how the cold seeps in

[raven]

I had a week off work, mostly under duress, and it turns out that holidays actually return you to your life rested and able to cope with things! Who even knew. Anyway, it was a lovely time in the north of Scotland - first to a family wedding, which was sweet and charming and full of small children, and I danced the Orcadian strip the willow to the dulcet tones of a calypso steel drum ceilidh band, I don't even know, it was awesome - and onwards and upwards into the Highlands. We drove along some incredibly beautiful and terrifying mountain roads (in my nightmares, I shall see the climb from the Well of the Lecht, and the speedometer dropping), including the highest classified road in the UK, which crosses the Cairngorms in a single track and is silent like flying, and spent several days staying in a teeny tiny cottage, super-cute, with lots of hot water, halfway up a mountain eight miles from the nearest village. You could step outside and hear birds calling and cattle lowing from across the glen, and when it got dark enough, there was the Milky Way. (I love that you can't - or at least, I can't, though my eyesight is pretty sharp - see the Milky Way straight on; it's there in your peripheral vision, like it's being gentle as it reminds you of your utter insignificance in the face of all things.)

So that was all very lovely. I finished the novel, finally. Well, I haven't finished it, but it's definitely into the editing stage. (Maybe four days with no internet or phone were what I needed all along.) And now I'm back, and September is coming, which I always think of as a time for change and promise even though I'm well out of academia - and that said, I will have to start job-hunting this month - and the weather is hanging pleasantly on the surface of autumn.

I wrote about 25k in August, not counting the novel, and I don't think I've posted any of it here, so rather than make a lot of story posts, here it all is.

For the Star Trek Friendshipfest:

Welcome, Wanderer (9201 words) by Raven
Fandom: Star Trek: The Next Generation
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Data & Jean-Luc Picard, Data & Geordi LaForge
Characters: Data, Jean-Luc Picard, Geordi La Forge, Deanna Troi, Ro Laren, Sonya Gomez
Additional Tags: Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream - Freeform, Darmok, Mixed Media, Fairgrounds, Ferris Wheels, Languages and Linguistics, There really is a perfectly sensible explanation for all of this
Summary:

"You're the ranking officer here. Would you care to explain this?"

It's a really long story.

Oh, sinners, let's go down (4752 words) by RavenFandom: Star Trek: The Original Series
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Leonard McCoy & Spock
Characters: Leonard McCoy, Spock, James T. Kirk
Summary:

"What you gonna do, Mr. Spock? You gonna save my soul?"

[Content note is a spoiler, so it's at the bottom of the story post]

For trope_bingo:

Research Ethics (793 words) by RavenFandom: The Big Bang Theory (TV)
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Leonard Hofstadter/Penny
Characters: Penny (Big Bang Theory), Leonard Hofstadter, Sheldon Cooper, Bernadette Rostenkowski, Amy Farrah Fowler
Additional Tags: Community: trope_bingo
Summary:

Five things Penny doesn't understand about Leonard until she's met his mother.

[Please be aware of the content note on this one - it's at the top of the story post.]

where you gonna sleep tonight (3487 words) by Raven
Fandom: The Big Bang Theory (TV)
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Leonard Hofstadter/Penny, Sheldon Cooper/Leonard Hofstadter
Characters: Leonard Hofstadter, Penny (Big Bang Theory), Sheldon Cooper, Bernadette Rostenkowski, Rajesh Koothrappali, Amy Farrah Fowler, Howard Wolowitz
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Apocalypse, Community: trope_bingo
Summary:

Sheldon doesn't snap at him for his lack of precision, which is how he knows the end of the world is coming.

Home (1065 words) by Raven
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The Oversight - Charlie Fletcher
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Sara Falk, Lucy Harker, Hodge, Wayland, Jack Sharp, Charlie Pye, Cook
Additional Tags: Community: trope_bingo
Summary:

They found Mr Sharp on his knees with his eyes blank and unseeing, and drained of all colour.

That's all, and quite enough too.

Comments

[falena]

Your holiday in Scotland sounds absolutely perfect and I'm glad it was restorative as proper holidays should be.

You're writing a novel!? I seem to have missed this important bit of news. I do hope you'll get it published, I love your writing and your sensibility (dunno how to call it, but the way you see the world and how it shines tgrough yoir journal even when yoi talk about very mundane things) I can't wait to read something original by you.

[raven]

Ah, thank you very much! That's very kind. I'm hoping very hard that it will see the light of publication some day, and if it does believe me everyone I know is going to know about it. :P :P

[littlered2.livejournal.com]

I had a week off work, mostly under duress, and it turns out that holidays actually return you to your life rested and able to cope with things! Who even knew.
Wait, they do? My goodness.

That sounds like a really lovely holiday, particularly the cottage halfway up a mountain. I'm glad you had a good time.

Yay, novel! I'm very excited. Well done for finishing it - I am very impressed. (Novels are long.)

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Thank you! It took three years so possibly wasn't that much of an achievement but NEVER MIND WE'RE HERE NOW, etc. :)

[littlered2.livejournal.com]

Definitely still a great achievement! (You can call yourself a novelist now, that is an exciting thing.)

[liononahill.livejournal.com]

I was just clicking around the internet, and I found "Oh, sinners, let's go down" - this may be my single favorite piece of star trek fan fiction (and I've been reading for years). The topic's been explored extensively in fan fiction, but the reader comes away with the impression that you're the first author to tackle it properly. Beautiful and well-written. Kudos.