Nominations are what you want to read? What you want to write? Are there prompts? WHAT?

[amanuensis1]

For some reason, I am incapable of understanding the way yuletide works.

Every year I mutter, "Maybe I should sign up for that," and every year I share my mutterings with people and am met with, "Oh, it doesn't work that way." So is there someone out there who, rather than saying, "The rules are distributed over these nineteen pages" can summarize the process in, say, something like three long bullet points of text stating, "Go here, do this, be sure not to do this, and your obligation will then be to do this by this time in this way"?

HELP MY TINY BRAIN.

Comments

[nimori.livejournal.com]

Are you on? I can walk you through it.

[ellen-fremedon.livejournal.com]

It's really very simple! There are just three things to do:

1.) Nominations! This part is entirely optional! From now till Halloween, if you want to, you can nominate up to six fandoms that you'd like to see represented in some way: things you want to read, things you want to write, things you just think someone ought to be writing even if it's not you.

2.) Sign-ups! This will happen after Halloween. You don't have to have nominated anything to sign up! You can just choose from among the 1600 fandoms that other people will have nominated. You can request up to four fandoms, and offer to write in as many as you like.

3.) Writing! You get an assignment after signups close-- it'll be sometime after Election Day. You'll have until a few days before Christmas to write your story and post it. You can stalk your recipient and see if they have any additional requests or preferences, but you don't have to.

And then on Christmas morning, everything goes live and we all rejoice. It's easy! It's the best thing there is about Christmas! You should do it!

[florahart]

Er.

You sign up when it's time (not yet), and then after signups close, you get a set of 3-4 assignments of which at least one will match what you said you could do. And then you write that, and upload it by the deadline. There will be about 5ish weeks.

Do you want me to poke you when it's time to sign up?

[exbentley]

When requesting;

You pick a fandom. The main characters for the fandom you choose from the list which appears by holding "ctrl" when you click them. Then there is a text box to give extra details; it's actually ENTIRELY OPTIONAL for the writer, but people are so thorough as to go to the person they're writing for's LiveJournal and check for extra detail, so feel free to be spare; pairings, scenarios, prompts, kinks, etc. This is all fairly standard. You do this four times, preferably for four different fandoms.

When telling them what you will write for, once again you go through and select fandoms. Once again, the list of characters is available for you to pick (who appears there is all decided during nominations)

Picking the "Any" option available in a fandom with only say, Harry, Draco & Snape, would mean you're saying, I don't mind writing requests for Harry/Draco, Harry/Snape, Draco/Snape, Harry/Draco/Snape or fic about any of those three alone. If you just want to say you'll write for Harry/Draco and Harry/Snape, you would select Harry Potter, then Harry and Draco. Then select Harry Potter again and select Harry and Snape.

Offering is a long tedious process, and it's often better just to go through and look for minor fandoms you know than scroll through waiting for ones you're willing to write for. Also, Murphy's Law states that the fandom you are most concerned about selecting (Did I really just click 'Enid Blyton'? Oh well, I've read all the books and no-one will want fic anyway...) is one of the fandoms you will end up with.

You have to select more than four fandoms. In return, you get someone else's request; the four you filled out go on to someone else. You may have requested fic in say (pretend it's not Yuletide and major fandoms are allowed) SGA, Death Note, Harry Potter and Loveless. However, your writer has only offered to write SGA and doesn't know any of those other fandoms. There only needs to be one match, there's no guarantee the other three requests will be fandoms you even recognize.

But then, that's the fun of Yuletide; trying new things, discovering new canon, writing for characters you would barely think about otherwise, scrambling for the deadline, discovering virtue in new pairings and always the joy of giving someone something they could have received nowhere else.

If it really does seem like way too much hassle for you, there is usually a pinch-hit mailing list to cover dropouts, and unfilled requests are thrown out to anyone and everyone over Christmas in "Yuletide Madness".

Some final things:
- Everything's anonymous until the Christmas deadline.
- Failing to produce a fic can get you banninated from future Yuletides.
- There are a lot of people available for hand-holding, walking through uploading a story, or anonymous beta-reading over at yuletide; make use of them!


...I hope this didn't tell you anything you didn't already know.

[ausmac.livejournal.com]

I dont fully understand it either. I signed up but I couldn't see any option to request slash or het or gen or whatever, just the fandoms and the characters you wanted written. So I just put in the characters and hoped for the best. *shrug* first time for me, so I guess I'll find out how it works.

[luthien.livejournal.com]

Thank you for asking this. I've never taken part in Yuletide before but I've been considering it this year - the proviso being that I could work out how the hell it worked. *g*

[hpstrangelove.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you asked about this; I'm actually considering doing this, now that Anne P has gotten me hooked on Alex Rider. I also started reading another series by Anthony Horowitz (Gatekeepers), so I could include that one too.

Now I guess I have to decide on another two at least? Sounds like fun.

[melpemone.livejournal.com]

Looks like you're covered with the rules-explaining - never fear, I was incredibly confused as well, until I finally had the patience to sit down and read very carefully through the rules (which took me, I believe, three years to get around to doing - I really should have just asked :D). Last year was my first Yuletide, and the handholding and encouragement was completely wonderful - I ended up writing my fic in one marathon session just before deadline, with the IRC chatroom open in another window, filled with people cheering us on. It really is brilliant fun.

Summary: Do Yuletide!