☆❀☆

☆ Ahhh the draft for my NiF exchange fic is done, draft for my zine submission is also done... I don't have any writing deadlines for a bit. Feels good! I think I'll just... relax, and pick away at these, and not fuss over anything for a while. :)

☆ The yarn void has been conquered! In other words, that baby blanket I was knitting for my coworker is done. ;) I'm rather glad to be finished with it - was getting a bit sick of it toward the end, hah. It's nice to be able to start something new!

☆ Started That Nice Stitch Cowl, working in that one weird little ball of Berroco Boboli Lace that I bought ages ago. It's kind of gold/silver/bronze shades, a bit shiny. It's nice and squishy, but it feels a bit weird to knit with; must be on account of being a wool/acrylic/rayon mix. Looks good, though. The provisional cast-on gave me a bit of trouble at first, but I figured it out well enough (I'll probably be singing a different tune when it comes time to pull out the waste yarn, hah). If I end up liking this pattern a lot, it might be useful for all those one-off skeins of sock yarn that have inevitably accumulated....

☆ holiday_wishes is a neat little comm. Post a wishlist, and see if you can grant other people's wishes - pretty simple setup. You can post your wishlists up until the end of December. Maybe some of you would be interested?

Well! Solstice has passed. I'm so glad. It was starting to get so dark so early, I just couldn't handle it. Though it'll be a while before it's light at an early hour again, I'm definitely looking forward to it. That's what I get for living so far north, but... one would think I'd be used to it by now.

Christmas is almost here... I'll be glad when it's over, honestly. The time off from work is nice, but the holiday itself is far too much fuss.

I have some movies lined up: Metropolis (1927), Eyes Without A Face (1960), and J'Accuse (1919) - the last one since I didn't watch it last month as I intended. Well actually I have a bunch of movies on my to-watch list, it's just a matter of grabbing 'em, but it's so long that it's hard to narrow it down... and I've been in the mood for dusty old stuff, anyhow.

Nothing left to say, so here's a link to one of my favourite songs by Týr: Tróndur í Gøtu

I'm finished all of my Christmas cards! What a relief. But I have some stamps left, so I might track down some more people for their current addresses. I don't know. Have to decide. I'd normally just leave it be, but the stamps that I have remaining are Christmas stamps, so I might as well use them up for now. Or not.

I also finished with fandom_stocking, at least for now. Decided that I would fill 6 stockings, and I did 6, with 7-9 icons in each. So, I'm done for now. But later on I might do more if the mood hits me, especially in the (unlikely?) chance that someone requests one of my more obscure fandoms. Or... I might write a drabble or two. One of the people who requested Hetalia likes Denmark/Norway, so I think I might be able to put something together for them.

But for now... I really need to concentrate on my exchange fic. Maybe I should bring the paper drafts to work so that I can scribble some things down during lunch? I know how the story will go - it's just a matter of writing it out, and the sooner I get that done, the better. One thing that has me a little concerned is that it doesn't feel set in the time and place. It's supposed to be Kalmar Union, but it doesn't feel like a history fic. That's... a problem. I should fix that.

Was thinking about doing Christmas cards this year... If anybody wants one, send me a Direct Message on Dreamwidth or Livejournal. (If you don't celebrate christmas but want a card anyway, that's fine, I have some cute normal cards that I can send too)

I'm so tired and it's only Monday... this is going to be a long week.

Finally watched Paranorman. Man, if someone told me earlier that it's a stop motion film, I probably would have seen it ages ago. When it was in cinema, even. I love stop motion, and this one was beautifully executed. It doesn't stick with me as much as some others - I'm thinking mainly of Nightmare Before Christmas - but for what it is, it's pretty good. And you can tell that it was made by folks who really appreciate horror; there are so many little references to classic films, it's awesome.

Also watched Pet Sematary this weekend. It was... well, the novel is definitely not one of my favourite Stephen King novels, and I'm not all that into the film version either. But I'm glad that I finally got around to watching it, just so that I'd know what the fuss is about. One thing that did strike me is that I didn't remember much about Pascow's role in the novel, but in the film he did make an impression; I like what they did with him there.

Anyway. This weekend was... well, I was very anxious, and holidays are always stressful. But Thanksgiving is over, and since we had our supper on Saturday, today was very relaxing, so that was nice. I managed to finish one of the fics I'd been working on - some Germany/Norway stuff for the kink meme - and now I'm wondering what I should work on. I have a ficlet that's almost done, and then after that I have two long things that I don't feel like working on right now, and a LoZ fic that I also don't feel like working on. So, maybe I could start something new... like that France/Belgium thing that's been sitting in my head for a while. Or maybe not. Signups for the Sweden/Finland fest are going to happen soon, and of course I'll be doing that, even though I'm not into the pairing much. Might as well take a little rest until that starts.

I'm a little bummed out that I'll be working on Halloween. With my schedule, I don't get home until trick-or-treating is almost over, so I won't be able to hand out candy to the kids. Sure, I can stay up late watching horror movies, but... no costume. Ah, well. There's no way I can wiggle out of going to work on that day, so I guess I'm stuck with it.

So, somehow in the last two days I've managed to pound out 2k of Link Between Worlds fic. This is not normal. Usually I'm doing awesome if I can manage to write 500 words of Hetalia fic in that amount of time. I write pretty slowly on average. So this much, for a fandom and characters that I have no experience with, is just ??? how the heck did that happen.

Not that I'm complaining! I'm just really surprised at myself. This doesn't usually happen. I think part of the reason I managed it is because Link is a silent protagonist in the game, so I can pretty much do anything I want with his voice as long as I keep it reasonable. So far the most difficult part has been... everything else. This story is a combination of action/horror with a side of friendship, and the action/horror part is super hard. There's no shortness of creepiness in A Link Between Worlds (and in Legend of Zelda in general) but geeze, how on earth do people write scary stuff?! It's so hard! Not to mention that action scenes never have been my forte. But I'm trying, at least.

Maybe I should read some horror novels to see if I can get any inspiration there - as far as technique and, hmm, creating atmosphere. :D I'm sure I have a few scattered around on the to-read list....

Anyway. It's New Years Eve, isn't it? To be honest, I'm kind of glad to leave 2013 behind. It really sucked in a lot of ways, and I am just plain done with it. On the upside, some good things happened too. Wrote some things I'm satisfied with, read some good books, went on an awesome vacation, started a new position at work and I like it so much better than the previous... and hell, let's add re-discovering an old fandom to the list, even if that happened at the tail-end of the year.

So, it wasn't all bad. But I am realllllly ready to be done and start a new calendar year. So, hopefully the next one will be... better. I'm going to do my best to make it so, I really am! But Chance always plays a part in how things turn out, so there really isn't any way to predict how things will go.

So, despite all of my fears, Christmas actually turned out pretty nicely! There was drama in the days leading up to it, but today actually went pretty well. I'm surpised and impressed.

Best gift this year was definitely the book my mother got me. It's a huge-ass recipe book of cuisine from the Friuli region of Italy (that's the region my grandfather came from). And omg, it all looks delicious! There are so many things that I want to try making... especially this one kind of pasta filled with fruit and ricotta (can't remember what it's called).

So, that was awesome.

Anyway. A few days ago I finished that Netherlands/Iceland fic for the rarepair exchange. I'd been agonizing over it for so long, and it was such a relief to just post the damn thing. I have no idea what my recipient thinks of it... but honestly, as long as they don't hate it, I'll be satisfied. xD

I've definitely been bitten by the Zelda bug. By that I mean, jesus, I have it bad. I haven't even allowed myself to finish A Link Between Worlds yet, and already I'm debating which game to play next. I'm thinking either Phantom Hourglass or Spirit Tracks, since both of them are playable on 3DS. Well, there's the 3DS version of Ocarina of Time too, but I've played OoT before, and I kind of want to try something new. The super oldschool games are playable too via download, but to be honest I don't think I'm quite ready to try them. It feels almost like they're extra-special, you know? Zelda I and II, at least. The games that started it all, wow.

Anyway, all this LoZ stuff has got me thinking about fanfiction. I don't have any really amazing original ideas or anything, but I got to thinking that maybe trying to write a short fic in this series would be a good way to practice writing action scenes. So it'd probably be slice-of-life stuff, except with more action than the phrase usually brings to mind, because a slice of Link's life usually involves going into the deepest darkest dungeons to battle monsters and rescue people, heh. And the nice thing is that I wouldn't need to get too realistic, just stay reasonable about it. I mean, the Master Sword shoots magic beams when you swing it, so it's not like I need to be... realistic. ;p

If I do anything, it'll be set specifically in A Link Between Worlds, since that game is very straightforward (and it's freshest in my mind. I mean, I barely remember ZOoT, if I'll be honest).

I'm definitely looking forward to having a more relaxed day tomorrow. I have roleplay tags that I need to catch up on, and some things I want to write, and some reading I need to do. My brother gave me Patrick O'Brian's Master and Commander. Fuck yeah, I've been wanting to read the Aubrey-Maturin novels for ages! And I have some other novels I've been meaning to get around to -- there are a lot of books that I have which I want to read, but haven't been reading because I mostly read on my commute, and since the morning is pitch black in the winter, I can't do that without turning on the overhead light, which I'm reluctant to do because the refinery buses are usually packed and it's 6 AM when we start the hour-ish-long drive so everyone around me is usually sleeping.

✿ Ursula Vernon put out a short novel recently called Nine Goblins. I've been a fan of her art and comics for years, but never got around to reading any of her writing beyond snippets she'd posted in her journal. Well, this book is awesome. Awesome sense of humour, very light and entertaining. Rather Pratchett-esque. If you can drop the four bucks to read it, I suggest doing so. I just loved it.

✿ Went to see Thor 2 today. Found Loki more tolerable than the previous film. Found the movie entertaining in general. Also, Thor's hair is fabulous.

✿ It's been cold as fuck, and also very dark, and winter in general has left me wanting to crawl into a hole and hide. Non-social, in other words. It's annoying, because I do want to talk to people, but at the same time I just... don't. Typing anything takes effort. Blech. And it doesn't help that tiny things on the internet have been annoying me lately.

✿ The Nordic strip from vol6 was translated, and while it was cute and I love how they all look in the coloured artwork, I found myself feeling kind of uninterested with it. So many of their strips are "Nordic Meeting" kind of things, and while this one was a little bit different, it still feels kind of repetitive and bland. I want something more along the lines of the March Across the Belts strip, y'know, where something actually... happens. Though I feel a little silly saying that when really, since Himaruya's given us that strip, we've been spoiled already. (How often is it that he does awesome historical strips, really)

✿ Gave up on NaNo, heh. Even if I was doing it half-assed, I just can't do that much. But it was a learning experience - that is, NaNo, as in "write 50k in a month" (or even "work on 50k in a month, not necessarily brand new stuff) is not for me. I can't keep that pace up, I can't slam down 1.66k in a day. And that's okay. I did get a lot of stuff done, though, so it wasn't a total loss. I'm just feeling a little burnt out right now, so I'm going to set it aside for a while and do some other stuff.

✿ My Christmas shopping is still not finished yet, and it's seriously annoying. I had thought that I was done, but then some other stuff came up... and it turns out I still need to get some stuff for my dad, and something for my brother's girlfriend (??? I don't know why I'm supposed to get something for her, but mum is insisting that I should, so... uh. Well, okay!) It isn't a trouble to get those things really, it's just annoying that I have to when I thought I was done. What's worse, none of the things I have ordered have come in yet, so I've been doing the mailbox dance, ughhh. What I hate most is trying to come up with things for people to get me. Goddamn it, people, I gave you a list. "But it isn't long enough and all the stuff you have on it is boring" Well, get me gift cards, then. "But that doesn't take any effort" Christ on a cracker, I don't want any gifts to begin with! Can't we both just take the easy route here? Argh. Fuck gift-giving holidays, man.

I've been having one of those weekends where I find my family completely insufferable, but am unable to get away from them for the amount of time that it would take to stop them from annoying the fuck out of me. Of course I can't say "I find you all annoying as hell, so please leave me alone" so it's just a matter of time before I explode, probably. Unless I can manage to get out of the house somehow. Ugh.

It's about time to start Christmas shopping, unfortunately. Because there isn't any shopping in this town, I need to do most of it online, and because of shipping and whatnot it's best to start it in October. I really, really hate this stuff, though. Well, I hate Christmas in general, but the whole gift thing is the worst. I hate getting gifts, I hate giving gifts, I hate the whole "let's waste money on buying each other expensive things that we neither need nor want because we are obligated to do so". Just, ugh. Well, hopefully I'll get this all taken care of soon.

On a more positive note, I broke 14k on the fic I've been working on, which makes it undeniably my longest fic to date. Now, hopefully I'll be able to finish it, though that will take a while. It's very exciting, though - in some ways I'm in uncharted territory here. Writing something with 1. something resembling plot and 2. a lot of characters that I don't actually know how to write and 3. it's going to be very long. I just wish it had a more action-centric plot rather than a romance plot... but I'm still learning how to actually do long stories, so it's all right, I guess.

...Man, I had so many things that I wanted to talk about, but now I can't remember what any of them were. It doesn't help that I've been grumpy as hell all weekend. :|a

So, since Canada Day is on a Sunday, I also get Monday off. Four-day weekend for me! Feels good, man. Don't really have anything planned for it, though. It might be the national day, but for our family it was always more focused on my gran, because it was also her birthday, and with her gone, it just isn't the same.

Argh, need to pound through this fic and get it done for the fest. I have until midnight tonight. LET'S SEE IF I CAN DO IT. (I know I can, it's just, man, I'm really not feeling it.)

Received the copy of Sabaton's Coat of Arms album in the mail yesterday. Oh man, it's awesome. A really well put-together album, yeah. Though I must say I think I prefer the Carolus Rex album instead. It's partly a matter of time and distance, though. I mean, the songs on Carolus Rex are all about the Swedish empire, whereas Coat of Arms deals with WWII... and to be honest, WWII is one of those subjects that, even though I find it really interesting, things related to it tend to make me feel uncomfortable (and sad, and disturbed, depending on specifics). So I probably won't be listening to this album as much as the other one, ah.

Though I must say I had a really pleasant surprise when I listened to "Aces in Exile" and realized that it mentions Canadian pilots in the Battle of Britain. *_* Maybe it's silly, but I get this incredible rush of happiness whenever I find music or literature that mentions Canada in some way and isn't by a Canadian. Probably just because it doesn't happen often. It's like, "Oh wow, someone remembered that Canada exists and decided to include it! Yay!" Pfft.

Fighter pilots in exile fly over foreign land
When the battle has been won, tell of 401
Fighter pilots from Canada in the Battle of Britain
Guarding the skies of the isle...! <3 <3 <3

Hm, what else. Oh, I'm reading a book on the Spanish Influenza - (Alfred Crosby's America's Forgotten Pandemic: The Influenza of 1918) - and it's really fascinating. Obviously, very US-focused, so I'll have to see if there is another book with a more global scope, but anyway, it's good. Really readable. I've been meaning to read more about this subject ever since I first heard about it, so it's nice that I came across this one. It's kind of scary to think that something like that, which sounds like something out of the middle ages, could actually have happened in the 1900s. When I brought up the subject of the book, my mum started talking about how my great gran lived through that. It was back when she was still living in Poland/Ukraine. She claimed that she was able to survive because she always boiled her water before drinking it. That... probably didn't actually have much of an effect, heh. She was probably just lucky. But I guess back then, nothing was working, so you'd try any solution you could think of.

Ahhh, man. I'm getting so excited to go to Edmonton with my brother in July. Unfortunately it isn't until the 27th, so I get to squirm and fidget and anticipate it for a whole month, argh. It's just, I haven't been anywhere since that Europe trip I went on, and I haven't been to Edmonton in particular in years. The last time I can remember doing so was when I was 13. So... yeah, it'll be pretty exciting. I admit, I want to go shopping, heh. And it'll be nice to hang out with my brother. I find it kind of hard to talk to him when my parents are around, but when we're alone together, it's a little easier.