Luzula

Books in 2023

Wed, 10 Jan 2024 18:51:29 GMT

I see I forgot to do the book meme last year? Ah well. I read 74 books in 2023. Some statistics:

48 books written by women, and 27 by men (judging by name). I don't have a particular goal around this, it just usually happens that I read more books by women. More than 50% of the non-fiction is by men, though (I noticed someone else reflecting on this.)
11 books read in Swedish, the rest in English.
41 books by British authors, 16 by Americans, 11 by Swedes, the rest single other countries. Err, I guess this is what happens if you're in a British fandom.
19 non-fiction, 3 children's/YA, 3 SF, 13 fantasy, 22 romance (in some sense), 47 historical (both fiction and non-fiction). Books can belong to more than one category. Huh, I see that I currently read very little SF.
41 Bechdel test passes, 33 new-to-me authors, 9 rereads, 14 books from my own bookshelves, 13 audiobooks.
4 books written in the 1700's, 9 in the 1800's, 10 written 1900-1950, 8 written 1950-2000, 43 written in the 2000's (all books from book club are in the last category).

A few stand-outs:
Kirsteen and Hester and Miss Marjoribanks by Margaret Oliphant (19th century novels focused on women)
C S Forester's Hornblower series (slashy Age-of-Sail)
Aster Glenn Gray's various historical romances, with Honeytrap as the highlight so far.
My Austen rereads, narrated by Karen Savage from Librivox.
A Dalliance With the Duke by AMarguerite (Elizabeth Bennett/Duke of Wellington)
Something Human A J Demas (pseudo-Ancient Greek m/m romance)
Henchmen of Zenda by K J Charles (swashbuckling m/m Zenda fanfic)
Deeplight by Frances Hardinge (deep-sea YA fantasy adventure)
The Heiress, by Molly Greely (published Austen f/f fic about Anne de Bourgh)

As a whole, this seems to have been a year of historical fiction for me! I haven't had any reading goals, just read what appealed to me.

comments

My fic and podfic in 2023

Thu, 04 Jan 2024 17:18:11 GMT

Here's what I wrote and recorded last year! AO3 says I wrote 190K, but I had about 100K of "Three Strands" written at the beginning of the year. So subtracting that, and adding the 30K of the werewolf WIP, I wrote about 130K, which I'm happy with. I have also crossed the milestone of 1,000,000 words posted on AO3! \o/

My main achievement this year is finishing Three Strands, of which I am quite proud! Eight of my stories this year were written for exchanges, and the other two (or three, counting the werewolf WIP) were longer. I think this pretty well describes my current mode: plug away steadily at a longfic, while taking breaks occasionally for shorter stuff. Although (like last year) I did also write pretty substantial fics for Yuletide. I am now in a steady long-term relationship with my current fandom, and have plenty of ideas left to write in it.

Podfic-wise, I've had a few very productive years, and have now begun taking it easier and letting the podficcing lapse for a while--I haven't recorded anything the last few months. Probably I will eventually do another Broster book at Librivox? Otherwise I have no plans, except to keep teaming up with authors for pod_together, which is a lot of fun.

Flight of the Heron fic:
Three Strands, Braided Together: 'As the threads begin to twist themselves at your first meeting,' said Old Angus, 'so will they continue to shape themselves at the rest—three strands, braided together at the end.' Keith/Ewen/Alison, 148,200 words
A Point of Honour: Ewen has gone down to Fort William to visit Keith; meanwhile, a visitor from Mingary Castle arrives at the fort... Keith/Ewen, 4,200 words
A Pup of Lassie's: In a public room in York, Keith overhears a Yorkshire farmer telling a story he has heard before... Keith/Ewen/Alison, 3,700 words
Brother of His Wolf's Mate (Come When Ye May): Keith and Ewen deal with the aftermath of their wolves' mating, and with the consequences of their mate-bond. Keith/Ewen, 10,400 words
Preserv'd for Posterity: Dear Sir, I have not the Honour of being known to you, & you will no doubt wonder at a Stranger writing to you without an Introduction, but I must hope that you will excuse the Liberty when I have explain'd my Purpose. Ewen & Robert Forbes, 1,700 words
The Flight of the Geese: Ewen flies south with the migrating geese. Keith/Ewen, 800 words
The Marrow of His Heart: When Lachlan comes back to the shieling at Beinn Laoigh to find Ewen gone, he must do everything he possibly can to track him down and help him to escape—with the help of an unlikely ally along the way. Lachlan & Keith and Lachlan & Ewen gen, 12,500 words

Le Guin fic:
A Digit of Mishnory: Therem in exile: gutting fish, being one of many, and being alone. Therem gen, 800 words
Estraven the Traitor: I had heard the story of Estraven the Traitor many times during my childhood. Sorve gen, 500 words
The White Ladies of the Ring: There was a sorcerer imprisoned in the Labyrinth, and Arha had told Kossil that she would kill him—but she did not want to. Perhaps she needed to ask someone for help... Penthe/Tenar, 7,900 words

Podfic and audiobooks:
Three Strands, Braided Together, by me (Keith/Ewen/Alison, 16h 33 min)
Nearly Enough, by sanguinity (Hornblower, Bush/Hornblower, 1h 50m)
The Gleam in the North by D K Broster (12h 54m)

comments

Year's end meme: writing

Thu, 05 Jan 2023 22:11:02 GMT

Flight of the Heron stories:
Three Strands, Braided Together, Keith/Ewen/Alison, >100K WIP
Steadfast Unto Death, Keith/Ewen, Ewen/Alison, 27,800 words
Their Loyalty and Firm Attachment, Keith/Ewen, 5,500 words

Other stories:
Whose Hand Was Thine in Earnest, The Wounded Name, Laurent/Aymar, 9,000 words
To Stay in Service, Jill - E A Dillwyn, Jill/Kitty, 4,200 words
To Meet Again As Equals, Jill - E A Dillwyn, Jill/Kitty, 8,500 words

Well, I wrote six fics this year! Which doesn't sound a lot, but one of them is a novel length WIP and one novella length, and my total word count is 155K. \o/ So I'm still going strong in Flight of the Heron fandom.

I have recently talked about my three Yuletide fics, but I am very pleased with my other three, as well. A first for me is that I have posted my WIP as I go, which I found a little scary at first, but my writing process is really very suited to this: I write linearly and don't usually need much revision of earlier chapters. And it's been lovely to have sanguinity’s comments as I post! ♥ It's such a small fandom that I really appreciate that interaction. And speaking of interaction, my beta readers garonne and regshoe are both treasures. ♥

Both of my long stories this year have explored new character interactions in FotH: obviously the Keith/Ewen/Alison pairing is new to me and has been very rewarding to write, and that story also let me explore parts of the Rising I hadn't written before, as well as another possible future for Keith. And in the novella, I got to pull out all the stops and write an all-out tragic ending (though hopefully not entirely without comfort).

comments

End-of-year meme: podfic

Fri, 30 Dec 2022 11:26:41 GMT

Flight of the Heron:
A Grimly Ghost, by regshoe (Keith/Ewen, 2h 2m)
Steadfast Unto Death by me (Keith/Ewen and Ewen/Alison, 3h 11m)
Three Strands, Braided Together (Keith/Ewen/Alison, 11h 14m)
No Man Can Shun It by regshoe (1h 3m)

Other podfic:
Known Associates by thingswithwings (Avengers, 9h 18m)
Les oiseaux que l’hiver exile by ellenfremedon (19th century France RPF, Jacques-Antoine Manuel/Pierre-Jean de Béranger, PG-13, 1h 46m)

Librivox audiobook:
The Wounded Name by D K Broster (17h 4m)

Total time: 45h 38m.

I took a break from recording in December, which I think was good. It was also good to record Known Associates, for a completely different style. Next year's projects: continue recording my longfic WIP Three Strands as I go, and record D K Broster’s Gleam in the North, which will come out of copyright next year!

comments

Question meme

Thu, 24 Nov 2022 21:11:13 GMT

I have finished the draft of my Yuletide story! \o/ Now to work on the treat I have also started on…

Questions from regshoe:
1. What was the first book that you really loved or became obsessed with?
Of course I may have forgotten some, but Lord of the Rings is what stands out in my memory. I was perhaps nine, I think? I found it quite scary (the black riders!) but was absolutely riveted. And of course went on to nerdily obsess.

2. Do you have a favourite folk song, or otherwise share a folk song that you particularly like?
I’ll share one I have a long history with: De två systrarna, which is the Swedish version of The Twa Sisters. Or versions, I should say--of course there are many of them, and I collected them, along with English versions. I'm sure you have heard the Folk och Rackare version. That's the version which I myself learned first, and my sister and I would perform it together, singing the verses in turn. Since I was the oldest sister, I always sang the evil one.

3. What do you most like about bryophytes—the plants themselves, and/or learning about them and observing them?
Well, they are quite beautiful up close. I also like that when you look at them under the microscope, most of the time you don't have to spend a lot of time preparing the specimens. Often it's enough just to strip some leaves off with sharp tweezers, or put a whole shoot in some water on a slide (but this is not to say that it's necessarily easy to determine the species). By contrast, lichens and fungi are usually easier just at the beginning, when you’re just using a hand lens, but then the learning curve grows steep quickly. Fungi are just so messy and difficult under the microscope!

4. Who is your favourite fictional Jacobite, apart from Ewen Cameron?
I flailed around for a few seconds thinking of possible candidates, but then realized the obvious answer: Alison Grant. : ) She is certainly the fictional Jacobite I’ve spent the most time writing and thinking about, besides Ewen.

5. What is the most beautiful and/or memorable bird you've seen in Sweden?
Since you say beautiful, my answer must be fjällabb (long-tailed skua, or long-tailed jaeger). It’s an incredibly graceful bird in the air, and very beautiful with its slim body with gradations of white, grey and black. Arrgh, I can’t describe it well! But its temper is not graceful—it will dive aggressively at your head. Had you said charming, I would have chosen the Siberian jay. : )

Feel free to ask for questions!

comments

Books read in 2021

Wed, 12 Jan 2022 21:37:02 GMT

I only read 48 books in 2021, which is about half of what I read in a year when I'm commuting regularly and not absorbed in writing so much fic. But it's about the same as in 2020, for the same reasons. Some statistics:

38 books written by women, and 8 by men (judging by name, so I could be misgendering people). I did not set out to read so much by women, it just happened!
One book read in Swedish, the rest in English. Erm.
29 books by British authors, 10 by Americans, 4 by Australians, the rest single other countries. Err, I guess this is what happens if you're in a British fandom.
9 non-fiction, 5 YA, 2 SF, 10 fantasy, 12 romance (in some sense), 26 historical fiction.
29 Bechdel test passes, 23 new-to-me authors, 2 rereads, only one audiobook

All the non-fiction but one is fandom research reading. That I read so much historical fiction is also partly inspired by my fandom. Eight of the non-British books are because of my book club, so if you take those away, the British dominance would be even larger. *facepalm*

A few stand-outs:
Silver in the Wood and Drowned Country by Emily Tesh (m/m historical fantasy)
Joan Aiken's Wolves of Willoughby Chase series (wacky alternate history children's books)
Beck and Call by Annick Trent (m/m historical with valets in love)
Beowulf, translated by Maria Dahvana Headley (macho bros fighting monsters)
The Travels and Adventures of Mademoiselle de Richelieu by Anonymous (crossdressing f/f written in the 18th century)
The Rider on the White Horse by Rosemary Sutcliff (a marriage affected by the English Civil War)
Black Water Sister by Zen Cho (Malaysian woman haunted by her grandmother's ghost)
A Seditious Affair by K J Charles (historical m/m with political radical/Home Office guy)
The Jacobites by Daniel Szechi (historical nerdery with some unexpected new angles)

comments

My podfic in 2021

Thu, 06 Jan 2022 21:18:06 GMT

Flight of the Heron podfic and audiobooks:
No Unfitting Anchorage, by regshoe: Keith/Ewen, 1 h 12 min
Audiobook of Flight of the Heron itself by D K Broster: Keith/Ewen, Ewen/Alison, 12 h 42 min
Cameron of Ardroy's Last Goodnight by regshoe: Keith/Ewen, 3 min
Divided Loyalties: Keith/Ewen, 5 h 42 min

Other podfic and audiobooks:
An Ever-Fixed Mark, by AMarguerite: Pride & Prejudice, Elizabeth Bennet/Richard Fitzwilliam, Elizabeth Bennet/Fitzwilliam Darcy, 19 h 56 min
That Looks on Tempests, by AMarguerite: Pride & Prejudice, Elizabeth Bennet/Richard Fitzwilliam, Elizabeth Bennet/Fitzwilliam Darcy, 5 h 26 min
I'll Mount the Air on Swallow's Wings by regshoe: f/f for Song Composed in August - Robert Burns, 53 min
Audiobook of "Mr Rowl", by D K Broster, 14 h 11 min

Well, that is certainly a lot. A record for me when it comes to length, in fact: that's about 60 hours! But the FotH audiobook was recorded in 2020; OTOH I have about 4 hours recorded and unposted. Out of these, I think the Pride & Prejudice podfics were the most fun! Of course I don't have a British accent, but I would be much more intimidated with something modern and British--with something that's set 200 years ago, people probably didn't sound like today anyway. The pod_together collaboration with regshoe was fun, too, with all the singing I got to do. Also Mr Rowl, for which I thank regshoe for the proof-listening. With Divided Loyalties, I think I was perhaps a little tired of the text when I recorded it, but it came out well, I hope.

comments

My fic in 2021

Mon, 03 Jan 2022 19:11:54 GMT

Whew, what a flood of posting there is around New Year's; I'm not quite caught up. Anyway, here's what I wrote in 2021:

Flight of the Heron:
In His Father's Footsteps: Keith family backstory, 2,000 words
The Greater Happiness: Keith/Ewen, Ewen/Alison, Alison/OFC, 142,000 words
Divided Loyalties: Keith/Ewen, 50,000 words

Other fic:
Some Omitted Scenes from the Adventures and Amours of Alithea de Richelieu and Arabella de Montferan, Set Down by the Former for the Pleaſure of the Latter: The Travels and Adventures of Mademoiselle de Richelieu - Anonymous, Arabella/Alithea, 1,000 words
No Longer Sole Representative: The Left Hand of Darkness, Genly and ensemble gen, 4,000 words
A Woman of Anarres: The Dispossessed, OFC gen, 700 words

That's only six stories, but one of them is 142K, and another is 50K! So I'm pretty happy with my wordcount. : ) My favorite story among these is The Greater Happiness; it was a joy to write such a long and slowburn poly fic. ♥ And in general I've been in my Flight of the Heron happy place all year.

My two Le Guin Yuletide stories are okay, but not my best work. I do think many people would enjoy my short 18th century f/f if they tried it! I'm happy with the 18th century pastiche, and there's humor in it, too. All you need to know is that it's a canon where both women are disguised as men and traveling around Europe together.

I would also like to thank all my beta readers this year: garonne, regshoe, karanguni, chestnut_pod, and skymandr. Especially garonne, whose feedback has really kept me going. ♥

comments

Podfic in 2020

Tue, 12 Jan 2021 16:42:54 GMT

Flight of the Heron podfic: (all are Ewen Cameron/Keith Windham)
If Fate Should Reverse Our Positions by me (7h 21m)
A Great Service and a Bitter Grief by me (3h 24m)
A Thousand Dreams in One Drop of Ink by garonne (46m)
Up in the Grey Hills by regshoe (1h 4m)
That Good Faith, To Which an Enemy as Well as a Friend Is Entitled by me (5h 39m)
When the Fighting is Over by hyarrowen (30m)
Shore and Ship and Moonrise by hyarrowen (2h 24m)
Steadiness under Fire by hyarrowen (16m)
An Ally Better than the Sidhe by hyarrowen (1h 23m)

Non-podfic:
Flemington by Violet Jacob (8h 3m)

I posted 30h 50m of podfic and audiobooks in 2020. If I include recorded and unposted stuff, it's about 45 hours, depending on how I count stuff that's recorded but not edited, and prooflistened but not corrected. The unposted stuff is two big projects, one long unfinished Pride & Prejudice podfic, and one seekrit book project.

This is a lot compared to 2019, when I only recorded a total of four podfics, which together were 2h 49m! I felt almost sure that this year's podficcing was some kind of record for me, and if I count the unposted stuff, it is. BUT in 2010, I posted 73 podfics(!!) which were 42h 19m long in total! This was in the craziness of Amplificathon's heyday, when I won third place in the competition. Nowadays, I dislike recording short podfics, because of the administration involved in posting. I can't even imagine posting 73 podfics in one year! *boggles* Never again...

But on the whole, I've had great fun having a podfic revival, even if I feel rather isolated from other podficcers nowadays.

comments

Reading in 2020

Sat, 09 Jan 2021 16:26:30 GMT

I didn't have a reading goal for the year, which was good, since it would have fallen by the wayside anyway, because new fandom.

Total number of books read (including novel-length fic): 52
Down from 86, 95, and 114 the previous years before. So that's not much, for me, but of course I wrote a lot instead.

Book authors by gender (judged by name, so there could be mistakes)
Female authors: 35
Male authors: 17

By language read in:
English: 49
Swedish: 2 (wow, last year about 25% of what I read was in Swedish)
Danish: 1

By author's country of origin:
UK: 38
USA: 5
Sweden: 2
And one each from Barbados, Greece, Denmark and Canada.
Ha ha, wow, I guess that's what comes of getting into a British fandom! Usually I have trouble getting the amount of American books below 50%. All but one of the American books were for book club and wouldn't have been read otherwise.

Genre (roughly; some were hard to categorize):
non-fiction: 18
SF: 3
fantasy: 11
historical: 19
YA: 3
romance: 7 (ha ha, I note that I labeled FotH as romance)
Fifteen of the non-fiction books were fic research about 18th century Britain. Lots of historical fiction, too.

Only two of the books were audiobooks (not counting the ones I made, heh).
23 books by new-to-me authors.
Five of them were rereads.
Two of the books were poetry.
22 out of the 34 fiction books passed the Bechdel test.

Most read author: D. K. Broster, obviously, with seven books. Second most read author is a tie between the historian Jeremy Black with three books, and three books in the Comfortable Courtesan series by A L Hall (which I much recommend!).

Least favorite books: Several of my book club books (Witchmark by C L Polk, The Book of Phoenix by Nnedi Okorafor, Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir, Oath of Dogs by Wendy Wagner), including one that I chose because it was standing unread in my bookcase. It is possible that since I was reading so much historical fiction, especially older such, I was not as much in the mood for modern SF&F? Or maybe I wouldn't have been into them regardless--I mean, I was into the Murderbot book.

Favorite new-to-me books in 2020. Links go to my book posts.
Many of D. K. Broster's historical novels!
Fight for a Throne: the Jacobite '45 Reconsidered (2015) by Christopher Duffy (This is so ridiculously detailed and niche that it's not like I'm recommending it for the casual reader. But I have appreciated it extremely as a fic reference, and it's very well written.)
Men of War Lou Falkner (2019) (An enemies-to-friends-to-lovers Age of Sail m/m romance with lovely writing.)
Flemington (1921) by Violet Jacob (The other slashy historical book set in 1745.)
Bruce Lenman's non-fiction about 18th century Jacobites. (Snarky and well-written, with a social perspective.)
The Bull Calves (1947) by Naomi Mitchison (This is a reread, but I just had to include it anyway--it is brilliant! Set in 18th century Scotland, in the aftermath of war and with a female main character. I also really liked The Big House by the same author.)
Bonnie Dundee (1985) by Rosemary Sutcliff (Er, more Scottish history.)
If Not, Winter (2002) by Sappho, trans. Anne Carson (Enjoyed very much despite its fragmentary nature.)
Alfabet (1981) by Inger Christensen (Poetry about humanity and nature. Apricot trees exist!)
Piranesi (2020) by Susanna Clarke (...everyone knows about this.)

comments

2020 in review: fic

Tue, 05 Jan 2021 21:43:25 GMT

Here's what I wrote in 2020:

For Flight of the Heron by D. K. Broster:
the series That Good Faith, To Which an Enemy as Well as a Friend Is Entitled (Ewen Cameron/Keith Windham, 55,200 words)
the series If Fate Should Reverse Our Positions (Ewen Cameron/Keith Windham, 103,400 words)
The White Sands of Morar (Ewen Cameron/Keith Windham and Ewen Cameron/Alison Grant, 1,700 words)
The Highlands of Scotland (Ewen Cameron/Keith Windham, filk song)
The Tools at Hand (Ewen and Lochiel, 800 words)
Not Your Glove (Ewen Cameron/Alison Grant, 300 words)

Other fic:
A Last Taste of Life (Flemington by Violet Jacob, Captain Callander/Archie Flemington, 3,600 words)
To Fólkvangr (Travel Light by Naomi Mitchison, Halla and Steinvor, 1,800 words)
Different Kinds of Freedom (647 words) (a crossover between Travel Light by Naomi Mitchison and Lolly Willowes by Sylvia Townsend Warner, Halla and Laura Willowes, 650 words)

Ha ha, all my fic this year is for works by four British female authors born in the 19th century. *g*

So, obviously I wrote a ton this year, and got into a new fandom with a vengeance. It felt like such a gift for this to happen during the pandemic, to give me an inner world to lose myself in when I was limited in the outer world!

I posted about 168K words in 2020 according to AO3, but I wrote an additional 60K or so on another longfic. So that's about 228K! But even without the unposted words, this is more than twice what I posted during my second most prolific year, which was 78K words in 2010. Wow.

I never thought I could write novel-length stories, and was delighted to discover that I could. I also delighted in attempting the old-fashioned style of Flight of the Heron, and diving into research for it (bless university interlibrary loans).

I suppose the stories I'm happiest with are the two longfics. And I am very grateful to my beta-readers and fellow fans garonne, hyarrowen, and regshoe. ♥

comments

Life goals bingo for 2020, follow-up

Mon, 04 Jan 2021 16:29:59 GMT

So, I usually have a five by five bingo card of yearly goals, here are the ones I had for 2020. Many of them were derailed by: 1) the pandemic, obviously, and 2) falling for a new fandom after having been in a fallow period fannishly. The latter had already begun to happen when I made the goals, but I didn't realize how much it would change what I did in my free time!

Things I did with a vengeance:

Finish and post the Flight of the Heron longfic that is eating my brain. (Ha ha, I finished that longfic and am halfway through a third one.)
Post 5 hours of podfic. (Haven't tallied it properly, but it's more than 30 hours!)
Make lots of gooseberry jam. (Okay, for lack of gooseberries I only made a very small jar of gooseberry jam, but I'm still counting this because I did pick huge amounts of blueberries, lingonberries, cherries and rosehips and make jam from much of it.)

Other things I did:

Go running 50 times. (54 this year. It varied, for a while I ran a lot, but then developed shin splints and had to take it easy, and also I didn't bring my running shoes to the summer place.)
Make a new friend. (No new RL friends, but I'm counting my three new fannish friends in FotH fandom!)
Do something new. (This is a sort of wild card--I'm counting "writing novel-length fic" as an achievement even though it overlaps with another goal.)
Go birdwatching at the coast when it's stormy and the pelagic sea birds blow in to the coast. (Yes, I did this in January before the pandemic--I went with two retired former colleagues and it was great.)
Try out the "flipped classroom" teaching method. (Yes, it was worthwhile.)
Learn to do union negotiations in support of workplace struggles. (Yes! We're doing negotiations over Zoom, so I've been able to participate, and have actually started to be active and contribute and learn a lot.)
Visit my friend K, who has moved recently. (Yep, got that in before the pandemic hit.)
Have hiked at least 200 km of the local trails. (Yes! I liked this goal a lot. I got to count 60 km that I did in 2019, but then I hiked a lot in the beginning of the year, and did a weekend trip during the pandemic that maybe I shouldn't have, because I took public transport.)

Things I did partly:

Do a moss inventory of a 5x5 km square of Skåne, for a survey project. (I did half of the field work for it, before the pandemic came.)
Go tree climbing eight times (I have arborist equipment). (I think I did five, and two of those was for picking cherries?)
Sleep outdoors (well, in a tent/hammock) 20 nights. (Technically I could have done this despite the pandemic, but how much fun is it to go camping near where you live? I think I did seven nights, four while hiking and three in the summer while visiting a friend so we didn't have to be indoors together, because pandemic.)

Things I could have done despite the pandemic, but did not do:

Focus on learning more about lichen epiphyte species on bark and wood. (Ha, no. This fell to the wayside because new fandom. I'm also not making ANY progress on my backlog of moss specimens.)
Don't gain weight. (I'm back up at 65 kg, but would prefer to be 62. I'm not overweight, I just prefer to not carry around those 3 kg, especially when I go running and suchlike.)
Develop my workout and exercise routine. (Lazy me, did not do. /o\ I did have a problem with my shoulder in the first months of the year, which hindered me for a while.)
Build a tree platform from wooden pallets and put it in a tree, and then sleep on it. (Nope. I did have the revelation that it would be much better to build something similar to a portaledge like they have in rock climbing, because it's so much lighter. My idea was to have a "floor" of sailcloth, or other strong cloth, and just bring that, and then you can cut down saplings and make a temporary frame wherever you are.)
Try out Marcq St Hilaire's method of determining one's position with a sextant. (Okay, this is somewhat pandemic-related, because I didn't want to take public transport out on the islands. But I could've done it in the summer when I went sailing for two weeks with my parents.)

Things I didn't do for obvious, pandemic-related reasons:

Go to Scotland. (This is the one I'm saddest about missing. Hopefully this year!)
Go on a week-long hiking trip in the mountains.
Go to one of the Swedish national parks I haven't been to.
Get to see the capercaillie or black grouse lekking in the spring.
Go on a trip to Estonia and help survey forests there.
Go swimming in 20 new lakes/places by the sea.

Worthwhile things I did not have a goal for, but which happened because pandemic:

I spent a lot of time at the family summer place.
I got a much better relationship with my mom because we spent so much time together. Very happy about this one!
I spent a lot of time with my parents' lovely and affectionate dog who is 12 and won't live forever.
I picked large amounts of wild mushrooms and dried them.

comments

Life Bingo for 2020

Thu, 09 Jan 2020 18:05:41 GMT

ETA: How did this get backdated to 3rd of January when I posted it yesterday?? Sorry if it turns up for you again, I didn't know what time to update it to...

I was thinking a bit about these goals, and how they don't really reflect everything that I am doing in life. For example, last year I didn't have any goals about my work, but obviously that's a large part of what I do, it's just that it kind of...happens anyway. And I do a lot of political organizing work that isn't reflected in my goals, because it is such a part of my everyday life. Also, I am choosing not to have a reading goal this year. I will just read whatever I feel like.

( Read more... )

comments

My fanworks of 2019

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 10:52:02 GMT

Not much, but it isn't nothing, either. All three of the fics were written for challenges, and two of them felt like pulling teeth. The one that didn't is the long Rogue One story, which existed as a WIP before the challenge. I'm quite happy with that one (except I still don't like the title and I'm not 100% happy with the sex scene).

I felt that my Yuletide story was...an adequate Yuletide story, but not more? I've written for Left Hand of Darkness before, and it really wouldn't be possible to top what I wrote then, because it is one of the best things I've ever written. I wrote that in a sort of fever of inspiration. By contrast, this story is okay, but not more--I'm just glad I didn't default like in 2018. I did get a couple of comments on it from people who liked it, though.

A High Probability of Compatibility: After Scarif, Bodhi goes back to Jedha to work with disaster relief--until Cassian comes by and needs a pilot for a mission. Rogue One, Cassian Andor/Bodhi Rook, R, 6,800 words.
Survivors: Rogue One, Cassian Andor & Leia Organa, G, 500 words.
At the Hearth of Estre: Genly with Therem's journals, after. Left Hand of Darkness before gen, written for LJ_McKay in Yuletide 2019, 1,200 words.

From the podfics, I guess you can tell I like dorinda's writing, and it is a joy to read. ♥ These podfics are mostly the result of me having a podficcing goal for the year. I love podficcing when I have the right story and I actually get off my ass to do it, but these days I do seem to need that push.

A kiss slowly rising to the eyes of the sea, by dorinda (Jack/Stephen, R, 1h 30m)
The Steel-Wire Tightrope by dorinda (The Sting, Henry Gondorff/Johnny Hooker, R, 43m)
the leaning grasses and two lights above the sea by toft (Earthsea, gen, G, 25m)
Twelve Questing Pieces by ride_4ever (due South, F/K, PG-13, 11m)

comments

Life bingo for 2019 - how did it go?

Sun, 29 Dec 2019 21:56:22 GMT

Here's how I did with my bingo card of yearly goals for 2019.

Things I did:

Sleep 20 nights outside/in a tent. (28 nights this year.)
Make a new friend. (I got to know my new flatmate who moved in in the spring and who is awesome.)
Go swimming in 20 new lakes/places by the sea. (23 this year.)
Go to one of the Swedish national parks I haven't been to. (Yes, I was in Åsnen national park which is the newest one, in southern Småland.)
Go running 50 times. (Yes, 55 times.)
Go tree climbing eight times.
Post 2h of podfic. (Yes, a total of 2 hours 49 minutes.)
Read at least 25 unread books from my book case. (Yes, 32.)
Write three fanfics. (Well, I've posted three, but I've worked on more that aren't posted, at least not yet.)
Have at least 100 species in my wood-living fungi herbarium (fungarium?) and/or 350 moss species in my moss herbarium (92 fungi species, 406 moss species.)
Have a party when I turn 40. (Yup, I did that.)
Learn GIS. (Yes, I learned to use the parts of QGIS that I need for forest activism stuff.)
Be part of an Extinction Rebellion action. (Yes, but more significantly I was part of this protest)
Improve my sleep habits. (Yes, I was more strict with myself about going to bed at 11 pm. I can't say there was no backsliding, but overall it got better.)
Not be on the union board anymore. (Yes, I'm back on the board of the environmental org instead.)
Go on a trip to either Öland, the mountains or western Norway (and geek out about nature). (I did the first two and enjoyed it a lot.)
Quarrel less with my mom. (Yes, I have managed this! \o/ It's been a combination of choosing my battles, distracting her when needed, and doing my best not to be provoked myself.)
Lose 2 kg of weight. (I started on 65 kg, was briefly down at 60.5 kg but am now at about 62.5 kg. The weight loss is mostly because I want to carry less when running/hiking.)

Things I did partly:

Do something new. (I just realized I hadn't really done anything for this, so then I changed tiny!niece's poopy diaper, which I have never done before. But that just took five minutes, so it seems a bit of a cop-out...)

Things I didn't do:

Try out Marcq St Hilaire's method of determining one's position with a sextant. (No, I guess I just didn't prioritize it.)
Perform with my sister or record an album with her. (Nope. And now she has another baby...)
Take a dance course and/or go dancing twice. (Nope, I only danced at my sister's wedding.)
Learn to stand from a sitting position with my legs crossed, without using my hands or knees. (I can stand without hands or knees using another method, but I just haven't been able to learn this, though I have practiced a bit. Maybe it also has to do with how you're built?)
Build a tree platform from pallets and put it in a tree, and then sleep on it. (Nope.)
Develop my workout and exercise routine. (Well, I did do a physical therapy program during a lot of the year, but I don't really count that.)

comments

2019 reading year in review

Sat, 28 Dec 2019 16:03:04 GMT

Here are some statistics about my reading, for my own navel-gazing pleasure. In 2019 my goal was to read unread books from my bookshelves (or try them out and get rid of them if I didn't like them), and I did this with 32 books. Previous goals: read more non-fiction (2018), reread more books (2017), read fewer American books (2016). Next year's goal: haven't decided yet.

( Statistics under the cut! )

Favorite new-to-me books in 2019. Links go to my book posts.
The Flight of the Heron (1925) by D K Broster (Gloriously slashy historical novel set in 18th century Scotland. ♥ ♥ ♥ )
Twitter and Tear Gas: the Power and Fragility of Networked Protest (2017) by Zeynep Tufekci (Very interesting analysis of social movements before and after the Internet.)
An Ever-Fixed Mark AMarguerite (2017) (A trope-deconstructing Pride and Prejudice soulmark AU.)
Expeditionen: en kärlekshistoria (2013) by Bea Uusma (The author is a fandom-of-one for the Andrée polar expedition and tries to find out the cause of death of the expedition members.)
Playing Against the House: The Dramatic World of an Undercover Union Organizer (2016) by James D. Walsh (A journalist goes undercover as a salt.)
A Memory Called Empire (2019) by Arkady Martine (...everyone knows about this.)
Av kött och blod (2013) by Henrik Johansson (Workplace organizing + murder mystery via golem.)
Women of the Copper Country (2019) by Mary Doria Russell (Very Bechdel-test-passing historical novel about a strike in a copper mine in Michigan.)
Child of a Hidden Sea (2014) + the two next in the series "Hidden Sea Tales" by A M Dellamonica (Fun portal fantasy featuring a scientifically-minded protagonist using critical thinking to solve various mysteries, also there is swashbuckling.)
The Lie Tree (2015) by Frances Hardinge (Uh, I don't know that I can describe this in one sentence. But it's great!)

I'm never sure how to categorize series here—I also read some books in The Comfortable Courtesan series by L A Hall, which would certainly have made it here, but I already included that series in last year's post.

comments

New Year's bingo for 2019

Sat, 02 Feb 2019 19:02:42 GMT

Oops, I forgot to post this, though I finalized the goals around the new year. If you're new: the idea here is not that I have to do all of these things! It's a five by five bingo square, though I'm too lazy to actually put them in a square here. I really like this approach to New Year's goals--if I fail to do things, it's no big deal, and I like the process of thinking through what I want to do in the coming year.

Unfinished goals from last year that I aim to do this year:

Go running 50 times. (Just...keep up with the running, basically.)
Try out Marcq St Hilaire's method of determining one's position with a sextant. (This is such a specific geeky goal, but it's actually also related to my teaching. I'd have to go to one of the outer islands in the archipelago here, or do it when I'm out sailing with my parents, so I have a clear sea horizon.)
Perform with my sister or record songs with her.
Take a dance course and/or go dancing twice. (I actually love dancing and don't do it enough.)

Finished goals from last year that I am aiming for again:

Make a new friend. (I don't expect this to happen every year but I like it as a goal.)
Go swimming in 20 new lakes/places by the sea. (I always enjoy this goal.)
Go to one of the Swedish national parks I haven't been to. (I guess eventually I will run out of parks, but no danger of that yet.)
Do something which sounds interesting but is out of my comfort zone or that I have never done before.
Sleep outdoors (well, in a tent/hammock) 20 nights.
Go tree climbing eight times.

Goals from last year that I am developing/changing:

Post 2h of podfic. (Was: Post 3h of podfic, but I had a long WIP last year. I'm scaling down the ambition, but I do want to keep doing some podficcing.)
Read at least 25 unread books from my book case (My reading goal for this year. Was: Half the books I read should be non-fiction.)
Write three fanfics. (Was: Participate in a new fic exchange.)
Have at least 100 species in my wood-living fungi herbarium (fungarium?) and/or 350 moss species in my moss herbarium (Was: to have 150 species in my moss herbarium, and another goal to learn more about wood-living fungi.)

New goals:

Have a party when I turn 40.
Learn to stand from a sitting position with my legs crossed, without using my hands or knees. (I can already stand up from a sitting position on the floor without using hands or knees, but I do it in a different way. My sister can do it from crossed legs, which spurred me to also want to learn it.)
Build a tree platform from pallets and put it in a tree, and then sleep on it.
Learn GIS. (That is, geographical information systems. This is for forest inventory purposes.)
Be part of an Extinction Rebellion action.
Improve my sleep habits. (It's not that they're terribly bad, but they could be improved.)
Not be on the union board anymore. (Because I want to go back to environmental org board again...but I don't want to leave the union board before we find someone to replace me. It's not that I don't like the union board! More that I served my two years of office and want to prioritize my other org again, though I'll keep being active in the union.)
Go on a trip to either Öland, the mountains or western Norway (and geek out about nature).
Quarrel less with my mom. (We'll see how this one goes.)
Lose 2 kg of weight. (I'm not overweight, I just want to carry less when I'm running/hiking.)
Develop my workout and exercise routine. (I'm pretty happy with it, but it could probably use more variation, and I want to think about if there's anything important I'm missing.)

comments

The 2018 reading year in review

Tue, 01 Jan 2019 15:39:54 GMT

Here are some statistics about my reading, for my own navel-gazing pleasure. In 2018 my goal was that half my reading should be non-fiction. Previous goals: reread more books (2017), read fewer American books (2016). Next year's goal: whittle down the pile of unread books I own.

( Statistics under the cut! )

Favorite new-to-me non-fiction books in 2018, in no particular order. Links go to my book posts.
The Collapse of Complex Societies (1998) by Joseph Tainter (Fascinating theory about the declining marginal benefits of complexity in society.)
The CNT in the Spanish Revolution (2011) by José Peirats (What it says on the tin. Simultaneously dry and moving, and full of interesting practical detail.)
Carbon Democracy (2011) by Timothy Mitchell (About the interplay between politics and fossil fuels.)
Fossil Capital (2016) by Andreas Malm (Same subject as the previous one, but from a different, complementary angle.)
All of Lilian Ryd's historical books about life in northernmost Sweden, with many practical details of life as it was lived (Kvinnor i väglöst land (1995), Renskötarkvinnor (2013), Tusen år i lappmarkens historia (2012)).
The Ecology of Agroecosystems (2011) by John Vandermeer (Brilliant application of the science of ecology to agricultural ecosystems.)
Debt (2011) by David Graeber (Compulsively readable history of debt from an anthropological perspective, and of economy in a wider sense.)
The Great Eating Disorder (2016) by Gunnar Rundgren (About what's wrong with the global food and agricultural system.)
Brainstorm: the flaws in the science of sex differences (2010) by Rebecca Jordan-Young (Impressive study focusing on the flaws both in individual experiments and in how they fit together.)
Messages From Islands (2016) by Ilkka Hanski (Good popular account of the science of biodiversity and nature conservation, woven together with personal memories of research.)
My European Family (2015) by Karin Bojs (About the last 50 000 years of European history, from a genealogical perspective based on DNA testing.)
The Art of Selling War (2016) by Pierre Gilly (About how pro-war propaganda works and how many lies are usually involved.)

Favorite new-to-me fiction books in 2018, in no particular order.
Kindred (1979) by Octavia Butler (An exploration of how slavery distorts intimate relationships.)
The Outlaws of Sherwood (1988) by Robin McKinley (Robin Hood retelling with a lot of heart and community feels.)
The Course of Honour by Avoliot (Delightful arranged marriage in space, with lots of pining.)
A Skinful of Shadows (2017) by Frances Hardinge (Girl fights to get to choose which ghosts will live in her head, set in 1600's England.)
A Monstrous Regiment (2017) by AMarguerite (Elizabeth Bennett, dragon captain.)
Raya (2018) by Henrik Johansson (Set in an industrial bakery in the lead-up to a strike.)
Spinning Silver (2018) by Naomi Novik (..everyone already knows about this one.)
The Murderbot novellas by Martha Wells (Also about this one.)
The Comfortable Courtesan (2017) by A. L. Hall (Have only read volume 1 so far, but this is a delightful and very readable regency series that passes Bechdel test in spades.)
Moll by Elizabeth Rynell (Extrapolation of the depopulation of the Swedish countryside.)

In conclusion, this was definitely the year of non-fiction for me. I mean, I read equal amounts of fiction and non-fiction, and yet there were a lot more candidates for the "favorite" category among the non-fiction books.

comments

My fanworks in 2018

Sun, 30 Dec 2018 10:26:20 GMT

They aren't that many, but this isn't nothing either!

Writing:
To Spill His Flowers on the Ground: sex pollen ent fic for Lord of the Rings, R, 750 words.
A Reply to the Second and Third Houses of the Earth: short poetry for Ursula K. Le Guin's Always Coming Home
Sisters in Arms: Original work for Chocolate Box, Healer/Exhausted Female Knight Returning From The War, PG, 2000 words.
A Better Compromise: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, Cassian Andor/Bodhi Rook, PG, 1,500 words.

Besides these, I also started on some new stories that I sadly didn't finish:
- this year's Yuletide story,
- another Cassian/Bodhi story which is a possibly strange combination of meaningful disaster relief work and robots make them do it,
- a Rae/Mel/Constantine story for Robin McKinley's Sunshine,
- and another rarelit story which I am reluctant to disclose because it was conceived as a gift, and I may yet finish it and gift it.

Podfic:
The Tale of the White Lady of Iffish by raspberryhunter (Earthsea, gen, 49m)
The Land of Lost Content, by desireearmfeldt (and another author, now anonymous) (Fraser/Kowalski, Ray Vecchio/Stella, PG, 3h 9m). Collaboration, with luzula as Ray Kowalski, mific as Benton Fraser, desireearmfeldt as Stella Vecchio, and serafina_b as Ray Vecchio, and bonus podfic_lover as Constable Lester Pearson.
Dear Patron, by Selden (Original Work, Librarian/Patron with a very overdue library book, PG, 29m)
because I don't know how to love any other way by rain_sleet_snow (Star Wars, Beru Whitesun/Owen Lars/Obi-Wan Kenobi, PG-13, 44m)

Sadly I didn't manage an Aubrey/Maturin podfic for the traditional Advent Calendar this year, maybe I'll make one afterwards instead. I also still owe a podfic to ride_forever. And I asked the author of my Yuletide gift if I could podfic that, so that's another future project.

comments

Yearly goals for 2018

Sun, 23 Dec 2018 15:54:04 GMT

Here's how I did with my bingo card of yearly goals for 2018!

Things I did:

Sleep 20 nights outside/in a tent. (22 nights this year.)
Make a new friend. (I got to know a woman who's on the union board with me, and one woman who I did forest inventories with this summer who I really bonded with.)
Go swimming in 20 new lakes/places by the sea. (26 this year! It was a really warm summer.)
Go to one of the Swedish national parks I haven't been to. (Yes, I was in Store Mosse National Park--a friend had her 40th birthday party in a cabin there, but I didn't get as much chance to geek out as I would've liked. It's a large wetland in southern Sweden that somehow escaped being drained out.)
Change banks. (Yes, finally! I didn't actually leave my old bank, but I moved my savings to two other banks that don't invest in fossil fuels and other bad stuff.)
Spend 24 hours in a tree. (Yes, I wrote this up here.)
Do something which sounds interesting but is out of my comfort zone or that I have never done before. (Yes, I rode on a horse!)
(Re)install Linux on at least one of my computers, hopefully both. (Kind of? I got a new work computer and got them to install Linux on it for me. Still counting it, though.)
Post 3h of podfic. (Yes, 5 hours and 11 minutes! Note how it's sneakily worded to say "post" rather than "record". This is so I could count an old WIP I finally finished the editing on.)
Half the books I read should be non-fiction. (Yup.)
Track the wood-living fungi species (especially polypores and Corticiaceae) I see during the year, and also learn fungi microscopy better. (I went to three different fungi courses/workshops, did a little microscopy on my own, did a lot of forest inventories which always improves my skills, and started work on a reference collection of wood-living fungi that now has about 50 species.)
Participate in at least one other fic exchange in addition to Yuletide. (Yes, I did Chocolate Box and thought about doing some other exchanges--there are so many multifandom exchanges running during the year!--but ended up not doing more.)
Go tree climbing at least 8 times. (Yes, I climbed a lot this year, but didn't keep track of how many times after I reached eight. Lots of banner-hanging!)
Co-organize a forest inventory camp in the summer. (Yes, I did this.)
Babysit a kid with noone else there. (Two kids, in fact! \o/ They were about five and two years old.)
Go to the union congress on the national level. (Yes, it was a good experience.)
Go cross-country skiing a couple of days. (I will be doing this for two weeks now!)
Organize my moss herbarium properly, with at least 150 species in it. (Woohoo, it now has 250 species, which is about a fourth of all moss species in Sweden.)

Things I did partly:

Go running 50 times. (I only did 38 times. Fail. /o\ In my defense, the tracks were really icy in the beginning of the year, and then I was sick a lot, with two colds, a sinusitis and a flu, and then during the summer I was doing other outdoorsy stuff, and then I had two other colds in the fall. Will do better next year.)

Things I didn't do:

Delete my gmail accounts and save the email somewhere else. (No. I ran into trouble when I was backing up the email because Thunderbird froze, possibly because I had too much email. And then I just let it slide. Haven't used them for a long time though, and I don't trust Google to actually delete my data even if I tell them to. : / )
Perform with my sister or record an album with her. (No. She still has a small kid. We were going to do some sort of Christmas thing but didn't get around to it.)
Do research of some kind, damn it. (Ha ha, no.)
Visit exeterlinden and/or my friend Jennie. (Nope. I tried but it didn't happen.)
Take a dance course and/or go dancing three times. (No, I didn't go dancing even once, if you don't count the department Christmas party, which I don't think I do.)
Try out Marcq St Hilaire's method of determining one's position with a sextant. (I meant to do this but it never happened--one time I was all set to go out to the archipelago to do it but then it got cloudy...)

comments

Goals for 2018

Tue, 09 Jan 2018 22:15:49 GMT

I usually do a bingo-style square of goals for the year--I like it because then you can mix big things and small things, and you don't have to do it all to feel satisfied. Here's my list for 2018 (sorry, too lazy to make actual 5x5 square):

Unfinished goals from last year that I aim to do this year:

Sleep 20 nights outside/in a tent. (I've had this goal every year and I usually reach it, but not last year.)
Delete my gmail accounts and save the email somewhere else. (This should be doable...)
Change banks. (So should this, damn it. Any year now.)
Spend 24 hours in a tree. (Will try to organize a climbing weekend with others so I can have ground support for it.)
Do something which sounds interesting but is out of my comfort zone or that I have never done before. (Okay, I have an idea for this year. I want to try horseback riding.)
(Re)install Linux on at least one of my computers, hopefully both.

Finished goals from last year that I am aiming for again:

Make a new friend. (I don't expect this to happen every year but I like it as a goal.)
Post 3h of podfic.
Go swimming in 20 new lakes/places by the sea. (I always enjoy this goal.)
Go to one of the Swedish national parks I haven't been to. (I guess eventually I will run out of parks, but no danger of that yet.)

Goals from last year that I am developing/changing:

Perform with my sister or record album with her. (Was: Record an album with my sister. I am broadening it, since our album project will probably not happen soon.)
Half the books I read should be non-fiction. (My reading goal for this year. Was: At least one fourth of the books I read should be rereads, which they were.)
Do research of some kind, damn it. (Was: Collaborate on research project about forest and climate.)
Go running 50 times. (Was: Go running 20 times. I did it 48 times, and I just want to make sure I keep doing it.)
Visit exeterlinden and/or my friend Jennie. (Was: Visit three friends who don't live in my city, that I don't usually visit.)
Track the wood fungi species (especially polypores and Corticiaceae) I see during the year, and also learn fungi microscopy better. (Was: Track the butterfly and moth species I see during the year, which I did.)
Participate in at least one other fic exchange in addition to Yuletide. (This could be done pretty quickly as long as I don't default on Chocolate Box! Was: Post at least three fanfiction stories, which I did.)
Go tree climbing at least 8 times. (Was: do it 10 times. I guess I wanted to make it easier to cross off.)

New goals:

Co-organize a forest inventory camp in the summer. (I didn't do this last year, but I did it the three years before that, and it is likely to happen this year. I just want to give myself credit for it.)
Babysit my niece with noone else there. (I realize this seems like a puny goal for those of you with kids.)
Take a dance course and/or go dancing three times. (I actually love dancing and don't do it enough. Maybe I'll try out lindy hop?)
Go to the union congress on the national level. (This happens every three years and I haven't gone before.)
Try out Marcq St Hilaire's method of determining one's position with a sextant. (This is such a super-specific geeky goal, but it's actually also related to my teaching. I'd have to go to one of the outer islands in the archipelago here, or do it when I'm out sailing with my parents, so I have a clear sea horizon.)
Go cross-country skiing a couple of days. (I love skiing and don't do it enough.
Organize my moss herbarium properly, with at least 150 species in it. (For a long time I did the "leave moss specimens lying around in random paper bags" thing, although at least they usually had species/date/coordinates/substrate at least vaguely written on the bag. But the last year I've started to organize it better, for Scientific Posterity but also for my own sake, because it's easier to determine species when you've got specimens to compare to.)

comments

Fanworks in 2017

Tue, 02 Jan 2018 17:14:16 GMT

Well hey, I made enough fanworks for a year's-end post! It's been a few years since that happened.

Fics:
Southbound: Victoria heard the shot, and saw him fall. Her outstretched hand reached for him a second longer before reaction caught up to her and she dropped it. Ben was--he was-- Later, she could think about it later. For now, she had to survive. due South, Victoria gen, 7,700 words, abandoned WIP, PG-13
A Different Taste: The rusalka, forbidden from drowning men in the lake, finds another source of nourishment. The Bear and the Nightingale, Vasya/the rusalka, R, 900 words.
Common Ground: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, Cassian Andor/Bodhi Rook, PG, 1,700 words.
An Undiscovered Country: After the victory of the Light, Will returned home. The Dark Is Rising, Will Stanton/Bran Davies, PG, 3,200 words.

Podfic:
Choosing Family by desireearmfeldt (Firefly, gen and Wash/Zoe, PG-13, 34m)
Going Dark, by killer_quean and ruby_powell (Slings & Arrows, Maria gen, PG-13, 17m)
You Just Brace and You Breathe by dira (Generation Kill, Brad Colbert/Nate Fick, NC-17, 2h 12m)
Birds of a Feather, by toft (Aubrey/Maturin series, Jack/Stephen, R, 20m)

This is not much compared to five years ago when I was writing tons of stories and recording many hours of podfic per year, but I'll take it.

Fic-wise, I am glad to have posted that long unfinished Victoria WIP--it needed some work before it could be posted. Now I just have one long due South WIP left that isn't posted (the science fiction one). But above all I'm so happy to have written a few spontaneous stories, especially the Star Wars one! It felt like such a gift. And I was happy with my Yuletide fic, too. Going forward, I aim to participate in at least one other fic exchange, and I'll try to sign up for Chocolate Box.

Podfic-wise, I think my favorite is Going Dark--it was so much fun recording comedy. And I'm happy to have done a long podfic again (You Just Brace and You Breathe), but I don't think I'll be doing the long one from that verse. Nate's POV gets a bit repetitive to read, or maybe it's my failure that I can't vary it enough. If it had been Ray Person POV, now...I love reading in his voice. For next year, I hope to record some Star Wars podfic! Also if I can finally put together that long due South collaborative podfic WIP, that would be good.

comments

Books read in 2017

Sat, 30 Dec 2017 22:18:19 GMT

Since a couple of years back I keep a spreadsheet, partly because I enjoy navel-gazing statistics, partly to have an easily-accessible list in case I want to go back and see what I read, and partly to help me with reading goals. In 2016 my goal was to read fewer American books, in order to push myself to discover other authors. Mostly it resulted in reading more Scandinavian books. In 2017 my goal was to reread more books, which has been an excellent goal that I have enjoyed a lot. In 2018 my goal will be to read more non-fiction--there's lots of non-fiction on my list of books to check out, so I decided to run with that.

( Statistics under the cut! )

Favorite new-to-me books in 2017, in no particular order:
The Watchmaker of Filigree Street by Natasha Pulley (Understated historical M/M romance with intriguing worldbuilding and plot)
The Arrival by Shaun Tan (stunning graphic novel about immigration in a fantastical world)
The Forgotten Revolution: How Science Was Born in 300 BC and Why it Had to Be Reborn by Lucio Russo (about the scientific revolution in the Hellenistic world)
Defending the Earth by Murray Bookchin and Dave Foreman (dialogue between allies with ideological differences)
Known Associates by thingswithwings (amazing Captain America story with genderqueer Steve Rogers)
The Bull Calves by Naomi Mitchison (moving family drama set in 18th century Scotland, with wonderful language)
Reindeer Moon by Elizabeth Marshall Thomas (historical novel set in the ice age)
Tillbaka till henne by Sara Lövestam (historical novel about Swedish lesbian suffragettes and about a present day woman who finds their letters)
Dragonsbane by Barbara Hambly (delightful fantasy)
Daughter of Mystery and The Mystic Marriage by Heather Rose Jones (lesbian Ruritanian romance with excellent worldbuilding)
New York 2140 by Kim Stanley Robinson (optimistic SF with political and environmental themes)
You Drive Through the Dust by dira (Generation Kill fic with psychic wolf bonds)
The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden (fantasy based on Russian fairy tale)
The Edge Between the Sand and the Stars by rain_sleet_snow (very good Rey-centric Star Wars fic, now jossed by TLJ)

Sorry, should maybe link to my reviews of them, but I have to go to bed now, and you can find them by journal search if you really want to...

comments

Yearly goals 2017

Fri, 29 Dec 2017 23:09:47 GMT

So let's see how I did with my bingo card for 2017. I am too lazy to represent the actual card--I got one bingo row.

Things I did:

Post 3h of podfic. (Yes! 3h 24min in total. I am happy with this since I made very little podfic in 2016.)
Make a new friend. (I got to know one of my housemates who moved in one and a half years ago. I like her a lot.)
Go swimming in 20 new lakes/places by the sea. (Exactly 20, though I cheated on one of them since I'd swum there once a couple of years before.)
Go to one of the Swedish national parks I haven't been to. (I went to Stenshuvud with a friend; it was heaven for a nature geek.)
At least one fourth of the books I read should be rereads. (Yes, more on this in an upcoming book post.)
Collaborate on research project about forest and climate. (Well, so-so. But we did send in an article, even if it was only a comment on another article.)
Hold a speech on May Day. (Yes, I did this.)
Go running 20 times. (I did 48 times. My experiment with running was such a success! \o/ I'm still a very slow runner, but I like doing it and I feel like it's very good for me. Before the summer I had some pain in one foot, but then I did other stuff over the summer and when I started running in the fall again it was quite gone.)
Try ten new recipes. (Yes! I feel like I got some more variety in my cooking this year. And I bought some delicious lamb from a local organic farmer which I tried out some really good recipes for.)
Visit my friend Ida for at least a couple of days in the summer. (I'm so glad I did this.)
Track the butterfly and moth species I see during the year. (Yes, I bought a moth lamp/moth trap and used it quite a lot and saw many new species.)
Post at least three fanfiction stories. (I posted four! I'm so happy about that. Granted, one of them was an abandoned WIP, but I had to do some work for it to be postable.

Things I did partly:

Sleep 20 nights outside/in a tent. (13 nights. I was outdoors a lot, but mostly in situations where we slept indoors.)
Delete my gmail accounts. (I got an email client and started downloading my email folders locally in preparation for deleting the accounts, but one of them is so huge the program keeps freezing up when I try it...).
Go tree climbing ten times. (I did seven times.)
Visit three friends who don't live in my city, that I don't usually visit. (Two visits. I did really try! I was going to do a third one in December but she got a bad cold and we canceled.)
Record an album with my sister. (No, but we made progress on the songs. She has a small kid, so you can see why this is proceeding with glacial speed.)

Things I didn't do:

Get a tattoo. (Nope. Still thinking about it.)
Make lots of jam in the berry/fruit season. (Haha, fail. I did pick lots of mushrooms though?)
Change banks. (Ummmm. I keep putting this off.)
Write a scientific article together with Senior Scientist Guy from my summer mountain work. (Er, no. We have an old WIP but I failed to even poke him about it.)
Spend 24 hours in a tree. (I wanted to but it didn't happen--I want some sort of ground backup from other people who can climb, and we didn't have a proper climbing camp this year.)
Take part in at least two union negotiations. (Nope. This was a badly chosen goal--I did all sorts of union stuff but not this.)
Do something which sounds interesting but is out of my comfort zone or that I have never done before. (No, I don't think I did.)
(Re)install Linux on at least one of my computers, hopefully both. (I should have managed this. Fail.)

comments

Goals bingo for 2017

Tue, 10 Jan 2017 22:09:17 GMT

Unfinished goals from last year that I aim to do this year:

Change banks (third year's the charm...).
Get a tattoo.
Make lots of jam in the berry/fruit season.
Post 3h of podfic. (This goal is sneakily changed from record 3h to post 3h. This is because I have a long unfinished collaboration which I want to count towards the goal if I manage to finish it...).
Write a scientific article together with Senior Scientist Guy from my summer mountain work.
Spend 24 hours in a tree.
Take part in at least two union negotiations.
Record an album with my sister.

Finished goals from last year that I am aiming for again:

Make a new friend.
Sleep 20 nights outside/in a tent.
Go to some activity/meeting which sounds interesting but is out of my comfort zone or that I have never done before.
Go swimming in 20 new lakes/places by the sea.
Go to one of the Swedish national parks I haven't been to.

Goals from last year that I am developing/changing:

At least one fourth of the books I read should be rereads. (Was: read < 1/3 American books, which I did.)
Collaborate on research project about forest and climate. (Was: find a new research collaboration/project.)
Hold a speech on May Day. (Was: help organize May Day parade. This one is kind of scary! But it would be an interesting challenge, and I do have an idea of what I'd want to say.)
Go running 20 times. (Was: weightlift regularly, which I have formed a very good habit for now. I need more aerobic exercise during the non-summer months (in the summer I'm outside all the time anyway). So I'm going to try some low-key running.)

New goals:

Try ten new recipes. (I have a fairly large repertoire of meals, but I'd like to enlarge it, and I hardly ever cook from recipes.)
Visit my friend Ida for at least a couple of days in the summer (she's my oldest friend, but has two kids now, so it's more of an effort to find the time/place to be with her.)
Visit three friends who don't live in my city, that I don't usually visit (I do have four people in mind here, but let's go with three so as not to be overambitious).
Delete my gmail accounts (this would involve storing all those years of emails somewhere else).
(Re)install Linux on at least one of my computers, hopefully both. (I used to be all Linux, all the time, but my stationary computer kind of broke down and I need to reinstall, and when I got a new laptop it had Windows and the one time I tried to install Linux it didn't work, so I need to get some computer geek advice on it.)
Go tree climbing ten times. (I didn't climb as much last year, which I blame the Great Species Contest for, but I want to do it more this year.)
Track the butterfly and moth species I see during the year. (I definitely don't have the energy to track All The Species like I did this year, but doing it with one group a year sounds good. And I just started looking at moths this year, so.)
Post at least three fanfiction stories.

I notice I have no goals related to my environmental work. I guess this is because I do it all the time anyway, and I had no particular new thing I wanted to do within it. Also, I do have an actual 5x5 bingo card on paper, but I was too lazy to find the code for that online.

comments