☆❀☆

☆ Aaaaand November is over! That's a wrap! Wow, this month went by fast. I'm surprised and amazed. Where did the year go?!

☆ Speaking of which, that means NaNoWriMo is over. I managed to write more than I ever expected - I had been aiming for around 10k, but I doubled that and reached 20k! Wonderful! It helps that I had a lot of exchange fics to work on, and the write-ins definitely helped too. But the habit of writing every day, even if it was only 100 words, was... effective. I think I'm going to ease up on that a little now, and focus on editing more than output, because I really want to get some of these drafts finished. (Though I managed to finish several already!)

☆ Good news: the local NaNo group has decided that the write-ins will continue. Which means... I suddenly have a social life. I. What? How did this happen? I'm really happy about it, but it's surprising. Regardless, I now have something to do every Sunday afternoon. Sounds good! Plus, we're moving the time slot up a little earlier, which means I'll have plenty of time to catch the bus after it's over - so I won't have to leave early, like I did a couple of times. ... I don't expect that I'll form any long-lasting friendships from this. But it's nice to have something to do every weekend. Plus, think of all the writing I'll get done!

☆ I'm all finished up with the gift I was writing for the SSSSForum's secret santa, so now I can plunge headfirst into editing all those Yuletide drafts. I have one with pending revisions thanks to Qichi (seriously, pal, I really appreciate it, there are a lot of things there that I would not have seen on my own) and then... it's a matter of editing the others. One will be tricky, because it's longer than what I usually write, and it has a lot of action. Pfuh. AND I started writing a fourth one on Saturday, so hopefully I'll be able to get that done. It's challenging in an entirely different way - diary format, which I don't normally write, and from a completely nonhuman point of view. Fun! But also difficult! We'll see how this turns out.

☆ Like I've mentioned before, I'm not signing up for fandom_stocking this year, because I found last year a tad stressful for some reason. (I dunno'. Brains are weird.) But it looks like they're going ahead with it this year, so if any of you cool cats on my flist are going to participate, you should totally mention it in your journals so that I can keep an eye on it and see if I can fill some treats for you. <3

☆ Today has been very... up and down. In a lot of ways. I don't know why, but lately I'm finding it hard not to get irritable at people for the tiniest little things. Kind of frustrating; I don't like myself when I'm like this. Hopefully I'll figure out what's wrong with my mood and fix it, somehow. (A run might help....)

Sometimes I feel like I have two settings:

01. Enthusiastic and cheerful and chatty! Hello stranger, let's be friends!

or

02. I want to hide in bed and not come out and not talk to anybody ever.


... Today it's the latter.

However! Comments were unscreened at fandom_stocking last night, and it was fun to go through them. And I didn't expect to actually receive any fic, but I did! Some Frozen stuff, a nice little thing with Elsa and Anna being adorable - anyway it's here and it was very nice to read it before I went out in the way-too-cold morning to go to work.

I can hardly wait until the weekend. Things are at that stage in the week where every little thing is so very... tiring.

So, a few weeks ago, someone informed me that the Network is a Dreamwidth feature that exists, sort of like LJ's old friends-of-friends page. Even though I've had my paid account for a while, I never actually noticed it because I read my flist via a bookmark and hardly ever actually look at my journal. Anyway, I love this thing; I read it regularly now. (The "Latest Things page is fun too, though 60% of that tends to be either roleplay-related or Russian entries depending on the time of day... but it's still interesting.)

Anyway, point is, recently I saw an entry where someone was talking about their fandom_stocking requests and holy crap, I want to fill this person's stocking so badly. I thought I was done with this fest! But I guess not. Good thing it goes until after Christmas, because I'll probably need that time if I'm going to do anything for this person. I might even try to write some (short) fic... in a fandom I've never written in... but ahhh they like all the things that I like about it. HELLO STRANGER, LET'S BE FRIENDS.

... Definitely going to have to finish my Nordic Exchange fic first, though. Mod sent out a reminder that it's due on Christmas Eve. I thought we had a day or two after that, but I guess not. Oops. I can definitely get it done in time, though! I'm just currently psyducking over it because I really would rather be working on almost anything else. This pairing + this time period = a combination of "meh" and "why", basically. But, I can do it! I should work on it tonight.

I've been trying to get things done in the last few days, but the success has been... mixed. Working on the fic for the Nordic exchange is going pretty slowly - but I'll get it done. The recipient requested stuff set during the Kalmar Union and while it's a pretty important period, it definitely isn't my favourite. Nothing I can't handle, though.

So many fic ideas for things other than what I need to be writing, though. I have some vague ideas for some 18th-century Denmark-Norway/Russia stuff that I'd love to develop... buuuut it will have to wait.

Aside from that, been making icons for fandom_stocking. I decided that I'd try to do at least six fills. Well, I'm halfway done, which is nice. I like that this gives me the opportunity to participate without having to write anything, since the number of canons that I can actually write for is really limited.

Probably going to start the Christmas baking tomorrow! Very excited about that. :D

Oh no, I'm coming down with a headcold. D: On the upside: It's the weekend, so I won't have to take time off work. On the downside: I had stuff I planned to do this weekend! Argh!

I guess if I end up stuck in bed all weekend, I certainly have a large backlog of reading that I can go through, at least. That won't be too bad. Currently way behind in my reading, and I'd like to get through some of it. But this isn't what I'd had in mind.

Anyway - I decided to participate in fandom_stocking this year! It's my first year doing it. I was a little unsure at first, but decided to dive in anyway... at the very least, I made sure to give lots of extra information in case people have trouble filling for my fandoms. As for me, I think I'll try doing icons for people; I've been in a very icon-y mood lately.

Lately there are some journal entries that I want to write, but they require time and thought and they're halfway journals and halfway meta and it's just hard to put them together. That won't be happening this weekend, definitely. But I've been writing down the ideas, at least. So far it's a couple of entries about themes in Sabaton's music, and some stuff about the Millennium trilogy, and my overall impression of Mushishi since I never did get around to writing an entry about that after finishing the first season, but... time. Where is it? I need a time-turner.

Now, I should head to bed (an hour early, ugh. And on a Friday!) but I'll leave you with my favourite of Leevi and the Leavings' Christmas songs, since it's almost December.

( Embed under the cut )