still coming across more books from this excellent gay space opera, and I have discovered not only that the first book was released on this day, but also that it’s still ongoing (and fortunately I don’t think this is a winds of winter situation and we will see the last few installments of the series within the next few years—fingers crossed). if you like stories about evil space empires + plotting to overthrow them from within, or dynamic and complex characters being repeatedly thrown into Situations, or SF a little harder than is the current norm, I definitely recommend checking this out
I found a sequel to the SF novel I was posting about a while ago! this one is another great read about evil empires and the compromises you need to make for power and safety within them, and also messy gay relationships. more about the series here
hm. it's going to be hard to talk about this year. like last year, I perhaps should be saving this post for tomorrow, but i have an hour of free-ish time to write this in, so i might as well do it now
my god this post got long from minute one so i'll just put the readmore up here to spare you all
The Good
You know what? Despite all the everything, this year was pretty good. I might complain a lot about how badly writing went (it went badly. we'll get to that.) but in my personal life things were genuinely alright
I expanded my list of "internet friends met IRL for the first time" significantly-- I met @chiefaccelerator, @antimony, @shuangdaozhang, @iserlohnfortress + everyone who went to Maurine and Tama's wedding 💙💙 + and a bunch of people who don't have tumblrs, including Kay and Amharas
And also got to hang out (Again!!) with friends i've met before (@softboypassing, @classicobjects, @adamsvanrhijn, and @00ff00will and Nadia of course)
I got to go to Europe (Glasgow + Paris + Lisbon) for the first time and had a genuinely great time with, honestly? the smallest number of mishaps possible for wandering into a european vacation with minimal prep and staying in the cheapest hostels money can buy for 3 weeks lmfao
I got to see a bunch of shows: the Mountain Goats x2, The Rural Alberta Advantage, and Explosions in the Sky
I've really had a great time on my discord this year with our LOGH rewatch and other events-- it's a really cozy place that i'm extremely grateful to have
i have spent a LOT of time studying chinese this year and have made (imo) really solid progress. granted my reading and writing is always going to be better than my speaking but i'm genuinely optimistic about my progress (when i can keep on top of my flashcards lol). but i feel really good about continuing to study it which is good 👍
I got a writing grant to do cool research and write a novel (the whale novel). finally joining the ranks of "people whose writing makes money" (ignoring the fact that taking time off my job to go do research is losing me more than the grant is paying me. shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh we don't talk about that)
I fixed a lot of things about my nonsense house. I finally, after 5 whole ass years of living here, got enough shelves to hold all my stuff so it's not just on the floor. bunch of other smaller improvements too but that's the big one
i'm not sure i could actually put a number on it, but i'm /fairly/ sure that i did a lot more art than i did last year. i'm pretty bad at actually posting it all in a coherent place
i think serpent's mouth, serpent's teeth is the best novel i've ever written, and while i think there are things that could be improved about it (the first half is weaker than the second half), i say "it's the best thing i've ever written" with absolutely zero qualifications. it blows everything else totally out of the water. which is kinda incredible, because i remember thinking that every hateful instrument would get that prize, but i didn't work on EHI, and SMSt exceeded all of my expectations for it. weird feeling
I wrote a lot of different things this year, which is very unusual for me... it's kinda nice to spread my wings a little. branch out.
i stopped buying meat to cook at home. i'm not like a super strict vegetarian but i've cut down my meat consumption to ~1 meal/month, generally. idk if this is like. accomplishing anything. but it's probably generally good harm reduction or whatever
I ran two! successful writing exchanges this year @loghrarepairex and @loghnewyearexchange ! very fun! i love doing little community events. if you ever need somebody to run a community event give me a call i've got you
Read more books this year than last year (though that's not saying /that/ much lol, i'm not a particularly good reader 😩)
The Bad
My actual writing output in sheer wordcount was abysmal. Just the lowest it's ever been. It makes me feel awful to contemplate it. And the worst part is that I don't know how to fix this issue. Nothing I've thrown at the wall has stuck. Like I'm writing /better/ than I ever have before but I'm also writing so much /less/ that i get into this doom spiral about it... augh.
No progress on the milestones of life. I am very lonely in my day to day life even though I am not unhappy exactly.
Failed to quit my job and get a new one 😩
After I hurt my foot in January I stopped ice skating and haven't gotten back to it :( and now I'm scared to start again b/c I'll be starting over from square 1 :(
basically didn't accomplish any of my goals lmfao
see the good outweighed the bad significantly it's just i'm hung up on writing b/c i view it as My Life's Work, and i was too busy doing other fun things to make sufficient progress on My Life's Work. this is like an insane way to think about things ofc but you need to understand that i'm like some kind of reincarnated monk who deserves to be chained to a scriptorium desk while wearing a hairshirt or whatever
2023 By the Numbers
Let's just get the worst out of the way lol. rip off the bandaid.
Overall, I wrote
250,000 words, which was 100k less than last year (this really really hurts lol)
There were 147 days when I wrote nothing this year (81 more than last year. also a really painful number)
Best month was August, worst was June
I posted 14 new works (+1 that is still in progress that i'll finish and post tomorrow) and added chapters to 4
Last Year's Goals
writing goals
❌finish every hateful instrument
❌finish serpent’s mouth, serpent’s teeth
❌write a 40-100k word reurein novel. i promised i would do this in 2023 so it’s going on my list
❌in an effort to be kind to myself, i’m revising my daily wordcount goal down to 1000 words. by the end of the year, i’d like to have written 365,000 words.
❌i would like to write for 300 days of the year
❌write at least 5 original fiction short stories
✅participate in a handful of writing exchanges
❌this is a stretch goal but it would be really really really nice to write a standalone original fiction novel. i literally don’t know if i will have time for it in my schedule with EHI and SMST, which are a) long and b) high priority, but. i keep putting this off, and there are reasons why i keep putting it off, but one of them is fear, and that’s a bad reason even if all the others are good.
❌write a poetry collection lol
✅i’d like to write at least 12 short fics
✅continue being more experimental with writing
writing adjacent goals that aren’t themselves writing lol
✅run a fic exchange. i’d like to run a logh rarepairs exchange in spring
❌for real actually typeset and print my fics
❌apply for the 2024 clarion workshop (but you know what? i applied for + got a writing grant so i think i accomplished this goal in spirit if not in letter)
❌submit short stories for publication
other random shit
✅plan and go on a european vacation
❌set up my own website with my own server etc
❌keep ice skating and swimming all year round
✅don’t explode your life
✅clean out guest bedroom and make it normal / maintain or improve house in general
❌attend more live theater this year
❌watch at least 25 movies
✅read more books. i’m not gonna put a number on this b/c it’d stress me out but i’ll know at the end of the year if i succeeded in my quest or not lol
❌play at least 3 video games in a real way
✅study chinese some more
✅end the year with at least 12 finished art pieces
❌be more consistent with my weekly diary entries
✅don’t completely explode your life
2024 Goals
ok let's try a new way of splitting this up
Things I'll definitely do/am actually obligated to do
Write Whale Novel
Finish SMST
Keep studying chinese
Run the Rairpairs exchange again (+ NY exchange if galactic santas isn't running)
Put together a personal website
Make a bunch of interesting art. Do at least a handful of block prints.
Don't explode my life
Things I'm probably going to do but are not like 100% certain
Finish EHI
Rewrite LOOB
Get a new job
Have a fun ~artists retreat~ summer vacation this year. invite friends.
Write the Heinessen project
Typeset my stuff pls noodle plsssss
Write 10 short fics
Hang out with friends more
Stop getting into stupid fights online. If you have mean thoughts write them down in your little notebook instead of screenshotting bad opinions and putting them on twitter. you are adding misery to the world noodle
Things I want to do and am putting on this list to try to make myself do but I know that I'm probably not going to actually get there
Write 1,000,000 words (we're trying this new thing called 'aiming high' instead of setting the bare minimum and flopping up to it like a dead fish)
Write every day
Write the Phezzan novella
Write the reurein project
Write ItSoH act 2
Write a handful of short stories that /aren't/ for exchanges
Get back into ice skating
Find a way to be less olone
Find a way to make my Nov/Dec not hellish
track my finances way better
uhhh anyway idk. it was a good year but not the year i wanted. so who knows what that means.
i'll pst a list of "what i actually wrote" this year in a different post but i'm out of time on this and i've gotta run.
the other day I came across this book in the SFF section of a used bookstore and enjoyed it a lot—it’s about trying to survive as a military prodigy to do treason in an evil empire á la baru cormorant, and being closeted in school, and bloodsports. I was able to find more about the series here if you’d like to check it out
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Thoroughbreds (2017)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Word Count: 9,504
Amanda is released from prison after seventeen years. The world has moved on; she has not.
Crucially, neither has Lily.
LILY: You kept writing to me even though I never responded to your letters.
AMANDA: who else was i going to write to? there was nothing better to do
AMANDA: did you read them
LILY: Yes.
AMANDA: why
LILY: I thought they might be important.
AMANDA: lol. what important thing could i possibly have to say.
AMANDA: after the first five or six you probably should have realized that i wasn’t living a glamorous and exciting life behind bars. all i did was tell you about my dreams
LILY: Yeah. I know.
AMANDA: did they entertain you
LILY: Nothing more boring than hearing about somebody else’s dreams.
AMANDA: prison
LILY: Are you trying to make me feel guilty?
AMANDA: no
AMANDA: what would i get out of doing that
LILY: I don’t know. Jesus Christ.
LILY: You have to want something from me! Why would you keep talking to me otherwise?
AMANDA: maybe because you want something from me?
LILY: No
LILY: What do you want, Amanda?
She wasn’t going to be satisfied with nothing, with silence, with a statement of the truth, that Amanda didn’t— couldn’t— want anything from her. She cleared her mind, let her thoughts drift across the blank slate of her imagination, let herself list things that she could get from Lily, what she could demand. She remembered the photo of Lily on Facebook, the young brown stallion with the lively eyes.
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The Left Hand of Darkness - Ursula K. Le Guin
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Genly Ai & Sorve Harth rem ir Estraven
Word Count: 7,162
“Are you glad to be going home?” Somehow, on the ship, it was easier to ask these things.
She laughed. “Home? I’m leaving it. I’ve spent more time on Gethen than I have on Terra. I feel like I’ve forgotten my own native language. Nusuth, I suppose. I’ll be back more than two hundred years after I left— things change enough in that time that I’ll have to relearn ways of speaking anyway, if I don’t want to sound like what I am.”
“And what are you?”
“A stranger in a strange land,” Genry said. She switched to the Terran language, the one she had taught me to speak.
Though if I was to go to Terra, I should start trying to think of Genly as what he was.
A 17 years post-canon fic about the future of the Ekumen, and Genly does with the rest of his life. Featuring Sorve, #gender, and a freaky foretelling scene!
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Anne of Green Gables - L. M. Montgomery
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Word Count: 3,412
“It’s the one thing I can’t really imagine, really imagine— myself as all grown up. When I think about it— getting married, having children, getting old— well, I know you’re supposed to see yourself doing these things, but I don’t know. Can you imagine it?”
“Sure,” Diana said.
“Oh, see!”
“But it’s not like imagining like you think— about being a mermaid, or the dryads, or the Haunted Wood. It’s more like— hoping for something.” And her cheeks turned bright red with some thought that Anne couldn’t read.
“And what are you hoping for?”
“I don’t know,” Diana said. “I wish you could imagine it, Anne. Then you could tell me if it will be nice or not.”
A bit of canon compliant unrequited Anne/Diana to make you feel melancholy on this fine Sunday morning 👍
digital art has forsaken me (it takes too long) so i'm now on a quest to create as much traditional art as i can as quickly as i can (in order to use up all the random paint and paper laying around in my house). it amuses me
Serpent's Mouth, Serpent's Teeth - Chapter 37 - Lists of Sins and Solemn Vows
Mittermeyer let himself wander through the apartment.
In the kitchen, he picked up the single dirty glass that had been left on the otherwise clean counter, with a smear of chapstick where she must last have drank. He pressed the cup to his lips for a second, and then, with a cry and a jerk of his arm that he didn’t feel in control of, threw the glass to shatter on the floor.
He stared at the shards sparkling on the linoleum in the lamplight, and then sank down against the counter, whatever strength had been holding him up all day gone, fell to the ground, curled his arms around his knees, and wept.
this post is mostly for @blueiight but in case anyone else is interested in my whale novel research
most of the logbooks/journals in the nicholson whaling collection have been digitized and are available on archive.org. the full collection is here and the specific journal that i've been reading and posting excerpts from is the whaling bark Alfred Gibbs, the journal written by the ship's master Edmund Jennings in 1865.
oh and there's also a huge collection of photographs-- unfortunately not all of them have been digitized yet but here is the link to the ones that have been
today since the library is closed, in my afternoon off i'm going to spend these 4 hrs trying to put together a chapter by chapter outline of the whale novel. tbqh i probably do not have enough info to REALLY do this but i think having /anything/ down on paper will be a major weight off my shoulders. like once i've committed to something-- it's like having a star to steer by lol. it removes a lot of the clutter from my vision and lets me hone in on real steps i can take. the only danger is that i'm very liable to get trapped in something that isn't working
one weird thing that i'm like... cognizant of being careful of is that i'm very, idk, permeable at this stage of the writing process. pretty much anything could float into my head and become a defining feature of the book, for good or for ill. and it's hard to know if i'm good at rejecting bad ideas or not because i can only understand the stickiness of ideas after the fact, once they've attached themselves to a project.
i think i'm always letting things drift in to my work like that, but a project that is in the synopsis stage is more vulnerable to having the tone defined on a whim than a project that's a million words deep.
this post is apropos of me wanting a cover image for The Whale Novel but being aware that if I start doodling things or otherwise bashing images into existence, I might through this process land on a "sticky" image that works its way backwards into the text rather than just being a picture for me to look at
maybe that's not a bad thing. but i want to do well on this project! so. you know. i think about these things lol
