Luzula

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)

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!

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)

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. ♥

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.)

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.

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)

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.

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.

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...)