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!