A Certain Slant of Light

On January 4th, I started a new job as an academic advisor. I really like it! And they told me when I started that the first year is like drinking from a fire hose, and they were not wrong! However, now that I have the first year under my belt, I feel I have a decent handle on the job and the rhythms of the job: fall is the busiest season, spring a little quieter, and summer very quiet indeed.

In taking this job, I moved back to my hometown. My parents and my brother’s family live in the area, plus my oldest friend (we met in second grade!), so I had the seeds of a social network here, but I’ve been working to grow it. I joined the Dulcimer Gathering, I accepted my friend’s invitation to join her Dungeons & Dragons group, I befriended the mother of one of my brother’s friends when we totally by chance sat next to each other at a concert (she is now my bakery buddy; we like to try new bakeries together), and I’ve been spending a lot of time with my parents and my baby niece. (It’s harder to pin down my brother and sister-in-law, as they’re very busy, but we see them for holidays and birthdays.)

And I’ve also been making a concerted effort to maintain my friendships in Indianapolis and Bloomington, which has meant a weekend trip every month, sometimes twice a month, and also a number of weekends where someone came up to visit me.

Plus I’ve added another new hobby (scrapbooking) while continuing my old hobbies (penpalling, baking, zoom Theater, reading copiously), and also nibbling at the edges of other possible hobbies (watercolor! nature journaling! okay apparently I don’t have the bandwidth to add yet ANOTHER thing right now).

All in all I’ve been quite busy. So busy that at the end of both the spring and fall registration seasons (when I’m meeting about six students a day to schedule classes, discuss their hopes and dreams, and also discover mid-meeting that they just lost their best friend to breast cancer four days ago) I got sick, the primary symptom both times being “I am so tired that I can’t get out of bed today.”

Next year I would like to slow down a little. A few thoughts:

1.It would be a good idea to cut back to every other month for my Indy/Bloomington trips. Perhaps fewer but longer trips? I’ll have more vacation time next year, and outside of registration season I have time for three-day weekends.

2. No travel during registration. No, not even if they’re doing a production of Medea in Indianapolis. (Well okay MAYBE if they’re doing a production of Medea.)

3. (Obviously the “no travel during registration” rule doesn’t apply during spring/fall break. If the students are off it’s fine if I’m off too.)

4. I have a weird dynamic with D&D where I really enjoy our sessions when I’m there, but beforehand I’m always hoping it will get canceled. Maybe it’s just One Thing Too Many? Maybe the prospect of following up a day talking to people with more talking to people just seems tiring? Our campaign this year ran from February to November and it was supposed to be weekly, although of course various scheduling issues meant that we missed some weeks.

5. I don’t want to give D&D up entirely, but it would work better if it was once a month instead of once a week, or if I could just be involved in a limited-term campaign in the summer when I have more bandwidth. Leaning toward the latter, but I don’t know how realistic that is.

Ten Things I Did This Year

1. Through the kind agency of skygiants, joined a Zoom theater group where we put on sundry plays, not least Euripides’ Medea, which knocked my socks off. Who would have expected that ancient Greek theater was so riveting!

2. Visited New York City! This is my first-ever trip to NYC and it was delightful.

3. Published Tramps and Vagabonds.

4. Adopted Bramble, an adorable black cat who likes sitting on laps, purring, and jumping up on the counter where he knows he is absolutely not allowed.

5. Became EXTREMELY invested in Arthuriana, so far only in retellings, although one of my 2023 projects involves reading Thomas Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur and also, perhaps, Chretien de Troyes.

6. Published A Garter as a Lesser Gift, an MMF World War II Round-Table-as-RAF-pilots retelling of “Gawain and the Green Knight.”

7. MassachusettsTrip2022! I visited skygiants and genarti (we hit up the Boston Athenaeum and heroically did not try to hide ourselves in the stacks) and then asakiyume (we baked an apple pie!) and then Micky, my friend from all the way back in elementary school, who now has a two-year-old son who is VERY into trains and trucks.

8. Failed once again to finish a draft of Sleeping Beauty. Do you know how much I could have accomplished in the time that I poured into this blasted book? Do you know?

9. Did not get the full-time library job I applied for, which I choose to interpret as a sign from Fate that I am meant to buckle down and focus on my writing. To this end I am giving Patreon another go, this time posting short tropey ficlets, extras from my published books, and excerpts from my works in progress. We shall see how it goes! (Currently as a sign-up bonus anyone who pledges gets to prompt a ficlet.)

10. This is not something I did per se, but my brother’s wife is having a baby girl in March. I’m going to be an aunt!

Ten Things I Did This Year

1. Survived a global pandemic. High five, everyone! If you are reading this, we all made it!

2. Published The Threefold Tie in April.

3. Published The Time-Traveling Popcorn Ball in June. I actually wrote this children’s fantasy in October 2013, and just revised it a bit during lockdown before unleashing it on the world. Not a big moneyspinner (last month I was quite pleased to realize it had made back the cost of its cover), but I’m glad to have it out in the world where it can bring joy to the readers who do find it.

4. Attended a Black Lives Matter protest in June.

5. Published Honeytrap in September.

6. Maid of Honor at a friend’s wedding. I realize this was not a wise thing to do in the year of our lord 2020, and that it was only by the grace of God that the wedding did not become a super-spreader event, etc. etc., so I have mixed feelings: on the one hand, not wise, but on the other hand I was so glad to be there for her and so honored to be chosen.

7. Contributed stories to two charity anthologies, His Magical Pet and Her Magical Pet. (I include links because there was some rigmarole with Amazon that meant at least one of the links died for a while.)

8. Set up a regular monthly Zoom meeting with a group of friends. I’m particularly proud of this because two of the three members are people who were hard to keep in touch with even before the pandemic. I’m really hoping we can keep up this regular Zoom even after the pandemic is over.

9. Finished a draft of David and Robert... unless I end up deciding that draft is only the first half of the book… but, anyway, it’s been kind of hard to write this year (I realize that it sounds weird to say that when I’ve published three books this year, but they were all written before the pandemic), so I’m glad to have finished something, if only provisionally.

10. Did a Q&A session at a Zoom book discussion about one of my books, The Wolf and the Girl. This was my first ever author event, so that was pretty thrilling! And I’ve got another one coming up in January, about Honeytrap - I’ll share more details closer to time.

Well, 2017 was... a year, wasn't it? I didn't end up fulfilling either of my New Year's Resolutions, "Cook one new meat dish every month" or "Post two novellas to Amazon," although I did add one dish with meat to my regular cooking rotation - admittedly it's white bean soup with bacon, which is not very meaty, but still.

And I raised $700 for charity with my writing, which is good and useful, although it's frustrating that I got two novellas to the 30,000 word mark and then both of them just sort of fell apart on me. Which at least is longer than the two that fell apart around the 10,000 mark, I guess. But still. I used to be able to finish things! Why can't I finish anything anymore?

On the bright side, I did finish all my reading challenges for the year. And on a more practical real-life note, I got elected Partner of the Quarter at my store! Because, to quote my plaque, I am "always willing to share with others, whether it's her baked treats, her latest book review, or new ideas to turn the normal into something truly special." And also my "resiliency during high pressure moments and warm demeanor regardless of the situation."

"Boy," I joyfully told my roommate, my parents, and anyone else who would listen, as I thrust my new plaque under their noses, "I sure fooled them."

More seriously, though, the award helped me realize that I have become popular with my coworkers. It is probably the first time I have been genuinely popular, which I always thought was never going to happen for me and with typical sour-grapism had concluded wasn't very important anyway. But actually it's kind of great to walk into a place where everyone is delighted to see you.

It was a big confidence boost and, counterintuitively, it actually made it much easier to quit, because it made me feel that I really would be an asset to any workplace and probably someone will hire me and perhaps it is time to try to find a job that is more in line with my interests than a coffee shop. I don't even drink coffee, you guys.

So I've been looking into library jobs. I sent in an application! So we'll see how that goes! I probably ought to have a back-up plan in case the library thing doesn't pan out.

Ten things I did in 2012:

1. Read Wuthering Heights. This was my New Year’s Resolution last year, presumably because I realized the only way I would ever read something so soul-destroyingly awful was if I had a New Year’s Resolution hanging over my head. I loathe Heathcliff to the depths of my being and feel that the book would be much improved if Cathy stabbed him to death with a poker early on.

2. Wrote a ridiculous number of words on the novel I did not finish. I really like the characters and the setting - so much that it is part of the problem with writing it, because I want to drift off on tangents about all the characters. I need to focus on the main characters and give them an actual emotional arc so it will be a book rather than a thicket of vignettes.

3. Got rejected by all the grad schools. Except one, where I was waitlisted. My ego was pulverized.

4. Got into grad school.

5. Went to DC. Twice! The National Portrait Gallery is A+++. Should you find yourself in DC you should totally go. (Also it’s two blocks from Chinatown, where you can get an inexpensive and delicious lunch.)

6. Started grad school. Have not had a nervous breakdown yet! Orientation was all about “So when you have your nervous breakdown...” so I feel this is a win. (I mean really. I am all in favor of mental health awareness, but there is “mental health awareness” and then there is “trying to terrify the new students in their first week by assuring them that they are going to fail.” What is this, postmodern hazing?)

7. I have a dissertation topic! Or rather a dissertation area of interest. Visions of female creativity from 1880 to 1920: that seems promising, right?

8. Attended an opera. Three operas, in fact. I even liked one of them!

9. Wrote a truly ridiculous amount of fic: seventeen stories, for a total of 42,242 words. (Some of them are still hidden, as they are Yuletide stories.) The longest by far is Freedom for Felicity, at 8831 words (discounting the historical note) - the second longest fic I’ve ever written, after Tea and Sympathy.

10. Met Sutcliff fandom! You are awesome: one of the best things that happened to me this year.

Resolutions for next year: I'm not really sure. I ought to rewrite the novel, I think, but I don't know how that will work out timewise with grad school. Presumably it will work out about the same way that fic worked out last semester. But there probably won't be time for both novel and fic.

Ten Things I Did This Year:

1. Wrote the world's worst novel.

2. Wrote a pretty ace independent study project.

3. Worked at a museum over the summer.

4. Decided I do not want to work at a museum for the rest of my life.

5. Did not figure out what I want to do with the rest of my life. But I have a plan for next summer and some ideas for next year, so that's a start.

6. Was a bridesmaid. Sort of. It's complicated. But it was fun! I made her a cake!

7. Went to New Zealand.

8. While in New Zealand, experienced an earthquake. This is admittedly not at all my doing, but it's nonetheless kind of cool. My geology professor was totally jealous.

9. Wrote part of a novel that might actually be good, but abandoned it because of seemingly insoluble structural problems. However, I think I've figured out a way around said problems, so my New Year's Resolution is to finish it.

10. Went to the East Coast. I have decided I must go back and actually see the bits that aren't within a twenty mile radius of Northampton.

So a pretty eventful year. It would have been more exciting if the novel had been good and I had decided that museum work was totally my dream job, but hey, now I know two ways not to make a light bulb.

Next year: I will finish the novel that might actually be good! Also, graduate.