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Due to the combo of the ongoing Eight Days of DWJ project and being on the Otherwise judging committee, this has been one of my best years in recent memory for reading actual books and my worst for keeping up with write-ups.
( Books read, 2025 )
As usual, I'm hoping to write up many of the ones I missed and will probably not in fact actually get around to most of them, so feel free to ask me about any of them -- I'll try to either do a short version here or get myself together for an actual post!
( Books read, 2025 )
As usual, I'm hoping to write up many of the ones I missed and will probably not in fact actually get around to most of them, so feel free to ask me about any of them -- I'll try to either do a short version here or get myself together for an actual post!
Because my Yuletide fic is still showing as Anonymous. :double checks: Oh, the de-anon isn't until 9 PM UTC, that's why. Never mind! Sulking cancelled!
Introduction Post*
Meet the Mods Post *
Remember that there is no official deadline, so feel free to join in at any time, or go back and do challenges you've missed.
( Fandom Snowflake Challenge #1 ) And please do check out the comments for all the awesome participants of the challenge and visit their journals/challenge responses to comment on their posts and cheer them on.
And just as a reminder: this is a low pressure, fun challenge. If you aren't comfortable doing a particular challenge, then don't. We aren't keeping track of who does what.
Meet the Mods Post *
Remember that there is no official deadline, so feel free to join in at any time, or go back and do challenges you've missed.
( Fandom Snowflake Challenge #1 ) And please do check out the comments for all the awesome participants of the challenge and visit their journals/challenge responses to comment on their posts and cheer them on.
And just as a reminder: this is a low pressure, fun challenge. If you aren't comfortable doing a particular challenge, then don't. We aren't keeping track of who does what.
Tags:
I started my internet day off with my hackles up apparently.
Reference material: Mary Sue at Fanlore & Mary Sue at Wikipedia.
Language evolves, meanings drift, and there will be variation, especially once you add in geo-location, age, gender, etc to the use of language.
I personally will never take well to seeing a writer use Mary Sue or its equivalent concepts to disparage their own writing. As I came to online fandom a bit late, the meaning for Mary Sue that I was quickly seeing was "this character is the main character and stands out but oh it is a girl and therefore is a Mary Sue".
Folks, have you read mythology from around the world? The main characters are nearly always bigger than life in some fashion. The best or worst at so many things, and they are MEANT to stand out and take your mind into imagination and wonder. All too often I see the accusation of Mary Sue used not at a badly written character but at one who is meant to be the push-pull point of the story! One who is crafted to be the Main Character.
And the biggest example I have of it is Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Specifically to that movie, Rey is set up to parallel Luke Skywalker pretty intensely. And she was HATED or mocked until people latched onto the concept of leashing her to the villain of the story. Rey was NOT poorly written. She is almost beat for beat Luke Skywalker from the very first movie in her journey. And in both cases, they ARE MEANT TO BE THE SPECIALIST LITTLE SNOWFLAKES because it is THEIR STORY.
Mary Sue and her cousins DO exist. A lot of people will start out experimenting with a self-insert crafted to fit the narrative they want to explore. They are great beginnings for many people.
BUT NOT EVERY OC IS A MARY SUE. Sometimes, they're just the center of the story that is being told.
Reference material: Mary Sue at Fanlore & Mary Sue at Wikipedia.
Language evolves, meanings drift, and there will be variation, especially once you add in geo-location, age, gender, etc to the use of language.
I personally will never take well to seeing a writer use Mary Sue or its equivalent concepts to disparage their own writing. As I came to online fandom a bit late, the meaning for Mary Sue that I was quickly seeing was "this character is the main character and stands out but oh it is a girl and therefore is a Mary Sue".
Folks, have you read mythology from around the world? The main characters are nearly always bigger than life in some fashion. The best or worst at so many things, and they are MEANT to stand out and take your mind into imagination and wonder. All too often I see the accusation of Mary Sue used not at a badly written character but at one who is meant to be the push-pull point of the story! One who is crafted to be the Main Character.
And the biggest example I have of it is Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Specifically to that movie, Rey is set up to parallel Luke Skywalker pretty intensely. And she was HATED or mocked until people latched onto the concept of leashing her to the villain of the story. Rey was NOT poorly written. She is almost beat for beat Luke Skywalker from the very first movie in her journey. And in both cases, they ARE MEANT TO BE THE SPECIALIST LITTLE SNOWFLAKES because it is THEIR STORY.
Mary Sue and her cousins DO exist. A lot of people will start out experimenting with a self-insert crafted to fit the narrative they want to explore. They are great beginnings for many people.
BUT NOT EVERY OC IS A MARY SUE. Sometimes, they're just the center of the story that is being told.
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Project 'Family Christmas Literally Anywhere That Isn't Texas' was pretty successful. My mother was thrilled that I made the arrangements and all she had to do was turn up - which was not something she had expressed a desire for in advance so I had been stressing about it but then once we were there she told me several times how much she appreciated it. Feelings wise it was pretty par in terms of how interacting with my mother is complicated, but then eased by the fact that we had places to go and things to do rather than just sitting around in her house.
The highlight was probably learning about how Benjamin Franklin wrote a story where the personification of his gout told him to drink less and get more exercise. We also went on a Christmas lights trolley tour with a live musician who made us all come up with things we wanted for the 12 days of Christmas ("ten burlesque dancers" was a good one, and "six thousand dollars"). Extremely silly and I loved it.
The part of the trip that was most me was the bit where, while waiting to go to the airport to go home, we spent several hours without screens just rambling about things and that included a long discussion of 'If you were designing your perfect restaurant, what would it look like?' Which is the kind of thing I think about all the time (my wife has to listen to ramblings of this sort on the regular which thankfully she thinks is charming) but my mother thinks about never. I think that may have given her an insight into my brain that she hasn't had in a long time.
The highlight was probably learning about how Benjamin Franklin wrote a story where the personification of his gout told him to drink less and get more exercise. We also went on a Christmas lights trolley tour with a live musician who made us all come up with things we wanted for the 12 days of Christmas ("ten burlesque dancers" was a good one, and "six thousand dollars"). Extremely silly and I loved it.
The part of the trip that was most me was the bit where, while waiting to go to the airport to go home, we spent several hours without screens just rambling about things and that included a long discussion of 'If you were designing your perfect restaurant, what would it look like?' Which is the kind of thing I think about all the time (my wife has to listen to ramblings of this sort on the regular which thankfully she thinks is charming) but my mother thinks about never. I think that may have given her an insight into my brain that she hasn't had in a long time.
The only impediments between Annae Hofstader and research glory are academia, her dismal supervisors and Annae Hofstader herself.
The Two Doctors Górski by Isaac Fellman
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A year ago, I wrote this post wherein I laid out five things I wanted to accomplish last year. Let's see how I did.
1. Get my own apartment: YES! It wasn't the best timing, but I have my own place and am paying about 80% (including electricity, internet, and the tv/radio fee) what I paid before.
2. Earn more money: sort of! I continued to have my steady job, and I also had a temporary gig copyediting a board game and did two books for a Big-5 publisher. (One of which is coming out soon! I hated it, though, so I won't tell you what it was.) I also got a mini-job, which is a super-part-time job that's limited to around 600 Euros per month in income, and it's tax free. So as long as I can keep that job, my rent and utilities are more than paid for, so my other income gets to go to things like health insurance, retirement savings, food, my bus pass, and all that stuff.
For the coming year, I'll have the steady job, the mini job (through June for sure), and potential Big-5 books. I'm also probably translating a book into English for a small press in the US, but I haven't signed the contract yet. (The terms are fine, but some of the wording is a lot more relevant to authors than translators.)
3. Rewrite the space diner book: Not really. With all the paid work for other people plus moving, any time and brain power for writing was basically done. But I spent a month writing most evenings in the week and made progress both in word count and planning (which counts as writing work!) I've also spent the last two weeks on break from work (partly because there is nothing to do because most people are on vacay) and writing. It's up to 45k (out of a target of 75k). I need to have it finished by the end of March, because April and May are currently blocked for translation.
4. Clean up my computer: LOLOLOLOL
5. Finish the baby blanket: YES! It was about 2 months late, but I finished it and gave it to parent at parent's birthday gathering (where they promptly wrapped Baby up in it because it was a little cooler than expected.)
I thought I wrote about this, but I can't find a post. I live in a city with a ton of things to do (too many, honestly!), but I usually sit at home. So I wanted to do a cultural activity every month: Call it 75%. I started off strong with a trip to a museum of GDR culture in January, a concert in the Philharmonic in February, and the Leipzig Book Fair in March. Then April I had an editing gig and no time to do anything. But in May I went on my first Labor Day protest, a bike ride which went partly on the A100 highway. And then I spent 6+ hours on regional trains to take the citizenship test, which I finished in five minutes.
For June I was out of the country and/or packing up all my belongings. Then in July, I went to the Jewish Museum with my aunt and her boyfriend and also up the Reichstag cupola, which I hadn't done since 2014. In August I went to the Dyke* Festival.
September had several things, though I think only one of them falls under "cultural activity" in the way I originally intended, and the other two are "experience German culture." The first one: I went on a walking tour of Marzahn, which is a neighboring district to mine and was also built from nothing to massive apartment blocks in the 1970s and 80s. I didn't know there was a cute Altstadt with an old church and rustic row houses! Then my Genossenschaft had something called a Wohntag (residents' day?) in one of the big courtyards. It involved food stands, crafts, and musical performances, including a choir that sings pop music over techno beats, which ... well, this is Berlin. The final event was the 40th birthday/anniversary of Neu-Hohenschönhausen, the district I live in. It was in a park a short walk from me, so I went over. It was basically a street festival, with sausages and beer and the fire department giving tours of their trucks to little kids. That sort of thing. I didn't stay long.
In October, I took the regional train to Potsdam to see an exhibition of art about the GDR apartment blocks (Plattenbau). It was interesting, and some of the art was contemporaneous, and some was from after the end of the GDR. But what I was most interested in was this one that was snapshots of this guy's life in the same block I currently live in (but several houses down).
I don't know what happened to November, but I didn't do anything according to my GCal. Do I count going to a Christmas market as my cultural activity for December? It's German culture for sure, but I've done it many times before. So I dunno. Calling it a 75% completion, basically.
2026
1. Get a finished draft of the space diner book to a couple writer friends who want to beta it. Like I said above, March is my intended timeline, and if I write for one hour every evening that I'm home, I should manage it.
2. Continue taking advantage of the assortment of things Berlin offers. I subscribed to a local magazine that lists upcoming exhibitions and shows, which I hope will get me going on that.
3. Invite people to things (with the hope that they invite me to things in the future). Seeing my local social circles off having fun together while I'm home with my cat makes me sad. I don't know how to get people to invite me to things, so I guess the only way to show people that I 1) like doing things 2) with them is to do things and invite them. (I have one person I can and do ask to go places, but she's not always available or interested.)
4. Take better care of my body. I'm turning 50, so it's important not just to go to the gym and keep skating but also to stretch, sleep enough, and drink water. Also eat right. And do proper dental hygiene.
So, enough about that. I'm going to write another post later about what I did in 2025, because on a personal level, a lot of it was good, even though on the grand global scale, a lot of shit happened.
1. Get my own apartment: YES! It wasn't the best timing, but I have my own place and am paying about 80% (including electricity, internet, and the tv/radio fee) what I paid before.
2. Earn more money: sort of! I continued to have my steady job, and I also had a temporary gig copyediting a board game and did two books for a Big-5 publisher. (One of which is coming out soon! I hated it, though, so I won't tell you what it was.) I also got a mini-job, which is a super-part-time job that's limited to around 600 Euros per month in income, and it's tax free. So as long as I can keep that job, my rent and utilities are more than paid for, so my other income gets to go to things like health insurance, retirement savings, food, my bus pass, and all that stuff.
For the coming year, I'll have the steady job, the mini job (through June for sure), and potential Big-5 books. I'm also probably translating a book into English for a small press in the US, but I haven't signed the contract yet. (The terms are fine, but some of the wording is a lot more relevant to authors than translators.)
3. Rewrite the space diner book: Not really. With all the paid work for other people plus moving, any time and brain power for writing was basically done. But I spent a month writing most evenings in the week and made progress both in word count and planning (which counts as writing work!) I've also spent the last two weeks on break from work (partly because there is nothing to do because most people are on vacay) and writing. It's up to 45k (out of a target of 75k). I need to have it finished by the end of March, because April and May are currently blocked for translation.
4. Clean up my computer: LOLOLOLOL
5. Finish the baby blanket: YES! It was about 2 months late, but I finished it and gave it to parent at parent's birthday gathering (where they promptly wrapped Baby up in it because it was a little cooler than expected.)
I thought I wrote about this, but I can't find a post. I live in a city with a ton of things to do (too many, honestly!), but I usually sit at home. So I wanted to do a cultural activity every month: Call it 75%. I started off strong with a trip to a museum of GDR culture in January, a concert in the Philharmonic in February, and the Leipzig Book Fair in March. Then April I had an editing gig and no time to do anything. But in May I went on my first Labor Day protest, a bike ride which went partly on the A100 highway. And then I spent 6+ hours on regional trains to take the citizenship test, which I finished in five minutes.
For June I was out of the country and/or packing up all my belongings. Then in July, I went to the Jewish Museum with my aunt and her boyfriend and also up the Reichstag cupola, which I hadn't done since 2014. In August I went to the Dyke* Festival.
September had several things, though I think only one of them falls under "cultural activity" in the way I originally intended, and the other two are "experience German culture." The first one: I went on a walking tour of Marzahn, which is a neighboring district to mine and was also built from nothing to massive apartment blocks in the 1970s and 80s. I didn't know there was a cute Altstadt with an old church and rustic row houses! Then my Genossenschaft had something called a Wohntag (residents' day?) in one of the big courtyards. It involved food stands, crafts, and musical performances, including a choir that sings pop music over techno beats, which ... well, this is Berlin. The final event was the 40th birthday/anniversary of Neu-Hohenschönhausen, the district I live in. It was in a park a short walk from me, so I went over. It was basically a street festival, with sausages and beer and the fire department giving tours of their trucks to little kids. That sort of thing. I didn't stay long.
In October, I took the regional train to Potsdam to see an exhibition of art about the GDR apartment blocks (Plattenbau). It was interesting, and some of the art was contemporaneous, and some was from after the end of the GDR. But what I was most interested in was this one that was snapshots of this guy's life in the same block I currently live in (but several houses down).
I don't know what happened to November, but I didn't do anything according to my GCal. Do I count going to a Christmas market as my cultural activity for December? It's German culture for sure, but I've done it many times before. So I dunno. Calling it a 75% completion, basically.
2026
1. Get a finished draft of the space diner book to a couple writer friends who want to beta it. Like I said above, March is my intended timeline, and if I write for one hour every evening that I'm home, I should manage it.
2. Continue taking advantage of the assortment of things Berlin offers. I subscribed to a local magazine that lists upcoming exhibitions and shows, which I hope will get me going on that.
3. Invite people to things (with the hope that they invite me to things in the future). Seeing my local social circles off having fun together while I'm home with my cat makes me sad. I don't know how to get people to invite me to things, so I guess the only way to show people that I 1) like doing things 2) with them is to do things and invite them. (I have one person I can and do ask to go places, but she's not always available or interested.)
4. Take better care of my body. I'm turning 50, so it's important not just to go to the gym and keep skating but also to stretch, sleep enough, and drink water. Also eat right. And do proper dental hygiene.
So, enough about that. I'm going to write another post later about what I did in 2025, because on a personal level, a lot of it was good, even though on the grand global scale, a lot of shit happened.
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(![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
james_davis_nicoll Jan. 1st, 2026 09:34 am)
james_davis_nicoll Jan. 1st, 2026 09:34 am)
Unless I missed one or two.
January 2026 Patreon Boost! Plus the Annual Listing of My Review Projects! Tags:
Hi, welcome to Write Every Day!
As has become tradition, I'm hosting the travelling writingcircus challenge again for January. :)
What's this about?
Writing. *g* No, really, that's it, it's that simple - writing something, anything every day, even if it's just a sentence. Or a word. That's still writing! And just as importantly it keeps writing on our minds, so we can more easily create or sustain a habit of writing.
How does this work?
Every month, someone here on DW hosts this challenge and makes daily posts where participants can check in, talk about how the writing is going, and offer each other encouragement or commiseration, if they want. The host keeps a running tally of check-ins for the month.
I'm posting early today to get us started, but usually I'm posting in my evening (late hours UTC), after I've done my daily writing. Please comment on the most recent post and say which day(s) you're checking in!
And despite the name, you don't actually have to write every day. *g* There's no pressure or obligation - anyone can dip in and out as they like, write some days but not all, check in every day or in batches, whatever works best. ♥
WED Question of the Day
Do you have writing plans or goals for 2026, or for the next few months?
( writing plans )
Happy 2026, everyone! May it be better in every respect than 2025 was, and may we all have a fantastic writing year!
As has become tradition, I'm hosting the travelling writing
What's this about?
Writing. *g* No, really, that's it, it's that simple - writing something, anything every day, even if it's just a sentence. Or a word. That's still writing! And just as importantly it keeps writing on our minds, so we can more easily create or sustain a habit of writing.
How does this work?
Every month, someone here on DW hosts this challenge and makes daily posts where participants can check in, talk about how the writing is going, and offer each other encouragement or commiseration, if they want. The host keeps a running tally of check-ins for the month.
I'm posting early today to get us started, but usually I'm posting in my evening (late hours UTC), after I've done my daily writing. Please comment on the most recent post and say which day(s) you're checking in!
And despite the name, you don't actually have to write every day. *g* There's no pressure or obligation - anyone can dip in and out as they like, write some days but not all, check in every day or in batches, whatever works best. ♥
WED Question of the Day
Do you have writing plans or goals for 2026, or for the next few months?
( writing plans )
Happy 2026, everyone! May it be better in every respect than 2025 was, and may we all have a fantastic writing year!
Attending a New Year's Eve party with my parents and their friends that doubled as one of the friend's birthdays had me the youngest in the room. By multiple decades, in most cases. It was fun, for all that - I talked to some very old-school socialists about addiction, definitions of fascism, public transportation, architecture, technical versus technological, and made a few people laugh.
I should reach back out to the host and thank him for the invitation again.
I should reach back out to the host and thank him for the invitation again.
I hope everyone had a happy and safe New Year's Eve! (We were in bed long before the ball dropped, as usual.)
I had a chiropractic appointment and a pedicure this morning. I don’t drink champagne, but since it was New Year’s Eve I suggested champagne bubbles for the design. She had no idea how to do that, but googled it and came up with something she could do without fancy stickers.
Since I didn’t get there yesterday, I hit Walmart, Price Chopper and the Pharmacy while I was downtown. I picked up Chinese for lunch. And that took up my entire morning!
Chores were minimal; I hand-washed dishes, cut up chicken for the dogs' meals, and scooped kitty litter. I made shake ‘n bake chicken legs for Pip’s supper. I made spinach dip for the first time in years! I picked up a round loaf of pumpernickel for the occasion.
I had planned to read, but I remembered that one of my HGTV programs (Fixer to Fabulous) had aired Tuesday night, so I watched that. And when I went to the DVR I remembered that the final three eps of season one of The Pitt had aired Monday night, so I had to watch ~that as well. And then I watched-watched an ep of Secrets of the Zoo.
No tea today because I wasn’t home in the morning, which is my prime tea time. I did pick up a package of Lindor’s raspberry cheesecake flavored truffles, only to be like, wow, how can raspberry be so tasteless? Now, it’s possible that my taste has been affected by my cold, or whatever it is, so I’ll try them again later, but man, so disappointing.
Temps started out at 20.1(F) and reached 32.5. There was some sun, but it didn’t last long.
Mom Update:
Mom sounded good when I talked to her. Sister A and Ian had visited earlier, and Sister S was there when I called, so even though I’m unable to visit, she is still having visitors.
I had a chiropractic appointment and a pedicure this morning. I don’t drink champagne, but since it was New Year’s Eve I suggested champagne bubbles for the design. She had no idea how to do that, but googled it and came up with something she could do without fancy stickers.
Since I didn’t get there yesterday, I hit Walmart, Price Chopper and the Pharmacy while I was downtown. I picked up Chinese for lunch. And that took up my entire morning!
Chores were minimal; I hand-washed dishes, cut up chicken for the dogs' meals, and scooped kitty litter. I made shake ‘n bake chicken legs for Pip’s supper. I made spinach dip for the first time in years! I picked up a round loaf of pumpernickel for the occasion.
I had planned to read, but I remembered that one of my HGTV programs (Fixer to Fabulous) had aired Tuesday night, so I watched that. And when I went to the DVR I remembered that the final three eps of season one of The Pitt had aired Monday night, so I had to watch ~that as well. And then I watched-watched an ep of Secrets of the Zoo.
No tea today because I wasn’t home in the morning, which is my prime tea time. I did pick up a package of Lindor’s raspberry cheesecake flavored truffles, only to be like, wow, how can raspberry be so tasteless? Now, it’s possible that my taste has been affected by my cold, or whatever it is, so I’ll try them again later, but man, so disappointing.
Temps started out at 20.1(F) and reached 32.5. There was some sun, but it didn’t last long.
Mom Update:
Mom sounded good when I talked to her. Sister A and Ian had visited earlier, and Sister S was there when I called, so even though I’m unable to visit, she is still having visitors.
HNY to all who read here.
Geraint is collecting names; so far he’s Fudge Stealer, Ratbag, Gremlin Stinky Poo Nobbs. He’s a sweetheart when quiet and a nightmare when awake and playing.
Geraint is collecting names; so far he’s Fudge Stealer, Ratbag, Gremlin Stinky Poo Nobbs. He’s a sweetheart when quiet and a nightmare when awake and playing.
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Pick a thing or two that sums up how you're doing today, this week, in general, and tell me about it in the 5-7-5 syllables of a haiku.
=
Signal-boosting much appreciated!
=
Signal-boosting much appreciated!
(Banner by
ysilme)Description: Crack the WIP is back this year! Crack the WIP is a multifandom fest for finishing your WIPs. If you need a deadline to help you finish something, this is the challenge for you! All fanwork media and all fandoms, ships, kinks, ratings, and lengths are welcome. Got a WIP you'd like to make a resolution to finish in the early-ish part of this year? Come join us!
Schedule: Works must be posted by June 30th. Sign-ups are open now and will remain open until the posting deadline.
Links:
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crackthewip | Event rules and sign-up postI just posted a thread to my Bluesky account about why I think it's extremely urgent for people to back up anything they still have on LiveJournal, however they do it. Thread starts here:
https://bsky.app/profile/rahaeli.bsky.social/post/3mbebi2xfxc25
ru-news LJ post I was relying on:
https://ru-news.livejournal.com/80899.html
Please spread this far and wide so as many people see it as possible, because I really don't see English-language LJ continuing in its present form for much longer, and I know some people may still have things they care about there. It doesn't matter how you get it backed up, but it's absolutely crunch time for getting it backed up.
https://bsky.app/profile/rahaeli.bsky.social/post/3mbebi2xfxc25
ru-news LJ post I was relying on:
https://ru-news.livejournal.com/80899.html
Please spread this far and wide so as many people see it as possible, because I really don't see English-language LJ continuing in its present form for much longer, and I know some people may still have things they care about there. It doesn't matter how you get it backed up, but it's absolutely crunch time for getting it backed up.
.