Wrapping up March

You know what's great about going through a tolerably decent writing spell?

Suddenly not writing anything readable for over a week for absolutely no good reason.

Diving back into beta-ing again

A friend of a friend of a friend wanted help with getting a first draft of something off the ground, so turns out I'm back on my beta-reading/editing unicycle.

Apart from lending a hand to Wizard Zines, it's been an age and a half since I've done anything literary-like in even a third of a professional capacity. I'm maybe a little more rusty on the confidence-side of things than I'd like, but I'm not as rusty on the actually-doing-it bit as I thought I would be. Cool.

April flowers... I mean, melted snow

Though March ended on a kind of unhappy note on the writing front, April is looking up. I've gotten a good bit of writing done on a little project (maybe a short novel?) I'm calling The Body Electric in my notebook (it's a working title, based on that incredible Hurray for the Riff Raff song), as well on another project (this one will be a novella, or maybe a really long short story) I'm calling Airfield. Airfield is based on my childhood, maybe? But with a bunch of twists and turns. Actually, it's more like I'm taking one of the more insane little events from my childhood and using it as a jumping off point, Jefferson Airplane-style. I have no idea if either project will amount to anything but, for now, let's slap a word count counter below and try to stay excited about something:

Body Electric: 1182 words / ? words

Airfield: 568 words / ? words

I'm really struggling with the ups and downs, on the medications and pain front, and I'm sorry to say it's getting in the way of writing and many other important things. But I look back on my journals from January and February and it's clear that I'm a lot more ... me ... than sad bedbound potato lump these days, even on my shittiest health days, and that's something.

Another beta request!?

There's something in the water, something in the air... and it is writers needing betas! A couple of days after I wrote the bit above about beta-reading for a friendly-type, an internet acquaintance reached out and asked if I would be interested in helping beta some fanfiction.

I absolutely love how no-holds-barred nuts fanfiction can get, so I've asked to see more. That should be fun, if I decide I have the energy to beta two unrelated projects in the coming months. Maybe this means that I am rebuilding a beta-reading network? I think the last time I had a network like that, I was still active on LiveJournal, before that platform became scary for gay people... And, I've been out of the fanfiction game for a decade, so it's always fun and nostalgic to go back.

Cute cross-stitch!

I've never done cross-stitch and I wanted to see if it would be fun. So I picked a cute pattern off of the Internet and went wild. I don't love all my colour choices, but it's not horrible for a first attempt. I'll probably try it again with different colours, soon! The idea is to get good enough at embroidery to do artistic visible mending, à la kintsugi.