you're not going to slow it down

 Hey I finally completed some stuff--

All That Remains
Lupin III OT5 polyamory

Shameless Canadian Shack (on a boat) fic. 

~25k words

Any Road
FFXII Basch/Balthier
A/B/O Archades AU where Basch & Noah both became judges.
~10k words

Nobody's Cat
Cowboy Bebop (animated) Julia/Vicious/Spike w/other combinations
Syndicate era longfic. Dead Dove: Do Not Eat themes. 
Not quite finished, at least 60k words. 

OW3 also got finished last month, at least as far as draft 1.5. I'm going to redraft at least once before it hits the editor.  Hit 50k on the 22nd as usual, then blasted on by--wound up at about 120k worth of writing/transcription for the month. 

 So just a short list for my own sanity--Things unfinished that I want to finish:
-OW3
-All That Remains (so close! just needs discipline)
-Roque Guinart
-Original Short Story m/m police reform sci fi
-Snow After Fire 2

On the Docket (concepted, not yet started)
-Occurian Remains 2
-Generational FFX fic about Braska's pilgrimage
-OW4-onward

Things I'm tooling with but don't have "time" for (because I am so slow/procrastinating on other works)
-Toshinori Yagi is a Dragon AU
-Eraser/mic/might fic eventually?
-Cobra Kai Due South Au where Mr. Miyagi's ghost lives in Daniel's closet

I did GREAT last year and even completed Nanowrimo without issue. This year has been a series of compounding crises and even though I'm home more I've been less able to discipline myself into writing. I have managed to replay a few games that I've been wanting to, and currently the playthrough of FFX is generating a lot of notes for what I hope will be my Nanowrimo the end of this year (PROVIDED I can finish the 1/3 completed third book in my series that I should be focusing on; fanfic doesn't feed me, but hot damn it's fun). 

 Getting close to the end of Blood to Bleed finally I think. The actual ending is written; the epilogue lingers. I never set out to write something quite so long, it just kind of happens. 

Wrapped up my second original novel, too. Cleanup begins in the new year.

Nanowrimo on the way, I have uhhh some rough
ideas
that I should develop a little better but this month is chugging along at breakneck speed in a way I didn't count on.

I still have two editing jobs on my plate that I started midyear, not that I'm complaining, but I'd figured they'd have their whole manuscripts to me by now. I'm making it my Saturday habit, though.  On the other hand, I've been painting watercolor, and I'm enjoying it, but I'd like to get a few more minis painted before I fully commit to that as my artistic go-to. Been volunteering once a week with a horse rescue, just in general I've got more commitments than I usually allow myself but that's just how time goes sometimes, isn't it? 

And beyond that, the wheel in the sky keeps on turning. I have no real time for anything else. 

 Finished Reading:
Pride & Prejudice, Jane Austen - I didn't really like anyone in this book and I just kind of wished they'd all stop being mean to each other and realize how stupid they all are, but I respect Jane Austen's ability to make me feel that 200 years later, because I get the impression I SHOULD feel that way about the whole of the society at the time. Her writing is good, the characters were all uniquely conveyed and well expressed, they were just all terrible people. A couple of folks have suggested Northanger Abbey to me and I'll give it a shot after I've put some distance between me and the old P&P.

A Scanner Darkly, Phillip K. Dick - This is a reread of one that I've loved for a long time. There's something about Arctor and his slow ceasing to function as a self, and only then could he be rendered into a tool for the use of others, as well as the general absurdism prominent throughout the whole book and the series of interactions between he & his friends that resonates with me. Dick's 'futurepast' sci-fi is still some of my favourite today, where he imagines a future of video rentals and tape recorders and treats the people as the means through which to express the future. I enjoyed this just as much this time as I have every other time.

Still Reading:
The Stoneware Monkey - Currently the bathroom book. I chug through it int the tub.

The Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison - this is hard hard hard, and I can only listen for a few hours at a time. The writing is good, so good you can't help really feeling the impact of each event. Ellison is amazing at conveying the sometimes near-panic state of what the protagonist's existence must have been like and I feel like it's an important novel to read as part of self development, but it really dicks my anxiety hard to listen to it for too long, so I'm taking it in chunks. 

Just Started:
Murder on the Orient Express, Agatha Christie - I'm trying to pepper in some female authors to break up that list of '100 books to read before you die' which even with some modifications is still a sausagefestival (not that kind of sausage festival, toki.) This seems like a safe bet even though I've never much loved Poirot, I did enjoy the recent film adaptation of this. 

Orphan Train - On the fence about this one. The book shop ladies recommended it to me but it doesn't really jive with me so far. I'll give it a few more chapters and see how it goes. 

 Finished Reading:
Canticle for Leibowitz - An oldie that I was recommended, and that I enjoyed. Mostly by virtue of the fact that there were no women in it, so I could stand it the whole way through. Old Sci-Fi doesn't always age well, but this kind of reminded me of Neal Stephensen's Anathem, in a way.  Pretty before-it's-time in attitude and an interesting take on dystopia/future sci-fi/knowledge monks.

Dark, Sacred Night— no real surprise I enjoyed this Bosch novel. I'm really warming up to Ballard, I think I have The Late Show somewhere and I need to catch up on that one. Some of the issues dealt with are a little tricky-sticky in some ways, especially regarding Ballard's past but I can get around the parts that could maybe be handled better in a different way since they're few and far between and Connelly is otherwise pretty savvy in not being a misogynist. 

Blood Work— Picked this up so I could get back to reading The Scarecrow, then finished it, then realized what I'd meant to listen to was The Poet because that's the other Jack McEvoy book, and I only remembered McCaleb 'cause he was in one of the earlier Bosch novels and wow I read a lot of Michael Connolly. 

Working on Now:
Pride and Prejudice—On my list of '100 to read before you die', and I think Austen has a very good talent for making me hate everyone (which I get the distinct impression I should) in her works. The writing itself is perfectly serviceable and I'm trying to take it as a satire but I have a very limited sense of humor (my own failing) and mostly I just hope everyone gets eaten by a shark. 

A Scanner Darkly (reread)—Definitely one of Dick's works that I've read before but it's a favourite and much like All The King's Men and Silver Metal Lover (yes they are quite different), it's one I come back to every so often. I think a lot of people identify with Deckhard or Anderton, but I think disillusioned and doomed Bob Arctor is strangely more my speed; with his compassion born of hard-won experience and his brain slowly scrambling in his head as he fights against a plot his government wants him to both solve, and yet they're the cause of. 



On Deck: 
I kinda want some Fantasy to slake my thirst, maybe I'll do Masterharper of Pern (reread)  if I feel like punishing myself. Or maybe I'll just faff off and write some. 

 People who survived final fantasy 7 according to extended canon:

• Rufus Shinra
• Tseng
• Don Corneo
• Hojo

People who survived getting stabbed by Sephiroth:

• Tifa
• Cloud
• Tseng

People who probably actually died?

• Heidigger
• Scarlet
• I don't know, Palmer got hit by a truck and then came back and vanished, I like to think a plate fell on his face.
• President Shinra Sr
• Aerith

So like the only two people who actually died from getting stabbed by Sephiroth, my question is like is Aerith literally made out of tissue paper? I know lots of folks have said 'of course you'd die from a giant sword getting stabbed through you' but contextually that doesn't seem to be the case, given the survival rate is greater than half out of those stabbed. (3/5 stabbed survived). I mean clearly I'm thinking too much but the postgame canon seems to heavily imply that the mortality rate of 7 wasn't nearly as high as originally thought. 

 February! 
Doing:

• February Ficlet Challenge only I got caught up in an old fandom on day 4 and now I'm in 'trying to write for other fandoms while re-reading all the pieces that were so important to me in this fandom, oh yes and there's new canon material as of last month as well ' hell.
• Assembling (with intent to paint) Reikenor the Grimhailer as well as some banshees for my Nighthaunt fixation.
• Working on Blood to Bleed god damnit
• WORKING OUT LIKE EVERY OTHER DAY WHO EVEN AM I

Reading:

• Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
• Automatic Detective
• Zeroes by Chuck Wendig

Playing:

• Kingdom Hearts Re:Chain of Memories
• Kingdom Hearts 3 (watching it being played)

 So currently I am hardcore KonMarie method-ing most of my house. It took a little while to get into the 'get rid of it' zone but I'm feeling it now. I've done clothes, books, etc. My closet is organized, I donated an entire large trash bag full of t-shirts and kept only the ones I feel excited and happy to wear (as most of what I wear is T-Shirts, fuck you ex) I'm already enthusiastic about there being no possible way for me to build up an 'all day laundry-athon' anymore.

Speaking of my ex, that's where I'm like struggling is you know, still discovering things I no longer have that I was pretty sure I once did, and digging through pictures of us together from ... eons ago. Physical pictures. I've decided I'm starting to really fucking hate physical pictures with a wild passion. Digital photos are fine, easy to put up, just as easy to delete once that phase of your life is over. Physical photos crawl out of the depths of your belongings from 10+ years ago, oozing back into your life and then you must sit down and manually sort them back out. I found two old albums full of photos from the late 90's, early oughts, cosplay shit, all the shit, and when I look at them it's no wonder my self esteem was terrible (still is about a lot of things; esp. my body which must always be completely covered by at least three layers, never shorts, and only just recently have I been able to wear tank tops (but ONLY with 2 further undershirt layers). I look at the old pictures of my ex flirting with legitimately everyone, and I know I was the one taking the pictures. I was a stupid teenager at the time, but she was always shopping for the next thing. Of course I constantly felt like shit. When the next person didn't manifest, she just dropped herself into WOW and refused to emerge until I might as well have not existed. 

It was a time. And now the beginning of that time might as well have come back and slapped me in the face. I keep one picture up on my wall of me & her to remind me not to forget what kind of lovely face it can be that hurt me, and what I looked like when I was being hurt. The rest I was extremely unprepared for.

There are some pictures in there of my cats (at the time) that I want to keep, and some family photos that worked their way in as well. Else I'd have dumped the whole lot into the trash unsorted. 

Next; Living Room, Kitchen and Garage. I want to find a new solution for my Dungeons & Dragons stuff in the living room. Right now it's all together & near the place where we play but it looks like garbage and I don't care for how it's currently displayed. I may co-opt the rack that currently has a bunch of extra kitchen appliances (the stuff that doesn't get used as often; rice maker, Ice Cream Maker, etc) and find a way to make that work. The cook books will have to move as well, but I think once I dig into the cabinets in the kitchen I'll find a bunch of shit that can go directly into the garbage. 

Like that old box of Bpal samples that I have from 10 years ago. I know it's there somewhere....

Signing off