliantly... :)

*Basically i want to be Ellen Ripley when i grow up...

[absinthe-shadow.livejournal.com]

I JUST COMMENTED ON THE FIC WITH MY SQUEE BUT NOW I WANT TO SQUEE ONCE MORE, BECAUSE, JUST, OMG! FIC. FIC WITH ME IN IT!

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

*vbg* I am so glad you liked it. When I realised I needed an elderly don OC in Oxford in 2059 I just could not get you out of my head. :P

[emerald-embers.livejournal.com]

Ugh, these "Well, if you hadn't done _blah_ then you wouldn't have this condition!" implications always drive me up the wall. I've seen dyspraxia blamed on everything from eating wheat and dairy products to falling over too much as a child, it's silly.

I can't really quantify how I sleep in any realistic manner because I have my dad's habit of sleeping maybe three to five hours a night during the week and then ten to sixteen a night on the weekend; I don't really notice how it affects my day to day life for the most part because I'm generally just as active/inactive on three hours sleep as I am on thirteen.

Similarly, both dad and I will go for hours, even days without food or drink and think nothing of it then eat whatever we're given; both of us don't quite seem to do sleeping/eating/drinking as if they're necessities, we do them more as hobbies, and it's a little odd, but it's nothing either of us would consider a condition because in all fairness neither of us struggles sleeping/eating/drinking, we just have a habit of forgetting to do it if other people don't remind us to.

Btw, I'm slightly confused as to what you mean by "What do you do with all that spare time?" and don't want to accidentally answer the wrong question - how do you mean spare time when it comes to sleeping?

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

I mean, I can't sleep at night, so I tend to lie in bed for hours tossing and turning, and then either sleep in to make up the sleep or nap, or catch up on it somehow later - so I spend twice the number of hours in bed! Not always true, because sometimes you soldier on without the sleep, but as a general thing. And also I lose time in being, basically, too tired to do anything but stare into space.

[lilka.livejournal.com]

*reads BBC article* *sighs* You know, sometimes I want to write 'correlation does not equal causation' on a stick and beat people over the head with it. Many, many people.

And thanks again for Prawn Crackers, it was genuinely delightful :)

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

You're very welcome! I was pretty sure you would guess it was me. But it was great fun to write!

[thunderemerald.livejournal.com]

Ah ah ah, I love the Slings & Arrows fic! How lovely. Although the thought of Kate in Passchendaele makes my head hurt with meta, a little. ;)

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Thanks, dude. I couldn't resist the shout-out. :P

[walkertxkitty.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't know about sleeping at night: my body rhythms carried over from college and I tend to stay up late myself. When I do sleep, it's interrupted. I wake several times a night.

No, going to bed earlier won't fix depression. They need to STFU about that. When I'm depressed, I have the opposite problem: getting out of bed to do ANYTHING is an issue.

Hmmm, good stuff to read *waddles off to do so*

[jacinthsong.livejournal.com]

Ditto - when depressed, my issue is hypersomnia and early morning waking, so if I can actually be alert and feel like doing anything at any point of the day/night then YES I will probably jump on that.

[jacinthsong.livejournal.com]

Also! I love the Discworld fic a whole lot. YAY.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

*squees* yaaaay, I am glad.

[subservient-son.livejournal.com]

I really hope my dad doesn't see that story, I'm not in the mood for this argument again.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

It is a tiring one, yes. But not tiring ENOUGH. :P

[tempestsarekind.livejournal.com]

Hello--I recently discovered (and loved) your S&A fic, and have friended you (hope that's all right!). Anyway, thanks for linking to your Yuletide fics; I'm very much looking forward to reading "Ingenue" (and "Advent" as well; yay Connie Willis!).

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

That is by all means all right, and it is very lovely to meet another S&A fan! I hope you liked the fics. :)

[tempestsarekind.livejournal.com]

I've read one so far--oh, Kate! I do love her (and would have loved to see her Juliet, I suspect).

[the-acrobat.livejournal.com]

I guessed two of your stories. :D
Also, the BBC, seriously. *flail*

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

You did! What gave me away? :P

[the-acrobat.livejournal.com]

A few things... the way you write Balliol, the concerns that crop up which also, in different ways, crop up in your journal. The fact that they're fandoms I know you enjoy.

What really gave it away, though, and made me absolutely confident that those stories were yours, was that those stories didn't make it onto your recs-list. They're terrific stories and you, my dear, don't skip over quality like that unless you're hiding something. ;)