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yuuago☆ I've been a total mess lately. Man, this funk I'm in is such a pain in the ass! I've also been sleeping way too much this weekend, and that's bad. (As in, going to bed at a reasonable-ish time, but then sleeping in past 9 AM anyway... Not good at all.) But! I tidied things up here a bit, at least. There are a lot more things that need to be taken care of, including (ugh) dusting, but I already feel a lot better.
☆ I had to default on my Yuletide assignment. My recip was lovely, and had great prompts, but this case of the blahs shows no sign of going away any time soon. So, it's better to do this, rather than risk giving them extruded fic product. I'm sure that when the pinch hits go out (hopefully there will be a batch in the next couple of days?) they will get snatched up right away. Still going to try to write them a treat, but I'll be able to breathe a bit easier without the deadline hanging over my head.
☆ Trying to decide on a new reading challenge for next year... Usually I decide to read X number of books, and then have subcategories inside of that (poetry, nonfiction, etc). Think I'll add a few for the 2018 list, so it'll be:
-10 Nonfiction
-10 Poetry
-10 Works by First Nations/Inuit/Metis authors
-10 works by Canadian authors
-10 works by authors from outside of Canada, USA, and England
The only question is whether I should allow overlap. xD Usually I do, but, if I didn't... HMM... filling every category would be more challenging. :D Fun!
☆ I had to default on my Yuletide assignment. My recip was lovely, and had great prompts, but this case of the blahs shows no sign of going away any time soon. So, it's better to do this, rather than risk giving them extruded fic product. I'm sure that when the pinch hits go out (hopefully there will be a batch in the next couple of days?) they will get snatched up right away. Still going to try to write them a treat, but I'll be able to breathe a bit easier without the deadline hanging over my head.
☆ Trying to decide on a new reading challenge for next year... Usually I decide to read X number of books, and then have subcategories inside of that (poetry, nonfiction, etc). Think I'll add a few for the 2018 list, so it'll be:
-10 Nonfiction
-10 Poetry
-10 Works by First Nations/Inuit/Metis authors
-10 works by Canadian authors
-10 works by authors from outside of Canada, USA, and England
The only question is whether I should allow overlap. xD Usually I do, but, if I didn't... HMM... filling every category would be more challenging. :D Fun!
Yuu. Fic writer & book lover. M/Canada.
no subject
Date: 2017-11-27 01:21 pm (UTC)Anyway I really like the idea of a reading challenge, though I haven't done any so far. There's this Ted Talk by a woman who decided to read a book from every single country in the world. For some countries, there were no books translated into English at the time of her challenge and people volunteered to translate some just for her. It sounds like a worthy challenge to do at some point. I'm sure it would take most people more than a year though, we're talking almost 200 books. But yours is also interesting, and especially nice to adapt for one's own country/region. I just miiight build my own based on this.
LK
no subject
Date: 2017-11-28 02:58 am (UTC):O Haaa, yeah, 200 books would definitely take more than a year, for me. xD Usually I manage about 50 per year.
Yesss adapt it~ I rather like it because like, if I don't give myself some kind of challenge list, I end up not reading as much. Plus, this is a good way to nudge myself into reading things that I do enjoy but tend to think of as "ugh, effort" - nonfiction and poetry, mostly. Very interesting stuff! But it requires more brainpower than the popcorn-y crime novels that I'd always pick if left to my own devices. xD
no subject
Date: 2017-11-29 10:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-12-01 04:38 am (UTC)Uhh let's seeee....
Nonfiction: Race to the South Pole: The Expedition Diaries of Scott and Amundsen - Roland Huntford. This one was especially interesting for me because I've read Amundsen's published accounts, so it was interesting to compare that + his diary, as well as the other Norwegian expedition diary included in this book (which provided a slightly differing perspective)
Poetry: Forge - Jan Zwicky. Her stuff is like beautiful music.
First Nations: The Back of the Turtle by Thomas King. Though tbh Thomas King is always a good time, his stuff is great.
Canadian: What the Bear Said: Skald Tales of New Iceland - W. D. Valgardson. Icelandic-Canadian short stories, yay! Some resembling their old country counterparts, but others with a very Canadian feel.
Outside USA/Canada/England: Things We Lost in the Fire - Mariana Enriquez. Collection of short horror stories. Deliciously creepy.
no subject
Date: 2017-12-05 10:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-12-06 04:14 am (UTC)Also more broadly, they involve a lot of things that feature widely in certain kinds of Canadian literature - lots of stuff about the harshness of winter and possibly starving and freezing to death etc, it's the stereotypical Canadian Prairie Provinces Narrative. Which would of course be present in the source country of Iceland (hunger and cold and death), but also it has the angle of the fact that the land is immense and uninviting and strange and new to the people who are telling these stories, and that's what makes it feel Canadian to me.
In addition to that, some of the stories have very... Canadian endings. Like, there is one that is about how ghosts who haunt a person will follow them everywhere, even across the ocean - this is a very Icelandic type of ghost story, and generally the ghost would follow you and haunt you until death. But the Canadian version of the story, well, the ghost does follow our poor Icelandic settlers to Canada, but then they... find a way to placate it and... make it part of the family....??? It sounds very silly when it's put that way but yeah. xD
no subject
Date: 2017-12-10 10:37 pm (UTC)AWWWWWW
Thankyuuu!