Now that the initial seekret-santa period is over, I have put my yuletide story up on my website:

Merry Christmas, Dr. Fleischman | Northern Exposure, ensemble gen, G, humor/drama, 2800 words. Joel's friends want to get him the perfect Christmas gift. (Link to version at the Yuletide archive.) Written for Signe (oxoniensis), and beta-read by fabularasa and barkley. Barkley also patiently answered all my questions about canon and made some excellent suggestions that were incorporated into the final version. I could not have written this story without her help.

ETA: oxoniensis has made a cover!

I know that a lot of you are probably surprised that I wrote in a TV fandom, considering that I've mentioned several times that I don't own a television. This has not always been the case; when I moved in with B. in 1990, he had a television. It had come with the house when he bought it, and the only thing he used it for was watching sports.

We were visiting his family, a 7-hour drive from where we lived at the time, and for some reason he wanted to stay longer to help out with something. Fortunately, a family friend was driving back to our area and I hitched a ride with him; during the long drive we talked about all sorts of things, including his favorite TV show that he assured me I would love.

And I did. I don't remember the first episode I saw - it would have been late season 1 or early season 2 - but I was totally and completely hooked from the beginning. I fell head-over-heels in love with the characters. I saw aspects of myself in Joel and in Maggie, Ed was my weird but brilliant little brother, and I wanted to be Ruth-Anne when I grew up. The plots of the episodes were always interesting, and I especially liked the magical realism incorporated in stories such as Shelly's vision in the forest of famous mothers in history (and Mama Nature!) when she was pregnant, but for me it was always primarily about the characters. I didn't watch any other TV, but I watched this show religiously until Rob Morrow (Joel) left the show, which was clearly the end, even though the producers hoped it wouldn't be.

I hadn't thought much about Northern Exposure until late this summer, when my flist was buzzing over Numb3rs, which also stars Rob Morrow. That brought about a sort of NX renaissance for many, including me, as I downloaded the first three episodes (which I'd never seen) and got all nostalgic and misty-eyed. It was in that mood that I offered to write this fandom for Yuletide.

Signe requested gen humor with Joel, Maggie, Ed, and Ruth-Anne (who are my favorite characters as well as hers, so yay!)and for a while I was totally inspirationless. For some reason I had "gifts" stuck in my head, and all my early ideas revolved around gifts - gifts that each person might bring to Adam and Eve's wedding, Ed making a documentary about Cicely as a going-away gift for Joel...hey, this is for Yuletide, so what about Christmas gifts? Ideas started percolating in my head about Joel's friends trying to give him the perfect gift.

I remembered that there had been a wonderful Christmas episode, but only vaguely remembered the details, so I asked Barkley for a copy and she provided me with Seoul Mates, season 3 episode 10. Oh, man, I bawled my eyes out. Such emotion! Such sweetness! Shelly playing with the creche! Maurice trying to connect with his newly-discovered son! The Raven Pageant! I fell in love with the characters all over again. (And you should, too. As your reward for reading this, if you would like to download a copy of this episode, go here.)

My original idea was that the group should fly in genuine New York bagels and lox; when I ran it by barkley, she reminded me that there actually had been an episode in which Joel had bagels and lox shipped to him (and no doubt my idea had been sparked by my memory of that episode). So I decided the "mystery present" should be latkes (hey, I'm Jewish too) - and Grandma Fleischman's latkes, at that - which actually made for a better story, I'm sure.

On Dec 15th I posted that I'd sent the story to beta, and said :

I started the actual writing five days ago, and almost immediately the structure started coming together. It was clear to me how many scenes would be needed, and how they would intersect, and how bits of the story would be told in different places. When fragments of dialogue started coming to me out of the blue, I knew the story had taken on its own life. (And that's really a necessity for me! It changes things from me trying to force a story, to the story existing and me just transcribing it.) When I was about halfway through I noticed that I'd written in an amusing bit of foreshadowing without even being aware of it - I'd written something in just as a descriptive element, to set the scene, but then I realized that it was actually relevant to the climax of the story. When I finished the last few paragraphs this morning, I felt pleased and astonished. This isn't a story I would ever have thought of writing on my own, but I'm so happy to have written it. I like it a lot, and I hope my recipient does, too!

The "foreshadowing" I mentioned is Dave's bringing French fries to the table, which I originally just stuck in while editing the scene I'd just written, because I know that I tend to skimp on scene-setting description and figured I ought to bring the Brick into focus in the reader's mind. But hey, French fries are basically fried potatoes, just like latkes! And when I realized that, I giggled like a loon and then deliberately wrote a "French fry scene" into the next Brick segment. Damn, I love Dave. I love them all!

I'm really thrilled that nearly all the comments and recs of this story mentioned the characterization and the true-to-episode feel. Because for me, what matters most about this fandom are the characters. I love them so much, and I am pleased that this love was evident in the story. Now go forth and write me more Northern Exposure fic!