transposable_element

Snowflake Challenge: A flatlay of a snowflake shaped shortbread cake, a mug with coffee, and a string of holiday lights on top of a rustic napkin.

Talk about your creative process.

Five years ago I'd have talked about volcanic islands rising out of the sea, and building causeways between them. A good premise or prompt would spark a snappy exchange between two characters, or a vivid little snapshot of background, or a moment of insight. I'd write them down as soon as I could.

Then I'd build on them, adding the line that followed on naturally, the reply that the other character would have to make, setting up the scene so that this moment could happen. And then I'd work out how they all related to each other, what order they came in. I'd consider what needed to have happened by the end of the story in order to make it satisfying, and I'd add a bit here and a bit there until my lonely archipelago had a fully functional infrastructure.

I am still trying to do this, but it's not working as well as it used to. A toddler who just doesn't go to sleep, a commute (once my best writing time) that's down to one day a week, and a dying laptop have all made writing hard, and frankly I'm just too tired a lot of the time.

But I am exploring other creative realms, and the one that's currently interesting me most - knitting - is about as different as you can get. You have to do that in the right order.

At the moment I'm trying to design my first pattern: a slipover. It's going to have to be a slipover because I only have five balls of this yarn. I bought it in a charity shop and the Internet has nothing to say about it. I am having to plan: to measure, to practise, to calculate. I can't just make it up as I go along. It is an alien process to me, but, rather to my surprise, I'm enjoying it. The secret is, I think, being just good enough to be able to do things that make all that interesting rather than tedious. By which I mean, cables. I really like cables. I'm even enjoying the tension square.

Current Mood: sleepy
Current Music: cat purring

bookscorpion posting in

common_nature

The snowdrops are starting to flower, I am so excited.

shewhostaples

Trying to get back on the bus with this one...

two log cabins with snow on the roofs in a wintery forest the text snowflake challenge january 1 - 31 in white cursive text

LIST THREE (or more) THINGS YOU LIKE ABOUT YOURSELF. They don’t have to be your favorite things, just things that you think are good. Feel free to expand as much or as little as you want.

1. I am - not always, but often - capable of finding ordinary things utterly delightful. Like the Wendy Cope poem about the orange. I am not in that state at the moment, but it is lovely when it happens.

2. On the small scale, I think I am slightly luckier than average. For example: my hair went grey in my early thirties, but that happened to be the couple of years in which many people my age were dyeing their hair grey. We moved house the week before the first Covid lockdown, when it could have been the week after. I win raffles, and the occasional twenty-five quid on the Premium Bonds. (Or maybe I'm no luckier than anyone else, but - see point one - appreciate my luck more?)

3. I really like making things. I like that about myself.

4. Fashion aside, I do like the way my hair looks.

Current Music: The Traitors: Uncloaked

shewhostaples

Top 10 challenge

I'm onna train, so here are 10 railway stations I like. In no particular order, and for various different reasons.

1. Frankfurt Hbf. This was where my international rail travels began. Standing on the concourse, looking at the departure boards (getting slightly earwormed by Stuttgart and Fulda), realising that I could get pretty much anywhere from here...

2. London St Pancras. It's beautiful. It's not actually a terribly pleasant experience getting a train from here (maybe the East Midlands and South Eastern platforms are better) but from the outside it's a fairy tale castle.

3. Stockholm. Rolling in, bleary eyed, off the sleeper from Malta, through dingy orange lights, and then suddenly you're in this marble palace. (I got chugged in Stockholm station. I don't know what I was doing to look like a Swede with disposable income rather than a discombobulated tourist, but there we go.)

4. London King's Cross. Never mind all that wizard nonsense, it has a fully functional platform zero. Also the toilets are free these days.

5. Liège Guillemins. Just glorious.

6. Ryde Pier Head. When it's operational and when you don't just miss the train because the catamaran was thirty seconds late. But there's still something fun about a station in the sea.

7. Dawlish. Train to beach in under a minute (your mileage may vary, as may mine considering I haven't been there in about a decade).

8. York. Never mind a pub in the station, it has one on the platform. Lovely stained glass, too.

9. Norwich. Light, gracious, makes you glad you've arrived.

10. Luxembourg. Stained glass again - and just time for an ice cream before the train.

bookscorpion posting in

common_nature

I buy primroses and pots full of bulbs as soon as they are available, it does so much for my mood to have them where I can see them from the couch. I have daffodils, grape hyacinths, a couple of different hyacinths and these netted irises.

Current Mood: chill
Current Music: Baldur's Gate 3 soundtrack

rthstewart

it's [almost] heeeeeeeeerrrre

threesentenceficathon begins 17 January.

Schedule is here.

Dust off those prompts!

rthstewart

The spousal unit and I spent 5 days in Normandy, France last year touring D-Day sites as well as Mont Saint Michel and a bit of Paris. We stayed in Bayeux (Tapestry!) and spent two days touring the British and Canadian becahes and sites, and then the American sites. We were able to go back and spend a full day at Pegasus Bridge and the Merville Gun Battery.

We had lunch at the Ham and Jam creperie right across the street from the sadly closed Gondree Cafe. It's so sad now to think of the US going to war with its French and British allies because Drump psychologically needs to invade Greenland.

NGL it was awesome to see the inspiration for my stories in real life and to realized that yeah, I got pretty damned close. I cried a few times, thinking of how much I wrote, how hard I worked at it, and wondering if I would ever get that again. Wonderful. And so personally devastating too.

A few pics below.

Château de Bénouville

Posters on Av. du Commandant Kieffer, Bénouville, France which crosses the Caen Canal where the original Pegasus Bridge stood and Operation Tonga

Major John Howard Avenue, Pegasus Bridge Sign, and Marker where Horsas crashed

Wally Parr's Number 1 gun "I didn't know it was going to be a quiet war."

Ultra report on Operation Tonga

And last, the gravesite of Lt. Den Brotheridge (maybe not the first casualty of D-Day). As it turns out, there's a very different tradition between American vs Canadian/British fallen. Americans are collected in single, solemn, uniform sites; Canadian and Britsh are interred where they fell. So Normandy is dotted with scores of tiny church graveyards with Canadians and British who died there.

The stained glass windows throughout Normandy churches, including the cathedral in Bayeux, are a mix of traditional Catholic iconography and signs and insignias of the D-Day operations, including parachutes, flying horses, St George and the Dragon, eagles, and service insignia, all in stained glass.

rthstewart

No, don't panic (if you're still here and reading) not out, out as in dead. but on Tumblr someone commented, essentially, whoa, rthstewart is retiring? I didn't know she was that old. Yep. I'm old. Yep, I'm retiring 12/31/26 and will return to fic and chasing wolves and bears in American national parks. I am reminded of the Bujold quote, "Guard your honor. Let your reputation fall where it will. And outlive the bastards". None of those really apply. In my field, reputation probably matters more than honor and if I don't stop soon, I won't outlive the bastards.

( about health )

Once you reach a certain age, I think we'd like to think there will be parties, balloons, and celebration of a 40+ year career. That there will be some sort of capstone. But, that doesn't seem to be the reality. ( short work blather )

So that's all the news here.

In other news, I realized I never shared a particular highlight. I finally made it to Normandy! It was magical. I'll post some pics of my time (2 DAYS) at Pegasus Bridge, Bénouville.

Here are two pics of the doggos! Kili and my Christmas present, Big Book of Bread, which is fabulous

.

And Kili and Komo at Christmas

puddleshark posting in

common_nature

A bright cold morning, the fields silvered with frost, and the paths an entertaining mix of ice and mud.

( Read more... )

ysabetwordsmith posting in

common_nature

I took some pictures yesterday but didn't have time to upload and post them until today. The night before, a windstorm blew down the contorta willow sapling that used to stand between the house yard and the south lot, near the big maple tree.

( Walk with me ... )

Current Mood: accomplished

shewhostaples

Snowflake Challenge: A warmly light quaint street of shops at night with heavy snow falling.

In your own space, create a list of at least three things you'd love to receive, a wishlist of sorts.

Hmm, well, nobody can give me leisure time or sleep, so I can't guarantee that I'll be able to follow up on any of the following in a timely fashion, but:

1. I got a mini ice cream maker for Christmas, so I'd love some ice cream or sorbet recipes.

2. Travel tips for Lyon or Montpellier, which we'll be visiting next month.

3. Not recs as such, because they don't need to be tailored to me, but tell me about a book or a fic you've enjoyed recently.

4. Art for any of my fics.

Current Mood: exhausted

shewhostaples

Rec The Contents Of Your Last Page

Any website that you like, be it fanfiction, art, social media, or something a bit more eccentric!

I think my actual last page was APOD, which my feed reader seems to be showing a few days behind the times. And that's a pleasing thing to recommend, on the slim chance that someone hasn't encountered it before: it's interesting and beautiful.

For something that's probably more obscure, though I hadn't visited for a while, Hidden Europe is equally fascinating. The magazines got me through lockdown - deckchair travel in my back garden - and now the articles are going online one by one. People, places, train travel.

cofax7

Currently reading: The Virgin in the Ice, Ellis Peters. Not really intentionally, but last week I discovered that Hoopla has at least a few Brother Cadfael novels, unabridged, narrated by Patrick Tull. Patrick Tull is one of my two favorite narrators -- the other being Stephen Briggs. Tull narrated the whole Aubrey-Maturin series, which is how I came to adore him. He's so VERY good. Anyway, listening to him describe Brother Cadfael riding a horse through a snowstorm is a good way to manage my stress these days.

I'm also rereading Acuteneurosis' Don't Look Back Star Wars time-travel AU, in which Leia goes back in time and gets adopted by Shmi just before the Clone Wars start. It's similarly soothing, even if so far unfinished.

... so many unfinished SW AUs. Sigh.

!!! but wait! somehow my subscription expired? there's a whole new story! YAY!!

Just finished: The Leper of St Giles, see above. Also, over the holidays I read Cahokia Jazz by Henry Spufford, and although I went in cautiously, I enjoyed it. It's very much a noir novel, and apparently I didn't read it carefully enough to figure out the trigger for the AU. And I thought throwing Kroeber into the mix was a bit too much. A real strong piece of worldbuilding about the city itself. Sadly the noirishness meant that the female characters didn't get as much development as I would have liked. I enjoyed it over all, though, and have recommended it to a few people.

Up next: Not sure. I may see if I can find a copy of The Women of the Copper Country, by Mary Doria Russell. I somehow missed it when it was published, and I have loved some of her work.

OTOH I bought A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine and The West Passage by Jared Pechacek over the holidays, so I may start one of those instead.

***

In other news, apparently it's a thing to reread LOTR and blog about it. Currently under way: Abigail Nussbaum at Asking the Wrong Questions, and Roseanna from Nerds of a Feather. Oh, and Jared Pechacek--but that's on his Patreon; it's $1/mo, so I joined, and if anyone cares I can report on whether I think it's worth it.

***

Everything is too horrible right now. Keep the lights on. Hug your pups and kittens. Make things. Sing. Dance. Drink water. Breathe deep. Lift heavy things. Remember you are not alone. Ask for help if you need it.

***

In other news, I think my boss is worried about me. In an I-am-making-my-stress-too-obvious way. I'm so grateful we have him, and I'm worried about what happens when he transfers this summer.

signoftea posting in

common_nature

It started snowing yesterday, and now there's about 5 cm of snow, an amount that is very rare here. I went for a walk to see the beach, because it looks so cool when it's covered in snow. To my surprise, there was even ice on the water! A fragile crust of little floes had formed and seemed to slow down the movement of the waves as they licked the snow away from the breakwater bit by bit.

At first, I didn't hear any bird calls. I did see a few sanderlings darting around, some big birds (probably black-backed gulls) hovering over the sea, and a huge swarm of smaller birds, but they were all far away. I was about to leave when suddenly an impressive formation of geese appeared in the sky. My birding app identified them as barnacle geese. Then the app recorded some more calls, including one from a dunling, a bird I had never seen or heard before.

The snow and the greyish sky skewed my perspective in interesting ways, so that it looked like there were mountains growing out of the sea near the horizon, or like there was a huge wave rolling towards the beach. It felt surreal and a little eerie.

North Sea beach with snow and ice

shewhostaples

Write a love letter to fandom. It might be to fandom in general, to a particular fandom, favourite character, anything at all.

It's late and I'm tired and badly in need of some gentle quizzing on the telly and then bed, but:

For too much of my life I've felt faintly embarrassed by my own enthusiasms. I appreciate the reminder that it doesn't have to be like that. Thank you, fandom, for being so loudly, unapologetically, gloriously enthusiastic.

bookscorpion posting in

common_nature

I went to the cemetery today to take photos of all the snow we've been getting, and it was gorgeous. Even better, the snow came out - only for about fifteen minutes but it was magical

( Read more... )

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transposable_element

Reading

Snowflake Challenge: day 8

Snowdrops

Snowflake Challenge: day 7

Snowflake Challenge: day 6

Spring Flowers

2026 Three Sentence Ficathon

Pegasus Bridge, Normandy

On the way out

January bridleways

Photos: Contorta Willow

Snowflake Challenge: day 5

Snowflake Challenge: day 4

reading wednesday

Nature diary

Snowflake Challenge: day 3

Cemetery in the snow

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June 2020

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