I had a week off work, mostly under duress, and it turns out that holidays actually return you to your life rested and able to cope with things! Who even knew. Anyway, it was a lovely time in the north of Scotland - first to a family wedding, which was sweet and charming and full of small children, and I danced the Orcadian strip the willow to the dulcet tones of a calypso steel drum ceilidh band, I don't even know, it was awesome - and onwards and upwards into the Highlands. We drove along some incredibly beautiful and terrifying mountain roads (in my nightmares, I shall see the climb from the Well of the Lecht, and the speedometer dropping), including the highest classified road in the UK, which crosses the Cairngorms in a single track and is silent like flying, and spent several days staying in a teeny tiny cottage, super-cute, with lots of hot water, halfway up a mountain eight miles from the nearest village. You could step outside and hear birds calling and cattle lowing from across the glen, and when it got dark enough, there was the Milky Way. (I love that you can't - or at least, I can't, though my eyesight is pretty sharp - see the Milky Way straight on; it's there in your peripheral vision, like it's being gentle as it reminds you of your utter insignificance in the face of all things.)
So that was all very lovely. I finished the novel, finally. Well, I haven't finished it, but it's definitely into the editing stage. (Maybe four days with no internet or phone were what I needed all along.) And now I'm back, and September is coming, which I always think of as a time for change and promise even though I'm well out of academia - and that said, I will have to start job-hunting this month - and the weather is hanging pleasantly on the surface of autumn.
I wrote about 25k in August, not counting the novel, and I don't think I've posted any of it here, so rather than make a lot of story posts, here it all is.
For the
Star Trek Friendshipfest:
Welcome, Wanderer (9201 words) by
RavenFandom:
Star Trek: The Next GenerationRating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Data & Jean-Luc Picard, Data & Geordi LaForge
Characters: Data, Jean-Luc Picard, Geordi La Forge, Deanna Troi, Ro Laren, Sonya Gomez
Additional Tags: Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream - Freeform, Darmok, Mixed Media, Fairgrounds, Ferris Wheels, Languages and Linguistics, There really is a perfectly sensible explanation for all of this
Summary:
"You're the ranking officer here. Would you care to explain this?"
It's a really long story.
Oh, sinners, let's go down (4752 words) by
RavenFandom:
Star Trek: The Original SeriesRating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Leonard McCoy & Spock
Characters: Leonard McCoy, Spock, James T. Kirk
Summary:
"What you gonna do, Mr. Spock? You gonna save my soul?"
[Content note is a spoiler, so it's at the bottom of the story post]
For
trope_bingo:
Research Ethics (793 words) by
RavenFandom:
The Big Bang Theory (TV)Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Leonard Hofstadter/Penny
Characters: Penny (Big Bang Theory), Leonard Hofstadter, Sheldon Cooper, Bernadette Rostenkowski, Amy Farrah Fowler
Additional Tags: Community: trope_bingo
Summary:
Five things Penny doesn't understand about Leonard until she's met his mother.
[Please be aware of the content note on this one - it's at the top of the story post.]
where you gonna sleep tonight (3487 words) by
RavenFandom:
The Big Bang Theory (TV)Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Leonard Hofstadter/Penny, Sheldon Cooper/Leonard Hofstadter
Characters: Leonard Hofstadter, Penny (Big Bang Theory), Sheldon Cooper, Bernadette Rostenkowski, Rajesh Koothrappali, Amy Farrah Fowler, Howard Wolowitz
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Apocalypse, Community: trope_bingo
Summary:
Sheldon doesn't snap at him for his lack of precision, which is how he knows the end of the world is coming.
Home (1065 words) by
RavenChapters: 1/1
Fandom:
The Oversight - Charlie FletcherRating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Sara Falk, Lucy Harker, Hodge, Wayland, Jack Sharp, Charlie Pye, Cook
Additional Tags: Community: trope_bingo
Summary:
They found Mr Sharp on his knees with his eyes blank and unseeing, and drained of all colour.
That's all, and quite enough too.
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