According to Ao3, I've posted 82,015 words this year, which is actually a lot more than I thought!! And I'd say I have close to 20,000 words of unposted fic sitting in my drafts that I wrote this year, too. (I've also done a decent chunk of editing of original work this year, but not much new original writing.)
16. What’s your most common “Additional Tags” tag?
Apparently it's "Post-Canon"! I do love a good post-canon fic...
(I'm still answering these questions if anyone else wants to ask about my fics!)
Hey look, it’s episode 2 of my nerdy fandom podcast! Me and @muffintonic talked about One Piece for a whole hour and it was great. (I mean we mostly talked about Usopp but still...)
You can also listen to it on SoundCloud! https://soundcloud.com/natashadamours/internet-kids-episode-2
muffintonic: They have Mac computers in the epilogue, too.
Wait really?? I knew Naruto was anachronistic but they have specifically Mac brand computers?? Apple exists in the Naruto universe?? There’s a ninja Steve Jobs??
muffintonic: Hey, cool!!!! (though, thanks to the internet, my first thought was "more like 'where there's tea, there's shade'") Was it just a showcase festival, or was there a winner?
There wasn’t one overall winner but there were awards for stuff like best editing, best sound, best story, etc. Mine didn’t win anything. :( But the fact that it got screened at the festival was still cool!!
@tomibunny: Haha I'm Canadian so I've been able to legally drink a booze since I was 19!! But now I guess I can go drink booze in the states haha. @wellimhavinga3outof10day: Time to go on a world tour of drinking and gambling. @muffintonic: Yes!! Ice cream cake is the best. I just got the generic Dairy Queen cake? So, like, vanilla and chocolate.
Several things, actually! I reread two of my favourite childhood French books, Amos Daragon: Porteur de masques by Bryan Perro and À cheval les filles! by Stéphanie Ledu, which were both super nostalgic.
I also reread two of Preston Norton's books, Where I End & You Begin (one of my favourite books of all time!) and Neanderthal Opens the Door to the Universe. Also This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone (fantastic book), the Chaos Walking series by Patrick Ness (INCREDIBLE series), Nimona by N.D. Stevenson (iconic), the All for the Game series by Nora Sakavic (also super nostalgic), The Less than Epic Adventures of TJ and Amal comic by E.K. Weaver (ALSO incredibly nostalgic), AND on top of all that I started rereading both One Piece and Scott Pilgrim towards the end of the year.
This is wild actually because I don't think of myself as someone who rereads books a lot but when I looked at everything I'd read this year I was like huh... I did reread a lot of stuff. Anyways all of these were good enough to make me want to reread them, so check 'em out!
(Putting the rest under a read more so this doesn't get too long!)
3. What were your top five books of the year?
Ooh this is always such a tough question. Let's see...
5) The Last True Poets of the Sea by Julia Drake: Really loved this book. Romancy YA contemporary is not usually my genre but this one is just so beautifully written and interesting. It rewired my brain a little bit.
4) The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner: I read most of this series this year and I liked it a lot! The first book is by far my favourite, though. Love Gen's voice, love the plot twists, love that it's lowkey a fantasy roadtrip. Highly recommend.
3) Dungeon Meshi by Ryoko Kui: I started reading Dungeon Meshi this year and I'm loving it so much! Definitely the best new manga series I've gotten into in a long time.
2) Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir: Very cool scifi! I love Rocky so much. There's some apocalyptic stuff happening in this book but it ends up being a surprisingly wholesome story about friendship beyond the stars...
1) To Be Taught If Fortunate by Becky Chambers: Speaking of apocalyptic but oddly wholesome scifi... This book is kind of in a similar vein to Project Hail Mary, but more about human friendship than alien friendship. It's a weird little novella about making impossible choices in difficult situations but I loved it so so much. One of my top two Becky Chambers books, and I love all her books.
(I chose not to include rereads on this list, but if i did then Where I End & You Begin, This Is How You Lose the Time War, Chaos Walking, and TJ and Amal would absolutely have to be on this list, too.)
4. Did you discover any new authors that you love this year?
Hm, I didn't really dig deep into any new authors this year... Though I enjoyed Project Hail Mary so much that I'll definitely be checking out Andy Weir's other books.
17. Did any books surprise you with how good they were?
Project Hail Mary surprised me! I'd watched The Martian and enjoyed it, so I always thought maybe I'd check out the book, but I've only recently gotten into scifi and I wasn't sure if it was the kind of scifi I'd enjoy reading, you know? But multiple friends told me Project Hail Mary was really good and I'd really enjoy it, so I gave it a try, even though it wasn't something I think I would have picked up on my own. But I really loved it! Scifi in general is a genre that has surprised me with how much I enjoy it, actually.
5. What 2023 new releases are you most looking forward to?
Oh boy... I have a hard enough time keeping up with all the old releases I want to read, it's hard to plan ahead for new releases! But let's see...
For comics there's the next issue of Saga coming out this month and I can't wait for that! And the Nott the Brave Origins comic is coming out this month too!!
Oh! And Alecto the Ninth is supposed to come out this year and I'm very excited to see how that's going to end... I actually think that's the only currently ongoing series I'm waiting for atm? I'm hoping for another Grishaverse book eventually but I don't think there's one coming out this year...
14. Do you plan to mostly buy or borrow your books? (Or be the unicorn who reads the books they already own?)
I get almost all of my books from the library! So mostly borrowing. I do have a handful of books I own that I want to get to this year... And I might buy a few new releases, but mostly borrowing!
(I'm still answering these questions if anyone wants to send some!)
