Disaster. (This is a good one.) Notes and Thanks

[aisalynn]

Author's Notes:
I got the idea for this story last December after I watched a preview for one of those family Christmas specials called Holiday in Handcuffs. (Though I still haven't seen the movie, I didn't want it to influence what I wrote.) When I dropped everything I was working on to write it, I thought it was going to be about 8,000 words long. Max. It was going to be light and humorous, and I thought I was going to be finished and be able to post it by Christmas.

Hah.

This thing exploded on me. Suddenly it was two days before Christmas and I had just under 8,000 words with no ending in sight. The story did not want to be short and quirky, it wanted to delve into Jared's issues with his family and self image, Jensen's issues with his anger, both at the world and himself and it wanted to spend time getting to know the family that Jared and Jensen was lying to.

So, I had wanted to do Big Bang this year, so why not write this? I could probably stretch my story to 20,000 words, I thought.

Hah. Again.

This thing didn't stretch to 20,000 words as it just barreled right past it, giving that word count a smug smirk before pushing on to 30,000 thousand, then 40,000, then after two revisions, finally stopping at 50,084. And really, I could have written more. I wanted Jensen and the reader to fall in love with the Padalecki family (and I hope I succeeded!) but what really happened, was that I fell in love with them, so if I had time, I probably could have added another 10,000 words just expanding on their characters, and putting in more interactions between the main character's and Jared's family, but real life just wouldn't let me. But even without that I'm stupidly proud of this thing. It is by far the longest and most thought out story I have ever written, and I totally plan to visit it again.

All this to say, you can probably expect some timestamps. :)


Thank You:
First of all a huge thank you to thehighwaywoman and wendy for doing all this. I loved reading last year's Big Bang fics, and if they hadn't done all this I probably wouldn't have found the motivation to finish this story. So thank you, I'm definitely doing it again next year.

Another big thanks to my friends yourkidney and anyothergirl415 who helped me out and looked over this story last minute when I was having doubts. You guys rock. I also want to thank everyone on my friends list who for all the hand holding and encouragement you guys gave me when I was spamming you with word count posts back in April as I struggled to get the first draft finished. You have no idea how much you guys kept me motivated. :)

And finally, a HUMONGOUS thank you to sonnygrl11, who saw my plea for a beta on the spn_j2_bigbang friends list and offered to help me out, and then went on to be the most awesome beta ever. She let me use her as a sounding board, letting me rant at her about my character's motivations, giving me and advice and talking me through it until I finally had all the mess in my head organized, she made me fanmixes for my characters to keep me motivated and sent me much needed e-mails reminding me of my deadlines. Not to mention that she was incredibly fast at getting back to me with edits, and yet it was still obvious that she took her time on them. Thank you so much for everything, hun, especially editing this again when there were only a few days until my posting date and talking me down when I was freaking out about the quality of the fic. Oh, and for graciously putting up with all those tiny e-mails of "just one more thing." ;) I really couldn't have done this without you. You were a godsend. &hearts &hearts &hearts


Now, everyone should go and check the beautiful art made for this fic by eryslash She really did a wonderful job, and in such a short time too. Thank you so much, eryslash! I love them! :D


Art Master Post
Fic Master Post

Comments

[kuhekabir.livejournal.com]

i really enjoyed this story! it was funny, Thanks for sharing :)

[theron09.livejournal.com]

You, girl, are awesome!! I really, really enjoyed reading this - it was even better than I thought it was going to be. There are too many bits that I loved for me to point them all out individualy - just know that every single bit of this fic was awesome :)

This one's definitely getting re-read again and again.

[softcake-70.livejournal.com]

I had so much fun reading this, thanks for sharing :)

[sweetest-potato.livejournal.com]

Oh I loved this! It was sweet and hilariously funny and felt really in character. I loved Meryl too, that was a really interesting detail. I really enjoyed the descriptions of the Padalecki Christmas traditions too, made me wish it was nearer Christmas time!!

[cynicl.livejournal.com]

This just felt good. Thanks for sharing it--I really enjoyed reading it.

[deathbymutation.livejournal.com]

[Unknown site tag] was my beta and she was fantastic despite what she had to work with. I'd definitely ask for her help again. So detailed! And suggestions for scenes too!