wtf 2008?

[squeequeg]

Oh good Lord. Where do I start?

Well, I should probably start with a warning: I am running on very little sleep, and thus am equally likely to turn maudlin and self-pitying at the drop of a hat or start giggling insanely at the drop of same hat. I'm going to hope for the latter, since that's more entertaining for all.

I think I'll pass on a retrospective of 2007, since for the most part it was very good, and the few bad patches were either of the self-pity sort or too icky to describe without euphemism. I will say, though, that the very end of 2007 rocked like a turbo-powered rocking chair full of kittens. Piloted by kittens, even.

thomascantor and I enjoyed dooneling's wonderful hospitality, and we distracted two of her three cats for brief periods of time. Startled black fluffy kittens make everything better. So do eggs fresh from the chicken. I do not recommend combining the two.

I got to see people I hadn't seen in half a year or longer, meet some wonderful new people, witness both some excellent shaking of booty and some insane snow-diving, and stitch a delightfully disturbing quilt. And because sigerson ran a wonderful, wonderful Toon game, I got to release the angry bees. Everything's better with angry bees.

Well, maybe not everything.

And yes, there was some snow, but thanks to the generosity of kassrachel and yaoobruni we didn't have to do much driving in it. (I am steadfastly erasing Sunday night's drive from my head in order to prevent lingering SAN damage.) We drove back this morning, in time for me to be only a little late for work. My brain didn't make it, but that wasn't strictly necessary.

Thank you so much, Tribe. Thank you for being so awesome.

And then there was Yuletide. Oh, was there Yuletide.

First there was sigerson's story, Finch's First Drop, which takes a look at what happened outside the story in Connie Willis' To Say Nothing of the Dog. I know I pimped this story before; I'm pimping it again, and I'll get out the velvet pimp hat if I have to. If you've read To Say Nothing of the Dog, go and read this story now. Right now. This very instant!

The story written for me, The Train Ride was apparently written by Fuzzycactus. I know next to nothing about her, but the story continues to be awesome. And now I have to go read some Victor Pelevin because of it.

And the story I wrote was Winter Words, set in Robin McKinley's Damar after the events of The Blue Sword. Both minyan and sigerson were excellent betas, yanking out the points where I'd tried to gloss over conflict and waving them in my face. (That wasn't all they did, of course; see above re. lack of sleep.) I'm proud of this story, and glad I wrote it.

I think I'll have to do this again next year.

Comments

[wavyarms.livejournal.com]

That was lovely. *happy sigh* Have you written any other fanfic?

[stealthmuffin.livejournal.com]

Nope. Not yet, anyway. Still turning over that one I've had in my head for some time...maybe as a break when the draft's done.

[wavyarms.livejournal.com]

Do you have any other Damar recs, then?

[stealthmuffin.livejournal.com]

Not yet (though not for lack of good stories, just lack of work on my part). Give me a quiet afternoon sometime this week, and I'll come up with a few.