Hours Gone By

Oh, god, I honestly can't believe it's 2017 already. Thank whatever powers might exist that the clusterfuck of 2016 is over - and that's honestly all I want to say about the past year. Pretty sure most people agree with me.

But! Snowflake is back! :D This is honestly one of the highlights for the start of the year and I'm grateful to everyone who stepped up as a new mod because I really needed this. That's definitely not a criticism of akamine_chan and co-runners! I understand they've had a tough year, and I also get that if you don't have the spoons, you don't have the spoons and need to step back and engage in some self-care. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that and whoever tells you otherwise is lying. *hugs for you all*

Day 1

In your own space, post a rec for at least three fanworks that you have created. It can be your favorite fanworks that you've created, or fanworks you feel no one ever saw, or fanworks you say would define you as a creator. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

I'm still pleased with The Longest Night, a LoTR fanfic I wrote in 2015 for the International Fanworks Day challenge over on lotr_community. It came in 2nd place in the Tree and Flower Awards 2015 for Favorite Story Featuring a New Author, which was a most pleasant surprise!

Honesty, an SPN fanfic that I really need to remember to post on A03, is one I think I include in this challenge every year but it's one of my favorites. It's a drabble based around Dean and Future!Cas' conversation in the truck during 'The End'. Future!Cas breaks my heart, he truly does.

Through the Gates, a Goblin Emperor fanfic written for smallfandomfest Round 19 and based on the prompt 'It's not quite love, but it's not just duty, either.' It's about Maia and Csethiro's developing relationship, because I wanted to see more of that, dammit!

Calling Frequency, a Dead Space fanfic also written for smallfandomfest Round 19 and based on the prompt 'Trapped on Tau Volantis after the events of Dead Space 3, an injured Carver has to rely on Isaac for help.'. This one was challenging because a) I've only played DS3 single-player and thus only really know Carver through cut scenes and b) it's mostly dialogue and I had a hard time remembering to include actions and descriptions and not wind up with something that read like, as How Not to Write a Novel says, two disembodied brains in a jar having a conversation. But I succeeded!

For the curious, previous versions of this challenge are at the following links: 2016, 2015, 2014.

Fromhamsterwoman
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Oh, man, we're past the halfway point already? :(

Day 09

In your own space, set some goals for the coming year. They can be fannish or not, public or private. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

• Get at least 2 more fanworks done than I did last year. I miss being creative.


• Get some original fiction written. I actually did fairly well on that last year, coming in around 40k words in NaNo. The world isn't as developed as I'd like and the plot wasn't strong enough to hold an actual book together, but hey! 40k is nothing to sneeze at.


• Learn to knit socks. I have a sock started, I just got distracted with dice bags. :P They're so easy! Plus, if I can knit socks I can knit stockings and I'd really like a pair or three of pretty, lacy, stockings.


• Find a job. Easier said than done in a province with an unemployment rate hovering around 9%.


• Meet or exceed my Goodreads 2016 challenge. Well on my way so far, but it's early days.


• Get back into scale model building. We've got a workroom and an air booth set up, I really don't have any excuses!


• Be better about commenting. just_ann_now linked me to this post on commenting and it made me feel much less nervous about leaving short comments. It's also got suggestions for things you can leave, which is great if you're like me and you go 'but what do I sayyyy!' before losing your nerve and clicking away, vowing to come back - really! Kudos are lovely to get too, mind, but sometimes I want to leave words.

What I Just Finished Reading: Ooh, this'll be a long one. We went to visit family for the hols and because I a) don't drive and b) don't care to watch endless marathons of either news or reality TV I spent a lot of time reading. I was also trying to reach my 50 book target for Goodreads this year but...I don't think that's going to happen in 2 days. Still, 5 or 6 shy of the goal isn't bad. Thank god for ereaders: I'd've had to pack a whole other bag for books otherwise.

Furies of Calderon (Codex Alera #1) by Jim Butcher: I don't dislike Jim Butcher's work by any means - I pretty much marathoned all 15 Dresden Files novels in a week not that long ago - but I suspect it'll take me a book or two to get into this series as well, as it did with Dresden Files. I enjoyed the book, certainly, but it felt unfinished. Not surprising, given that it's part of a series, but I can't help feeling that even with a series you should be able to read the individual books without feeling either unfinished or lost. I've still gone ahead and added the 2nd book to my library wishlist to remind me to borrow it when next I log in to borrow some things.

Pretty Polly and Whisper by Barbara Hambly: These two novellas are set in the world of Hambly's Darwath series (originally a trilogy, now encompassing five books and sadly out of print) and are available to purchase from Smashwords, where Hambly sells a number of short stories (Continuing Adventures) for her various series. I was edgy about reading Pretty Polly because I don't like it when bad things happen to animals in books and filmbut the titular cat winds up with a happy ending, to my relief.Whisper felt a little more awkward than Pretty Polly, as if it should have been larger and was cropped down to novella length. The reasons in-story make sense, but I would very much have liked a more intricate plot. The ending felt a little pat too but overall I liked it, though of the two Pretty Polly was my favoriate. It's been a while since I read anything mid-apocalyptic and longer since I read the Darwath series (puts on list) but I was surprised and pleased at how easy it was to drop back into the world.

The Kindred of Darkness by Barbara Hambly: I picked this to reread because I like to have long, continuous books to read when we're driving - well, he's driving, I'm being driven - or when I have long stretches of time to read. Plus, Lydia, Don Ysidro, and James - won't say no to reading about them! While I didn't think this was one of the stronger entries in the series when I first read it, on reread I like it better.

Widdershins, Threshold, and Stormhaven by Jordan L. Hawk, the first three books in the Whyborne & Griffin series: Widdershins is available free at Smashwords, and the link will take you there. Thanks so much to just_ann_now for letting me know! I bought Threshold and Stormhaven, and perforce another copy of Widdershins, in an omnibus edition right after finishing Widdershins and pretty much spent the last two days with my nose in my ereader. The first book is very reminiscent of Sarah Monette's Kyle Murchison Booth short stories - not a copy, mind, just the same feeling - but less dark. And with more sex. It moves away from that feeling in books 2 and 3. Threshold has a significant Lovecraftian feel, though with more readable prose, much more likeable main characters, and a genuinely weird and engrossing plot. Stormhaven was a little harder for me to read, as it deals with a Victorian/Edwardian mental asylum and I know enough of those (read: pretty much anything) that it would make me uncomfortable even if I wasn't often edgy about treatment of the mentally ill in fiction. It also delves deeper into Griffin's past in an asylum and how he was subjected to "gay 'cure' therapy", and sexual assault (by attendants and as part of said "therapy"). (He wasn't committed for being gay, and doesn't know who told the doctors, just to horrify us more.) You can skip those pages and still understand the book, however. It doesn't feel like something tossed in just for the sake of drama and a tragic backstory: Griffin is still affected by what he was subjected to - and it would be disingenuous to pretend horrific things wouldn't happen to a 19th century psychiatric patient even if he wasn't gay - and it does have an effect on his reactions through the books. Apart from that my only real complaints are that the sex scenes are a touch OOC, especially in the first book, and Whyborne's jealousy gets formulaic and grating by the third.

What I'm Currently Reading: Taking a break from short novels and novellas with Red Seas Under Red Skies (Gentlemen Bastards #2) by Scott Lynch. Despite this being book 2 in a series, you could actually pick it up and understand it without having to read The Lies of Locke Lamora, especially with the way Lynch interweaves past events with the present events. (One scene with Father Chains is copied directly from Lies, in fact.) I'd still recommend reading Lies, because it's wonderful. :)

What I'm Reading Next: Whyborne & Griffin #4-6. :)

4. Do you have a "muse" character, that speaks to you more than others, or that tries to push their way in, even when the fic isn't about them? Who are they, and why did that character became your muse?

Sometimes yes, sometimes no. It depends on the fandom, what I'm writing, and how interested I am in it. I'll be honest, sometimes I've signed up for a challenge, gotten maybe two paragraphs in, and the interest or the idea has disappeared. I push through anyway because I think it can be a good habit to get into, especially if you're someone who has to write anything for work. You can't take say 'oh, I don't feel like it, I'll come back to it later' when you're writing a document that has a deadline.

Because I write, at least initially, stream-of-consciousness I'll sometimes get the one - or more! - of the characters acting or giving feedback in a way that changes the structure of the story, or even questions the plot! Last year's NaNo was like that: 5,000 words in I realized that the debate the protagonists were having was actually pointing out the problems with the overarching plot. That's good, in that I figured out the problems in advance, but bad because it meant I wasn't able to finish. And good again because it made me more likely to lay out a structure before beginning anything ambitious.

Most memorably, I was having a problem in something original I was writing, and decided to write out a scene between some incidental characters to help me sort it out.  Character A pretty much walked in, looked at Character B, and went "yes, I want them, please". They wound up being a couple, with their own set of adventures already crystallizing, while I was sitting there going "wait, what?"

I can't really say why one character will become a muse over another, or not at all. It does seem to be the characters that have the more complete presences that do so, though not always (see above). They're not always central but they are very strong.

And I'm still annoyed with one for getting songs stuck in my head.

Best husband ever? Best husband ever.