'Tis the Season to be Late?

[gilpin25]

We got the first of the Round Robin letters in a Christmas card this morning, and I'm waiting for my mild-mannered husband to turn into someone highly dangerous, who must be approached with caution. And only if you're bringing in the dinner.

These are the letters you get from people you don't see from one year to another, but who send you a printed sheet of their accomplishments activities during the year. Usually with an incredibly flattering and air-brushed photo that the Royal Family would envy. Snarkiness aside, most of these are interesting, but there's a few that set your teeth on edge. These particular people are friends of my parents, I haven't seen them since our Wedding so we're talking years here, but they still think we'd like to know that daughter Tabitha will be reading Politics at Cambridge, son Gerald is spending three years in Hong Kong earning fabulous sums of money thanks to a promotion, and now that all the kids have flown the wealthy nest, the parents have invested in a sixty foot ocean liner to give them an interesting new hobby.

Okay, I'm exaggerating, but only just in some cases. I'm bracing myself for the one from our friends in New Zealand, who emigrated a couple of years ago, and seem to own more of the country now than Peter Jackson. It takes quite a lot to get my husband annoyed (just me, normally), but these letters drive him nuts. Last year he wanted me to compose one to send back which claimed that he'd climbed Everest on an afternoon off, and I'd won six Booker prizes in a row... ;

Which sort of brings me onto my Advent Fic. I'm just about on schedule for finishing 24.12.06, have written about 3500 words, have no idea what the genre is as I've included at least four and, in a shocking new move for me, I've given Harry a line to say. But I'm thinking of chopping it. And I've looked at some of those excellent angsty and short ones already posted and think perhaps I should be chopping a lot more. Anyone else writing long fics or is it the season to be brief so you can wisely wrap presents?

Comments

[godricgal.livejournal.com]

Not so fond of the idea of Round Robins myself. I'd much rather these people just kept in contact the rest of the year. Last year we got one that went into so much detail, we even got the colour of the daughter and son-in-law's newish-ly painted dining room. I generally find them amusing and aggravating in equal measure.

I've finished the introduction to my fic, in rough, it's come in at 2600, I anticipate that it will be 3500 by the time it's tweaked, and then I have to write the main scene, and the last scene, so I wouldn't worry about length...Apart from finding the time to write, that is.

[gilpin25.livejournal.com]

They're just wonderful things, aren't they? Last year Keith got one from someone he used to work with saying she and her three kids were all well, and listing all that they'd been up to. Which was fine, except he didn't even know she had a boyfriend!

Okay, I won't worry about length any more. Just quality and lack of Christmas carols. ;)