Write Every Day: Day #24

[auroracloud]

Merry Christmas / holiday of choice to everyone! I am bravely holding on despite our abysmal weather and the onslaught of depressing Finnish Christmas carols on the radio (seriously, WTF, I just don't get it, what's wrong with our people? why do carols have to be super-depressing?). The Christmas tree is pretty, there are lights, I've already had the traditional rice porridge and am now waiting for the Christmas dinner. I expect to get quite stuffed.

Today's writing

I finished all my Yuletide edits! Unless it occurs to me to improve the summary or the tags, I don't plan to touch it anymore before the reveals. About time! I also wrote a little more on the fic I began two nights ago, but I don't currently believe I'll manage to finish it as a treat. No matter, I'll finish it later and post it whenever it's done.

Tally

Day #1: auroracloud, avon, cornerofmadness, esteliel, miss_morland, trobadora, ysilme
Day #2: auroracloud, avon, cornerofmadness, doctor_jehane, esteliel, miss_morland, trobadora, ysilme
Day #3: auroracloud, avon, cornerofmadness, doctor_jehane, esteliel, miss_morland, trobadora, ysilme
Day #4: auroracloud,avon, cornerofmadness, doctor_jehane, trobadora, ysilme
Day #5: auroracloud,avon, cornerofmadness, doctor_jehane, trobadora, ysilme
Day #6: auroracloud,avon, cornerofmadness, trobadora, ysilme
Day #7: auroracloud,avon, cornerofmadness, doctor_jehane, esteliel, miss_morland, trobadora, ysilme
Day #8: auroracloud,avon, cornerofmadness, esteliel, miss_morland, trobadora, ysilme
Day #9: auroracloud,avon, cornerofmadness, esteliel, miss_morland, trobadora, ysilme
Day #10: auroracloud,avon, cornerofmadness, doctor_jehane, esteliel, miss_morland, trobadora, ysilme
Day #11: auroracloud,avon, cornerofmadness, doctor_jehane, esteliel, miss_morland, trobadora, ysilme
Day #12: auroracloud,avon, cornerofmadness, doctor_jehane, esteliel, miss_morland, trobadora, ysilme
Day #13: auroracloud,avon, cornerofmadness, doctor_jehane, esteliel, miss_morland, trobadora, ysilme
Day #14: auroracloud,cornerofmadness, doctor_jehane, esteliel, miss_morland, trobadora, ysilme
Day #15: auroracloud, avon, cornerofmadness, doctor_jehane, esteliel, miss_morland, trobadora, ysilme
Day #16: auroracloud, avon, cornerofmadness, doctor_jehane, esteliel, trobadora, ysilme
Day #17: auroracloud, avon, cornerofmadness, doctor_jehane, miss_morland, esteliel, trobadora, ysilme
Day #18: auroracloud, avon, cornerofmadness, doctor_jehane, esteliel, trobadora, ysilme
Day #19: auroracloud, avon, cornerofmadness, doctor_jehane, esteliel, miss_morland trobadora, ysilme
Day #20: auroracloud, avon,cornerofmadness, doctor_jehane, esteliel, miss_morland trobadora, ysilme
Day #21: auroracloud, cornerofmadness, esteliel, miss_morland, trobadora, ysilme
Day #22: auroracloud, cornerofmadness, esteliel, miss_morland, trobadora, ysilme
Day #23: auroracloud, esteliel, cornerofmadness, miss_morland, trobadora, ysilme

Comments

[doctor-jehane.livejournal.com]

Congrats on being done with Yuletide and feeling good about it! I got some Yulebeta done, and am tinkering with my main Yulefic as well as the one treat whose last line I'm still not happy with. But I'll be done by reveals!

[auroracloud.livejournal.com]

Thank you! Good luck at finishing the tinkering, if you didn't already. I'm contemplating doing something about my summary before I go to sleep but otherwise the thing will rest now.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_profiterole_/]

Merry Christmas! :-)

[auroracloud.livejournal.com]

Thank you! You, too! :-)

[trobadora]

Final read-through, final edits on the Yuletide fic. DONE, DONE, DONE.

[auroracloud.livejournal.com]

YAY DONE!

[ysilme]

The depressing Finnish carols quite fit the cliché, don't they? I hope you had a lovely celebration and a good dinner! :D
I woke feeling so wretched from some bug or so I had to change plans for today and skip most things, either sleeping or sipping ginger tea instead before we left for dinner with my parents. On the positive side, I had unexpected writing time and wrote 800 words of drawer fic. I just hope the worst is over, I don't want to skip most of the next two days either...

[auroracloud.livejournal.com]

The depressing Finnish carols quite fit the cliché, don't they?

Oh yes. I HAVE TO LIVE IN THE CLICHÉ. I don't entirely understand the purpose of most of the carols being about someone you love being dead, or some other form of misery. Well, I did hear a couple of happy ones in between.

But mmm. Dinner was good.

I'm sorry you're feeling poorly! My cold bug from the early part of the week also hasn't quite deserted me. I hope you get better soon! Yay for being able to use some of the time for writing.

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

Just a few sentences since we have our big celebration today.

Now I'm curious about the depressing Finnish Christmas carols, goes to look into it.

[auroracloud.livejournal.com]

Hee, I've no idea how much information you can find on that subject in English, though I'm getting tempted to translate their lyrics to show everyone how weird they are. :-P There's just so many that are weirdly depressing. Mother/father/both/grandmother/brother/beloved/someone else is dead and mourned, or someone's alone on Christmas, or the song consists of three verses of berating everyone for how their Christmas celebrations aren't religious enough (that one also contains the memorably traumatizing line about "the child [baby Jesus] drowns in the snow and is forgotten"), or a poor little bird is in a cage and miserable (well, at least the song is pretty and the next two verses are less depressing), or there's a general idea of "enjoy it while you can because soon life will be over or at least you'll be completely miserable". There are some nice ones that actually have that whole "hope and joy" idea, and of course many about Santa Claus for kids, but the number of those downer carols is a bit inexplicable for me. Most of my favourite carols are foreign. :-P

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

I haven't looked yet but wow, thanks for the translations. That is something else.

Is there a Finnish holiday character ala Santa Claus (or Krampus or my ancestors La Befana)?

[auroracloud.livejournal.com]

Yeah, isn't it... Like I said, there are nicer ones, too, but the number of depressing ones baffles me.

We have Santa Claus, basically. There's an older character from our folklore that used to be a fairly different but has basically combined with the more international Santa Claus in the recent times. His Finnish name still comes from the old folklore - Joulupukki, which happens to mean Yule Goat. :-)

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

We have a few ourselves (the one about the stupid red shoes the girl is buying for her dying mother).

The Yule Goat explains a lot of older Christmas art.

Hope you had a nice holiday.

[doctor-jehane.livejournal.com]

butting in to say, OMG, that is seriously dark crap (the drowned baby Jesus, wtf?!). For Christmas, no less! Is this a genre with a long tradition, or a more recent emo fad?

[auroracloud.livejournal.com]

I probably should have added it's metaphorical in the context. :-P The problem is, they often expect children to sing that song, so children don't necessarily realise it's a metaphor. I think I did, because I don't remember being very traumatized by that, but I hated the song being a huge guilt-trip. That one is one of the classics from at least a century ago, as are some of the others I mentioned, but many newer ones are depressing, too. They seem to have this fad of killing everyone off and then have the singer mourn them. :-P

Like I said, there are nice ones, too, but somehow what I heard this year seemed to only catch the depressing ones.

[esteliel.livejournal.com]

Another 800 words for me to finish my second treat, and then once I got back home in the evening ALL THE EDITING right up until 10 minutes before reveals.Though I guess the panic and excitement are what I love about Yuletide! :D

[auroracloud.livejournal.com]

Sounds like you had a busy Christmas Eve wriitng! Glad you enjoy it! I'm not a big fan of panic, but writing is fun on a whole. :-)

[tinny]

depressing Finnish Christmas carols

Really? Why are they depressing?

Here, the radio insists on playing stupid US Christmas songs, so the whole "if they play Last Christmas one more time" rant applies here, too.

[auroracloud.livejournal.com]

Really? Why are they depressing?

Now, if I could answer that, I'd be a lot closer to solving my constant conflict with my own nation and its national psyche, so to speak. ;-)

I think it has something to do with the idea that sad things are deeper, so you're deeper if you're all sad about all the bad things on Christmas. Possibly there's also a meaning to inspire compassion, to think of the unfortunate and be nicer towards them. Though I think there would be less depressing ways to do that. It might also be some misapplication of the Lutheran mentality. *g*

the whole "if they play Last Christmas one more time" rant applies here, too.

Ha, I think that's a problem across the entire part of the world under Western cultural influence. *g*