For the ask meme… 7. Which character that you’ve written is most like yourself? XXX
Ohh, that’s a good one! Um ... Leah Jackson. Her name is a subtle derivative of mine, and I based her healing style and patient interaction on mine. If you want to go with canon characters, probably Hermione. I’d like to say I wasn’t as annoying as she as a child, but my classmates would probably disagree. *sigh* I wasn’t as outgoing, though--she’s more assertive and direct--but the bookishness, the love of school, the black-and-white thinking, the concern with rules and accomplishment and pleasing authority figures, that’s me.
I once read social media described as an indulgence of the fantasy that others are interested in the details of our lives. I’m indulging in that fantasy this week by blogging about my Mecation under the guise of travel blogging ;)
If you follow me in even the most casual way, you know I’m a nurse. While I’ve enjoyed the vast majority of my 23 years as such, I don’t recommend it during a pandemic. The last 18 months have been the second-worst mental health period of my life, demoted to that position not because of the mildness of my symptoms but simply because at 15 I didn’t have the experience or perspective to realize my life was not, in fact, ruined forever.
COVID increased my personal vulnerability as a high-risk patient and made my job immensely more difficult in countless ways both small and large, but the worst part of the pandemic for me (so far) is it took away all my coping mechanisms precisely when I needed them most. Massage, pedicures, dinner out with friends, travel ... all gone practically overnight. Pre-COVID I travelled all the time--home to my parents’, long weekends by myself (Mecation!), annual visits to BFFs, conferences, tourism, the beach, my birthday, writing trips, international trips ... I always had at least one trip in the works, usually one booked and one (or more!) in the planning stages.
When COVID started, all my close friends and family except for two lived out of state. One of those two was out of town but close enough to get together, but the other was a few hours’ drive away. I’m single and live alone; it was the most isolated I’ve ever been in my whole life.
With my bestest friends over 500 miles away, I still feel that way sometimes. I haven’t seen them in a year. If it weren’t for COVID, it would only be 7 or 8 months (I’ve gone every January or February since ... forever). Then again, if it weren’t for COVID, I wouldn’t have been there last September; one had been hospitalized and I needed to see she was all right with my own two eyeballs. I expect it will be at least another 7 or 8 months before we get together again, bringing the total to about 20 months. One year we saw each other 5 times in 9 months, our personal best since college.
I was alone on Christmas. Oh, I’ve spent December 25th on my own before; I’m a nurse. I’ve worked the night of the 24th or the 25th (or both), or whatever combination that didn’t leave enough time off to drive home. But I’ve never spent the Christmas season without my parents. Sometimes the week before, sometimes the week after, sometimes at my place instead of home, but always together. But last Christmas COVID was raging, the vaccines had just come out but were only available to first responders (I got mine on the 23rd), and my elderly parents didn’t feel safe to travel. So I spent Christmas without family.
Travel was not just a break from my daily routine and the stress of nursing; in many ways, the biggest benefit travel made to my mental and emotional health was giving me something to look forward to. Proverbs 13:12 says, “Hope deferred makes the heart sick,” and ohhh, I was so heartsick last year! Not being able to travel meant I couldn’t visit my best friends of almost 25 years (more than half my life!). Not being able to travel meant I couldn’t lean on my dad or be hugged by my mom. Not being able to travel--and not knowing when I could travel--left this gaping hole in my future, and I had nothing to fill it with.
I tell you this not to throw a pity party but to explain the significance of the trip I’m on right now. It is only my third this year: my dad and I spent a week in the mountains in February (my depression and anxiety was so bad then that was treatment, not vacation), I took a friend to the beach over my birthday, and now I’m a couple hours from home at a nice spa hotel. (I’m not counting my nephew’s graduation, which was emotionally challenging for multiple reasons, or helping a friend move from Florida. Moving is never fun.)
I started planning this trip in the spring ... May, maybe? You know, after the vaccine rolled out to everyone and case counts were dropping and it looked like we were gonna lick this thing and have a quasi-normal summer by the Fourth of July (yes, I’m American. That date is a proper noun here.). I had switched jobs in November (don’t ask) and gone on mental health leave December 29th, so I felt I owed it to my unit to put in about six months of work before taking any significant time off, especially since I came back at 24 hours instead of 36. That meant September.
I knew what I wanted to do: 4 or 5 days at an all-inclusive resort in the Caribbean. I’d been before and loved the freedom of not worrying about every little expenditure (what can I say, I’m cheap), and a few days of Vitamin Sea sounded perfect.
Then came Delta.
All right, maybe going out of the country isn’t the best idea, I thought. Don’t want to end up with expensive reservations and then your destination closes to Americans, or you make it to your chosen island but can’t get back home. But I didn’t want to fly (ugh, airports!), I didn’t want to drive (rest stops and restaurants and gas stations), and while I thought about taking the train, it didn’t seem much of an improvement (and maybe a downgrade) on flying.
Then a friend mentioned a sleeper car, and I thought yes! That could work! I’ve never been to New England, I want to go to Boston, that area of the country has low case rates and the highest vaccination rates, this has potential!
Then I looked at the CDC map. There were only four states that didn’t have high transmission at that time (early August, I think; I’d had to wait for confirmation that my time off had been approved): Michigan, Rhode Island, Maine, and New Hampshire. All four had substantial rates of transmission. Hardly ideal, but one thing I’ve learned this year is sometimes you have to make compromises to protect your mental health. It is true it doesn’t matter if you’re happy if you’re dead; it is also true it doesn’t matter if you’re safe if you want to kill yourself. (I’m not suicidal, I am receiving treatment, don’t anybody panic.)
So, now I’ve settled on Maine or New Hampshire by train via sleeper car (Michigan is too far for a 4-5 day trip and RI--meh). Well, as I got deeper into planning, turned out Maine or NH were awfully far too. Far enough I would have to overnight in a major city, which pretty much defeated the purpose of isolating in a sleeper car. Then I found out there were no sleeper cars on either train route.
So, now vacation is 5 weeks away and I’m back at square one. The Deep South, Texas, and Florida are imploding. Pediatric cases are rising--kids are sicker and make up a higher percentage of cases than they did last year. Scuttlebutt from my ICU colleagues is it’s bad--17/30 MICU beds are COVID and they’re all vented. SICU is being nicknamed “the ECMO unit.” The hospital has 18(!) ECMO machines and 12 are in use; the float nurse who tells us that didn’t even know we had 12 because she’s never seen that many in use at one time. Hospital-wide our numbers are equivalent to early February (we peaked in January). There were six--SIX--pediatric rapid responses in one day.
And I’m going to travel.
It’s a big deal ... a big accomplishment, really, because of what it says about how I’m successfully managing my anxiety. April 1 was the first time I’d been inside a grocery store in more than a year ... and that wasn’t my idea. It was late April or May before I was comfortable eating in restaurants, even with the falling case count at the time. I’m still not sure if I’m managing my anxiety or reacting to the pressure by going to the opposite extreme (I have a history of that), but I know I’m less stressed, less anxious, have fewer obsessive thoughts, fewer physical symptoms, and am learning to live with this disease.
So, here I sit at a marble-topped 5-foot-wide desk in my queen/queen hotel room at the end of a productive and enjoyable day. I slept in, completed the big goal of this weekend’s to-do list that I honestly thought would take several days, unpacked and organized my room (I arrived yesterday evening), reorganized my Favorites Bar and Bookmarks on my Mac, had an 80-minute aromatherapy massage, enjoyed a shower in the spa afterwards and even blow-dried my hair(!) before wandering around for a while to get the lay of the land and get some steps in (this place is huge!). Then I changed clothes and took myself out to dinner for my favorite food, Italian.
That’s me in the picture up top, all dressed up :) Actually, I probably look pretty normal to y’all; like most people with depression, my personal hygiene sunk to new lows in the last year and a half, and as a low-maintenance person to begin with, that’s saying a lot. I bought that necklace as a bridesmaid and am not sure I’ve worn it since; this spring was her 10th anniversary. Yesterday I took out the cat-shaped earrings Dad gave me for Christmas. (Yes, they were gross. Yes, I cleaned them. Yes, I’m wearing them again now.) Just wearing a nice top, fixing my hair (no ponytail or claw-clip bun, my staples), and adding jewelry was a big deal ... especially since “no one” was going to see me. I did it just for me, to make myself feel good. And I did. (That’s another small pleasure COVID took away from me--lip gloss. If I wore any makeup at all, it was lipstick or gloss. Utterly pointless when you’re masked whenever you’re in public.)
I took my laptop to dinner and edited a couple chapters of my new Charlie/Amy fic (previewed during #ktoo turns 10), ran a couple errands, and headed back to the hotel since I don’t like to be out late by myself in an unfamiliar city. Forgot I put my receipt envelope in the backseat pocket and reorganized the glove compartment looking for it, then gathered a bunch of returns into a bag in the trunk. Hung out writing in the lobby until my Mac threatened to die, came upstairs and tidied up, put on my jammies, and talked to you guys :)
Fanfic game time, hehe. Please can you answer 17 and 19? (From the set of 20, please!)
17. A fic still in the "ideas" stage
A sequel/follow up to Auror Take Two. Harry and Ginny throw that graduation party for the Auror trainees. Flesh out some OCs, tell stories about Ron and Harry's career in flashback/from an outside perspective. Someone gets a little too familiar and suggests a dueling contest (a common form of training/entertainment/ competition at the Auror Academy) between Ginny (since she captured the five dark wizards) and Harry and/or Ron, both of whom refuse on "lose/lose" grounds. Ginny offers to duel the winner among the rookies. It doesn't go well 😉 Conversation devolves to H/G R/H experiences at Hogwarts/during the war. I'd love to have Ginny and Hermione dueling if I can figure out a way to make it plausible.
*sample excerpt*
[Ginny casts spell]
[rookie] "Oi! That's against the rules! We haven't started yet!"
[Ginny, with exaggerated surprise] "Oh, there are rules now?"
19. My favorite character headcanon
I was afraid someone was going to ask me this because I don't know what it means! A headcanon about my favorite character? My favorite headcanon about any character?
Well, Ginny's my favorite character in the series, and probably my fav headcanon about her is her changing relationship with each of her brothers. She and Ron are best-friend siblings: they get on like a house afire, then fight like cats and dogs--but always, always are a united front against anyone else. Ginny and the twins have what we'll call a "classic" sibling relationship, a little spiky-er with a less intimate friendship (but add in the "partners in crime" dynamic). All three of these boys are close enough in age/immature enough/Ginny's personality is strong enough to override almost all of the usual protective/dismissive older brother/little sister dynamics (remember Fred's chagrin when Molly scolded him for bringing his underage sister to the Battle?). For Fred, George, and Ron, Ginny is more a peer than an underling.
Percy and Ginny ... I have a soft spot for these two, 'cause their relationship isn't like any other pair in the family. Percy is enough older than she to find her a pest/babyish/bothersome but also mature enough to have more patience, especially during her toddler and preschool years. Perfect Prefect does feel responsible for her and so makes sure she gets her share of the snacks, or toys, or turn at a game, or that the twins don't take their pranks too far. Thus Ginny learns Percy is safe, he is someone she can go to when the others are frustrated or angry with her or just don't want to be bothered, and Percy won't turn her away. BUT--and this is important--he is not nearly so easily manipulated as Bill and Charlie.
Charlie hits that sweet spot of doting older brother who knows yeah, his sister can be a brat ... sometimes ... but he loves her to death and Godric help the person who suggests anything about her is less than perfect. Think about teenage/adult Ginny: she loves to fly, is excellent at Quidditch, ends up playing professionally, is spunky and adventurous ... kind of like a female Charlie 😎 I think Ginny looked up to Charlie a lot and trusted his opinion and advice without the hero worship that characterized her feelings about Bill.
Bill and Ginny ... if you've read any of my family fic, you know I love writing these two together. Basically they adore each other and think the other one is perfect ... which does have its problems, both before and after they each realize (at separate points in time) that's not true.
I don’t know if anyone asked before but, 27, what’s the funniest story you’ve ever written?
I think this is a question my readers should decide! But for me ...
*reads through my fic list* Oh, gosh, this is hard! There's some humor in nearly everything I write, even if it's dark humor (nurses, am I right?). Some fics are based on a funny idea, even if the fic itself isn't funny as a whole, like Misbehavior Number 101 and Virgins Need Not Apply. Then there's the single chapters of collections, like "Natural Consequences" (Sherlolly Appreciation Week 2017) and basically every other chapter of One Big Happy Weasley Family ("Daughters Are the Best Revenge" is a particular favorite). I can think of tons of one-liners I'm fond of.
But a funny fic? A humorous (BTW it took 3 tries to spell that right b/c I kept confusing it with humerus) idea written for the comedic genre where I made an effort to be amusing? Manic Monday
Mycroft Holmes is neither a drunk nor a stupid man. How then did he blow six months of a secret relationship in one moment of alcohol-induced bad judgement? More importantly, how can he erase the memories of the entire London-based British Secret Service regarding his behavior on one particular Monday morning?
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Sherlock correctly deduces a good gift for Molly but is surprised by her response (and his).
Ahhhh, BBC Sherlock. What an incredible rabbit hole you were to jump into! This was my first experience with fandom in situ and it was a blast! First exposure: fanvids. Second: S3E2, which I loved. Third: PBS’s special on Women in Sherlock, which spoiled the Christmas scene in season two (among others). My BFFs and I watched six episodes in four days, and I spent the next two years obsessed with all things Benedict Cumberbatch. From first exposure to publishing this fic was about five months, compared with two years between reading the HP books and publishing my first fic.
I’m more flexible in the Sherlock fandom--I multiship, I can do AUs, I’m all about the tropes. No idea why ... maybe it’s something to do with book versus TV as the original medium? Or being more experienced and comfortable with fandom in general? Whatever it is, I’ll always be grateful my friend kankusan sent me that mashup of funny clips!
There’s been lots of firsts: the first fic I wrote, the first I posted, my first fic idea, first NaNo, first challenge, first collaboration, first novel-length fic, first Big Bang, first art, first author interview, my first second fandom (does that count?). I told you the best idea I’ve ever had and shared secrets about Faintest, Slimmest, Wildest Chance, the Auror series, Hidden Chambers and Unseen Monsters, In Love and War, and “Everyone Says So” (OBHWF 13).
We’ve had meta, head canon, and new content (Ginny and her nieces, Charlie and Amy, Smutty Claus 2013, “The Melted Elf” with dialogue from White Collar, Lily Luna’s impending arrival, and an extremely rare poem).
I’ve talked about friendships, answered your questions, and shared prop photos. But there is one thing that I haven’t done....
Plans
I am supposed to be working on the last of my Sherlolly trilogy, The One Where Mary Gets Involved, for the WIP Big Bang. That’s ... not going so well, but I do intend to finish that fic this year.
Do You Promise is the fic that has been preoccupying my spring. I’m about five chapters in with minimal idea where Charlie and Amy are going, but they haven’t been shy about saying what they want so far!
I would LOVE to start the 8th year school-year fic by the end of this year; we shall see. Moving from plans to dreams, I still want to do another fic in the Auror series exploring who leaked the photo of Ron and Dolohov to the press, plus the party fic I talked about earlier in the week. I’ve had Sherlolly vibes about Adele’s 25 ever since it came out, I told the Hinny Discord I’d do a Romione songfic, I have a great scene between Ginny and Draco that just needs a fic to go in, I want to do a Quidditch fic with Ginny around her first nationals/World Cup, I have probably half-a-dozen ideas for OBHWF (about half Next-Gen and half Hogwarts-era characters), I’d like to do some outtakes from Manic Monday and The One Where Sherlock Sleeps With Molly. I have some scenes for a Mythea set in the US and a combination Greg & Mycroft friendship Mycroft/Anthea romance fic.
In other words, I have more ideas than I know what to do with and unless I manage some focus and discipline, I could write 100K and still not finish anything!
I’m also probably going to start writing for publication; I’ve spent the last ten years saying no, writing is a fun hobby and I don’t want it to turn into work but this last year has changed not only my life, it’s changed me, and I think I’m ready. I want to do a nursing memoir as a collection of one-shots (y’all are ‘bout the only people in my life who understand what I mean by that) and I also have a romance novel idea that has been floating in my brain for literally decades.
Acknowledgements
Thank you to anyone who’s ever read any of my work. To those who leave favorites or kudos, who alert/subscribe, who review and comment. I love all y’all! <3 I think words would ooze out of me even without an audience, but there certainly would be no point in sharing and only a mere fraction of the joy, reward, and satisfaction I get from interacting with each of you, whether it be here, FF, AO3, or an inbox somewhere. Never ever doubt your notifications make me smile :) You special few I know IRL--feed yourself some chocolate or ice cream today. You have helped nurture an artist, and that is no small thing.
For my Tumblrers, followers and lurkers alike: thank you for playing! For liking and reblogging and asking and cheering and supporting--you’ve helped make this celebration fun, even if I have lost more sleep in the last ten days than the last ten weeks.
(I have more, but I really have to go to bed now ... it’s 90 min past my bedtime and I’m responsible for keeping people alive tomorrow. So a few staggery late posts b/c I’m the dingbat who decided to pick up two extra shifts while doing this big project and planning three trips in 10 days the week after this, so ... yeah. Goodnight!)
Anytime someone says they have x number of siblings and the way I write the Weasleys reminds them of their family 😁😁
And this, from @theleftpill on Chapter 12 of The One After Sherlock Gets High:
Some people might say that this fic could be an episode of the show, it feels that accurate, in-character, and entirely believable as an enhancement/continuation of the show, but they'd be wrong. This feels like you're in the room with these people, watching these events happening, understanding their feelings and reactions and cheering them on, not like watching a tv show. {emphasis mine}
