For today's meme entry, rachelmanija asked: What was your best and worst Yuletide experience?

I feel like I haven't had any truly bad yuletide experiences. I mean, there have been times when my assignment was sparse on prompts/details, and there have been times when my recipient didn't comment, and there have been times when I waited almost the whole anon week to get one comment on a story (back in the days before AO3 this was especially sad, though last year for a while I had 1 comment, 2 kudos, and 4 hits on my story, and when I say "for a while" I mean, like, for several days), and that's always hard.

I think the hardest year was 2010, when I offered two (2) specific characters and received a request from someone who asked for "Any" and then discussed four (4) specific characters in their letter, none of whom were the two I'd offered. It was disheartening. I ended up defaulting so the person could get the fic they really wanted, but I wrote and posted the story I wanted to write anyway, and the recipient was super generous in terms of their response - they didn't have to say anything! - so that turned out all right.

The best year - well, in terms of feedback, perhaps the best year was 2009, when I wrote The Thin Man for my assignment, which was awesome, and I wrote two off the cuff, last minute treats for Big Bang Theory, both of which were yuletide popular (at least from my perspective).

In terms of writing satisfaction, that was also a good year, but I feel like most of the time, I'm pleased with the stories I've posted. I've written some good things for Yuletide, even if they weren't the most popular - the various Middleman stories have been a joy, for example.

Writing for rachelmanija in 2016 was great - stressful! but great. *g* I don't frequently get assigned someone I know. It happened my very first year, with vaznetti, but mostly it hasn't, though I've written treats for people I know on occasion. I had been caught up in writing a long non-yuletide story, and I had a totally different idea in mind but then the story I wrote just sort of showed up - I started it on my phone on the bus stop on the way home from work. *g*

As a recipient, the positive experience that most sticks in my mind is that in 2011, I was an immediate pinch hit when assignments went out, and I got three lovely stories that year, including - as a treat - the story of THE EPIC BRO-VENTURES OF PACO AND KON, aka, all maps lead to El Paso by traincat, which I was not expecting at all. The reason it's so memorable, aside from being a fantastic story, is that it wasn't even really a prompt? It was one of those random stray crossover ideas you throw out there in your letter, thinking no one will ever actually pick up what you're putting down, but traincat did!

And of course, this year, I got a Middleman/Wendy treat, after asking for that pairing for years without any takers. I will probably continue to ask for Middleman in Yuletide - but it was amazing to get something I'd asked for for so long and had mostly given up hope of ever getting.

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