December 2024 Doings!

Hello, all! Yes, we are doing two posts in one week, but I didn't want to drag out 2024 wrapup too long. So, next week will have my reading roundups for 2024, and this week, let's take a look at December's Doings!

Writing!

• Writing in December did not go as planned, by which I mean that it hardly went at all. The first half of the month, all my energy was consumed by my grad school class; the second half of the month, all my energy was consumed by work and Christmas.
• I did get a little writing done, but most of it was snippets of either Project Kingfisher character backstory or just-for-fun stuff. I managed a little bit more worldbuilding planning for Project Kingfisher, but not enough to start the book. I also started my DOSA Files story, but not in time to finish it before the deadline. (I do want to keep working on it, though, in hopes that Heidi does another anthology.)
• D&D writing has basically not happened at all; however, D&D sessions also haven't happened, so that's not a problem. Yet.
• I really should not plan on writing during the holidays, and I don't know why I deluded myself into thinking it would happen.

Reading!

• Reading, unlike writing, continued to go well in December and featured the usual mix of holiday-specific and non-holiday-specific reads. On the holiday side, we have three delightful rereads: A Superhero for Christmas, Christmas in Talesend, and my Christmas Eve treat, Twelve Days of Faerie Christmas. All of these were delightful, but Twelve Days was especially so.
• In non-holidays reads, I finished the Time Echoes trilogy by reading Fatal Convergence, which surprised me by having some substantial differences from the original version. To be honest, I'm not sure I love the changes — I can see why the Davis made those choices, and they still make for a good story, but I liked the way things originally happened too.
• On the other hand, two books I liked with no qualifications were What Comes of Attending the Commoners' Ball and Rescuing a Supervillain, both of which were absolutely delightful. Commoners' Ball was already on my to-read list, but it got bumped up in priority after multiple authors and the entirety of the W.R. Gingell Discord fan server raved about it. I'm so glad I read it; it's such a fun romp with two excellent, practical protagonists whose lives get upended by others' promises. Rescuing a Supervillain, on the other hand, is the latest of H.L. Burke's Superhero Romance Project series, featuring a cat-shifter thief on the run and a hero who's working through some trauma, and it's just such a sweet story of love and healing. I absolutely recommend it.
• My one other new read was Dogsbody, a Diana Wynne Jones book that had been on my to-read list for some time. That one was ok — it's a cool concept, and I liked the worldbuilding, but it's not my favorite DWJ by a long shot. I'm glad I finally read it, but I don't think I'll reread it particularly soon.

Watching & Playing!

• Amazingly, my friends and I managed to actually finish watching Yona of the Dawn before the end of 2024! I think that's the fastest I've gotten through any show since freshman year of college, honestly. (We haven't watched the untranslated extra episodes, but we're through the main show.)
• Overall, I really enjoyed watching Yona — the characters are excellent in terms of how they're portrayed, how they grow over the course of the story, and how their dynamics with one another play out. I'm particularly impressed with Yona's arc specifically and with the villain, who could so easily be a hero who I'd root for and even fangirl over were the story told from a different perspective.
• I do have to correct my prediction of last month, however, because Jaeha is absolutely, positively, without a doubt, my favorite of the dragons (and possibly also my favorite character in general). He appeared onscreen, and my immediate, out-loud reaction was "Oh, I like him." I don't think anyone should be surprised by that, though; he's very similar to some of my other favorite characters, and he's just fun in terms of personality. (And a little scandalous, yes. But that also describes some of my favorite characters.) Shin-Ah, the blue dragon, remains my second-favorite dragon, and I also still love Yun, Hak, and Yona herself . . . there's a lot of good characters; I'm going to have to read the manga so I don't have to say goodbye to them!
• I also watched some Christmas movies, but not as many as usual. Rewatches were A Christmas Carol, the original Grinch, and Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown; the one new Christmas movie I watched was We're No Angels, which was funny, but not a new favorite.
• Other than that, I have been playing some Star Rail and quite a bit of Genshin! That said, most of my Genshin time has been in service of building characters, as I finally got to pull on the limited banners (after saving for one in particular since I started the game), got some very good new characters (including the one I was specifically hoping for and several others I really wanted!), and then realized that I had virtually nothing with which to get them up to the level of the characters I already had (whoops). That's still been fun — I've done a lot of exploring, which has been nice — but I'm looking forward to getting back to story soon.

 Life!

• The dominant themes for December were, unsurprisingly, Christmas and my grad school class.
• Advent and Christmas materials — and the need to work ahead because I was taking time off around Christmas — kept me very busy at work. We had a few unexpected hiccups (including some communication problems and issues with deadlines, neither of which were my fault), but everything got done on time, and pretty much everything turned out quite well. I'm very pleased with the promo piece I made to hand out at the Christmas Eve services, and I also really like the overall Advent/Christmas visual theme I had this year!
• Wrapping up my grad school class also went fairly well; I was a bit stressed about whether or not my final project would actually fit what the professor was expecting, but thankfully, he liked my analysis. The final exam also went reasonably well . . . especially considering that some of the questions had to do with parts of the book that we were never assigned in class. (Thankfully, the exam was open-book, and I knew the rest of the material well enough that I had time to hastily find the info on the unfamiliar topics.)
• In the middle of all that, my D&D group started our new campaign! We've only had two sessions so far, but it's been fun. I think the new characters have some interesting dynamics, and I look forward to seeing where the storyline goes. I am happy with my character, Breena, a gnome warlock, so far — while I haven't gotten to test out many of her abilities, as a character I think she's fun.
  
• The payoff for all my stress earlier in the month was that I took the week of Christmas and most of the week of New Year's off from work, which was lovely, albeit busier than I intended it to be. I did quite a bit of baking and made two new recipes: pecan dainties, which are basically candied pecans in cookie form, and potato candy, which is a rolled candy made with peanut butter, a little bit of mashed potato, and quite a lot of powdered sugar. It is delicious, and I want to make it again (and try to do it better next time; I think I used too much peanut butter). I also tried a new sourdough roll recipe for Christmas day, one that allows for an overnight rise (which meant I could make the rolls Christmas Eve and bake them Christmas day).
• My sister came home for Christmas week, and getting to see her was lovely. We got to hang out, chat, and play plenty of board games, both on our own and with various friends (either over the internet or in person). We also visited my grandpa briefly the weekend after Christmas, which was nice — I haven't been up to see him in several months.
• As for Christmas itself, we had a very nice holiday. Our church had its Christmas Eve service on both Sunday and Christmas Eve proper, so we actually went to the church where I work on Christmas Eve. It was quite lovely to experience that service for myself and for my family to see where I work and some of what I've done and meet several of the people I work with. Then we had a fairly chill Christmas day in which we didn't get around to actually opening gifts until almost noon . . . which, to be honest, is pretty in character for us. People seemed to like what I gave them, which was good, and I got some gifts I'm pretty happy about. We ended up with an accidental theme of everyone but my dad receiving kitchen stuff in their stocking, which was funny.
• And, of course, we finished up the year by celebrating New Year's Eve with our Bible study. As always, that was a fun time; I loved getting to see some people who've left the area but are back for the holidays, and there was plenty of good food and conversation.
• Then we took the Christmas tree down on January 1, and the holidays are officially over. After all that, going back to work on January 2 was . . . rough. Hopefully next week will be better.

January Plans

• January should return us to the usual routine — work, grad school, and writing. I'm hoping that work will quiet down in the next couple months after the hecticness of Stewardship and holidays, but there have also been rumors of trying to change things with the livestream, so we'll see what happens.
• I have accidentally left grad school registration for this semester until the very last minute (in my defense, I thought I had another week), so I don't know for sure which class I'll be taking next — I have a required class that will probably be difficult and frustrating, though it may also be occasionally interesting, and I have an elective that should be pretty chill but I'm not especially excited about, and I'm not sure (as of writing this post) which one I'm doing first and which I'm doing second.
• As for writing: I plan to use most of January for continued planning on Project Kingfisher, additional work on my unfinished DOSA Files story (in hopes that I can have it ready and waiting if there's another opportunity), and D&D writing (since we will hopefully be getting back to regular sessions soon). If the timing works out, I'll also start drafting Project Kingfisher this month — though it might be the very end of the month. Additionally, as I mentioned in my last post, I will be wrapping things up on Dreams and Dragons so I can retire that blog.
• I talked about my reading goals in my 2024 recap/2025 goals post, and I hope to get a good start on those in January. I have a stack of Peter Wimsey library books that need to be read, so that might be a good place to start . . . Plus I intend to start reading the Yona manga where the anime left off.
• And, of course, I am very excited for the start of a new storyline in Star Rail! This one sounds like it's going to be absolutely epic. (It also sounds like it will potentially tear my heart out and rip it into pieces with feels, but y'know. Isn't that what a lot of great stories do?)

How was your December? Any plans for January? Did you make any resolutions or goals for the new year? If you did Christmas baking/sweet-making, what was your favorite thing you made? Please tell me in the comments!
Thanks for reading!

 

December 2023 Doings!

Hello, all! I hope everyone had a merry Christmas, both the season and the day. I can definitely say that my Christmas season didn't go quite how I expected it . . . but that seems to have been the theme of 2023, so I can't say I'm entirely surprised either. We'll get to that in a bit, but first, writing! In which I have some good news!

Writing!

• I finally finished drafting Bastian Dennel, PI #4! Last month's assessment of being within a chapter or two of finishing wasn't quite correct; I actually had more like three and a half chapters left before I could call the draft done.
• But those three and a half chapters have been written! And I don't think they turned out half bad. I'm quite pleased with the last two, actually. The others will need some tweaking, but so do large swathes of the rest of the book, all for the same reason. And the point is that the draft is done, so now I can do that tweaking . . .
• Except not literally now because I have other projects that I need to work on first. And I'm also very likely going to make this book Bastian Dennel, PI #5 instead and write a new (much shorter) book as #4. But that's neither here nor there. The point is, the book is drafted! Huzzah!
• I actually finished the final chapter on Christmas Eve — I'd intended to write maybe 500 words and then go to bed early while the rest of my family watched A Christmas Carol. But then I realized that another few hundred words would wrap things up, and then I could have a proper, guilt-free break for the rest of my sister's visit . . . so I did not go to bed early, but I think it was worth it.
• That's all the writing I've done so far this month (I say "all;" it was a very respectable 8,700-odd words), but I will be writing my New Year's Eve short story in the next few days. Or, possibly, I've already drafted it by the time you read this post, depending on how things go and how much of it I feel like writing on my phone.

Reading!

• My reading this month can be pretty neatly divided into "Christmas" and "not Christmas."
• On the not-Christmas side, I finished my reread of the Illuminae Files with Gemina (just as good as I remembered, and I also realized there's kind of a Die Hard reference or two in there — besides the whole situation being very Die Hard-ish) and Obsidio (better than I remembered, though my memory was still very good — it's one of those books that's more enjoyable on the reread, because you know it'll come out all right and you can appreciate all the twists and turns instead of just being stressed). I also read To Destroy an Illusion (not as good as the Austen Fairy Tale, but still a very interesting twist on some obscure fairy tales) for review purposes. Also, it's not pictured because of a Goodreads issue, but I reread DragonSpell as part of a readalong some friends of mine are doing, and that was lovely. I forget how good those books are.
• The non-Christmas highlight of my month was, of course, Behind the Curtain, the latest — and, arguably, best — in W.R. Gingell's Worlds Behind series. I loved pretty much everything about this book, but the best bits were getting to know more about Camellia's past and seeing Athelas connect more with both her and Harrow. I especially loved the growing bond between Athelas and Harrow, and there's one particular scene — but that's a spoiler, so you'll all have to read it to know what I'm talking about.
• On the Christmas side, we had several rereads: Christmas in Talesend (which nicely filled the one-night gap between finishing Illusion and the release of Behind the Curtain), Hogfather (one of my favorite Discworld novels, and certainly the book I've read most in the series), and A Christmas Carol (read via the Dickens December Substack). Also in this category is my current read, A Superhero for Christmas . . . which I really should have read before Christmas, but I was busy.
• Finally, we have two new-to-me reads: Greenglass House and Twelve Days of (Faerie) Christmas. Greenglass House is a middle-grade novel, good but not amazing. I liked the mystery and the setting, but I think I would have enjoyed it more if I'd read it first when I was closer to the target audience's age.
• Twelve Days of Faerie Christmas, on the other hand, was an absolute delight. It's a sweet, fun Christmas romance involving lots of fae magic and schemes and a very clever take on the gifts of the Twelve Days of Christmas song. Every bit of it is a delight, but the ending most of all. I will absolutely be rereading this one next year, though I may do so after Christmas instead of before so the timing lines up properly. (I could have done that this year . . . but I was really excited and didn't want to wait.)

Watching!

• Surprisingly, this month didn't involve watching as many movies and shows as it usually does. Most Decembers, we watch a lot of movies as a family, and I also watch a lot of shows on my own because I'm trying to finish Christmas gifts. This year, I only had one gift I could work on while watching something else, and we also had less opportunity to watch things together until Christmas weekend and the following week.
• That meant we didn't rewatch as many Christmas movies as usual, but we did get a few in: A Charlie Brown Christmas, White Christmas, and The Man Who Invented Christmas. I also rewatched 'Twas the Night Before Critmas, the Critical Role Christmas oneshot because . . . well, it's fun, and I haven't watched any Critical Role in a long while.
• We also watched Holiday Inn, which I hadn't see before this year. I don't think I'm going to rewatch that one — I'd rather just watch White Christmas, where I like all the characters, most of the scheming is funny and benevolent (even if it does have an angle of self-benefit) and someone at least tries to have a civil, mature conversation about what's going on instead of just being possessive and manipulative. No, I don't have strong feelings about this at all; whatever gave you that idea?
• The one notable non-Christmas movie I watched was Across the Spider-Verse on the day after Christmas. My sister watched it a few months ago, loved it, and told me I needed to watch it . . . but I have a really hard time watching movies by myself (because if I have three straight hours all to myself, then I have other things that I need to be doing with those hours), so we planned to watch it together while she was here for the holiday. I really enjoyed that! Though I think Miguel is a drama queen with bad logic who doesn't deserve half the hype he gets, either in-universe or from the fandom, and I want to know why more people aren't talking about The Spot, because yes, he had a rather cliche motivation, but otherwise he's such a cool villain, with an excellent progression from being played for laughs to being a genuine threat.
• (I know why he gets the hype both places, for the record. To the fandom, he's an anti-hero with an excellent sense of drama. In-universe, it's because his explanation of things makes all the sadness and tragedy in the spider-peoples' lives make sense and absolves them of any guilt or regret. Of course it happened this way. It had to happen this way. It always happens this way. There was nothing they could've done otherwise, and trying just would have doomed everything. Or so he claims. So, yeah, I get it. I just don't think he deserves the hype.)
• Seeing all the spider-people was cool, though. And Gwen and Miles both had great character arcs, plus I liked how the movie showed the mingled love and tension in their relationships with their respective families. So, good movie.

Life!

• So, December started off well — quite well, even, as on the very first day of the month, I had the pleasure of attending a former coworker's very lovely wedding. Both the ceremony and the reception were beautiful, and the couple made a point of keeping Christ centered in all of it — it's the only wedding I've ever encountered that involved Communion for the whole congregation because the couple wanted to serve Communion together as their first action as husband and wife.
• The rest of the weekend, however, signaled the start of a downhill slide, as my dad came down with a very bad cold on Saturday. My mom and I did our best to avoid catching it, but by midweek, around the time he started feeling better, we were both down for the count, and I was home on sick leave. Thankfully, after several days of rest, we were both feeling better in time for me to go to work the following Monday . . . and then my dad caught the same cold again from a coworker. Thankfully, everyone was healthy again (or mostly so) in time for Christmas, but it was still stressful and frustrating, and it also made doing anything Christmas-y difficult.
• It also made finishing my grad school class difficult (or, you know, more difficult) and solidly shattered my plans of wrapping up my final project early. I ended up doing most of the work on said project on the last two days of the class. Thankfully, a lot of the prep had already been covered by previous assignments, so I was able to get the thing written and turned in on time. And now I am done with grant writing for hopefully a very long time.
• Still, I am grateful that one of the few gaps in the cycle of colds was the Friday of our Bible Study's Christmas party. We always do a baked potato bar and an ice cream bar, and usually the kids act out the Christmas story in a sort of semi-impromptu play. This year, however, we knew we wouldn't have many kids there, so we decided to switch to a dramatic reading of the Christmas story, interspersed with Christmas carols. I helped with a lot of the planning for that; it was the first time in years that I've been so excited for a Christmas play-adjacent thing. I think everyone enjoyed it, and I was certainly happy about how it worked out.
• Also that weekend, at least if I recall correctly, was my D&D group's last session of the year, in which we defeated one of our nemesis once and for all — he's a rakshasa, and we killed him once in the mortal plane, but he can come back . . . so we went to his plane and took him down a second time so he can't keep on with his schemes and tricks. I got the killing blow and cut him off mid-monologue, and it was very satisfying. (I did give the DM a chance to talk, for the record! But not a long chance, as it very quickly became clear that this guy had nothing useful to say and would just try to turn us off our purpose if we let him go on.)
• The fact that everyone spent so much of the month sick meant less attention was given to things like Christmas baking, but we did still make cookies. We just didn't try any new recipes for Christmas itself this year. All the same, my gingersnaps and peppermint pinwheels turned out well, and my mom made macaroons, peanut butter balls, biscotti, and Russian teacakes, so I'm happy. And I did make oatmeal-ginger cookies at the start of the month, which were also very tasty.
• Probably the best part of Christmas this year was that my sister came down from Ohio for the holiday! She arrived Saturday, just in time for us to go to the Christmas Eve-Eve service at our church — which, by the way, was lovely. It wasn't as much of a spectacular as some past years have been, but I think it was nicer overall, as we had more traditional songs, and I think the pastor's message was better than it has been some years. Then, Christmas Eve and Christmas Day were both pretty chill, on the whole. I received some lovely gifts (including new planners and the Baking Yesteryear recipe book), and my family liked the gifts I gave them. There wasn't anything really out of the ordinary about either day, but they were still good days.
• My sister returned to Ohio on Wednesday, and we drove up with her as far as Pittsburgh to visit my grandpa for a little while. Getting to see him again was nice, and I'm happy to report that he's recovering pretty well from all the various medical stuff he's had to deal with over the course of this year. All in all, it was a good visit.
• There's a few days left yet in December, but I anticipate those being mostly quiet, with the exception of New Year's Eve afternoon and evening. My former roommate and I will do our gift exchange (over video call) that afternoon, and I look forward to that — she's in one of my D&D groups, but that group hasn't really met all month, so I haven't seen her in a while. And then our Bible study always has a party for New Year's Eve that should be lots of fun. It'll be a good way to end the year, that's for certain.

January Plans

• January means getting back to business as usual, with work, writing, and grad school.
• On the writing front, I'll be working on Daughters of Atirse #2. This is a prequel to Song of the Selkies focusing on Ceana's older sister, Onora, and it's also a retelling that blends The Goose Girl with Puss in Boots. I'll probably outline it over the next couple days (if I have time) and then start actually writing at the beginning of January. If I have time, I'll probably also try to squeeze in a draft of whatever I do for H.L. Burke's DOSA-verse anthology. (I have about 75% of an idea. I just have to work out some loose ends.)
• At work, I'm hoping for a fairly quiet month. January usually doesn't have a lot going on, so that hope has a reasonable chance of being fulfilled. That said, we're getting ready to launch some new grief ministries, so we'll see how busy that keeps me.
• As for grad school . . . confession time: I still need to register for the next set of classes. I should have done that a couple weeks ago, but I was too busy with Christmas stuff, and I also didn't even want to think about classes for a solid week after I finished my most recent one. I think the next thing I'm taking is technical writing, though, which should be pretty chill. Technical writing isn't my favorite type of writing ever, but I also don't dislike it, and I think I'm fairly good at it. So, we'll see how things go.
• When it comes to reading, I have some exciting ARCs waiting for me on my Kindle — the only reason I haven't read them yet is that I've been distracted by Christmas stories! But I'll fix that pretty soon. Otherwise, well, I'm trying not to plan too much.
• Lastly, on the crafting front, I have a crochet shawl that I'm hoping to make good progress on. I'm also toying with the idea of giving some new crafts a try . . . but we'll see if that actually goes anywhere or not.
• And, of course, I'll be setting my New Year's goals in the next couple days, so we'll see what comes of those.

How was your December? How was your Christmas? Any plans for January? Please tell me in the comments!
Thanks for reading!

 

December 2023 Doings!

Here we are — December 1, and for me, at least, the Christmas season is in full swing! As I write this, I'm listening to the Trans-Siberian Orchestra (always a delight), and I'm very excited to start both Dickens December (aka, reading The Christmas Carol in day-by-day serial fashion, Dracula Daily-style) and my cheese Advent calendars. But I'm getting ahead of myself — this post is about November, not December. Last month was, unsurprisingly, pretty busy, but it was a good busy . . . mostly. Let's get into the recap and you'll see what I mean.

Writing!

• The month started out with another author event. Heather Halverstadt, L. Jagi Lamplighter, and I shared a table at Doxacon, a very small speculative fiction fan convention associated with the Orthodox and Catholic churches. While navigation was frustrating (I lost my way multiple times trying to find my way around the location — and then ended up at the bottom of a flight of stairs with a cartload of books) and I didn't sell nearly as many books as I hoped, I did meet many cool people, both readers and other authors. Additionally, the vendor hall and the main sessions were in the same place, so I got to listen in on some of the talks for free, which was great. All in all, it was a pretty good day. I think I'll try to go as a vendor again next year . . . though I will probably prepare differently next time!
• As far as actual writing goes: I finished my challenge story (the platonic Beauty and the Beast), and I'm very happy with how it turned out. I took my birthday off for the express purpose of finishing it and working on Bastian Dennel, and that was fun.
• I did not finish Bastian Dennel, PI #4, due to Thanksgiving and my sister being home. However, I am within a chapter or two of being done, so . . . there's that? I could probably finish this weekend if I have time and focus enough, but I'm not sure if I'll have both of those in sufficient supply.
• I've also been doing a lot of brainstorming on possible future stories with a friend of mine. This is not very helpful when it comes to writing present stories, but it's fun, and it's sort of adjacent to being productive, so . . . yes. I swear, if I write anywhere near all the ideas I have, I'm going to end up with a backlist that, at least in terms of quantity, puts the likes of Brandon Sanderson and Bryan Davis to shame. Alas that I can't afford to just spend all my time writing . . .
• I also celebrated five years since Blood in the Snow released and I became an officially published author! And by "celebrated" I mean that I wrote a blog post and an Instagram post about it and mentioned it to my family after a friend reminded me that it was, in fact, kind of a significant anniversary. It still counts as a celebration, right?

Reading!

• This month was almost all rereads — out of eighteen books that I read or finished in November, only four were actually new to me.
• My main rereads were the second half of the  Knight and Rogue series and most of the Delicious in Dungeon manga series. Both were excellent on the reread, I'm happy to say. My Delicious in Dungeon reread culminated in reading the latest two volumes, which were both new to me. I enjoyed both, and I'm looking forward to seeing how the series wraps up when the final volumes release sometime next year. (My favorites are still earlier in the series, but that's not surprising.)
• Dracula Daily and Re:Dracula both wrapped up in early November, which is why Dracula is on there twice. I very much enjoyed experiencing Dracula a second and third time, and I highly recommend both the Substack and the podcast as ways to experience this story! (Also, I thought I was prepared for a certain element of the climax . . . and I was with regards to Dracula Daily, but I definitely was not properly prepared for Re:Dracula.)
• My two new reads, aside from the latest Delicious in Dungeon books, were volume 14 of Fullmetal Alchemist and B. Dylan Hollis's cookbook, Baking Yesteryear. Well, I mostly skimmed the cookbook, but I read enough to be satisfied and to know there are recipes in it that I'd like to try. As for Fullmetal Alchemist . . . well, I got worked up enough over the ending to ask a friend for a very minor spoiler, that being whether or not a character's arc pulls away from the tragedy it seems to be headed towards.
• Also, while it's not listed here, I've been reading Time to Orbit: Unknown, which is a serially posted sci-fi story about a colony ship in which things have gone horribly wrong and one of the colonists gets unexpectedly woken to take on the role of captain . . . and all the other roles as well. I'm about halfway through right now, and while it's not a perfect story (either philosophically, ideologically, or technically), I've been really enjoying it. Delving into some sci-fi is a nice change of pace, there's an excellent mystery element, and the character dynamics are great. I don't remember how it ended up on my radar, but I'm glad it did. (Also, it's making me want to write a space fantasy story, so . . .  we'll see where that goes.)
• And because reading that seems to have put me on a sci-fi kick, I've started a reread of the Illuminae Files. I read Illuminae in the last few days (and stayed up far too late while doing so, but we're not talking about that), and I just started Gemina, and, look, these books are so good. Sometimes, action/suspense-type books don't hold up well on the reread, but these ones? These ones remain amazing. (Plus, I now have the full trilogy, and I'm so happy about that!)

Watching!

• I actually watched a bunch of stuff this month? Somehow? And, surprisingly, only half of it was holiday-related.
• I squeezed in a couple more episodes of my Fairy Tail rewatch and another No Evil episode (I really need to get back to watching that series; I'm actually really close to caught up). I also joined my parents for a couple of episodes of Benson, which is an older sitcom. Surprisingly, I enjoyed the two episodes I watched, even though I usually don't go in for that genre. Not something I'd go out of my way to watch, but I would not object to watching more if other people happened to have it on and I didn't have anything pressing to do at the time. (This is more of a compliment than it probably sounds like, for the record. My family will confirm that I am not afraid to flee the room if a show comes on that I don't like, even if I don't necessarily have something better to do.)
• On the holiday movie front, we of course watched Charlie Brown Thanksgiving (a few days before Thanksgiving), and we also watched The Lemon Drop Kid while my sister was home. On a side note, if you haven't watched The Lemon Drop Kid, do yourself a favor and fix that. It's not a perfect story, but it is so much fun — it's the classic "con man tries a desperate scheme, but accidentally gets Invested" trope, but at Christmas! With lots of humor! I love it.
• We also watched Miracle on 34th Street, and for once, I decided not to find something more pressing to do. I hated this movie for a long while — when I was small (under ten or so), we'd always watch it on Thanksgiving, but most of it went right over my head, and I always ended up bored and annoyed. Eventually I just stopped watching it. This year I decided to give it another chance, and I will say that, surprise, surprise, it's a much better movie when you actually understand the nuances of the characters and what's going on! It's still not something I'd pick out to watch on my own, but I'd potentially watch it again if other people wanted to see it.
• Finally, a new-to-me old movie: It Happened in 5th Avenue. I really wanted to love this one, and I did like it . . . but not as well as I'd hoped. The general concept was fun, and I liked that part of the emotional grounding was the restoration of a family in addition to the romance element. However, one of the major characters very much annoyed me after a while, plus there was instalove romance, and while I could deal with either of those two on their own, the combination was just a little too frustrating for this to be a new favorite (or anywhere close). I'd still watch it again, but yeah. Not as good as I hoped.

Life!

• As I said already, November was a busy month. Doxacon obviously dominated the first weekend of the month — but the following weekend was also busy with lots of running around here, there, and everywhere else.
• Then the weekend after that was my birthday, which was fun! I already mentioned that I took my birthday off from work. When my coworkers asked what I planned to do, I told them that, if it was a good day, I'd spend the whole thing writing, and if it was a very good day, I'd spend half my time writing and the other half either reading or crafting. And as it turns out, it was a very good day! I got in plenty of writing time, and I started working on a short fleece cloak. We also celebrated with homemade chocolate peanut butter tart (basically buckeye filling and chocolate in a graham cracker crust, very tasty) and a trip to my favorite Mexican restaurant on the weekend, so that was a delight.
• For those who want to know: the cloak is still not quite finished, but it's nearly there. I just need to sew on the fasteners and decide if I'm going to attach the hood or not. (I made the hood, but I had to piece it, and I'm not sure if I like how it turned out. Plus, I do have plenty of hats.) I'm also working on crocheting a Mobius shawl with some lovely black-and-silver yarn; despite a few false starts, it's going well, if much slower than I hoped. (Let's be real; "much slower than I hoped" describes pretty much every crafting project I tackle.)
• I also used my birthday as an excuse to try a local-ish crepe restaurant — I'd been meaning to check it out for months, but I hadn't gotten around to it until now. I ordered a salmon benedict crepe and was caught very off-guard by the size. It was even larger than the crepes at the Maryland Renaissance Faire, and that's saying something! I could barely finish the whole thing! It was tasty, though, and I definitely plan to go back sometime.
• Now we come to Thanksgiving! My sister flew in Thanksgiving morning and stayed until Saturday evening, and seeing her again was lovely. We had Thanksgiving dinner with our Bible study, as usual, which was fun. There was an abundance of good food, and my mom and sister spent most of the afternoon working on a puzzle with the friend who was hosting. I contributed to neither food nor puzzle, but ah well.
• One unusual thing we did this year was that we put up the Christmas tree and lights on Thanksgiving day, then did the actual decorating the day after Thanksgiving as usual. While I'm generally very firm about keeping Christmas after Thanksgiving, I think I liked putting the tree up a day early. Doing that meant we weren't already tired when we started putting up the decorations (or, not as tired), and it was a good way to work up an appetite for Thanksgiving dinner!
• At work, everything's abuzz with Advent and Christmas preparations. I spent a significant amount of the month working on the Advent newsletter and marketing materials for the Lessons & Carols and Christmas Eve services — but those are arguably some of my favorite projects of the year. I know I say this every year, but Advent truly is my favorite season to design for. I'm working primarily with my favorite colors (blue, gold, purple, green), the imagery is all filled with lovely lights and stars and candles, and I have the option to either lean into nostalgia and traditional designs (with fancy serif fonts and scrollwork) or go more modern (with silhouettes and minimalist colors and swishy script), with equal justification for either angle. So, yes, I'm busy, but I'm having fun with it.
• And, to be frank, it's a good thing that I'm enjoying my work (mostly), as I am not enjoying my grad school grant writing class. The professor isn't as bad as I feared he would be, but I just do not enjoy the subject matter. Heaven help me if I'm ever in a position where I have to write a grant application for real — and I absolutely do not want to ever have this as my main job. I'd rather freelance — storms, I'd rather work retail. The problem isn't even that it's particularly hard. The workload is actually pretty light. But I can't find anything to enjoy about the work itself, and I just want to be done.

December Plans

• Obviously, all the Christmas stuff will be happening. I'm working on putting together presents and thinking about what cookies I'm going to make  (and what I'm going to request that my mom make). We're trying to figure out which Christmas Eve service to go to — our church has six — and looking forward to my sister coming home again for the holiday (huzzah!), plus hoping that my grandpa will be doing well enough to visit too. I'm debating whether or not to go to the Lessons & Carols service at the church where I work, since I enjoyed it last year. And, of course, I will be listening to all the Christmas music!
• I also have two weeks left in my grant writing class, so I need to survive those and pray that my work ethic holds out long and strong enough that I finish well. I swear, even in my most-disliked high school and undergrad classes — even in my last months of my senior year — I have never felt such a strong desire to just not.
• Speaking of finishing things: I still need to finish Bastian Dennel, PI #4! I'm so close, but the last chapters are always one of the hardest parts of drafting . . . That said, I'm aiming to wrap up this draft by the end of next week. We'll see what happens after that. I need to jump into my Song of the Selkies prequel sooner rather than later, but the weeks before Christmas aren't necessarily the best time to start a new project, plus I need to write my New Year's Eve short story. I'd like to get it written well in advance for once, but who knows if that'll work out. In any case, I'll see how BDPI #4 and my grant writing final project go and figure things out from there.
• Work will continue to be busy, but not unreasonably or unbearably so. At this point, I have a pretty good handle on what needs doing, and a lot is already done. The hardest thing will probably just be making sure everything stays on schedule and cornering people long enough to get the information I need from them. I will be doing three different bulletins the week before Christmas, which will be a lot . . . but honestly, that's not much worse than Holy Week, and I can get bulletins done pretty fast these days as long as people give me the content I need! So as long as I can keep my focus, I should be fine.
• I'm sure I'll also have plenty to do on the crafting front, what with making some Christmas gift items, though I'm not making as much as I have in some past years. Most of what I have planned is stuff I can do relatively quickly; the tricky bit is that not all of it is as portable as I'd like . . .
• Finishing up with a housekeeping note: I will not be posting on the blogs next week or the week after. My next post will most likely be my Winter 2023–2024 Reads post on December 22, and then I'll do the usual month- and year-wrap-up posts on the appropriate dates. The next two weeks are critical for finishing both the grant-writing class and BDPI #4, so I don't want to have to worry about getting blog posts up during that time. Of course, the rest of you might be so busy that you don't even notice I'm not posting.

How was your November? What are you looking forward to in December? Do you tend to make many Christmas presents? Do you find it harder to start projects or finish them? Please tell me in the comments!
Thanks for reading!

 

December 2021 Doings!

And here we are, at the final Doings! of 2021. It's been a year — not as strange and terrifying and crazy as 2020, but still very different. But we aren't here to talk about 2021 as a whole; we're here to talk about the last twelfth of that year. So, let's get on with it.

Writing!

• So, Bastian Dennel, PI #3 is not finished. But I did make progress, which I count as a win. I currently have about 30K words and 17 chapters, and the end is more or less in sight at this point.
• Thus far, the theme of this book seems to be "how much can I have other characters exasperate and/or threaten Bastian before he loses it." He has come close. But he's holding on. It's very fun to write.
• Outside of my novel, I ended up doing more D&D writing, which was super fun. One of my players ended up not being able to make it to really any of our December sessions, and what I had planned wouldn't work without her, but none of the rest of us wanted to go a month with no sessions . . . so, at the almost-last minute, I put together an extra two sessions' worth of material that didn't require the fourth player. My group is hopping from realm to realm, and so far they've encountered a Spring Court fey noble, fought a Jabberwock in my take on Wonderland, and proved themselves to the Wild Hunt. They have two more stops before the finale, and I'm looking forward to both of them.
• We also had to switch from meeting via Zoom to meeting via Discord, which is fine except that it makes running combat difficult. We're experimenting with digital maps, and I'm trying to find a service that I like for creating them (because if I do everything in Illustrator, I will take far too long about it). If anyone has any recommendations that aren't Roll20 (which I've tried and can't figure out), please let me know.
• And, of course, I'm currently working on my New Year's Eve short story, which should be posted tonight. Took me a bit to figure out what to do, but I like the way it's shaping up on the whole.

Reading!

• Oddly enough, I didn't really do a ton of reading this month. And what I did read, for the most part, I took my time with. That's probably because I didn't have time to read a lot most evening, I was so busy with . . . well, everything else.
• So, what did I read?
• The month was evenly split between new reads and rereads. On the new read side, we had Heart of Shadow and One Corpse Too Many. Heart of Shadow is a fantasy adventure with a hefty dose of romance, and . . . honestly? It was recommended to me as a Vespertine readalike, which meant I was simultaneously excited and very skeptical, but it was so good. And then One Corpse Too Many is book 2 of the Brother Cadfael mysteries. I think I liked the first book better, but this one was still very enjoyable.
• Then on the reread side were the first two Legends of Karac Tor, The Book of Names and Corus the Champion. I've been meaning to reread this series for a while, and I'm glad I finally got around to it. There were some elements that I noticed this time around that were kind of  . . . well, they might've been stylistic choices I disagree with, or they might've been instances that could've used another round with the editor's pen. But the stories and the characters still hold true and magnificent.

Watching!

• Unsurprisingly, this section is mostly Christmas movies. Mostly in the second half of the month, my family and I watched A Christmas Carol, A Charlie Brown Christmas, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, The Lemon Drop Kid, and White Christmas. That's slightly fewer than I watched last year, but it hits my four favorites plus one more, so I'm hardly complaining.
• Otherwise, I watched a little more Critical Role, though not a lot. I'm still way behind on Campaign 3 of Critical Role — I'm nearly done with episode 4 — but I'm still enjoying what I've seen. I also watched their Christmas one-shot from a few years ago, and . . . ok, I spent a lot of it thinking about whether or not I could do something similar for my group next year. But I have learned that I do very much enjoy Liam's DMing style, and it looked like the cast was just having a ton of fun with the session in general.
• And, of course, there was the requisite assortment of YouTube watched while making Christmas presents for people. This year's highlights: Morgan Donner's shenanigan pants and a fair amount of the How to Drink archive, which I started on because they were recreating drinks from Critical Role and other fantasy stories, watched more of because it was useful story research, and then kept going with because it was just enjoyable.

Life!

• First off: the non-writing project I spent the most time on: a crochet garden for my sister! Technically I've been working on this (plus another five plants not pictured, which went to my roommate, my mom, my grandfather, and me) since November, but I kicked it into high gear in December. Thankfully, the individual plants work up pretty quickly — I can do the soil in about two hours, then add another one-and-a-half to two hours for making the actual plant and sewing it in place — but I needed to make a lot of them. And, of course, once my sister got home, it was harder to get anything done on them without her seeing. I ended up working right up to the literal last minute, finishing the last plant (for my mom) before breakfast on Christmas. But I'm very pleased with how they all turned out, and they were well-received by everyone who got them.
• And now, backing up: December was, as you'd expect, a pretty busy month. My sister arrived home from college somewhere around the 9th or the 10th, which has been nice — I really miss her when she's at college.
• I did a fair bit of baking, as you'd expect: shortbread at the start of the month (not technically Christmas cookies, but close enough), then rolls and peppermint brownies for my work Christmas party, and finally molasses cookies and mint checkerboard cookies as my contribution to the family Christmas treats, plus fresh bread to go with Christmas dinner. (Even so, it's only a drop in the bucket compared to everything my mom made: pumpkin cookies at the start of the month, another batch of shortbread, two batches of basically-buckeyes, an immense amount of mint truffles, chocolate-peanut butter and chocolate-caramel crackers, Russian teacakes, macaroon bars, cranberry-almond biscotti, ladylocks, and a little bit of assorted bark with the leftover chocolate. Yes, Christmas at our house is delicious.)
• As I just mentioned, I had my first-ever work Christmas party, which was pretty enjoyable. Thankfully, it was a luncheon and not something after-hours, and it involved a great deal of delicious food and desserts. (Did I eat too much? Absolutely. Was it worth it? Again, absolutely.) All in all, it was a nice time.
• Our Bible study's Christmas party was later that same week, and that was also a lot of fun. It's the first time I haven't needed to play a role in the impromptu Christmas pagaent, which was nice — we actually had enough kids to fill all the roles without needing to double up or draw from the less-excited college and post-college kids. (For the record, I'm not complaining about having to participate in past years . . . but it definitely did become less fun for me somewhere down the line, whereas my sister seems to get more into it as time goes on.)
• Then we had a relatively quiet week, broken only by the final photo contest of 2022, which had the theme of doors and windows. On a related, non-Christmas-y note, I absolutely love that phone cameras have gotten so good. Of the four pictures I entered, three were taken on my phone, and they came out really well. They were high enough quality to work with (you couldn't make a large print of them, but for an 8x10 or a digital competition, they were sufficient), and because my workplace has a lot of really nice stained glass windows, it was great to be able to just take pictures where I happened to come across them instead.
• AND THEN WE'RE BACK TO CHRISTMAS! My grandpa arrived on the 23rd to stay for the weekend, and having him here was lovely. The next day we attended our church's noon Christmas Eve service, which I think was so well-done — sometimes I feel a little dissatisfied with how our church does Christmas Eve because it's not the traditional candlelight service, but this year's service was just so good. (Also, I discovered that I don't mind Lauren Daigel's "Noel" when it's not Daigel singing it.)
• Christmas itself was very nice as well. Everyone seemed to like the gifts I got them, which was a relief — I was second-guessing almost everything I got anyone this year. For my part, I was very happy with everything I got, but I was probably most excited about the Between Shifts paperback, a new mouse (that will hopefully prevent/reduce some of the wrist pain I've been dealing with in the last few months) and the fact that I finally got the NASA Grand Tour calendar. (It has travel posters for different planets and systems and asteroids for each month and it's just so cool.)
• The last bit of December has been, thankfully, quiet, both at work and at home. We'll finish out the month with our Bible study New Year's Eve get-together, and all in all, I think it's been a good end to the year.

January Plans

• I know I said this last year, but I really need to finish Bastian Dennel, PI #3. Depending on how long that takes, I still have a secret project novella that I want to start on, but I would have to write a complete, serviceable first draft in about a month's span . . . it's doable, but the last time I did it, I wasn't working full time, so we'll see what happens.
• Book-wise, I'm trying not to make too many predictions about what I'll read because I always seem to be wrong, but I do need to finish rereading Mistborn Era 1 (especially since The Lost Metal is releasing next year), and I want to continue rereading Wheel of Time while I still have something resembling momentum.
• And, like I said last month, I need to be working on taking photos for the 2022 photo club contests. The January contest is "household items," which I think will be fun. Still life, macro, and abstract photography is my jam, and so something like this is right up my alley.
• Finally, at work, my direct supervisor is retiring, and her replacement will be coming in partway through the month. I'm not going to lie; I'm nervous. But I do have confirmation that my very worst fears won't come to pass, so we'll see what happens.
• Yeah. In general, I'm hoping for a quiet month. We'll see if I actually get it or not!

How was your December? Any exciting plans for January? Any delightful Christmas stuff you did? What was your favorite holiday treat that you enjoyed this year? Please tell me in the comments!
Thanks for reading!

(Belated) November + December 2019 Doings!

It feels a little weird to be doing a recap post for November and December of last year after doing all my New Year 2020 posts earlier this week, not gonna lie. But I also know that if I don't do this post, I will eventually need to look back at it for some reason and then be frustrated that it doesn't exist. (For the record: I do occasionally go back and reread my Doings! posts, so this isn't out of the question.) So, let's get going. Because I'm covering two months, I'm going to try to stick to just the highlights and general themes — which is really going to be all I remember anyway.

Writing!

• NaNoWriMo occupied most of November, obviously, and is 50% of why I basically didn't post at all in November. As you may or may not remember, my goal was to complete a nonfiction piece and a D&D episode every week, and I pretty much accomplished that. Was it anywhere near 50K? No. But I didn't think it would be, so I'm counting it as a win.
• I have also determined that I have roughly the same relationship with creative nonfiction as I do with poetry: it can be fun to write, and I can do some really cool stuff with it, but it's not my natural state. I can't just sit down and write creative nonfiction if I haven't been mulling over an idea for a few days (a fact that caused more conflict than I'd like between my professor and me). Fantasy, on the other hand — if I'm not burned out and don't get distracted, I can sit down, review where I am in my novel or my campaign, and get a solid chunk of writing done regardless of how "inspired" I am.
• But I did submit some of the pieces I did to actual lit journals and stuff, so we'll see if anything comes of that.
• And Season 1 of my D&D campaign had a pretty good finish! Everyone had fun, and while the finale wasn't quite as awesome and amazing as I hoped (mostly because all the prelude to the final battle took waaaaay longer than I expected and we were all tired by then), I think it still worked well. And I've been working on Season 2 over break, and I have about half the episodes summarized. (Are they the half of the episodes I need? No. But they're there.)
• In terms of actual novel-writing, I was able to write some over Christmas break. I've adjusted my novel's timeline a little to make certain things happen sooner than I originally planned. And I'm still trying to figure out how to get my POV characters to actually interact. But I'm excited about what's coming up, and I'm hoping that I'll be able to work on it a lot more this coming semester.
• And, of course, I wrote the New Year's short story that I posted a few days ago! If you loved Luis in Mechanical Heart, you want to meet Luis, or you enjoyed last year's New Year's story, please do check it out!

Reading!

• I actually read a surprising amount in November? Most of which I could've sworn was in October? But apparently, I did a lot of stress-reading.
• Definite highlight of the two months: Sorcery of Thorns, which is basically one of my top three books of the whole year and absolutely amazing and yeah. In case you missed my Best of 2019 part two post, it's pretty much what might happen if someone took Howl's Moving Castle and crossed it with The Invisible Library and Abhorsen. So, yeah. It's amazing. Read it.
• I've also been working through the Grishaverse books over Christmas break. So far, the original trilogy was ok but not amazing (other than Sturmhound, who is awesome), the Six of Crows duology is as excellent the second time around as it was the first, and the four chapters I've read of King of Scars are solid but cause considerable pain in the feels.
• The main highlight from November was Death Be Not Proud, which is Snow White in jazz age New Zealand. It's every bit as good as that description implies, and I definitely recommend giving it a read.
• Besides that, I read H.L. Burke's latest books, and both were pretty enjoyable. Heart of the Curiosity is steampunk, which Burke does well, and features a sister duo who I greatly appreciate. And Prince of Stars, Son of Fate was fun and twisty and somehow made the forbidden romance trope work in a way that I liked for once.
• And, of course, I have to mention Heather Dixon Wallwork's The Enchanted Sonata, which is a pretty delightful retelling of The Nutcracker and which was my Christmas read for this year. It's more of an inspired-by sort of book, though, when it comes down to it . . . but, honestly, most Nutcracker retellings are more "inspired by" than "retelling." I enjoyed it quite a bit, though I don't think it had quite the same spark as the author's other books.

Watching!

• I basically watched nothing at all at Cedarville, mostly because I didn't have time to watch anything.
• At home, I watched the usual Christmas movies — A Charlie Brown Christmas, White Christmas, The Grinch. I finally watched the new version of the Grinch and thought that it was ok, but it's far less powerful than the original. (I have a long-ish diatribe on why that is, and it hinges a surprising amount on the Grinch's treatment of Max. If you're curious, ask in comments.)
• I also watched a couple more episodes of Doctor Who (I'm almost done with Season 2), an episode of Psych, and the first two episodes of an anime called Made in Abyss because I needed something to do while knitting and didn't feel like listening to audiobooks. Doctor Who was good, though the episodes I watched were all a bit weird. Psych I watched because I'd seen two partial episodes while watching over friends' shoulders and enjoyed those, but I don't think it's a show that I'll continue watching on my own — the concept is fun; the humor and main character are more enjoyable when you're not watching alone. And Made in Abyss is . . . interesting? A bit weird, but the concept is good.
• The most recent thing I watched (and possibly the best thing) was The Nutcracker and the Four Realms (as usual, I'm about a year behind everyone else). It was honestly a really good movie — it kind of felt as though someone had combined The Nutcracker with Entwined and The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. I saw a fair number of the twists coming, but not from a mile away, and artistically speaking, it was a pretty gorgeous film — frosted fairytale-toyland aesthetic with some delightful hints of steampunk throughout. A bit cliche at times, but still, I'd rewatch it.

Life!

• The semester is over; glory hallelujah. It was a great assortment of classes, and I learned a lot of cool stuff, but I had too many high-workload classes and too many extracurricular responsibilities going on at the same time, and that became very apparent in November and December, and the quality of my work suffered because of it. And, yes, everything got done on time, and I'm fairly satisfied overall with how my final projects and exams and such turned out in terms of quality, I am not 100% satisfied with the grades I got. And I know it doesn't matter long term, but . . . yeah. It happened, and I'm going to leave all the school stuff there.
• (I did learn how to do paperback binding, though! And actually bound multiple paperback books! And taught other people how to do it too! So that was cool.)
• There were three highlights to November: birthday celebration, Thanksgiving, and cheese night.
• For my birthday, my friends and I went to the new Mexican place that just opened in Cedarville and then went to the Ayo dance showcase, and it was a seriously awesome time. I'm not sure if I enjoyed the food or the showcase more, to be honest. But I do know that I'm definitely going back to the Mexican restaurant.
• Thanksgiving was fun; my sister, my sister's roommate, and I drove back together, and we survived the trips both there and back. It was nice to have some relaxing time at home, and I got to do some baking. (I made two types of roll, one regular yeast and one sourdough, and both turned out well.)
• And then when we got back, we had cheese night in my dorm. My roommate and I have been toying with this idea for a while; basically, we invite a bunch of people to get together, bringing with them assorted fun and fancy cheeses and things to eat with cheeses, like crackers and grapes and apples and sparkling cider, and then we just hang out and have a good time. And it was a very good time! Even though I was loopy for most of it! I ate much yummy food, and we played Avalon, and it was just generally a lot of fun.
• December, of course, was mostly occupied by Christmas, which was had in stages: the TDK Christmas party in November (a success), Christmas with my roommate (featuring gingerbread cookies that she decorated while I did statistics homework, because situational irony is a thing), Christmas with the Bible study (featuring a kids' Christmas play that didn't involve people playing multiple roles, along with some very delicious baked potatoes and a surprising number of people my age) and Christmas at home (featuring me, as usual, working until the last minute to get knitted gifts done).
• Christmas at home also featured a lot of baking; I made super soft molasses cookies two days before Christmas, sourdough pizza Christmas Eve, and a cranberry apple pie on Christmas day. (And I helped my mom with biscotti because I've never made it and want to learn how.) Everything was pretty delicious, even if my sister thought I put too much cheese on the pizza.
• AND I FINALLY MADE A SOURDOUGH LOAF THAT WAS THE RIGHT SHAPE! Behold the beauty:

• (And then I made another loaf for my aunt when she came to visit after Christmas and it was not as pretty. But oh well.)
• (I'm also currently making a non-sourdough artisan loaf based on the latest baking challenge on Sally's Baking Addiction, and I'm super excited to see how it turns out.)
• As I mentioned two points ago, my aunt and cousins came to visit after Christmas. It was nice to see them again, and we went to the Air and Space Museum while they were here, which I haven't been to in ages. I kind of ended up getting separated from the rest of my family at the very start of the museum . . . but it's fine. I had fun.
• New Year's Eve was also pretty fun; we got together with our Bible study as usual for an early countdown and lots of good food. And I got to see some of my old friends who moved away two summers ago, so that was fun.
• I feel like a lot of these highlights center around food. Mostly bread and cheese. I'm not entirely sure what that says about me.

January Plans

• I already talked about writing plans in my 2020 Vision post, but as a recap: I'm aiming for 300 words or 30 minutes of writing per day on either my novel or my D&D campaign. I'm also going to try to start gathering some info that I need to figure out my rough publishing plan.
• (I'm also messing around with a D&D one-shot for some friends who are interested in trying D&D but don't want to commit to a full campaign yet, so we'll see what happens with that. My main campaign takes first priority, obviously, but I have a rough outline for the one-shot, and . . . yeah. We'll see.)
• Classes start up again next week, so obviously, that's going to take a lot of my time. I'm excited, though; I have my last two professional writing classes, two web design classes (well, one and a half), a graphic design class, and a one-credit honors class. And even though I have a 9 AM and an 8 AM, I have nothing in the afternoons any day except Monday (when I have the honors class), and I only actually have two hours of in-class lecture time per day (with, again, the exception of Monday). Online classes are glorious.
• (I'm also hoping very much that I can do a repeat of last spring semester and get a couple weeks ahead on one of my web design classes so I'm not as stressed later on. That would be nice, but we'll see how it goes.)
• Speaking of stress, as I mentioned in my 2020 Vision post, I really need to buckle down on figuring out the after-college stuff. So, applying for jobs, obviously . . . but also thinking about grad school? Maybe? My parents recently brought it up as a possibility that I should consider, so I need to figure out if it's worth doing now, later, or not at all. And obviously, that'll take longer than just January, but I need to meet with people and get advice and all that sort of thing.
• Beyond that, most of my plans revolve around trying to make sure I have time to do fun stuff like watching Avatar and other shows with my roommate, actually going to Nerf wars (and maybe ASL club, if I manage to relearn enough of what I've forgotten), and having a board game night or two (assuming other people have time for that . . .). Y'know, fun stuff with friends, since I only have a few months left with most of them. (And now I'm sad . . .)

How were your November and December? Did you get any good books (or other stuff) for Christmas? What plans do you have for January? Please tell me in the comments!
Thanks for reading!
-Sarah (Leilani Sunblade)    

November + December 2018 Doings!

So, yeah, I missed the November Doings! post. I blame finals or something. And now I get to sum up two months in one post at the busiest time of year. Why do I do this to myself? Oh well.

Writing!

• Mechanical Heart basically consumed my life for the last two months, as far as writing goes. In my second rewrite, I planned to rearrange a few scenes, give Josiah's sister a slightly bigger roll, and expand a few scenes and elements so things would flow more slowly. The story would expand by maybe five chapters maximum, and I'd be done in about a month.
• Obviously, though, that didn't happen! Instead, I doubled the length of the story, added a bunch of new scenes and possibly a new subplot (I can't remember for sure how much of any subplot was in the original), and spent waaaay too much time making it all happen.
• For what it's worth, I do think the story is much better for the changes. I just I wish I'd been able to finish a little faster, especially because I still need to write several of my Actual Writing Job short stories. (Thankfully, I already have those plotted, so all I have to do is actually write them.)
• Oh, and I wrote three different holiday specials: "A Symphony of Thanks" and "The Promise Star," both of which I've posted on my blog already, and a New Year's special that will go up tonight at midnight. I enjoyed writing all of them; it's nice to work on something so short and contained after spending so much time on longer pieces. I think the New Year's special was my favorite, but that's mostly because I find the concept pretty amusing.

Reading!

• November and December were actually relatively good reading months, despite (or perhaps because of) how busy I was. I actually ended up doing a lot of rereading, which is kind of a rarity. Around mid-November, I reread the Raven Cycle — don't ask me why, but I certainly don't regret my decision. There was a lot more of certain content than I remembered — or maybe I just ignored it before. I don't know. I still enjoyed the series a lot, though. Then, once I got back home on Christmas break, I reread all of Donita K. Paul's DragonKeeper and Chiril books. I used to love the series, but I hadn't read them in years, and I wanted to know how well they'd hold up. Thankfully, I actually enjoyed most of them more now than I remembered, especially the last two DragonKeeper Chronicles.
• On the downside, I want a minor dragon more than ever now. But I'm used to that.
• I did read quite a few new books, though! The best of these were Six of Crows and Crooked Kingdom, which I talked about in my End-of-Year Book Freakout last Friday. Close behind was the Five Poisoned Apples collection. It's an excellent set of short stories, each better than the last. I think "Red as Blood" was my favorite, with "Fairest One" and "Snowbird and the Red Shoes" close seconds. And, to be honest, I can see now why Blood in the Snow didn't make it into the collection — it focuses on a slightly different aspect of the tale than most of these stories do, and it shares some significant elements with another story that absolutely deserves to be in there. That's not to say that Blood in the Snow is worse or better than any of the stories, just that it wouldn't have fit as well with them.
• My third-favorite read of these past two months was Skyward, Brandon Sanderson's new YA release. I will admit that I wasn't as thrilled with it as I hoped to be. Sanderson came through on what he promised: a strong and stubborn heroine, a fascinating sentient spaceship, epic space battles, and a pretty cool space academy. Plus, he gave us some pretty great female friendships — always a plus. But a few elements of the story fell a little flat, and certain characters and elements seemed a little more expected than you'd typically find in a Sanderson novel.
• We round out the month with Dagger's Sleep and Christmas in Talesend. The latter is a fun collection of Afterverse Christmas stories that I read on Christmas Eve and thoroughly enjoyed. The former is a mixed bag of a Sleeping Beauty retelling by Tricia Mingerink. The storyline and concept were great, and I liked most of the characters . . . but not all of them. Plus, the worldbuilding bugged me a lot. Still a good read, but not a great one.

Watching!

• I actually watched a pretty wide variety of stuff these last two months: some Doctor Who, a few episodes of Miraculous Ladybug, the last of the first arc in Sword Art Online, and a lot of random Studio C, Door Monster, and It's a Southern Thing. I enjoyed most of it, and I'm quite glad that I discovered the Door Monster YouTube channel. They make mostly geeky D&D and video game-based sketches and they're just really fun.
• On a less cheerful note, unless anyone can convince me otherwise, I think I might be giving up on Doctor Who. I managed another few episodes — the one with Dickens and the ghosts, the first Dalek episode, and Satellite 5 — but I keep getting frustrated with the show, the characters, and the storylines. If I'm giving up too soon, please tell me, but otherwise? I have other things I'd rather watch.
• Also: PART SIX OF JOURNEY TO THE WEST HAPPENED! I've basically been waiting for part six for literal months. (Was it worth the wait? Yes. 500%. And you should go watch the whole series; you can find the playlist here.)
• I also learned that, if you're going to start an anime, you should sure there's an English version available (or at least English subtitles). On a completely unrelated note, Re:Creators on Amazon Video doesn't meet either of those qualifications.
• Most of what I've watched recently, of course, has been Christmas movies: some I watch every year (like White Christmas and Grinch) and some that I haven't watched in years: the Barbie Nutcracker and the first two VeggieTales Christmas videos. (What? I had knitting to do, and I needed something short.) Let me say, the VeggieTales ones are seriously underrated and a lot more fun than the last time I remember watching them. I think I may need to add them to my list of movies I watch every Christmas. We'll see.

Life!

• I literally remember next to nothing about November. I think I spent most of the month in a state of perpetual NaNo-and-school-induced stress. Um . . . I drew dice and pencils a lot for 2D Design. That happened.
• I went to the Ayo dance org's fall showcase midway through November. That was fun, though I enjoyed last year's show better. This year's show involved a lot of swing dance, which was cool, but I didn't enjoy the songs nearly as much.
• Also in November was the art and design org's Clay Night, an event in which all the people not in the ceramics class got to head down to the ceramics lab and learn how to do hand-thrown and wheel-made clay creations. I had mixed results with most of my creations, and I struggled more with the wheel than I thought I would . . . but I still want to do it again. (I really wish I had the time and money to try stuff like this out for more than just a night — during this semester, I've had the chance to experiment with a lot of media, but I didn't have enough time with any of them to decide to turn them into a long-term hobby. Not that I have a lot of money for them even if I did want to do them long-term . . .)
• And there were the PWID internship reports, of course. This year, I was giving a report, not just listening, which made the event mildly more interesting but also much more stressful. I don't think I sounded half as professional as I wanted to, and the fact that I initially went to the wrong building didn't help — PWID events are usually in the same room as our classes are, but this year we had so many people that we had to use a room in the BTS. I think it turned out all right, though.
• Then, in December, everything was either CHRISTMAS or FINALS. I honestly think they both caused me about the same amount of stress. I only had one actual final, but I had really big final projects in all my other classes: a fifty-minute group presentation, a website redesign and rewrite (thankfully, I was only really responsible for the rewrite; my partners handled the design), two infographics, a logo, and eight art pieces on the theme of pencilness.
• Once again, I covered Campus Christmas Open Dorms for the college paper — but this time I both took photos and wrote an article. That was an interesting adventure. I was really impressed with my hall's setup as well. We decided to theme our hall after Clue and had a whole interactive mystery set up. I was pulled in to help write the storyline and dialogue, which turned out a bit more stressful than I expected (mostly because the other writer didn't get me the information I needed until a day or two before the actual event . . . gah!). Still, it worked out, and I think it's the best Campus Christmas my hall has had in the time I've been there.
• I also spent a lot of time knitting and crocheting, making Christmas presents for my hallmates. I'm not going to say what they were because some of them read this blog and left before I could give them their gifts . . . but I am happy with how they turned out in the end.
• And my roommate and I made gingerbread! Which turned out super yummy but also sparked a discussion about the uses of molasses that left me astonished. (I maintain that it is delicious on biscuits at breakfast. She's never heard of such a thing and wouldn't try it if you paid her. But it's fine. Part of the problem is that the only molasses she knows is baking molasses, not sorghum molasses, which is lighter, sweeter, and far superior.)
• Of course, I had Thanksgiving and Christmas breaks, which means I got to spend a lot of time at home, enjoying the company of my family. I introduced them to Codenames, we ate much good food, and I very much appreciated not having to go to class. Plus I had time to do a lot of reading, which makes me happy.

• And we went to Mount Vernon, which I haven't been to since I was, like . . . six-ish. We weren't allowed to take pictures inside the actual house, which was disappointing, but the tour was still very interesting. I think it'll be helpful for story research as well — even without taking pictures, the memory is a good reference for how locations in one of my book series might look.
• Then we had Christmas itself! My grandpa came down for the holiday, and that meant that my mom made ladylocks (otherwise known as an absolutely delicious type of pastry cookie). He arrived Sunday, and on Monday we went to our church's Christmas Eve service, which was insanely crowded — in fact, we intended to go at 2:00, but even though we arrived on time, we couldn't find seats! We ended up coming back at 3:15 to get seats for the 4:00 service. It was worth the wait, though: very well-presented and moving.
• And now we just have by Bible Study's New Year's Eve party tonight, which is always a good time, if sometimes a little overwhelming.

January Plans!

• I head back to college in about a week and I still don't have my books. I'm more than a little stressed about this. But I'm excited about my classes next semester! I have two honors seminars on interesting topics, Tech Tools 1 (a class on different graphic design programs — all of which I know how to use to some degree already, but that means I can really dig into the projects), Instructional Design 2 (which should hopefully confirm whether or not instructional design is a good career option for me), Web Design (which is apparently online instead of in the classroom; I'm nervous), and User Experience (which I'm also stressed about but is with a professor I like, so it's fine). Also, I have no actual classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, which is going to be super weird but also should give me plenty of time to work on projects.
• I'm also excited to get back to D&D. My character just leveled up again at the end of last semester, which means I get to choose her Sacred Oath — basically, it's character development and new special powers. And I'm enjoying the group I'm in, even though it's a little more combat-focused than I expected. (Honestly, that's probably for the best, since I'm still a little awkward about talking in character.) Also, I now only need one more level before I get to start dual-wielding, and that's exciting.
• As far as writing goes, I'll probably talk about my plans a little more when I do my goals post for the year (probably coming on Friday). In the short term, though, my main project is the remainder of my Actual Writing Job short stories, which need to be written, edited, and submitted very soon. After that, I'll get back to longer projects.
• Other than that, I don't have a lot of plans for this month. Classes and orgs will likely proceed as usual. In my spare time, I'll read, write, and hang out with my roommate and hallmates as much as possible. I'd like to get to the gym more often and do more watching of shows with my roommate, but we'll see how those work out.

So, that's my last two months. What about you? What have you been up to? Please tell me in the comments!
Thanks for reading!
-Sarah (Leilani Sunblade)   

Christmas Special: The Promise Star

Merry Christmas, everyone! However you celebrate, I hope you enjoy my Christmas gift to you: a holiday short story from the world of Blood in the Snow . . . where they don't actually celebrate Christmas, but I figured out their equivalent, so we're all good. 

"Please, Father, may I have just one more story?
Her father, the emperor of a great kingdom, shakes his head and stands. "It grows late, my snow-flower. You need sleep or you will be tired and grumble through the whole Promise celebration tomorrow."
The emperor's daughter looks up at her father with pleading eyes. "Please? I'll go to sleep as soon as you're done, and I won't so much as frown tomorrow, not even once. And no one tells the story of the Promise Star like you do."
"Very well. One more story."

Long, long ago, when there was no emperor and no king, when the Middle Kingdoms were nothing but hundreds of squabbling families —

“Like the Fire Islands are now?”
“Exactly as such.”

In those distant days dwelt a man who knew the Divine better than he knew himself. He studied all the prophecies and promises which the Divine had given, and he longed for the days in which they would be fulfilled.

“Did he know the prophecy about me, Father?”
“No, daughter. That prophecy came much later.”

One day, this man, whose name was Shai, prayed to the Divine, asking “Oh, greatest of great ones, when will You fulfill what you have promised? You say You will send one who will end all war and bring peace to all people, who will set free the slave and bind up broken hearts. Yet since the days of my father's fathers, we have been at war, and at war we still will be when my sons’ sons are grown if something does not change. I beg you, O Divine, give to me a sign that Your promised peacemaker will come.”

The man did not expect an answer, and so he was bewildered when a voice came from the stillness. The voice was quiet, yet it thundered in his soul, and it was gentle, yet it carried the force and majesty of a mountain storm. And the voice spoke: “Shai, son of Huang, I have heard your prayer. Now, look to the sky.”

So Shai looked, and there he saw —

“The Promise Star!”
“Indeed, now sit still, and let me tell the story. Or perhaps you wish to tell it to me?”
“Nooo! You finish, Father.”

Shai saw in the sky a new star, one far brighter than any others. And the light from this star fell to the ground before Shai and formed a doorway in the air that shimmered like silver. Then the Divine said, “Enter this gateway and I will show you the fulfillment of many promises.”

So Shai stepped into the silver arch and disappeared from the circles of this world. On the other side, he found himself in the midst of great sand dunes that stretched as far as his eyes could see. And in the sky above him was the star, for its splendid was so great as to stretch across worlds.

Shai saw nothing that would fulfill any of the promises of the Divine, so he resolved to follow the star that had brought him here. Surely, if the Divine had placed such a powerful sign in the sky, it must lead to an equally great promise.

As he trekked across the sandy plains, he encountered a tall man with skin dark as dark as the night sky and hair like the silver starlight, who glowed with the same radiance as that light. With him was a woman, dark-haired and sharp of face and tooth. Shai bowed to them, for he recognized them as an angel and a dragon, though they took the forms of men.

They bowed back and bid him speak. “Great ones, ” he said, “I have come from a distant land seeking the fulfillment of the Divine's promises. Are you what I seek, or do you know where I might find my goal?”

“We are not, ” the angel replied. “But we seek the same. Come, wise one, let us follow the star together, for three may see what one cannot.”

So they traveled onward, following the star. Along the way, they met a woman with hair the color of flame. She greeted them courteously and said, “Honored friends, I am Destiny, a prophetess of the Divine. I perceive that you seek what I do: the fulfillment of His greatest promises. Let me join you, for where many gather, there the Divine dwells.” They agreed, and the four continued their search.

“Father, if Destiny was a prophetess, why did she have to search? Couldn't she just know where the promise was?”
“Only if the Divine told her, my daughter. No prophet or prophetess knows all of the Divine's plans. They know only what they are told.”

On they traveled. As they went, they were joined by two more who were also seeking the fulfillment of the Divine's promises. One was like the men who dwell to the south and west of us: dark of skin and hair and bold of speech. The other was a pale woman who carried on her shoulder a creature that she called a dragon, though it was more like a winged lizard than a true dragon.

Shai and his companions continued to travel across the sand, following the star. Though they had little food or drink, they were sustained by their faith in the Divine and their hope in His promises. As they traveled, they shared stories of their worlds and sang of the Divine's great works.

After many days, they encountered a great caravan full of men and camels. The woman who was a dragon hailed the caravan and inquired to where it went.

“We seek a king,” replied one of its leaders, a wealthy priest and scholar who called himself Melchior. “A ruler like no other. We saw his star in the east and come to worship him.”

“We seek the same, ” said the woman, smiling like a cat. “Let us travel together.”

The caravan was reluctant to let such unusual strangers journey with them. But they could not refuse, for they valued hospitality as we do honor. And as time went by, they came to appreciate the wisdom and knowledge of Shai and his companions.

At last, the star led them to a great city and a magnificent palace.”Ah, ” declared the caravan leaders, “Surely this is the place where the king has been born.”

The woman who was a dragon shook her head. “This place smells of treachery and evil. We will find no true king nor promise here.” The angel agreed with her, as did the prophetess Destiny. Shai, for his part, knew nothing of treachery in that place, but it seemed to him that the star was leading them still onwards. However, the caravan leaders insisted, so in they went.

“Why did they not listen, if the dragon and the angel and the prophet all told them the same thing?”
“I know not, daughter, save that it must have been in the Divine's plan for them to enter the palace.”

Within the palace, they found a false, Giftless ruler who claimed he alone was king of that country. But as they continued to inquire, he sent for wise men, priests, and scholars. These men had studied the words of the Divine as well, and they sent the travelers on towards a small town called Bethlehem, for their own prophets had declared the king would be born there.

So they went on their way. As they drew near to the town, their spirits rise, and they became quite merry. Yet Shai began to worry. How could a king born in this world bring peace to his world? Moreover, he knew that all the others had brought gifts for the king who would fulfill the Divine's promises, yet Shai had nothing to give.

They reached the town, and the star led them to a little home where there dwelt a carpenter and his wife and their young son. When they looked upon the boy, the angel and the dragon both cried out in joy, and the caravan kings whispered, and tears ran down the prophetess's cheeks. But Shai looked, and he did not understand.

Then all the others brought out their gifts: frankincense and myrrh, and gold in many forms. One by one, the brought their gifts to the child-king and his parents and worshipped the Divine's promised peacemaker.

Last of all, Shai approached. And now, when he looked in the child’s eyes, he understood. This child, though as human as Shai him!self, carried the essence of the Divine. And somehow Shai knew that the child's actions in this world would bring peace to all realms. In awe, he knelt and worshipped and wept that he had no gift to offer.

Then the child reached down, as he had not for the others. He touched Shai's mouth and hands and laughed joyously. And suddenly, Shai understood this too. “Yes, ” he whispered so only the child could hear. “My mouth, my hands, my service; all these things are yours. I will tell my world what I have learned here; I will prepare the way for you to come.”

Then he and the others left the house rejoicing in what they had seen. And that night, the star shone one last time, and its light again formed the gateway to bring Shai and the others from other worlds home. Shai, upon his return, did all he said he would do. And it is because of his prayer, his journey, and his work that we now celebrate Promise Morn and remember that the Divine always fulfills His promises.

The emperor kissed his daughter's forehead. “Now, it is time that you sleep. Rest well.”
“I will.” The emperor's daughter snuggled down into her bed. “Father, I want to serve the Divine like Shai did.”
“I am glad to hear that. I have no doubt, my daughter, my snow-flower, that you will.” Then he departed, leaving his daughter to sleep and dream of stars and prophecies and promises yet to be fulfilled.