Fandom: Yuletide 2015 Progress

Assignment: 10k, old fandom, posted
Pinch Hit: flailing terribly, two different starts to it (one at 500, one at 100)
Treat #1: 1500 words, new fandom, outlined (probably another 2000 words, but I'm stuck on the story I planned to tell, and need to consider a different option)
Treat #2: 3500 words, old fandom, posted (still considering a second half that will be another 5000 words, maybe)
Treat #3: 200 words, old fandom, outlined (still not really appropriate for Yuletide, probably should write this as a gift fic next year sometime)
Treat #4: 0 words, old fandom, brainstorming (this looks like it won't happen due to outside circumstances)
Treat #5: 1500 words, old fandom, posted
Treat #6: 3500 words, old fandom, posted (a version is also with my beta, but I needed the accomplished feeling from posting something)
Treat #7: 100 words, old fandom, outlining (the goal is to make this one short and hot)
treat #8: 300 words, new fandom, outlined (probably another 1500 words)

That whole 10k assignment makes it feel like I've done a lot of writing, but the number of stories completed does not. Not fun.

Meme: 31 Days of December: Day 5 Books

( 31 Days )

Day 5: talk about books this year

I should have known this topic would be next, because it's another long one for me. I've started more than 100 different books this year, and finished the majority of them, some of them more than once. All of this is not counting the ones I read on bad days, but didn't have the energy to track.

Here are some of the ones I enjoyed:

Beware the Wild - Natalie Parker: Really fun teen southern supernatural mystery.

Trust Me, I'm Lying - Mary Elizabeth Summer: Super entertaining teen con artist and friends.

Shutter - Courtney Alameda: Excellent teen horror, though there's a bit of Our Girl is Badass (Other Girls Aren't).

Nearly Gone - Elle Cosimano: Suspenseful teen thrilled with characters I loved.

Little House series (minus Farmer Boy) - Laura Ingalls Wilder: I never read Farmer Boy. I do not care about Almonzo unless he's around Laura. I missed my mother a lot earlier this year, and my first memory is of her reading this series to me, so I read it again, and mourned.

Incryptid series - Seanan McGuire: Supernatural adventures about a family of cryptozoologists. The fourth book came out this year, and it was about werewolves, so pretty much Made For Me in a series that already feels made for me. So I reread the first three in a marathon to celebrate the fourth book. Then, last month, I reread all four again. Even when I'm bothered by things (there's a big thread of White Savior to the universe), I love them so hard.

Uglies series - Scott Westerfeld: I wanted a dose of dystopia, and I love the main characters of this series a lot, so I did a marthon reread over a weekend.

Caszandra series - Andrea K. Host: Sci-fi portal fantasy, and one of my favorite self-published books ever. It is really satisfying, even though I don't normally enjoy the journal format in books. Cassandra is a fantastic narrator, and the world building delightful. I read this series (three books and a Gratuitous Epilogue that is entitled as such) three times this year.

Kilmer Cure - Lynn Schneider: Lynn Schneider is the best, y'all, and her collection of essays about bipolar, framed around Val Kilmer's movies, broke me wide open.

Under the Lights - Dahlia Adler: This was a delightful story about teen friendship and romance with two of my favorite queer girl characters ever.

United States of Asgard series - Tessa Gratton: I keep getting caught up wanting to know where the hell all the Indian tribes have gone, because they are hardly ever mentioned, and the one time a Native American character shows up onscreen, it's a trick. Even with new gods coming in, the native gods, and the people who worshipped them, still fucking exist. That being said, I love this series and its characters so much; fierce, angry teen girls who are strong in different ways and who have such grand adventures. I read this series twice this year.

Parasitology series - Mira Grant: I marathoned the first and second book right before the third came out this year, and ever since have been super annoyed by the fact there is a GIANT CONTINUITY ERROR at the beginning of book two. It keeps bleeding into my overall enjoyment of the series, which is really great zombie fiction with fantastic science behind it.

20-sided Sorceress series - Annie Bellet: The first couple books of this supernatural adventure series is fantastic! The main character is a geeky woman who owns a gaming shop and learned to control her sorcerer powers through D&D references. And then the latest book in the series absolutely fell flat; it felt more like a couple chapters cut off from a much bigger story.

A Trifle Dead, Blackmail Blend, and Drowned Vanilla - Livia Day: Super fun, sweet cozy mysteries set in Hobart about a baker who knows everyone in town and keeps getting pulled into mysteries.