Mini fest reveals: two fics from me (H/D)

[birdsofshore]

I am excited to share these two fics from the mini_fest since reveals went up today.There were some great fics and pieces of art there, so please go and have a look if you didn't follow the fest at the time.

My first fic for mini_fest was:

Title: After Hours at the Ministry of Magic
Pairing: Harry/Draco
Prompt: #124 - Co-workers trapped / stuck alone together on Christmas Eve. Griping leads to something better. Dear fantasyfiend09 I loved your wonderful prompt and hope you don't mind that I took a few liberties with it. 
Word Count: 11,500
Rating: NC-17
Notes: Thank you to who_la_hoop, marianna_merlo, and most of all omi_ohmy for the astonishing amounts of help you cheerfully gave me with this. I was flailing around in the dark, ladies, and you turned the lights on.
Summary: It isn't precisely how Harry planned to spend Christmas Eve: trapped in a lift with his ex-boyfriend, somewhere between the third and the fourth floors of the Ministry of Magic.

I adored the prompt about Harry and Draco being stuck at work together, but when I sat down to write the story, instead of the fluffy, amusing little tale I had imagined, something altogether more flangsty and awkward poured out. I was horrified, and tried to wrestle it back into fluffy submission, but when my betas saw it, they told me to get rid of all the jokey, light stuff I had thrown in, and... well, eventually, this emerged. People have been very encouraging about it, which is wonderfully kind, but I will be honest: it was such a torment to me I would have been happy to delete the fucker at some points :D

My other fic for mini_fest was the second story I ever wrote. By contrast, this one just whooshed out of me in a great joyous splurge. I wish trying to write was always like this. It felt as if this unrepentant, spoilt, shamelessly egotistical, vain and self-deluding Draco lodged in my head and wouldn't leave, during the hours I was writing it. He was a bloody delight to be inhabited by. This is far and away my favourite thing I have written, so I hope you like it too, if you try it.

I wrote it a few months ago and had it saved carefully to bring out at Christmas. Mini_fest seemed like a perfect place to share it. Thank you, kitty_fic for modding a great fest that was exactly as stress-free as advertised!

Title: The Twelve Days of Draco
Pairing: Harry / Draco
Word Count: ~3000
Rating: R for language and innuendo, although nothing explicit
Notes: Thank you very much indeed to omi_ohmy, both for the lovely cheerleading, and the comma (which I don't know if I actually put in!!)
Summary: Draco really deserves a better class of mystery admirer. Who on earth would be smitten enough to keep sending him all these ridiculous presents? And will he ever remember who he was kissing at Blaise's party?

E.T.A. the spacing seems to have gone all shonky on this entry and I don't know how to fix it. :o( Any ideas?

Comments

[ashindk.livejournal.com]

Ooooh, I loved both of those! I can't remember if I commented, though. I read a lot of fic on my phone, and then I keep forgetting to comment when I'm on the laptop.
The twelve days of Draco was such a happy, cheerful read. It made me smile (and hum the tune). And After Hours was probably my favourite fic in the whole fest.

[birdsofshore]

Wow, what a nice compliment; thank you very much! I totally know that comment fail feeling. I read on my phone, too, and although I *can* comment on there (as I am now), I seldom do.

Thanks so much for letting me know you liked them. People have been very kind!

[bsmog.livejournal.com]

Because I am utter comment fail this fest (okay, fine, this YEAR), I didn't manage to comment on either of these in their original posting. But I DID love them, especially the After Hours one. Really, REALLY well done and believable and so perfectly in character. I so enjoyed it, and as I recall, I was in a particularly grumpy mood that day and it was just the ticket. So thank you for writing and sharing and creating such a lovely story! <3

[birdsofshore]

I completely understand about comment fail. I have been very guilty of it this winter because I read a lot on my phone, and it makes commenting a lot fiddlier. Leaving it til later to do on the pc is always a sure fire way to forget what you wanted to say!

Thank you so much for taking the time to tell me you liked them; I really appreciate it. I'm especially happy that you thought the boys were in character. I did worry about that, as I felt I was taking some risks with the way their characters had developed in the years since the war, but I tried very hard to keep it believable that they were still the people we knew from the books.

Hearing I cheered you up on a bad day makes me smile a lot!

[capitu]

I loved both these stories. You know I did.

I'd never knew you had such a love/hate relationship the first one, because it's so lovely and flows so beautifully. A favourite.

And the second one was simply hilarious. :D

This was such an amazing fest. I'm still catching up with it.

Also, I don't see any problems with the spacing here. A friend earlier complained about having gaps between the entries, but I checked her journal and everything looked okay to me. Maybe it's another lj glitch. :(

[birdsofshore]

The first one was bludgeoned into shape by the lovely omi_ohmy! I knew what I wanted it to be, but I didn't have the skill to get it there. People have been super nice about it.

Mini_fest is great! A lot of gems.

[evilgiraff.livejournal.com]

I can't believe I didn't guess Twelve Days was you! All the birds really should have been a clue...

[birdsofshore]

Hee! I don't usually advocate slaughtering birds, though.

I maintain I was actually possessed by the spirit of Draco Malfoy while writing that fic. I have never heard his voice so clearly, either before or since. :D

[knowmefirst.livejournal.com]

I'll miss this fest and all the lovely entries that went with it :( I need to fix that :D

[geneva2010.livejournal.com]

Twelve days was funny, read it last night. Commented on the other one at the mini festival site. Loved them both, you should be very proud.

[birdsofshore]

Thank you very much! People have been really lovely about them both.

[snowgall]

Happy Fanfiction Writers Appreciation Day :)

I was trying to find a fic of yours that I hadn't already kudos/commented on and remembered After Hours at the Ministry of Magic. It's really lovely, really hot, and really good. Great flashbacks so we could see how their relationship began.

And I noticed it's not yet on AO3...did you not feel it was worthy? Because it is! All of your fics are, really ♥

Or did you just not have the energy to deal with uploading it etc? I don't know how you would feel about it, but I could maybe help you upload it. I could set up an unrevealed "collection" at AO3 (like a fest) and upload it with you as co-author so you could approve it, and then "reveal" it and then I would remove myself as author. Does that make sense? I understand if that isn't something you would want to do, but I thought I'd offer just in case.

Either way, just trying to leave some love today :)

[birdsofshore]

Gosh, thanks so much, snowgall! This was a brilliant surprise and really made me smile. I'm very happy you like this fic and it was kind of you to let me know. As for why it's not on AO3... I didn't have an AO3 account until I wrote for erised 2 years ago, and I never got around to uploading all my fics onto there. I think this was only like my second fic, or something, so I definitely feel unsure it's good enough to go up there. I really appreciate your offer of uploading it - I do hate the faff of doing that - but I'd probably feel a little embarrassed if people thought I just wrote this now... I don't know why. I'm not saying there's anything WRONG with it... but... *shrug*

Anyway I'm so chuffed you thought of me today. Thank you for all of the gorgeous support you give to fandom. And your own (very good!) fic as well. <3

[snowgall]

You're quite welcome :)

Not trying to pressure you, but FYI you can backdate works on AO3. When you upload, in the "associations" section there's an option to "set a different publication date". This will mean that when people see your fic, where it says "Published:" the date will be whatever you told it to be, not the date you uploaded it, so they will know it's not new.

The downside to this method is that backdating a newly uploaded fic means that it won't show up in readers' feeds as "new" or "newly updated". It will just get lost into the database of old fics and people will only find it if they are looking for it, or looking for your backlist specifically. It will mean it probably won't get as many kudos/comments etc. But maybe that wouldn't be a drawback for you, if you felt embarrassed by it! (Which you shouldn't, but that's another issue :)

Another option is to do nothing to the publication date, but just add an author's note explaining that this was written for mini-fest 2012 and is only like your second fic, so to be aware of that. It will then show up in readers' feeds of new works posted to AO3, but they can read the note and figure it out. (You can also go back and change the pub date at a later time, once the fic has had time to be appreciated).

But really, I'm not trying to hound you! Even though it must seem that way since I've now written a treatise on the issue :) I just like knowing that good fics are archived at AO3 ♥

[birdsofshore]

No, I appreciate the time it's taking you to explain it to me! I think I'd be happy with the 'A/N explaining' scenario. I don't know. I don't really get a lot of comments on new fics anyway, unless they're in a fest or seem to hit a nerve in some way (I'm thinking of Draco at Nineteen - no idea why that one got so much attention? But it was very pleasant, heh).

Well, if you really felt you had the time to do it, that would be kind, but don't worry if you don't get around to it.

[snowgall]

Check it:

http://archiveofourown.org/works/4625571

Let me know if there's anything that needs fixing :)

(Note: it should be unrevealed right now, but appear for you because you are a "co-author". When you approve it, I will "reveal" it and remove myself as co-author. I can also remove it from the "collection" as well. Whatever you want)

[birdsofshore]

Ah, thank you so much! That's very kind indeed. I'm in London today and a busy day with the fam tomorrow, so please excuse me if I don't get a chance to look at it straight away. I really appreciate you thinking of it.

[birdsofshore]

So sorry it took me so long! I've fiddled with it now and added a few tags and an A/N. I'd be happy for it to be 'revealed' now. And really appreciate you sorting the upload for me. I still feel rather awkward about it, especially when i started to reread and groaned at some of the clunkiness, but I also looked at the comments and people were very encouraging. So, let's try it. I don't expect many people will even see it :D

This was a very thoughtful thing to do; thank you again.

[snowgall]

No problem at all! I'm glad that I was able to do this for you, and that you had a chance to edit it to your liking first. I just now "unrevealed" it and removed myself as co-author, so it should all be yours now :)

Let me know if you'd like me to upload any others. I'm thinking like a collection of your drabbles from the 2013 Slythindor100 contest, or "Living Deep", which are other favorites of mine. But really, I'd be happy to do it again if you'd like, and whichever fics you want.

[birdsofshore]

I don't honestly know what of mine is on AO3 and what isn't! I'm not averse to sticking more things on there in principle. I'm not sure if those drabbles are worth preserving, though - although I do like 'Living Deep.'

[snowgall]

You will probably not be surprised to learn that I *do* know exactly which of your fics are on AO3 and which are not :) I'm a huge nerd with a database, and I'm not afraid to use it!

I'll send you an email with more info. Probably makes more sense than using the comment section here :)