Oh, 2020...
I am eternally behind, it seems, and tradition says that since I've started the new year like that, it's going to carry on. We'll see... *g* It's been ages since I posted - it seems like the less officially busy I get, the harder I find it to post too, weirdly enough. My last post was 26th November, just before examining was over and I settled back into proofreading, then I had two weeks off, with only a day and a bit left - and how many posts have I made? Well, a few if you count discoveredinalj and Yuletide, but none here...
So how are you? Hope you had a good December and Christmas and New Year, even if they were quieter than usual. I finally had time to sort this place out a bit more - I've alphabetised music, dvds and books; I can find things again! And put photo-type things into chronological order. Cos I'm like that. *g* It feels better, though there's still all sorts to do, including the UK Paper Circuit Library. I'm hesitating a bit because despite deciding, and people agreeing, that it's best to just throw out the stories that are online, since they're old and hard to read and often slightly smelly, I hate throwing away paper fic! I will though, I'll gird all the bits that need girding, and do it.
In the meantime - 2020... was rather dramatic really, wasn't it. There was one fab long weekend in London, exploring new bits, and meeting up with heliophile_oxon and helenraven and finally getting to meet ariss_tenoh, just before covid struck properly, and otherwise it looked like this:
- discovered Detectorists and metal detecting
- back to same-old opposition politics, hope having been fairly violently attacked by the media even when the actual government was doing far worse things = despair, despair, despair
- finally got the village foodsaving project going
- covid and lock down, obviously
- re-jigged the village foodsaving project, which really took off
- village support volunteering
- discovered we had a cousin none of us knew about (turns out to be a nice guy too, so that worked out well!)
- work disrupted but ongoing - no learning three different languages and baking banana bread for me
- village scarecrow trail (I was a judge!)
- village VE-Day Remembrance
- taking part in a covid study for 3-6 months
- told I had to move house again (although since the house was destroying my stuff, that was really a good thing)
- discovered metal detecting people are just as lousy and prone to in-fighting as non-detecting people
- moved house, and had new office shed built for me! Space! Light! Views! Warmth (except that one time the oil ran out...)!
- met up with someone I'd not seen for 32 or so years - and who I'd started the Manchester Uni SF/F Society with! (via meeting up with helenraven again, who it turned out also knew her and reintroduced us - how amazingly bizarre! How very 2020...)
- managed to turn into a bollard instead of away from it as I left a parking spot - so slow, but such a huge crunching sound, and it's going to cost £500+ to repair... *headdesk headdesk headdesk*
- the US election (hopefully an improvement there, anyway)
- bad bad Brexit (definitely not an improvement there...)
- finally my Christmas hols
- discovered virtual reality (and Beat Saber, which is also amazing exercise *g*) - happily even more cool than I was expecting
So... bit of an emotional rollercoaster really - and despite that I feel very much like one of the lucky people this year...
Fandomwise, I have to say that emotional rollercoasters aren't brilliant for writing - but then that might just be a continuation of me over the last few years. That said, I seem to have written ten fics - all but one Pros. And Pros FandomCards was fun and brightened up Christmas no end, and I still have to catch up on commenting on the Discovered in a Box of Baubles posts, and replying too, but I will...
The other one was my Yuletide fic, which also turned out to be on the crazy side - I requested and offered my usual small fandoms (Astreiant, Charm of Magpies, and Mathey/Lynes) (and I received an Astreiant fic! Wheee!), but I was thinking about re-reading an old favourite series at the time, and so I threw them into the mix - and that was only the assignment I was given, wasn't it! So I ended up writing Altogether Your World, which is for The Dark is Rising fandom, and set many years later when the characters have all grown up. Among other things I remember telling someone years ago that I couldn't even think of that as a slash fandom, because they were kids books, and I really couldn't... but then you glance at the odd story to see how much it makes you go eww, and when it's well-written enough... So I was able to offer it, in the end. And the story seems to have gone down pretty well, so phew - I wish I'd had time to make it a bit longer though, I think it needed more... Still - done!
Have some pics from the end of the year...
I'm thinking maybe I should try posting a pic each day again to try and cheer up January a bit... I've one more day before I'm back to work, and then I feel like I'm going to need something! Decorations down on Tuesday, too, so yeah, I need to think about a different kind of decoration, right?! *g*
So how are you? Hope you had a good December and Christmas and New Year, even if they were quieter than usual. I finally had time to sort this place out a bit more - I've alphabetised music, dvds and books; I can find things again! And put photo-type things into chronological order. Cos I'm like that. *g* It feels better, though there's still all sorts to do, including the UK Paper Circuit Library. I'm hesitating a bit because despite deciding, and people agreeing, that it's best to just throw out the stories that are online, since they're old and hard to read and often slightly smelly, I hate throwing away paper fic! I will though, I'll gird all the bits that need girding, and do it.
In the meantime - 2020... was rather dramatic really, wasn't it. There was one fab long weekend in London, exploring new bits, and meeting up with heliophile_oxon and helenraven and finally getting to meet ariss_tenoh, just before covid struck properly, and otherwise it looked like this:
- discovered Detectorists and metal detecting
- back to same-old opposition politics, hope having been fairly violently attacked by the media even when the actual government was doing far worse things = despair, despair, despair
- finally got the village foodsaving project going
- covid and lock down, obviously
- re-jigged the village foodsaving project, which really took off
- village support volunteering
- discovered we had a cousin none of us knew about (turns out to be a nice guy too, so that worked out well!)
- work disrupted but ongoing - no learning three different languages and baking banana bread for me
- village scarecrow trail (I was a judge!)
- village VE-Day Remembrance
- taking part in a covid study for 3-6 months
- told I had to move house again (although since the house was destroying my stuff, that was really a good thing)
- discovered metal detecting people are just as lousy and prone to in-fighting as non-detecting people
- moved house, and had new office shed built for me! Space! Light! Views! Warmth (except that one time the oil ran out...)!
- met up with someone I'd not seen for 32 or so years - and who I'd started the Manchester Uni SF/F Society with! (via meeting up with helenraven again, who it turned out also knew her and reintroduced us - how amazingly bizarre! How very 2020...)
- managed to turn into a bollard instead of away from it as I left a parking spot - so slow, but such a huge crunching sound, and it's going to cost £500+ to repair... *headdesk headdesk headdesk*
- the US election (hopefully an improvement there, anyway)
- bad bad Brexit (definitely not an improvement there...)
- finally my Christmas hols
- discovered virtual reality (and Beat Saber, which is also amazing exercise *g*) - happily even more cool than I was expecting
So... bit of an emotional rollercoaster really - and despite that I feel very much like one of the lucky people this year...
Fandomwise, I have to say that emotional rollercoasters aren't brilliant for writing - but then that might just be a continuation of me over the last few years. That said, I seem to have written ten fics - all but one Pros. And Pros FandomCards was fun and brightened up Christmas no end, and I still have to catch up on commenting on the Discovered in a Box of Baubles posts, and replying too, but I will...
The other one was my Yuletide fic, which also turned out to be on the crazy side - I requested and offered my usual small fandoms (Astreiant, Charm of Magpies, and Mathey/Lynes) (and I received an Astreiant fic! Wheee!), but I was thinking about re-reading an old favourite series at the time, and so I threw them into the mix - and that was only the assignment I was given, wasn't it! So I ended up writing Altogether Your World, which is for The Dark is Rising fandom, and set many years later when the characters have all grown up. Among other things I remember telling someone years ago that I couldn't even think of that as a slash fandom, because they were kids books, and I really couldn't... but then you glance at the odd story to see how much it makes you go eww, and when it's well-written enough... So I was able to offer it, in the end. And the story seems to have gone down pretty well, so phew - I wish I'd had time to make it a bit longer though, I think it needed more... Still - done!
Have some pics from the end of the year...
I'm thinking maybe I should try posting a pic each day again to try and cheer up January a bit... I've one more day before I'm back to work, and then I feel like I'm going to need something! Decorations down on Tuesday, too, so yeah, I need to think about a different kind of decoration, right?! *g*