cosmic_llin

Good Things I Did in 2013:

* Spent lots of quality time with good friends
* Lots of writing
* Lots of reading
* Sold a short story, saw another one in print after selling it in late 2012
* Saw Bonnie Langford perform again
* Visited Rome for the first time
* Went to Vidukon, one of my favourite cons ever
* Attended not one but two folk festivals
* Went to Nine Worlds, one of my other favourite cons ever
* GOT MARRIED!!!!!!!!!!!!! (Seriously you guys it was wicked awesome)
* Pitched to two different literary agents
* Visited the delightful city of Bristol for the first time
* Saw Vienna Teng live
* Went to Bletchley Park
* Sang in my third big concert with my choir

Good Things I Plan/Hope to Do in 2014:

* Spend lots of quality time with good friends, both the ones happily nearby and the ones harder to reach
* Lots of writing
* Lots of reading
* Get a novel published - I've hoped for this at the beginning of every year since I can remember, and I haven't achieved it yet but every year it doesn't happen teaches me more about how I might eventually get there
* Get a new job - my job was ideal until it wasn't. Regardless of how convenient it is in some ways, I need something more interesting and challenging
* Visit Iceland and Japan - the first is coming up in a couple of weeks, the second's in April! We are very spoiled this year
* Attend Vidukon and Nine Worlds, and probably at least one folk festival
* See more live music - Taylor Swift and Dar Williams are already locked in, I'm looking out for more, and I'm also hoping to catch up on some musical theatre soon
* Generally have epic adventures

carawj did this ages ago and I basically haven't posted since (more on that shortly), so here it is - what I was up to at age 19 versus now (age 27!). Comment if you want an age to do!
I lived in:

Then - A self-catering flat in uni halls. I had a weird trapezium-shaped room with a lovely view of the karaoke bar across the way, one noisy messy obnoxious flatmate, two who mostly kept to themselves, and one who is still one of my very best friends.

Now - carawj and I live together in a little one-bedroom in North London. It's in a nice area - quiet-ish, but with a nice park, good transport links, a few good shops, and close to a lot of our local friends, most of whom are also big fannish dorks, which is nice. The flat itself is lovely and I like it a lot. If we could add on a small extra room (to keep the books in), maybe an airing cupboard, and garden access, I could stay here forever.

I drove:

Then - Nothing - for me a decent computer was a higher priority than driving lessons, so that's what I got, and by this point I wasn't riding my bike much either.

Now - Same! Living in London I find public transport a bit of an annoyance but it's so generally convenient (compared to the buses back in North Wales, anyway) that I haven't felt the need to have my own transport, and anyway if I had the money for driving lessons, there'd still probably be stuff that was more important to do with it.


I was in a relationship with:

Then - Nobody. I dated a bit, fairly unsuccessfully. One guy from the uni sci-fi society basically stalked me until I agreed to go on a date with him, and then tried to guilt me into sex. (I was young and stupid enough to think I owed him a date because of the effort he'd put in wooing me, but I drew the line at that.) Another guy I dated for a little while because he was in a band and I wanted to be the girlfriend of someone in a band, but he had a lot of issues that he basically expected would be cured by the power of my love, and it was too much pressure from someone I was only vaguely into.

Now - I'm marrying carawj in less than five weeks! Being with her for the past four-and-a-half years has been the best adventure ever, and I'm looking forward to it continuing!

I feared:

Then - Never really connecting with anyone romantically. That I might fail the German portion of my degree (as it turned out I dropped it to focus on Russian.) That if people knew who I really was they wouldn't like me.

Now - I fear that I'll get stuck in this nine-to-five thing forever. It's an uncomfortable fear but it keeps me motivated. I fear that this novel I've spent so long working on might never be unleashed on an unsuspecting populace. (But if it isn't, that doesn't mean I'll stop trying.)

I worked at:

Then - I was at uni, but I had part-time and holiday jobs here and there. During the summer I worked on a busy pier selling ice-cream and snacks and writing stories on the backs of doughnut bags when it was quiet. When my student loan failed to come through I briefly worked selling double-glazing over the phone, which was pretty horrible.

Now - I'm a subeditor for a media company, mostly writing/editing TV listings for kids' channels. I've been there for a while now and I'm very bored of it, but it pays the bills and it allows me to work from home, which gives me a lot of extra writing time. For now the trade-off is worth it.

I wanted to be:

Then - A glamorous famous jet-setting prize-winning author.

Now - An author who writes diverse, thoughtful stories that appeal to people who often don't see themselves reflected in mainstream literature. I especially want to write YA but I have a few ideas outside that too.

So, I'm experimenting with crossposting between Dreamwidth and LJ... we'll see how I get on with it...

I've got a bit behind with the internet, what with one thing and another... my new medication is making me really sleepy AND my computer is in bits while Andrew tries to figure out some way to save it, but the outlook isn't good...

Anyways, some lovely bullet points:

* Went back to the doctor, it's still probably trigeminal neuralgia. I'm going for an MRI and to see a neurologist. In the meantime I'm on a slightly higher dose of medication, but the doctor was surprised that that dosage was even keeping the pain under control to the extent that I'm still going to work and socialising, so hopefully that's a good sign! Also I'm getting the hang of the side-effects a bit better - I can stay up late now even though I'm sleeping very soundly, and the dry mouth is just making me drink loads of water which is good for me anyway!

* My birthday! It was good. Cara got us tickets to Folk by the Oak! Dad got me a Kindle. I have named it Zoe. Also Jenni made me amazing TARDIS wrist warmers! And I got books and a pasta maker and a castle and lots of other lovely things! Hurrah!

* My computer. It is not so good. A couple of weeks ago it just stopped working. Andrew says the motherboard is kaput. I need to find out whether I can claim for it on the house insurance, since I sure as hell can't afford a new one right now. Luckily Cara is very generous when it comes to letting me use hers.

* Writing. I wanted to be finished with my second draft by now, but being ill set me back a bit. But I'm onto the final section, and I've decided to change it around a fair bit. I'm still hoping to have a good second draft by the beginning of May.

* We're off to Croatia soon! Only for a few days, but I'm looking forward to it a lot. Plus we're taking a couple of days off after too, I'm looking forward to the chance to relax, and also to get some stuff done.

Right, off to catch up on AAAAAAALL the internet. How are you all?

At long last, our dear silly_cleo is watching DS9. Unfortunately she's only on Season 2, and she's almost run out of Kira/Dax fic that she can read without being spoiled for later seasons.

So I turn to you, dear flist. First of all, recs? Particularly things that can't be found in the appropriate tag on AO3?

Second of all, drabbles! Ficlets! Epics, if you feel like it! Write them, post them in the comments! Or leave prompts! Either respond to prompts or just write whatever you feel like!

The only rule is it must have some Kira/Dax element, and NO spoilers past Season Two! Have fun!

(long overdue real-life post and comments etc forthcoming once I'm actually back from work...)

( A Rundown of Fic from 2011 )

I also wrote some thoughtful stuff here about vidding and how I didn't do that much but I felt I'd learned a lot from watching other people's vids in the last year and I'm excited to apply it all and vid lots in 2012, but LiveJournal nommed it. Hmph.

August has contained many things. Among them a trip to Cornwall (sunny! Scone-ful!), picnics (delicious! Croquet-tastic!), a weekend in Edinburgh (fringe-alicious!) and various other delights. Plus carawj are moving house on Sunday! We're not going far, just up the road, but we'll have lots more storage space, and a little garden!

The summer has been so busy that I'm getting a bit worn out, and so I really want to try and have a quieter September. As part of this, I've decided to make September my month of reading. I haven't read much at all lately - admittedly partly to do with short attention span due to sadness - but I'm getting back into a reading sort of mood and I want to really try to read a lot in September. Anyone is welcome to join me!

Semi-relatedly, on the train back from Edinburgh on Monday (having been inspired by a Neil Gaiman talk at the book festival, and some good chats with Manda) I finished the first draft of my YA fantasy novel. I'm now starting the second draft, wheee. Fun times.

Lookit, I got podficced! Twice!

http://podfic-project.livejournal.com/11503.html

Both cantarina1 and nickelmountain did lovely readings of my fic!

Also, that thing that everyone's been doing, because why not:

Give me a pairing and I will tell you:

1. What they most commonly do during sex
2. Who has prettier hair
3. What they argue about most often
4. Who'd cope best if the other one died
5. The happiest plausible happily-ever-after I can think of for them.

Ack, I am exhausted. It's been a really fun few days though:

* Went and had Maids of Honour with carawj, silly_cleo, jakera, and  jakera's very nice siblings. I'd never eaten a Maid of Honour before and it was very tasty indeed. And we were apparently just down the road from the scrapyard from An Unearthly Child, but we didn't go and see it this time.
* On the same day, did churchy things (quite interesting and not at all like going to chapel when I was a kid) and had nice brunch with carawj 's family. Which was lovely! And her dad gave me halloumi. I like when people give me halloumi. :)
* Yesterday we went to karaoke again, it was awesome as ever! And lovely and cheap thanks to a combination of several discounts and offers.
* Over the last week or so, I've written about 13,000 words of original, not-fanfiction stuff. Quite pleased with this, wondering how long this level of productivity can last.
* My dad is coming to town. Which is lovely. His visit clashes with Pride. Which is a bit unfortunate. Not that he would have a problem with it, but now I'll have to juggle family things and friends things, but we'll see how it goes! He's passing through on his way to Easter Island, which is rather exciting.
* carawj and I finished DS9 quite a while ago, but we skipped quite a few of the duller episodes early on, so now we're going back for them! Move Along Home looks a lot better when it's all you've got. Well, a bit better. Well... at least Kira's in it being feisty.
* I am sleepy. Early night tonight, methinks.

Oh! I almost forgot to say! Only a few days left until the Day of not-Classic Trek. There's still time to prepare something, it can be as little or as much as you like.

Happy Turkey Day, everyone who’s celebrating it!

Well, I’ve officially given up NaNoWriMo for this year. Sorry, lovely NaNo people! I think it would have gone better if I hadn’t already had so much to do in November, what with visiting folk and having folk visiting me. I got a fair bit done in the first week and a bit in the second, and I really enjoyed going to the write-ins and found them helpful for getting stuff done, but I really need to work hard on the advent calendar stuff for my site and I couldn’t really do both at once. I might give it a go next year, though, depending on what else I’m doing! And I may well still go to a couple of write-ins anyway.

3_fries_short is coming to stay tomorrow! I’m jolly excited! We are going to watch Sanctuary and things.

In other news, carawj and I have been watching a whole bunch of Star Trek: The Next Generation, and it’s strange, having grown up with it always on at home, been obsessed with it for a while in my teens and then abandoned it for a few years, to come back to it now and look at it with fresh eyes. I’m really enjoying it. I’m loving how much of a dork Beverly is, I totally didn’t notice ever before. She spends her free time looking after her plants, and she squeaks with excitement when she wins a hand at poker. And no matter the cause of death, she always wants to do an autopsy. To the point where she’ll wander the ship, complaining at people about not being allowed to do an autopsy. I am re-warming to Beverly a lot after going through a phase where I was cross with her for not being Pulaski... Pulaski is still my favourite, but Beverly’s very sweet!

And when I say Pulaski’s my favourite, of course I mean she’s my favourite of the two doctors, because of course Deanna is still my proper favourite of the whole cast. And I’m also loving how much of a cad Riker is. We watched the one the other day where he shags a random alien chick just so she’ll help him escape. And the one where he two-times Deanna and Ro. Oh, Riker, never change.

Phew!

Bit of a manic weekend – it just didn’t seem to stop!

Friday night was fun. carawj, silly_cleo and I watched the whole of The Wedding of Sarah Jane Smith, and squeaked and cried and jumped up and down like idiots. Then we fetched chips and poked youtube for pretty much the rest of the evening!

Saturday was mostly taken up with getting Halloween costumes ready – I went as Dr Quinn: Medicine Woman, and carawj went as Ace! Also silly_cleo went as Rainbow Zorro, which was the best EVER. She came over to ours to get ready, and Maxine came for dinner too, and then we went for Halloween karaoke with jenepel(Elphaba) and lazyclaire (Boggart Snape), which was such fun because it was the kind where you get a room to yourselves so there aren’t strangers looking at you funny, and you can just enjoy yourself without it having to be a performance.

We had to have a few drinks first for the confidence, and then we had a few after as a reward, and then we eventually staggered home and had chips again (oops!). There was much drunkenness. I won’t say who was the most drunk, but it was carawj.

Yesterday was like three days smooshed into one – we went to meet Manda for dim sum (we waited aaaaaages to get in but it was totally worth it), then we went to a NaNo write-in at Waterstones Piccadilly (I decided to be a bit of a rebel and try to make the word count, but finishing off some of my projects that I’ve left hanging instead of starting something new. I need a push sometimes, and I find write-ins quite helpful. I’m already behind, though!), and then we went to visit carawj’s dad and stepmum and little sisters, and we heard about their holiday and played Guitar Hero and it was fun and nice!

Then we trekked most of the length of the Piccadilly Line home, and made a desperate attempt to catch up on all the stuff that needs doing on a Sunday evening, I belatedly updated the website, we collapsed in a heap, and six hours later we were up again.

Aaaaargh. Why aren’t weekends longer?