leveragehunters

Hey, wow. Long time no see. I kind of dropped off of the radar, but I've done a writing wrap up post at the end of each year since I started writing again and, especially coming into the new decade, didn't want to abandon the tradition.

So, in 2019 I wrote very little, only 139,917 words across 9 finished fics, which is half and a bit less than each of the preceding three years. But you know what? I'm not beating myself up for it.

2019 was also the year of the completely fucked right shoulder (still not completely better, which is total BS), and the year of taking on another entire full time job at work for the second half of the year. I'm frankly amazed I wrote as much as I did (and there's an uncounted entire two months I spent working on something that I finally set aside to come back to and rework, ie my discovery that I cannot write shrunkyclunks. Who knew?!)

It was also the year of taking steps to make major changes to my life going forward. I currently commute a total of three hours/day and have done for a long time. From July 2020, that's going to drop to about 5 minutes. Walking.

(I KNOW, RIGHT?!?)

It involved some big decisions and some big, scary commitments, but I'm incredibly happy I made them. I can't even begin to predict the impact it's gonna have on my life. I can't even imagine having that much time back every day. I know it'll mean so much more sleep. I hope it'll mean so much more writing--I've no intention of stopping anytime soon (I moved 22 WIPs/fleshed out story plans in various stages to my 2020 writing folder, so...)

It's going to be interesting to come back to this post in 2021 and report back.

This may very well be the only post I make in 2020, but I wish anyone who sees it an amazing year and an amazing decade and everything good in the world.

Started January 21st, and finally I've achieved: Blue Sparkle Bear



Not gonna lie, I'm pretty chuffed

Last week I read:

• Think of England - KJ Charles: Eh, I was in the mood :)

• Out of the Dark - David Weber: This is such an 'I wrote this for fun, because I could' book. I skim over big chunks of the 'Yo American Independence Guns WOO' gung ho stuff (the book NAME CHECKS Independence Day--although to Weber's credit he doesn't stay wholly in the US; his pockets of resistance are international), but even with all that, it's fun. Aliens invade the earth, the government is gone, humans are fighting back in pockets of resistance but they're almost sure to lose and then ( cut for MAJOR spoilers )

• World War Z - Max Brooks: I think after Out of the Dark I needed an end of the world story that treated it seriously, and this one so does. I always forget and read it on the train, and end up sniffling into the book. Max Brooks is such a great writer. I whole-heartedly recommend this one.

...and what's half-way down the road to blue sparkle bear? That's right:



GREEN sparkle bear!! Only about four more weeks to go 'til blue. (eeeeee!)

Also, this is my druid, Deerhart. She can turn into a stag. Yes, her name is the most egregious pun and yes, I'm so proud.

I'll read anything by KJ Charles, so was pretty happy to see a new one from her.

My fave is Think of England, but Prisoner of Zenda's a close second, because it's gives us a damn good (what I read, though I've no clue if, and in fact doubt, that's what the author intended) aromantic relationship. Seriously, it's pretty great.

arduinna  posted a great rundown of federated fandom, and then alby_mangroves  talked to me about it and now I'm leveragehunters over there.

I still don't know it all works, I'm on the fandom.stopthatimp.net instance, but that's as far as I understand to talk about it yet! It certainly seems very cool :D

I love Bujold's Vorkosigan Saga possibly an unreasonable amount, but this post on fancake by beatrice_otter reccing sahiya's Five Ways Ekaterin Never Met Miles at Twenty led me to read my first ever fic for it. And, boy howdy, was it great.

beatrice_otter 's reccer's notes are wonderful (extract below):

...In canon, Ekaterin and Miles met when they were both thirty, in the middle of a really weird sabotage investigation (in the novel Komarr). ... This story takes a throwaway line of the canon, and extrapolates it out, and does it very well...

I wholeheartedly rec their entire rec as well as the fic, and the fic was so good, and it did what the best fic does: sent me down a rabbit hole of 'oh, then what if? And what if? And what if?'.

It also helped me figure out what I'm reading next, book-wise, which is always a nice conundrum to solve.

Chris Evans narrating a video about heroic dogs; it just made me happy, okay?

This was so damn good. I hope hope hope he writes a sequel.

Just making a note here that I'm starting the very long quest chain to open up the blue sparkle bear appearance for Deerhart, my guardian druid. What's a blue sparkle bear? This is a blue sparkle bear:



It's a...really, really long series of quests. I'm actually doing them on Hail, because she has most of the tertiary requirements already and druid appearances are account wide. On top of the very long quest chains I also have to unlock an achievement which will take a minimum of seven weeks from tomorrow - that one I need to do on Tarma, pulling Hail through (Tarma will be doing the lion's share of large chunks of the work for the rest of the quest chains, anyway, since only her and Corin can really solo last expansion's raid bosses, and Corin's on the same account as Hail). So, long, long chains, lots of fussy work...but BLUE SPARKLE BEAR at the end of it.

Lets see how long it actually takes.

232/01/19: Tuesday before reset, did up to the Emerald Nightmare quests - forgot to have Hail tag freaking Illy so didn't get his drop, but got all 30 corrupted essences in the single run. Nice. I'll get Illy tonight. I need to get to unlock a chunk of Suramar and then get to Revered with the Nightfallen for a lot of the next quests, so

23/01: I'll send Hail to do the Kirin Tor emissary then unlock Surmar and get started on doing the WQs there. (I can unlock all of Suramar basically this weekend, but getting to Revered will take awhile. I should maybe log onto to all my alts' mission tables and see if they have any missions for NF tokens...) Also, have to go to the next (2/8) World Boss WQ for the Unleashed Monstrosity Achieve. 

This is really just me talking to myself/making a note here; please feel free to disregard! Oh, I'm also making a note here that I'm really pleased because I managed to solo the current normal dungeon The Motherlode on Corin and unlock the Dark Iron Dwarves. Which I'll probably never roll, but hey, one more mount! It only took like an hour and a half... (now to see if I can solo the four alliance normal dungeons to unlock the Kul Tirans - I really want their damn horse)