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spikedluv) wrote2025-08-09 08:21 am
spikedluv) wrote2025-08-09 07:21 amangrboda) wrote2025-08-08 08:16 pmspikedluv) wrote2025-08-08 08:30 amangrboda) wrote2025-08-07 06:30 pmspikedluv) wrote2025-08-07 06:15 amspikedluv) wrote2025-08-06 08:37 amspikedluv) wrote2025-08-06 07:19 ambadfalcon) wrote2025-08-05 08:57 pm
spikedluv) wrote2025-08-05 07:46 amspikedluv) wrote2025-08-05 07:14 ambadfalcon) wrote2025-08-04 09:26 pm
trepkos) wrote2025-08-04 07:40 pmspikedluv) wrote2025-08-04 06:34 ambadfalcon) wrote2025-08-03 10:25 pm
I love writing goal posts. I love reviewing them slightly less, because inevitably I have to admit that I did not finish the Big Thing I meant to finish. But also: I did do some really cool stuff, and my brain kicked off several brand new projects like a chaotic little goblin in a fic mine, so. Let’s talk about it.
🖋 July Writing Goals:
Finish A Field Guide to the Sinner Pack — ❌ absolutely not. It’s still sitting there, gentle and ominous and unfinished. I’m choosing to believe this is just a simmering stage.
Update:
You Wouldn’t Take My Word for It If You Knew Who Was Talking — ❌ noooope
I Had the Time of My Life Fighting Dragons With You — ❌ also no, but I did think about it a lot
The Courage of My Convictions — ✅ YES. A new chapter and a spin-off/prequel side fic. I’m counting this as a win for narrative momentum and gay priest chaos.
Wolf-Tethered — ❌ untouched, though not unloved
Maybe post a one-shot just because — ✅ I’m counting the Darren/Simone scene from the priest AU, because it came from somewhere deep and tender and needed to exist.
Also. I may have started two entire new AU series, because apparently July was the month Bob! said “yes, but what if…?”
🌿 July Life Goals:
Make a doctor’s appointment about the arthritis diagnosis — ✅ did the thing. Proud of this one.
Day trip to the RAMM + sushi — ❌ no museum trip, but we did buy most of Yo!Sushi and I did spend roughly £200 in the Lucy & Yak sale, so I have no regrets and very colourful trousers. It was a good trip
Visit Noah’s Ark Zoo Farm — ✅ lions and elephants and giraffes achieved
Reclaim one chaotic space (maybe the laundry chair) — 🌀 kind of? Started rearranging my work clothes and moved some piles around. Progress is happening in slow, meandering steps.
Come back to Dreamwidth, and stay — 🌀 back-ish! A few posts, a bit of lurking, and some genuine joy in reconnecting with long-form fandom space. Still holding this one as a soft goal.
Cook something that feels like summer — 😅 not really. But I thought about tomatoes a lot.
One proper lie-in, no guilt — ✅ absolutely achieved, 10/10 would lie in again
One evening offline with candles, music, or silence — ❌ does scrolling Tumblr with one candle lit count? No? Thought not.
🌻 August Goals: gentle momentum, storybrain chaos, and maybe some tomatoes
✨ Writing/Fandom Goals
Actually finish A Field Guide to the Sinner Pack – even if it’s just in bullet-point plan format
Update Wolf-Tethered - or at least open the doc and reread it. Or smell the forest in my head and cry about Simone.
Keep working on The Courage of My Convictions - more priest AU, more Jannik/Simone quiet intensity, more religious yearning and repressed gay disasters.
Make space for the new AUs - if my brain is going to go chaotic, might as well let it do so on purpose.
Maybe write something short and weird and self-indulgent. Just because.
Keep sharing. Even when it feels scary. Especially when it feels a little raw - that probably means it matters..
🌿 Life Goals
One genuinely slow, nothing-is-urgent weekend.
Book one fun thing for August, even if it’s tiny.
Properly reclaim one corner of chaos in the house. Doesn’t have to be perfect, just has to be better. My work clothing storage isn’t working for me right now.
Keep gently decluttering my digital spaces - Dreamwidth tags, folders, etc.
Go outside for something that’s not an errand. A walk, a sit, a stretch in the sun.
Remember: lie-ins are good, my body is not a machine, and my stories are worth telling.
Keep up the shoulder, hip, and knee physio - consistency counts more than perfection.
Aim to lose a little more weight if it feels good and manageable - but keep it soft and low-pressure.
Tell me your August hopes! Or the weird thing July gave you that you’re still thinking about. Or the AU your brain started without asking. I’ll bring the snacks, you bring the story chaos. 💛
badfalcon) wrote2025-08-03 09:49 pm
spikedluv) wrote2025-08-03 08:35 ambadfalcon) wrote2025-08-02 10:17 pm
garnigal) wrote2025-08-02 09:16 amI have a project. To be honest, I have many projects, but this one seems special. Overwhelming, but special.
In 1942, my great-grandmother received a letter. By 1946, she’d received many letters from that correspondent, as had her daughters, my aunts Edith and Lillian.
The correspondent was my grandfather, Herbert Martin Garniss, and covered his years serving with the Royal Canadian Engineers in the European theatre.
Aunt Edith kept many documents related to her family. She never married and had time, space, and inclination to collect and store documents as each of her parents and siblings passed away. She instilled a love of history in me by sharing tidbits of family history, telling me about real people doing real things.
Aunt Edith was the last of her generation to die. With no children, clearing out her home fell to the nieces and nephews, and those nieces and nephews were only too pleased to pass along all the family history papers and the stacks of family photos to me.
It’s overwhelming to go through a century of accumulated history. History that sits within the great moments of the 20th century, but also is mostly disconnected from those moments, dealing as it does with the personal. I found my great-uncle’s train engineer tests and certifications - connected with a time in Canadian history when the train was the primary mode of travelling significant distance. I found my aunt’s grade school essays - written in an era of one-room schoolhouses. I found the original deed to the farm my family still owns - from a time when Britain encouraged settlement and colonization of a pre-Confederation Canada.
And I found a box of my grandfather’s letters. 6 years of letters, in a strong and confident hand that had been lost to palsy by the time I was born. Letters with a cheeky sense of humour that never disappeared until he died when I was 18. Letters providing advice to his siblings and mother from an ocean away and letters describing the war from the bottom up, from a man who volunteered “because it seemed like the right thing to do”, according to his military intake papers. But in reading his letters, he volunteers so his brothers wouldn’t. He volunteered to make sure his sister, the nurse, stayed home. He volunteered to make sure there was a steady stream of cash at home, and he volunteered because it was the right thing to do.
And thus my project - transcribe the letters into a document and have them bound into a book for my aunts and uncles, my cousins, and anyone else who is interested. At that point, I’ll donate the letters themselves to the Huron County museum, where my grandfather lived for his entire life, excluding a brief sojourn in Europe, or the national military archives.
It’s a challenging project, deciphering fading letters that are over 80 years old. It’s an interesting project, reading my grandfather’s instructions to his brother Ed on how to talk to the draft so he could stay home and farm their Uncle Will’s property. It’s an insightful project, seeing how distance meant sharing gossip simply took more time. But I do believe it is a valuable project, not just for my family, but for everyone who is living in these uncertain times.
And so, one day, there will be a book that begins:
Dear Mother -
Well, we have had a real wet day here all day, so had not a great deal to do. We were supposed to go on a route march this morning, but just went to the gym instead. Got the old kinks taken out. This afternoon I pressed my coat and tunic, and layed around. About 4 o’clock the sarg came for help to set up chairs for church but when we got there it was already done.
spikedluv) wrote2025-08-02 06:57 am