Whenever I've had free time in that past couple of days, I've spent it reading stories that other people submitted for Yuletide, and so I've got a nice list of recommended reading for you. If you're wary of smut, fear not! All my recommendations except one (which I promise I will warn you about beforehand) are smut-free! There are a lot of different fandoms represented here, so there's a good chance you will like one of them. ( Books, movies, music, comics, and all kinds of good stuff within )

And that is it for now. I hope you find at least one story among these that makes you smile. I haven't read all 2,426 stories, so there may be more recommendations later. And of course when the author names are revealed on the 1st of January, I'll tell you which stories I wrote.

Moss and I are busy packing for two weeks in Canada, so no Readercon notes, explorations of greatness, or other in depth posts today. We'll be in Newfoundland for the next week and Toronto the week after that. I don't know how much internet access we'll have, so consider this your official warning. I may not post or comment much.

To temper your Julia withdrawals, I encourage you to check out at Ekaterina Sedia's awesome short story, "Amber Ships" over on Voyages Extraordinaires.

The eighth and last of the stories I wrote for the book I made when I was nine. Original spelling, grammar, etc.

( Have you noticed that the shorter the stories, the longer the explanatory notes? I have. )

Also, Moss likes to imagine the survivors of this story reminiscing about old times over a beer or something.
"Hey, Jim, remember that year that all the holidays got mixed up?"
"Oh, yeah! When Santa came at Easter and St. Patrick came at Christmas?"
"Yeah. Man, that was a weird year, huh?"
"Weird year, Bob. I'll drink to that."

( And now FOUR images. What I lack in substance I make up in jpegs, eh? )

The seventh and penultimte story in the book of stories by ickle Julia.

( like the days leading up to the winter solstice, these stories get shorter and shorter )

Tomorrow will bring the last of the stories in my book of stories from fourth grade. First, though, the illustrations for today:

( There are two, because I wrote so little )

Little Julia is back with a sixth heart-wrenchingly beautiful story. Spelling and grammar, etc. preserved.

( Yup, still on the oh-damn-I-procrastinated-and-now-it's-time-to-bust-some-ass-so-I-don't-get-in-trouble train. )

While writing this story, I realized I was almost the end of a full page, so instead of keeping the pace of the story and letting it unfold slowly, I decided to wrap it up. "It was long hard work, but they finally got rich." Woohoo! And another picture on the back to take up more space in the book, just for good measure.

( Wouldn't you pay good money for beauties like these? )

Story number 5 in The Collected Works of Eine Kleine Julia. Spelling and puctuation and grammar and format preserved.

( before many Harry/Draco shippers were even gleams in their mothers' eyes, I ventured into the world of fanfic without even knowing there was a name for it. )

I think my favorite thing about this story is that my tendency to procrastinate comes shining through.

I can remember the whole idea of how the story was supposed to go, but I realized that I was quickly running out of time to finish the book if I was going to turn it in on time (which was a really big deal to me, because I really didn't want to displease my teacher or parents. I was very approval-hungry in case you hadn't noticed), so instead of writing the whole story (which would have included a detailed description of patty bunny's appearance complete with pink dress and pearl circlet around one ear) about how patty bunny was the Easter bunny and a a friend to everyone and how she could help Dolly learn to think having a store was fun, I cut to the chase ("her attitude changed.") and moved on to the next story. There are only three stories after this one, and they're all short. To compensate, I made illustrations.

( patty bunny )

The fourth "Nine-Year-Old Julia Entertains You" story. Original spelling, etc. Paragraph breaks added for easier reading.

( I think I wrote this after winter break, so welcome to the first story of 1988! )

You can see that my love of Ireland was beginning to develop, but I didn't really have any facts straight at this point. I knew that a name that sounded like Aron was traditionally related to Ireland somehow, but I had no idea it was actually Erin. Similarly, I honestly thought that there were probably a lot of towns named things like Hillside View in Ireland. I should perhaps mention that in the summer just before fourth grade, we'd moved into a housing tract called Newport Meadow, so I was probably influenced by that. And of course Garcia was a common name in my experience, so why wouldn't it be in Ireland as well? I was enchanted with the idea of faeries in general and leprechauns in specific, even if I couldn't spell the word properly. Five years later I would have a large collection of Irish history and folklore books, Ireland calendars, t-shirts and knick-knacks. I just wasn't quite there at nine.

Story number three in the ongoing "Tell Us a Story, Nine-Year-Old Julia!" series. Original spelling, format, punctuation, and grammar preserved.

( In the original, the title is printed in all caps like it is here, but the letters get bigger as the word goes on. Clever, eh? )

In case you were wondering, my father had been talking to me about Kafka around the time I wrote this story. Note that I said "talking to me about Kafka," and not, "giving me Kafka stories to read". I spelled metamorphosis the way I thought it sounded. Anyway, tune in tomorrow for "The Tricky Lepracaun"!

Second in my series of stories by young Julia. Format, spelling, punctuation and grammar presented as in the original text.

( In which I learn to talk, play the nose game, try to run away, win some ribbons, suffer grievous injuries, have a terrible teacher, and then a nice one )

Love the desperate pleas for approval that pepper this autobiography. "I won some ribbons." "Everyone said you're smart." Who's eager to please and be recognized?

Last year I found a book of stories I made in fourth grade. I was nine years old (yes, that's nine-year-old me in the icon), and clearly already on the speculative fiction track. I decided a while ago that I wanted to post some of them, but I never got around to it.

( Until today! )

P.S. My favorite part is the bit about how, even though it's a mansion, my house has a bathroom on each floor.