2015 turns to 2016... Happy New Year!
Well, it's all changing again in that staying-the-same-really way that it has - and I am blissfully having a quiet one at home. I'm gonna ramble about this year a bit though... *g*
What have I done this year? Mostly, I think, I just lived in Somerset for a bit, and didn't really do much, but I did do things... I worked with words. I worked with history. I volunteered with history. And I worked a bit more with history. Sounds better than getting more specific, that. *g* I spent three days in Cornwall, which was lovely, and a weekend in Stratford, and a meeting or two in London, and dotted about the countryside here a bit, but otherwise I kept on working. Not clever that, I've been a bit wiped out now for months and that's probably partly why. Shall do better in 2016. Plus I have my passport back - hello, world! There must be going somewhere this year - lots of it! But back to this (still) year...
I read books! I read, according to my tally (erratically kept, but mostly caught-up on) 128 books (including some fanfic novel-length ones, and various re-reads. I suspect that's slightly under-counted, cos I did alot of re-reading... sometimes it's like re-watching eps, for me. *g*) - here they're listed in case you're interested. According to Goodreads, I read 101 books, having set myself a target of 100 - it's hard to count re-reads there, and of course fanfic doesn't count, so... But oddly enough, if something's on Goodreads (and by that I clearly mean Amazon, who took it over) then it counts as a "book", so at least three of the 101 were slightly-cheating short-stories-disguised-as-books. But I point you to 128 really, so I'm not worried about those. *g*
I did and didn't do a very good job with the Challenges I signed up for. I read about 52 books for the historical fiction reading challenge I signed up for, which means I achieved the highest prehistoric level - but I didn't post about them/link them to the challenge, so it doesn't really count. I achieved all my Perils for the Readers in Peril Halloween/October reading challenge, and I posted about them, so that was better. *g* I read two books for the Science Fiction challenge, but my timing was out, cos it started in December, when I didn't *g* What else? Oh, Once-Upon-A-Time! Again I achieved my goal for the second quest, but I didn't post about the last ones, so...
I read fanfic, of course. Of course! Alot of it was old favourites, I must admit, though there are some new stories and writers in my pile too. *g* I didn't keep a list of fanfic read - hmmn, maybe I should do that next year... I find I have a very specific level of romance vs soppiness that I enjoy, and I suppose it's like waiting for new fics to come out back in the old days - the ones that are right for me don't just pop up every day, interwebs or not! But it's still nice to read Prosfic... *g*
I wrote thirteen Pros stories - well, thirteen and a few halves, so no jinx! I'm quite chuffed about that, because the last year I wrote so many stories was 2011! And 2013 and 2014 were particularly not-write-y years, so... No novel-length Pros this year though, and I didn't finish any of my WIPs that I'd wanted to... or even finish posting my fic to A03, which I said I'd do! Ah well, I'm clambering slowly out of the slurry of despond, and thirteen and some halves fics isn't bad. *g* They were:
Not in the Bush Now - 26th February 2015
An Angel in the Architecture - 28th February 2015
A Shiver of Grey - 18th March 2015
Never Too Much Garlic Bread - 24th March 2015
Precious Things - 3rd April 2015
Bows and Arrows (with milomaus) - 10th April 2015
We All Scream - 24th April 2015
How Long is a Marathon? - 31st April 2015
The Loosed White Horses - 14th October 2015
Made Up - 25th October 2015
The Holly and the Ivy - 1st December 2015
Together at Christmas - 9th December 2015
Dreaming Of - 22nd December 2015
I watched telly a bit - and by that I mean dvds too. *g* New Doctor Who! Liking Peter Capaldi much better already with less Clara. Dickensian and And Then There Were None. Poldark! On dvd - Outlander is being excellent, beautifully done. And our lads are out in glorious really re-mastered beauty! I'm sure there's other new stuff I've watched, but I can't seem to remember... Oh, I discovered the genius of Tripod!
I went to the cinema - twice! Not done that for yonks - since I saw Lord of the Rings in New Zealand, I think! But I saw The Suffragettes, which was pretty good, and then The Mockingjay, which was also good but I forgot to remind myself of what had happened in the book before. I'm not quite sure what the fuss is about Jennifer Lawrence, mind. *g* And best of all - but it's next year - I'm going to see Star Wars on Sunday - wheeee! *g* I've missed going to the movies... *g*
What else? Not much really... oh, I learned some stuff! I learned archery, and fiddle, and started learning book-binding! So that was quite cool. The archery sadly fell off, cos Job 2 interfered, and it all got a bit lycra-shirts and how-many-laser-sights-can-you-attach-to-your-bow, which wasn't where I wanted to go with it. Glad I did it though, and hopefully in the future... *g* I'm not practicing my fiddle enough - but I'm definitely better than at the start of the year! And I've made one wee book and am halfway through binding a photo album. So cool. Oh, I began a 365 photo project, but stopped when I realised I was spending more time online as a result, rather than getting out of the house more... that was also the reason I finally gave in and got a Facebook, and to be honest I'm not overly happy about it, except for being able to follow one of my favourite writers (KJ Charles) who posts wee extras now and then. But there now, and it's tricky to back away again when there's family there, so...
Oh - I saw a comet! And a lunar eclipse! And a solar eclipse! Actually, 2015 was a pretty good year, sky-spotting-wise! *g* I even managed to catch a bit of the Milky Way on a photo, though only if you look very hard. But yeay!
So what about 2016? Well, there are some things I think I need to do more of, and/or need to do better again... *g* So this is what I'm hoping my life and thus lj will involve next year...
- reading books. Well, inevitable really, but I'll try and keep up better with posting about them. Still not sure about signing up for challenges this year, considering how poorly I did with them posting-wise last year. But the reading was fun. *g*
- reading fanfic, and perhaps more specifically, posting about it. cos it's often more fun when shared, I seem to remember. *g*
- writing still... fanfic and my other project, too. Let's see if I can beat 13+halves Prosfics next year... or at least bump up the word count. *g* (Not sure what that was this year, I'd have to open them individually and count, and I think I may be too... busy doing other things. *g* But writing, writing, writing!
- cinema - I miss going to the cinema. I want to do that more. *g*
- photography - I think I will give the 365 Project another go, but post here instead of to random strangers on Fb. Bad luck, you guys... *g* I might ask for weekly themes, mind you... in fact - let's see if anyone reads this far! Please suggest a theme for me to take a daily photo to for the first week - starting tomorrow, 1st January! *g* (Thanks fiorenza_a!) Also, I've been eyeing up a night-sky photography holiday in... was it Portugal? Spain? An island? Somewhere like that... now that I have a new camera, I'd like to do more with it, and fumbling is fun, but I could do with learning a bit more.
- and getting out of the house a bit more, cos honestly, this year was rubbish for that! Partly on purpose a bit, partly cos of my passport, but mostly just cos... I didn't. So - I shall visit at least one very cool place and stay overnight every month. That's the plan. At least one night a month away from home! AndI will leave not only the country, but also the island and if I'm very canny, the continent! I still need to get my stuff from Alaska (plus I miss Alaska!), and I want to go back to New Zealand to explore... and to find new places! There are so many places I've not been yet!
So them's my plans. If you're still around at the end of all that - happy 2016 to you!
What have I done this year? Mostly, I think, I just lived in Somerset for a bit, and didn't really do much, but I did do things... I worked with words. I worked with history. I volunteered with history. And I worked a bit more with history. Sounds better than getting more specific, that. *g* I spent three days in Cornwall, which was lovely, and a weekend in Stratford, and a meeting or two in London, and dotted about the countryside here a bit, but otherwise I kept on working. Not clever that, I've been a bit wiped out now for months and that's probably partly why. Shall do better in 2016. Plus I have my passport back - hello, world! There must be going somewhere this year - lots of it! But back to this (still) year...
I read books! I read, according to my tally (erratically kept, but mostly caught-up on) 128 books (including some fanfic novel-length ones, and various re-reads. I suspect that's slightly under-counted, cos I did alot of re-reading... sometimes it's like re-watching eps, for me. *g*) - here they're listed in case you're interested. According to Goodreads, I read 101 books, having set myself a target of 100 - it's hard to count re-reads there, and of course fanfic doesn't count, so... But oddly enough, if something's on Goodreads (and by that I clearly mean Amazon, who took it over) then it counts as a "book", so at least three of the 101 were slightly-cheating short-stories-disguised-as-books. But I point you to 128 really, so I'm not worried about those. *g*
I did and didn't do a very good job with the Challenges I signed up for. I read about 52 books for the historical fiction reading challenge I signed up for, which means I achieved the highest prehistoric level - but I didn't post about them/link them to the challenge, so it doesn't really count. I achieved all my Perils for the Readers in Peril Halloween/October reading challenge, and I posted about them, so that was better. *g* I read two books for the Science Fiction challenge, but my timing was out, cos it started in December, when I didn't *g* What else? Oh, Once-Upon-A-Time! Again I achieved my goal for the second quest, but I didn't post about the last ones, so...
I read fanfic, of course. Of course! Alot of it was old favourites, I must admit, though there are some new stories and writers in my pile too. *g* I didn't keep a list of fanfic read - hmmn, maybe I should do that next year... I find I have a very specific level of romance vs soppiness that I enjoy, and I suppose it's like waiting for new fics to come out back in the old days - the ones that are right for me don't just pop up every day, interwebs or not! But it's still nice to read Prosfic... *g*
I wrote thirteen Pros stories - well, thirteen and a few halves, so no jinx! I'm quite chuffed about that, because the last year I wrote so many stories was 2011! And 2013 and 2014 were particularly not-write-y years, so... No novel-length Pros this year though, and I didn't finish any of my WIPs that I'd wanted to... or even finish posting my fic to A03, which I said I'd do! Ah well, I'm clambering slowly out of the slurry of despond, and thirteen and some halves fics isn't bad. *g* They were:
Not in the Bush Now - 26th February 2015
An Angel in the Architecture - 28th February 2015
A Shiver of Grey - 18th March 2015
Never Too Much Garlic Bread - 24th March 2015
Precious Things - 3rd April 2015
Bows and Arrows (with milomaus) - 10th April 2015
We All Scream - 24th April 2015
How Long is a Marathon? - 31st April 2015
The Loosed White Horses - 14th October 2015
Made Up - 25th October 2015
The Holly and the Ivy - 1st December 2015
Together at Christmas - 9th December 2015
Dreaming Of - 22nd December 2015
I watched telly a bit - and by that I mean dvds too. *g* New Doctor Who! Liking Peter Capaldi much better already with less Clara. Dickensian and And Then There Were None. Poldark! On dvd - Outlander is being excellent, beautifully done. And our lads are out in glorious really re-mastered beauty! I'm sure there's other new stuff I've watched, but I can't seem to remember... Oh, I discovered the genius of Tripod!
I went to the cinema - twice! Not done that for yonks - since I saw Lord of the Rings in New Zealand, I think! But I saw The Suffragettes, which was pretty good, and then The Mockingjay, which was also good but I forgot to remind myself of what had happened in the book before. I'm not quite sure what the fuss is about Jennifer Lawrence, mind. *g* And best of all - but it's next year - I'm going to see Star Wars on Sunday - wheeee! *g* I've missed going to the movies... *g*
What else? Not much really... oh, I learned some stuff! I learned archery, and fiddle, and started learning book-binding! So that was quite cool. The archery sadly fell off, cos Job 2 interfered, and it all got a bit lycra-shirts and how-many-laser-sights-can-you-attach-to-your-bow, which wasn't where I wanted to go with it. Glad I did it though, and hopefully in the future... *g* I'm not practicing my fiddle enough - but I'm definitely better than at the start of the year! And I've made one wee book and am halfway through binding a photo album. So cool. Oh, I began a 365 photo project, but stopped when I realised I was spending more time online as a result, rather than getting out of the house more... that was also the reason I finally gave in and got a Facebook, and to be honest I'm not overly happy about it, except for being able to follow one of my favourite writers (KJ Charles) who posts wee extras now and then. But there now, and it's tricky to back away again when there's family there, so...
Oh - I saw a comet! And a lunar eclipse! And a solar eclipse! Actually, 2015 was a pretty good year, sky-spotting-wise! *g* I even managed to catch a bit of the Milky Way on a photo, though only if you look very hard. But yeay!
So what about 2016? Well, there are some things I think I need to do more of, and/or need to do better again... *g* So this is what I'm hoping my life and thus lj will involve next year...
- reading books. Well, inevitable really, but I'll try and keep up better with posting about them. Still not sure about signing up for challenges this year, considering how poorly I did with them posting-wise last year. But the reading was fun. *g*
- reading fanfic, and perhaps more specifically, posting about it. cos it's often more fun when shared, I seem to remember. *g*
- writing still... fanfic and my other project, too. Let's see if I can beat 13+halves Prosfics next year... or at least bump up the word count. *g* (Not sure what that was this year, I'd have to open them individually and count, and I think I may be too... busy doing other things. *g* But writing, writing, writing!
- cinema - I miss going to the cinema. I want to do that more. *g*
- photography - I think I will give the 365 Project another go, but post here instead of to random strangers on Fb. Bad luck, you guys... *g* I might ask for weekly themes, mind you... in fact - let's see if anyone reads this far! Please suggest a theme for me to take a daily photo to for the first week - starting tomorrow, 1st January! *g* (Thanks fiorenza_a!) Also, I've been eyeing up a night-sky photography holiday in... was it Portugal? Spain? An island? Somewhere like that... now that I have a new camera, I'd like to do more with it, and fumbling is fun, but I could do with learning a bit more.
- and getting out of the house a bit more, cos honestly, this year was rubbish for that! Partly on purpose a bit, partly cos of my passport, but mostly just cos... I didn't. So - I shall visit at least one very cool place and stay overnight every month. That's the plan. At least one night a month away from home! AndI will leave not only the country, but also the island and if I'm very canny, the continent! I still need to get my stuff from Alaska (plus I miss Alaska!), and I want to go back to New Zealand to explore... and to find new places! There are so many places I've not been yet!
So them's my plans. If you're still around at the end of all that - happy 2016 to you!