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!