here's to Patti, and Tina, and Yoko, and Aretha, and Nona, and Nico, and me

[raven]

It was an unsettled night. At seven am I woke up after a violent nightmare involving someone moving into the Mousehole with a snake. (I am, as previously noted, severely ophidiophobic.) I remember quite clearly telling chiasmata that it wasn't poisonous, it was a kingsnake, and its coloration pattern is in a different order from venomous coral snakes. (Wikipedia, with images turned off, tells me that this is absolutely true [note for other phobics: there is probably a picture of a kingsnake on that page]. Once again I am amazed by my dream-self's capacity for perfect trivia recall. So I wandered around the house, read some of dreadful Germaine Greer and her dreadful book, and went back to sleep.

And woke up again at one in the afternoon, when shimgray decided I would probably sleep until Doomsday unless he intervened. In my defence, I was awake at 3.42am - because that's when I finished my yuletide. It has been sent off for beta, and I'm pleased. Not just with it, but in general, because here is December, and I was all ready to just opt out of the fannish round-up memes this year, because I have been so staggeringly unprolific. But! What I wrote this year:

Changes in Sea Level, TOS, 1000 words;
Autochthony, TOS, 10,000 words;
interlude, Slings & Arrows ficlet, 400 words;
things fall apart, Doctor Who, 500 words;
Dirty Witch Doctors, HP, 645 words, co-written.

And also, thirteen photographs (the via crucis remix), 4500 words for Remix, and my 6000 words of Yuletide.

So, a total of about 22,500, which is about two thirds of what I usually do, and, well, for a year which had both my Finals and six months of clinical depression in it, I figure that's not so bad. And, well, I'm not much with the writing-when-I-don't-want-to, but it is pretty much the only hobby I've consistently stuck to for a decade, so I ought to keep track. (Ye gods, 2009 - it really is ten years of writing fiction, isn't it? I seem to remember trying to write a novel when I was twelve, which was 1999. Oh dear.)

I also have two half-finished stories on my hard drive - well, at any given moment I have hundreds of half-finished stories on my hard drive, but these two are of note because I fully intend to finish them. One is Merlin/Arthur, a short and not very happy love story, and the other is a gen HP story about Hermione keeping Remus's books in trust for Teddy. I like both of them, and they might see the light of day, er, sometime.

And, one other thing. Whilst writing 6000 words in two days is a bad thing - seriously, children, do not do as I have done, especially when you have exams in January - it is fun. Yeah, writing is fun. Sitting up to all hours of the night crafting something is one of my favourite things to do. This was a plot-driven story, rather than character, which made me worry about it: I'm worried it has no heart to it, it's just, stuff happened. But the process is the fun part, and I guess, well, I'm not an artist, I don't do crafts or hobbies, I don't do very much other than law, except this. I fangirl! I write! I am entirely socially unacceptable! It's awesome!

Comments

I HATE SNAKES TOO.

[hips-lips-tits.livejournal.com]

but i think we've been over that before.

re:coral/king snakes. 'red on black, friend of jack. red on yellow kills a fellow.' :D

Re: I HATE SNAKES TOO.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

*grins* See, I have the advantage of living somewhere where there is exactly one native snake, and no one you know has ever seen one. How do you survive Florida, srsly?

[dormouse-in-tea.livejournal.com]

Merlin makes me want to write fanfiction.

I've never written fanfiction. I've never written anything that had a beginning, a middle, and an end since I was in the sixth grade! (and oh, that was BAD).

I'm scared. :/

But yay, link roundup! I can read all of this again.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

write it. *whistles* you know you want toooooo...

[dormouse-in-tea.livejournal.com]

YOU, missy, are an enabler. :/

[nos4a2no9.livejournal.com]

You should be very pleased! That is an amazing word count for such a difficult year (and indeed, it'd even be impressive for someone who had smooth sailing from January to December, which you most certainly have not). And you, m'dear, are very much a writer. Your Yuletide fic was fabulous, and I kept scratching my head and going, "But surely she wants to get herself published..."

Anyway. I'm amazed by you, and I hope you have no more dreams of The Creature Which Terrifies You.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

*big, silly grin* You're very kind. And you are the second person in three days to tell me to try and get published. Maybe, once I've got the day job going all right...