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June 17, 2015 by Katheryne

It’s funny how I keep saying I’m going to write here more, and then I keep finding excuses in my life to not write more blog posts.  It’s almost funny, except for the part where it kind of makes me look like a flake.  Which is unfortunate.  So I guess here’s an update on what I’ve been doing recently.

That 100 movies thing I came up with on a whim last time is still ongoing, surprisingly.  I know it’s only been like ten days, but this is, regardless, a big deal for me.  As I mentioned, I can kind of be a flake sometimes.  I have a bad habit of setting lofty goals and being terrible about keeping them.  The fact that I’m still going after just a week is amazing.  There hasn’t been a lot of rhyme or reason to my film selections so far, but that’s fine.  Like I said, I’m just excited that I haven’t given up yet.

Another thing I do in my spare time during the spring and summer is garden.  I’m not actually very good at it, but I grow flowers and other things. This year I’ve got a couple vegetables going on the patio–a bell pepper and a cherry tomato.  Both are doing pretty well; just this past weekend I got four tomatoes off that plant.  I had a couple of them in a salad today and they were quite tasty.  I also have a strawberry plant that I planted last year that’s doing very well; hopefully I’ll be able to get some fruit off it before the local bunnies do.  On the flower side of things, I’ve planted some cosmos from seed that are also doing well.  They haven’t budded yet, but I’m hoping they will soon.

I haven’t been up to much else worth expounding on.  I’m knitting again, on this Star Wars scarf pattern.  The end result is going to be a gift for my brother.  I’ve started watching Parks and Recreation on Netflix; it’s been highly enjoyable so far, though I’m not that far in.  The writing thing hasn’t been going so well, unfortunately.  I haven’t been making time to write at home, which of course may also be because I don’t have much time in the day, period.  I’m trying to work on getting up earlier, but it’s mostly not going so well.  Getting up a little after 11am today was an accomplishment, let’s put it that way.

I don’t want to turn into a broken and untrustworthy record, but I am going to try and make a genuine effort to post more.  If I’m going to hit 100 posts by year’s end, I am going to have to improve my output.  So here’s to hoping, I suppose.

(5/100)

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Something Something I Don’t Know

June 5, 2015 by Katheryne

I bet you thought I forgot about the blog again. While I admit it hasn’t been at the forefront of my mind, I promise I haven’t totally forgotten about it. I do want to get back in the habit of updating again, which means the pressure is on me to stick to it. This is what this is.

So what have I been up to? Partly it’s been a slightly soul-crushing apathy, either due to my depression or the medications I’m taking for my depression (oh joy). It’s hard to write when you don’t care about anything enough to get started. It’s hard to really do anything, because it doesn’t feel like any of it matters. Which leads into my next thing, which is that I haven’t done anything really important or interesting the last couple of weeks. I’ve been walking at the mall in an attempt to inject some physical activity into my otherwise sedentary life. I’m trying to write a silly fanfic to prove to myself that I’m still capable of actually producing fiction. Sometimes I go to the movies or watch one at home. I haven’t even been reading as much.

I’m not sure what my point here was supposed to be. Maybe explaining that my life is so boring as an excuse for not updating? Which is a pretty flimsy excuse, since I updated regularly in most of 2013 when my life was just as boring and depressing. (Even more depressing, since I was on crappier meds back then.) My biggest problem is that I make excuses. I didn’t get out of bed until nearly 1pm today because I kept finding excuses to ignore my alarm and curl up under the covers again. I don’t do a lot of things because I decide to refresh Tumblr or tab open TV Tropes instead.

Basically what I’m trying to say is that I am the queen of doing the easy, lazy thing instead.

I didn’t mean to turn this into an interrogation of my bad habits. This is what happens when I don’t have a set topic; I dive right into being self-critical.

I made a list of things I want to do this summer. Movies to see, TV shows to catch up on, plus some other stuff. It’s only sort of happening at the moment. I’m trying to catch up on Hannibal, since it’s just started its third season. It’s taking a while, since Hannibal is not the lightest of shows and thus not easy to binge watch. (This is more or less the reason why I haven’t finished Daredevil, either.) I’m five episodes away from being caught up, so hopefully I can cross that off my list here shortly. And that’s just one part of the list. And for some reason I’ve just now got this mad idea to watch 100 different movies over 100 days. Just because. And who knows, I might just do it, even though another one of my bad habits is setting goals I can’t possibly hope to keep.

This is what this is. I do things. Mostly they’re boring and unimportant. But I suppose you’re here because you’re interested anyway. I’m going to try to be better about updating here in the future. Expect more rambling posts like this one.

Also hopefully I’ll get my act together about Doctor Who reviews. Maybe.

(4/100)

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Doctor Who Review: Time of Angels/Flesh and Stone

May 21, 2015 by Katheryne

This is one of those stories that I have trouble talking about, mostly because I like it so much but I can’t articulate fully what it is I like about it. Or maybe I can, since that’s what I’m about to attempt in this review. This pair of episodes does a lot of things very well, to my view, at least, so I suppose I’ll try to talk about that.

Perhaps most significantly, this episode sees the return of River Song, last seen in the Library two-parter in Series 4. We learn a lot more about her character this time around, too. The cold open starts with her femme fatale-ing her way through a spaceship to leave a message for the Doctor (cleverly intercut with the Doctor and Amy’s discovery of said message), which is rather a far cry from the university archaeologist we first met. We also learn much later on that she’s a criminal, imprisoned for the murder of a good man.

Given the benefit of hindsight, it’s easy to see how River’s character fits together, but it’s still intriguing to think about how these revelations might have looked to the average viewer in 2010, seeing these episodes for the first time. They certainly add another layer of mystery to a character already cloaked in it, which may have been frustrating to some.

These episodes also see another return, this one of Moffat’s infamous Weeping Angels. This story was compared (I believe by Moffat himself) as the Aliens to “Blink”‘s Alien, which I think is apt in more ways than one. Their abilities are expanded and their numbers increased considerably, raising the stakes for our heroes and giving us a few moments of horror to boot.

Some of these things work better than others. The Angels messing with Amy’s head doesn’t quite follow through in the same way the whole “image of an Angel” thing does, but it adds a veneer of suspense to the whole story. Robbing Amy of her one protection in a forest full of Angels makes her shaky journey to the control deck all the more nailbiting.

Which brings us to probably the most controversial thing done with the Angels in this story: we see the Angels move. In “Blink”, an unspoken rule was that the audience’s gaze held the Angels at bay as well as any character’s would—thus why Sally Sparrow is not attacked when her back is turned on them early in that episode. This time, at a crucial, climactic moment, our gaze holds no power. I know this was a dealbreaker for a lot of people. I think this moment works on a slight thematic level—at the moment when Amy Pond is helpless, we who most want her to make it through are powerless as well, giving the moment a horrifying inevitability.

One of the elements I rather adore, however, is the reveal of the Angels near the end of “Time of Angels.” The answer is delivered to us some minutes earlier, when the Doctor starts talking about the two-headed Aplans. It’s something I rather love about the way Moffat writes stories—very often he’ll leave the answers we’re looking for hidden in plain sight, ready for any keenly thinking viewer to pick up on. It’s a sign of the esteem he has for the audience’s intelligence, something greatly appreciated.

Another thing I liked was this story’s willingness to crack open (if you’ll pardon the pun) the series’ lightly hinted overall plot. The crack we first saw in young Amelia’s bedroom has been following our protagonists the last couple episodes, and here it forms a major part of “Flesh and Stone”‘s plot. While its cause remains a mystery, we do learn what the crack is: the end of the universe, time itself running out and eating away at the fabric of reality and history. Most significantly, we discover when the crack-causing explosion takes place—the day of Amy’s wedding in the present day. The episode answers questions as well as raising them, and leaves open the possibility that these cracks will have a bearing on the stories to come.

On the whole, I think these are a pair of brilliant episodes. They move along at a great pace, and accomplish a lot with both character and story.

(3/100)

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Coming Back …Or Something.

May 17, 2015 by Katheryne

I just spent a couple hours reading through old blog posts (mostly Doctor Who reviews, but even so). It got me thinking about how I was supposed to start posting more on this blog this year, that everything was going to change and I was going to take control or something like that. Basically, that I was going to be a blogger again.

I think I want that to happen now.

I set my goal for 100 entries this year. I think that’s quite doable, especially if I get started on the Doctor Who reviews again. And who knows, maybe reviews of other things as well. I like to talk about media, that much is clear. Hannibal’s coming back for its third season this year, maybe I’ll write about that. (Never mind I need to catch up on the second season still.) Who knows. The possibilities are endless, of course.

I might be using this as a platform to talk about my personal life a bit more, particularly my depression. I might even talk about writing. I’ve been trying to do more of it lately, and it’s working out so-so so far. But I might as well talk about things since I’ve got this platform, even if they’re inane things that no one actually cares about!

It’s my blog and I’ll write what I want to, write what I want tooooo…

On the whole I don’t know what I’ll be doing with this. I only know that I want to do something, and I will try to make that something count. Even if no one gives a damn. Maybe especially if no one gives a damn. Because at least I care, and at least I’m trying. I suppose that’s really what this is all about—caring enough to try, and keep on going.

So expect to see more from me in the coming days and weeks. And hopefully this time, I won’t be unknowingly lying to you. Hopefully.

(2/100)

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Doctor Who Review: The End and Beyond

January 3, 2015 by Katheryne

I know, I know, you’re as surprised as me that I’m back and writing about Doctor Who. I sort of left things off in quite a place, didn’t I? Right in the middle of Series 5, without so much as a word of warning that I’d be away for well over a year. I suppose I’m a bit like the Doctor in that regard, aren’t I? Going away for, oh a week, and then not turning up until fourteenish months later. All of that aside, I am back, and hopefully for good.

The plan for the foreseeable future, at least as regards this particular output of mine, is to review one episode a week, picking up where we left off, with Time of Angels, and so on. It should last me through the year, so long as I keep on top of it. And I am hoping that I will be able to keep on top of it. There are just enough episodes left that I should be able to cover them in fifty two weeks.

If you’re looking for a recap of where we left off, here’s the general gist of things: The Eleventh Hour is a piece of total perfection that cannot be fully appreciated by mere human words; The Beast Below is by no means perfect, but still plenty good (even Steven Moffat’s worst episode is better by far than most writers’ best); and Victory of the Daleks serves a necessary purpose for the future of Doctor Who, and yet manages some good character stuff beneath the rather rote storyline. We’re all in agreement about that, yes? … Probably not, but that’s where we are right now, and so hopefully by the end of this week, you’ll be looking at a nice shiny review of Time of Angels.

And that’s all I have to say about that.

(1/100)

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NaNoWriMo 2013: How I Slept, Sighed, and Cried My Way to 50k

December 9, 2013 by Katheryne

All things considered, I probably should not have done NaNoWriMo this year. I have just not had my head in the game as far as writing is concerned this year, and while my depression is usually in a tauntingly close holding pattern, it likes to swoop down on me when I least expect it. I was not in any fit state to write fifty thousand words of any story, but some pig-headed part of me insisted that I had to. This was my tenth outing; I had won every year previous to this, every year since I’d found out about NaNo and decided to join in. I had to do this. One more time if nothing else. For old time’s sake.

I wrote about my whole struggle to decide on here, as you may recall. I settled on a story–a rehash/rewrite of my 2008 novel, Luna, which I rechristened as Daughter of the Sun–and on November 1, I wrote…

…nothing.

This was actually pretty much how I sloped through the month. I would slack off, try to catch up and fail miserably, and then spend the next several days moping about how behind I was and how I was never going to catch up. If you look at my profile on the NaNo site, you will see that my word count rises in fits and starts, and only when I really wanted it to. (You will note that, in the end, I REALLY wanted it to.)

Looking back, I can’t even say what I actually doing with that time. I know I spent the vast majority of it in bed, either fooling around on the internet or sleeping or just laying there and feeling bad about everything I possibly could. This is what depression does, especially when you give yourself another thing to not do and to feel bad about not doing. Sometimes I opened up my novel and sort of looked at it, but I didn’t work on it. I occasionally lurked off to the library to write words in bursts of a thousand or so (by hand, even!), but as the end of the month drew nearer, I was stalled somewhere around 15k.

I don’t know what finally lit the fire under my ass. It was probably the floating spectre of FAILURE hanging over my head like the nasty sign it’s been to me since middle school. I have done my level best to avoid being A Failure for years, and I wasn’t going to let 15k be the best I could muster for my tenth NaNoWriMo.

So I wrote. And then I didn’t write for a couple of days.

And then I did that exact thing over again, and just for funsies I had a huge, depressing cryfest that didn’t help anything, because there’s just nothing like trying to write and not being able to because your body feels weird and the words aren’t coming, and the words that do come don’t fit together and your fingers won’t obey your thoughts. And so on. (Getting yelled at also doesn’t help.)

I wrote a lot the day before Thanksgiving, then nothing at all on the actual day–which would make sense, except that we didn’t actually have Thanksgiving dinner until Friday. (There was a scheduling snafu. Irrelevant.) And on Friday I wrote nearly ten thousand words.

I was at 36k at midnight on November 30th, and at 11:59pm, I had reached 50k. It was, in so many words, one hell of a day. I even had an underdog-y sort of moment with just a few hours ago, after I’d accidentally had one of my trademarked Accidental Naps and felt like I couldn’t surmount the words I needed to reach that much vaunted goal. And then I did it anyway.

There was probably a better way to write this, but since I’ve stopped keeping a journal (to my own dismay, believe me), I don’t really have a detailed log of my days. Things happened, and more things happened, and against all odds and some well respected areas of reason, I won the day.

And that’s all that matters.

(202/260)

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This is Another Post (Still on My Blog)

December 9, 2013 by Katheryne

It snowed and iced over the weekend, which I think I talked about before. The ground is more or less still covered, though the main roads are clear. It’s still really freaking cold outside, though, which made clearing my car off this afternoon a bit of an adventure. I should have wrapped up in a scarf as well as my coat and hat, because my face was a little chapped afterwards. It took half an hour to smack and brush and scrape all the ice off my car, though it was kind of fun to break a layer of ice and discovered snow powdering underneath it. It all got brushed onto the ground, though, because I had places to go.

I meant to do more today than I actually got around to. This is mostly because I am lazy. The day isn’t over yet, but I’m not sure I want to go and do anything else after all. There’s always tomorrow, isn’t there? Another day to sleep and waste away, and I get to the end of it wondering where the hell I messed up. (I messed up by being in bed, by slumping down the pillows until I was laying there, feeling tired, and so I took my glasses off and burrowed into the pillow and slept.) I spend more time twittering over whether I should do something that I often end up doing nothing at all.

That got unexpectedly depressing.

I could make it more depressing by going on and on and on about what I’m not doing, but you didn’t come here for that. My next entry, later tonight, will not be depressing. Or maybe it will be depressing in a different way, I don’t know. I am just banging these out without any sort of preparation, because I told myself I was going to write 260 entries and I am /so damn close/ that I am not going to let it slip away from me. Let me do this one thing, let me accomplish this simple thing that is, okay, maybe not so simple as it seems this late in the year. But I’m going to try anyway.

Maybe I will write entries on all those things I said I would. I don’t know. But I’m going to keep talking about stuff, repeatedly, until the end of the year. And maybe–hopefully–I’ll hit that magic number.

(201/260)

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Moving House

December 7, 2013 by Katheryne

So my parents are buying a house. It’s supposed to be all official and everything next week, though I suppose that something could go wrong between now and then and we wouldn’t get it, but it seems kind of unlikely. In addition to getting this new house, my parents also want to be more or less moved in by Christmas.

To say that we are even half ready to move out of our current rental house is… kind of laughable. I’ve half heartedly packed up my movies and some notebooks and other miscellaneous crap that I don’t really use in the day to day. My hundreds (well, probably not hundreds) of books haven’t gone anywhere, nor all my clothes (half of which I don’t even wear anymore). To say nothing of all my furniture.

Moving a fraction of my crap to make the dorms livable at college was one thing, but nothing quite drives home how much useless crap you’ve accumulated like having to pack all of it up. You have to touch everything, hold it in your hands and weigh its value. Am I really going to need this? Am I ever going to use it or refer to it at all? Should I just bin it and move on to the next thing? I’ve already had this conversation a few times, and I’ll likely have it several more before I get everything put away and ready to go.

It’s not like I haven’t moved before, but at the same time it kind of is. The last time we packed up and moved house, I was six years old and in the first grade. We have lived in this house for seventeen and a half years. It has accumulated the detritus of three kids getting muscled through the school system. The carpets are worn, the walls are in need of paint. The only room in the house that really looks all right is the kitchen, and that’s because it was redone almost six years ago. The house was built at the turn of the 20th century, and the last nearly two decades of occupance shows, in some places rather a lot.

And we’re moving. I went with my parents a month and a half ago when they went to see this new house. It isn’t totally new–it was built in the ’80s–but it’s so much newer than where we’re living. I’m going to have to figure out how to occupy a much smaller room than I have before. I’m going to have to learn how to cook on a gas stove. I’m going to have to learn to find my way around in the dark all over again.

It’s going to be strange enough learning to live in a new house. And I still have to pack. At any rate, I suppose I will keep things posted on this whole situation, as long as it’s developing. There might even be pictures.

(200/260)

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This is a Post on My Blog

December 7, 2013 by Katheryne

To be honest, one thing you should have learned from me over the last year is that when I say I’m going to start writing entries more often, I am probably lying. Though all things considered, this is somehow going to turn out to not be one of those times. Wait and see, I suppose.

This entry isn’t about anything particular, just a sort of journal entry or stream of consciousness something or other. It snowed a lot today, with some sleet and freezing rain thrown in for good measure. The world outside is white and lovely, though I feel the effect is kind of spoiled by leaves and grass poking through the unsullied surface. I don’t think it’s likely to last outside of the weekend, either, but I’ll enjoy it as long as I can. (And hey, the messy roads are a good excuse to just stay in the house for a few days and not feel guilty about it.)

I am still going to write entries about the things I said in my previous entry, whenever that was. I might even write some of them today. Or tomorrow, rather. Time is sometimes a strange construct, and it’s been somewhat skewed for me all week. I didn’t get any sleep one night. I don’t know how much I’m going to get tonight. I really need to start keeping a sleep journal or something. I’ve tried that a couple of times, actually, and I’ve always fallen out of the habit. (I have often thought the same thing about keeping a dream journal, though my problem is that I usually get up and going straight away, and thus forget what I was dreaming about in the first place. Though I’ve noticed that the Disneyland of my dreams is always the same, though it’s also a lot more elaborate and cool.)

I need to start packing. I keep packing up all the things I don’t need, like bits of knick-knackery and so forth that won’t be helpful to unpack at first at all, but are still what I can afford to pack at the moment. Though at my current reading rate, I might as well start packing up my books, because they’re certainly not doing anything at the moment. But then again, there is the issue of having enough boxes for it all, and that makes me stay my hand again.

Tomorrow (or today, even) I am going to watch some Doctor Who and actually write some reviews and get those posted. I am going to finish up with Matt Smith’s run by the year’s end, I swear. That is a thing that is going to happen, somehow. Hell or high water and all that stuff. Come Christmas or New Year’s, I am going to get this stuff done.

Somehow.

(199/260)

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Guess Who’s Back (Again) (Some More)

December 4, 2013 by Katheryne

Apologies (again) for abandoning you all (yet again) for… well over a month. Things have been happening in my life, though by and large they are unexciting things like depression and anxiety. And let’s be honest, I’ve already talked about those enough on here, so there isn’t much point in regaling you with the gory details again. Particularly since that’s about as depressing as my actual experience was, and I don’t feel inclined to relive it for you all.

Rather than spending a lot of time talking about what I’ve been doing and not doing, I think I am going to split things up into multiple entries. Just sort of, you know, spread the love. And also pad out my total number of entries for the year, since I need about three a day in order to hit my intended number of two hundred and sixty. Or 260; sorry, doing intensive last-minute NaNoWriMo makes the word padder in you really come out.

So, some of the exciting topics you will see from me in the coming days and weeks include:

  • My parents bought a house. (Or will have, in a week and a half.) This means packing, and going through all the crap I have accumulated after living in this house for seventeen years.
  • I just saw Frozen tonight and OH MAN GUYS I GOTTA TALK ABOUT THIS MOVIE AT YOU.
  • I got Pokemon X and my own 3DS for my birthday, so guess what I’ve been doing in half my spare moments. (I am trying to complete the region ‘dex for the first time ever, and I am actually pretty sure I’m going to do it. Once I work out some particular kinks regarding legendary birds, anyway…)
  • As I mentioned above, I did NaNoWriMo again this year, which I believe I talked about a little in October. It was kind of hard to write while in the middle of a crushing depression, but I managed to finish it just under the wire. By writing 14,000 words in twenty-four hours.
  • Also the long-awaited return of Doctor Who Review! I am going to get through everything up to and including this year’s Christmas special and last month’s 50th Anniversary Special (which I LOVED, by the way).
  • And probably more and other stuff that I will think of later!

(198/260)

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another day, another post, another ramble

October 20, 2013 by Katheryne

I am still tired. I want to curl up in my nice warm bed and sleep for another century or so, for all that that would kind of screw up my evening. I don’t feel as though I have anything better to be doing at the moment, though, so maybe a nap would do me some good. It would probably be better to just cuddle up in bed and read for a while instead, since I didn’t get around to that yesterday. I could probably do some planning from bed, as well.

Let’s be honest, I’m mostly talking about getting into bed because in spite of the heat being on and my space heater running at top speed and temperature, I am still cold and I would like to live, just briefly, in a universe where my feet are not totally freezing. That universe usually involves curling up under the covers of my bed. If I had some nice flannel sheets, I might put those on my bed for optimum warmth, but I don’t have any nice flannel sheets, so I suppose I’ll just have to deal with it.

I would probably be not-bored and playing Pokemon at the moment if I could borrow my brother’s 3DS, but he’s going to let me have it when he leaves for school this week, so it seems polite to just let him do whatever with it until he leaves. I have all week, I keep telling myself, to waste time and raise my team and defeat gym leaders and so on. Instead of doing important stuff like updating this blog or maybe actually planning out my novel for NaNoWriMo.

Speaking of things I haven’t actually started doing. Ugh. I am kind of secretly hoping that my most recent lapse in creativity will end when I’ve got that huge deadline and goal hanging over me come November, but knowing my luck I’ll get about a thousand words in before I give up because it’s all awkward and weird and I can’t work on it without getting that queer tickling feeling in my arms that makes me want to claw them open and pull out whatever’s causing it.

That doesn’t make any sense.

I don’t know what this entry is supposed to be about. All I did was start writing, and as ever, one thing followed another until I started talking about the strange things that only make sense to me and which you probably won’t understand at all, if you’re even here reading this, which, let’s face it, if you gave up in paragraph two I don’t blame you. I’ve made it clear repeatedly over the last ten months how utterly fucking boring I am.

My birthday’s in ten days. I think I want to make pumpkin cupcakes for Halloween. I wish I had some money so I could put gas in my car and make sure my bank account doesn’t overdraw when their stupid-ass fee comes out and so I could maybe buy Robin McKinley’s new book and also start buying Christmas presents, not that I’m totally sure what everyone wants in the first place, and it’s so hard to shop for like five or six other grown adults. I wish I had a job. I wish I could just sleep forever sometimes. Not right now, though the thought of being cozy and warm for forever is kind of appealing because my feet are still cold and my space heater has a weird idea of how warm this room actually is at the moment.

I wanted to write 500 words, and it looks like I did just that. If you made it this far, you should get a medal. This entry is kind of inane as hell, and for that I apologize.

(197/260)

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(this has been a post)

October 20, 2013 by Katheryne

I didn’t write a post yesterday because I got distracted by various and sundry things, by which I mean my brother came home with his 3DS and I played Pokemon for several hours. And then we went to see Gravity which was AMAZING AS HELL and I went to bed totally content and it wasn’t until I was drifting off to sleep that I realized I hadn’t written a blog post about anything (not that I really have anything to write blog posts about anymore).

I woke up really late today, partly because I went to bed at 2am and partly because my bed was warm and my room was cold and even if I didn’t like the dream I was having about being stuck in a weird-ass math class against my will, it was more appealing than getting up and shivering. So I was up at lunchtime rather than midmorning (or, heavens forfend, breakfasttime), and I spent a great deal of time playing Pokemon again because Pokemon, and I basically have spent all day (“day”) being really, really tired for no reason in particular. I’m still quite tired now, and I think I may be getting sick.

I’m probably wrong about that. I’ve had a runny nose for approximately the whole damn year, and the fact that I’m overtired could just be indicative of how horrible my sleep habits are (i.e., very horrible). The fact that my skin doesn’t quite feel like it fits over me could just be some odd funk that will be gone in the morning. You never know with these things, but given my general tendency towards health rather than sickness, I’m leaning towards “this is just a funk.” Though I know I’d be glad for an excuse to lounge in bed for a few days. Oh well.

I’m sure this headache will pass. My nose will probably keep being runny but uninfected or stopped up, and maybe a good night’s sleep will pull my skin more comfortably around my self. Who knows. It’s late; I’m tired; good night.

(196/260)

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I made some cookies.

October 18, 2013 by Katheryne

I baked nine and a half dozen cookies today, for no other reason than that I wanted to, because I like cookies and I like baking and I have all this free time, so why not?

Having said that, I don’t know what else to write. There isn’t much of anything else to say, is there? No, not really. It took three and a half hours all told, which actually isn’t even most of the time I’ve been awake; I’ve spent more time fiddling with Cookie Clicker than actually in the kitchen mixing things and measuring them. I made two different kinds of cookies–plain sugar cookies with black and orange sugar crystals on top, and white chip chocolate cookies. They’re both recipes I rather like.

And I still don’t know what to say about it all. I mixed both batches up by hand, at more or less the same time. I have a KitchenAid mixer that I use infrequently. I don’t break it out for cookies all that often because I like to mix those up by hand, even if it gives me an almighty pain in my arm and shoulder. I feel kind of adorable and festive with the sugar cookies done in Halloween colors. The colored sugars came in a great big thingy full of other Halloween sprinkles and the like; I’m temped to make pumpkin cupcakes for the day itself, so I can get some use out of those before they go stale where they sit. I love the white chip cookies because they’re delicious. They sort of crumble up in your mouth, and the chocolate cookie and white chip flavors mix in a gentle, wonderful way.

I realize I keep saying that I have nothing to say, and yet keep finding things to say nonetheless, but that doesn’t really count. There’s no coherence here. It’s just thoughts and rambles, ideas about what I made today that don’t come together meaningfully at all.

I made some cookies because I like to make cookies. And that’s what I did with my day.

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A good day.

October 16, 2013 by Katheryne

As ever, I am at a loss for what to write. It feels like I have done next to nothing with my day, though in truth I have done several things. I did some chores for once, and I watched my rented copy of Pacific Rim before I had to return it again. I spent probably too much time fiddling about with Cookie Clicker (DO NOT. GOOGLE., etc.), though I’m not really playing it so much as keeping an eye out for those ever-helpful golden cookies. I made dinner and went to the store for my mother. I’m going to bake a crapload of cookies tomorrow, I think, just because I can. Just because I like making things. I read a good chunk of my current book. I haven’t poked at my novel planning yet, but I might do before I go to bed.

I don’t have any stories to tell about my day. It was a day, and it happened like I told you (though not necessarily in that order). I spent half of Pacific Rim being delighted in it out loud, because you have the luxury for that sort of thing when you’re alone at home. I am diligently mathing my way through the last several achievements on the Cookie Clicker. I bought eggs and butter at the store for the express purpose of making cookies tomorrow (and also with the purpose of making egg sandwiches later). I getting through my book at a good pace and I’ll probably finish it either tonight or tomorrow, and then start on the next.

It was a good day. I more or less liked it, and I wouldn’t mind another like it.

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(this has been yet another post)

October 15, 2013 by Katheryne

I haven’t actually started planning my novel yet, so I can’t write about that. In fact, I haven’t done much of anything today except run hither, thither, and yon on various errands before finally, finally getting here at the library for some peace and quiet. And while it’s nice to be out and about, it’s less nice when you use up half of your remaining gas in the process.

I would talk about how I actually got up before noon, but it’s kind of sad that that’s the sort of thing I’m proud of nowadays. And then again, if it makes me feel nice it is nice, and it’s like super nice in light of the fact that I went to bed at around 2am and didn’t sleep into the afternoon. So maybe I’ll just sit here and be proud of it anyway.

I’m still sort of pondering what to do with my novel. I decided a few weeks back to change my main character’s ethnicity because why not, and I’m still trying to figure out if that was a good idea or not, and in what ways it should affect how I write her, and so on. And it probably is and it probably shouldn’t, and I should just carry on with it. I know my basic plot, and it shouldn’t totally fall apart if I add a few more competent adults who weren’t there before. Which is to say, I suppose, that I should just get off my ass and start writing on it, there are only two weeks left before the 1st and I should like to be at least a little prepared when I set my fingers to keys.

And I should probably stop whinging about my problems about my problems here and just get to freaking work.

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Decision Point.

October 15, 2013 by Katheryne

(It’s still today until I go to bed or sunrise, whichever comes first.)

I think I have resigned myself to the fact that I am doing NaNoWriMo. I can’t actually imagine what I would do with my November otherwise, and writing something, anything, will make a nice change from whatever what-have-you I get up to usually. (i.e., all that Internet video game nonsense.) No, I don’t actually have a set and concrete plan, but I’ve started most of my Novembers like that, so there’s no reason why this one should be any different.

I will probably sit down and try to figure something out, though. It’s nice to know where you’re going, even in a most basic sense. I know who my characters are, more or less, and I have a rough idea of the plot, I just need to hash it out into a paragraph or six or something. I don’t actually know what I’m doing. I never know what I’m doing. I’m surprised I made it this far, actually, calling myself a writer, because it’s times like these that I really don’t feel like one.

Anyway, I suppose tomorrow I will start trying to work on this book. I will get things like POV and plot and extra supporting characters figured out. I will start dedicating time to writing instead of time to video games and Tumblr and TV shows. Though maybe not TV shows, you know, I missed tonight’s Sleepy Hollow and there’s a new Agents of SHIELD and I’m two episodes behind on Korra and… okay. The point is that work is going to start tomorrow and maybe I’ll post about it a little and maybe I won’t, I’m still not sure at this point.

I know this is short, but hell if I know what else to write. It’s late and I’m tired, etc. Until tomorrow. And the day after that as well.

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October 13, 2013 by Katheryne

I still don’t know what to write. For some reason, returning to my old stand-by of television reviews feels too much like cheating, but I haven’t been doing anything else interesting with my life to warrant talking about. I have spent a great deal of time reading these last few days, which I mentioned not so long ago. I’m working through all of Robin McKinley’s books that I own, and I own all of them save her short story collections and her newest novel. So the reading is something of a good excuse, for all that I’ve done it crouched at my desk with one eye on the Cookie Clicker (DO NOT GOOGLE, etc.). On the other hand, I feel like there are certain other things I should be getting around to, such as deciding once and for all if NaNoWriMo is going to be a Thing this year, and if so, shouldn’t I really get around to putting together a loose plan for said NaNoWriMo project?

And then a little part of me shrugs and I shuffle through my book again, because it seems an age and a half since I’ve really done a lot of reading. Which is all well and good, I suppose, except that the things I think I ought to be doing often drive me half mad because I don’t do them because I’m… reading. Or cookie clicking. Or iPhone fiddling, or Tumblr-ing (Tumbling?), or doing all the many-splendored things that are not what I think I ought to be doing.

If I continue on this tack for long, it’ll be another depression spiel, and you’ve probably had enough of those to last a lifetime, I would imagine. I’ll stop.

I would write more, but I’m tired and I don’t know what else to write. All I know is that every day is every day, so here I am again, and here I’ll be again tomorrow with some further inanity.

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another day, another post

October 12, 2013 by Katheryne

I still don’t know what to write, though at least this time I am writing it on my computer instead of in an dusty old notebook. But I said I’d do this every day, that I have to do this every day until the end of the year if I want to make this one thing I said I would do actually freaking happen.

But that doesn’t mean that anything that I write from now to the end of the year is going to be any good. Continue Reading »

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I said I’d do this every day.

October 11, 2013 by Katheryne

I don’t know what to write. (Also this pencil is too new, and squeaks across the page like fingernails down the chalkboard of my soul.) I have three episode reviews written up (two Korra, one Sleepy Hollow), but they seem hopelessly out of date now. Yes, I am well aware of my propensity towards overusing and abusing parentheticals. I nevertheless am not entirely sure if I care. Which is to say that I only care insofar as it might affect my writing in a much more professional arena. (Which accidentally says a lot about what I think of this blog.) (sorry not sorry)

You may have heard your friends, family, and or acquaintances talking about Cookie Clicker. DO NOT Google it just to find out what it is. It’s been nearly four days and I don’t think I will escape it any time soon.

This pencil is still annoyingly squeaky. I need to make it live in a pocket for a month or something. Get all the creaks and squeaks and awkwardness out of the way.

Also yes I write my blog posts out longhand shut up.

I should probably be planning my novel. Or at least coming to a decision-making point in regard to NaNoWriMo. Given that that starts in twenty days and everything. To say nothing of some of the major changes I want to implement with the characters and stuff. Why does it feel like I have too much to do? (Probably because Cookie Clicker.) (DO NOT GOOGLE COOKIE CLICKER)

I think I’m about to embark on a binge reread of all my Robin McKinley books. I’ve basically blown through three of them already (plus one I reread earlier this year), and even though there are seven more, I don’t particularly care? I love all her books, and I can’t wait to get my paws on her new one once I can scrape together the cash for it.

Speaking of cash: I wish I had enough to pull together so I could have a lovely Saturday out on my birthday weekend (before or after, since the actual day had the nerve to fall in the middle of the week, because of course). I know I’ll be getting a few birthday coupons in my email soon, and hopefully Gravity will still be in IMAX then. But on the other hand, I don’t have what you’d call a readily disposable income. So that’s more of a birthday pipe dream than anything.

And here I thought talking about nothing might get me somewhere. Though I am a touch distracted by the Cookie Clicker (DO NOT. GOOGLE. THE COOKIE CLICKER.). As well as other things, I suppose, but mostly it’s the Cookie Clicker (JUST DON’T OKAY). I don’t know what else to talk about. As I’ve mentioned here many, many times, I’m kind of boring. That’s probably the exact thing you shouldn’t tell people if you want them to read your blog, but here we are anyway.

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NaNoWriMo 2013: The Long and Short of It

October 10, 2013 by Katheryne

Which is to say, I want to do it, but at the same time I’m not sure how or why or if I even should. I discussed some of this in my previous entry, but there are a number of pros and cons to my staying in or bowing out. So I suppose I’ll talk about those. Which is the whole point of having a blog, isn’t it, to talk about the things I want to talk about. Right? Right.

The primary pro for me is that this is my tenth straight year doing NaNoWriMo. I have won every year. Having a ten-year streak would be a nice bragging rights thing. It would look good on my site profile. At the same time, it’s a really very superficial reason to go on with it. It means I’m more concerned with a number than with actual output or production as a writer. Granted, that’s slightly the point of NaNoWriMo, but it feels like the wrong reason. (Or maybe it’s just that some pernicious part of me wants it to be the wrong reason.)

The other pro is that this would finally be an opportunity to redraft my novel Luna (which now might be titled Daughter of the Sun), like I’ve been meaning to for literally the whole year. And then some. It would allow me to get my rear in gear and basically write a new first draft, since the one I finished almost five years ago is now so far from what I want the book to be. Even the plans I sketched out in the first part of this year aren’t matching up with what I want to write now. Which is frustrating, but I’ve still got around three weeks to get all that together if I really want to.

And of course the big question is exactly that: do I really want to?

It seems like there are a million reasons why I shouldn’t. I don’t have time, though that’s technically and actually a lie–I have plenty of time, I just waste it on other frivolities instead of taking it seriously and using it. I feel really isolated and alone, in spite of my presence of various internet homes, which did feel like home once upon a time ago. I don’t feel particularly inspired, which is honestly the worst excuse anyone can make as a writer, but I haven’t written anything substantial or interesting in yonks, so. I am afraid I’ll screw the book up if I try, even though that’s exactly the attitude NaNo is meant to combat.

And writing this all out now, I’m just as sure I should as I am that I shouldn’t. If that makes sense; it sounded neater in my head. My reasons why not are not very strong, as I demonstrated while listing them out, but at the same time, they’re all the exact reasons why I think it’s likely I’ll fail, and so shouldn’t start at all. My reasons why I should feel as sturdy as sand for all the doubts I have, but that whispering sound of glory (even if it’s private and personal) keeps the kindling flame of hope alive. And my language is perhaps getting a bit too flowery for all this.

I’m not sure if I wrote this to try and make the decision or not. I mostly wanted to put my fears down on paper, as though that would make them more transparent to me. If nothing else it puts them out in the open, and I can point people here rather than helplessly trying to explain what I myself don’t fully understand.

Or something (she said, trying to squeeze in a bit of levity for fear of sounding too serious).

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