Thrihyrne

Found myself describing the rearrangement on my altar as part of an initiation rite. I ordered a dragon pin from a vintage seller because it represents Skyfyr, a wild fiery peacock manifestation that I realize will fit best as my ridable magical animal of choice in the Wraeththu Otherlanes. I'm so excited! This sandbox is so creative, and I feel privileged beyond measure that I was able to spend a few, sacred hours in her presence back in 2008. Only now, having Doorstepped to the next beyond, and me being in this unique spiritual space during a MASSIVE Saturn Return, can I look back and see that trip to England for what it really was: it was a sacred pilgrimage to be with a spiritual soulmate. I just wasn't far enough along on my own journey to see it for just how rich an experience it was. It was pretty fucking magical in the moment already, no bones about it! I sat in the Akashic Records of my people: the printing press of Immanion Press, surrounded by bookcases of the holy scriptures of my people. My hara. My yið on my planet in my writerly sandbox playground that is nothing if not a lovesong to Storm Constantine and the world she shared so generously with us, her fans.

I come to the Wraeththu Hegemony bringing gifts. I am Riverrun, the Diviner. I ride Skyfyr, the Peacock of Fire. What a gorgeous world in which to spend time on my commutes, writing in my composition notebook. Maybe what I'm writing can be a kind of Wraeththu AU??

Today I sing the song of the harish body electric, my own harish DNA lighting up as I practice my baby contortion exercises through the day and every moment of my life feels like I'm drinking nonstop an ethanol-free elixir. Yeah, I'm also on cannabis, which super frees up my creative space! And my verbosity. :P

Thus endeth this panegyric.

There's nothing like receiving a review for a story written several years ago that can make me want to revisit a fandom. Interestingly, it's for a Wraeththu fic with nearly 100% OCs, one I was especially proud of that didn't have a huge readership, and a protagonist named Kelp. I made the conscious decision to have a Kelp in my Charliefic I'm writing now, so there's a Wraeththu and a wizarding Kelp now in my world. And neither of them are redheads, amazingly enough. :)

I really do intend to get back to my writing while on this trip, though it's definitely challenging in that there are 4 families in the beachhouse, including 2 4-year olds and a 7 month old. I'm not a child person, and so I do find myself feeling constantly on retreat or almost 'hiding' so that I can enjoy this time as I want to, which is a lot of quiet time, and reading/writing. The writing is definitely a solo activity, though reading I can do out in a general area with other people off talking and entertaining children and whatnot. But I'm realizing that I probably won't do this again. I love seeing the ocean, and I went jogging on the beach last night, and I enjoy some socializing, but I think had I really been putting all of this together about how many people and children were going to be around 24/7, I would have opted for a shorter trip and to spend a couple of days at home. But it will be okay. It's just not the super-relaxing, quiet, lots of sleep, lounging and no-expectations kind of thing that I'd somehow (and to my discredit, improbably) created in my own head.

Evan and I are now going to go on a walk together so I can enjoy his company while we're awake. Otherwise he's definitely doing a lot of family-conversation, older sibling enjoyment-with-obligation kind of thing that we're both hyper-aware of. Neither Evan nor I do well with constant socializing and that kind of obligatory/unable-to-easily-evade constant interaction and expectations, but I'm sure we can still enjoy ourselves. And Evan is his own person, and this is his vacation as much as anyone else's, so I'll focus on me, me, me. This is my blog, after all. ;)

Or: why I don't post much anymore.

My life is superb. The only drama I have (though at times it can be mighty and crosses over into my non-work life, of which I don't approve) is work-related. I have renewed and newly-meaningful relationships with some key people, including my sister, mother, and Eugene-friend-Jen. I still write letters and have phone calls maintaining other long-time friendships. I even see some people locally who are also friends— and colleagues! I'm financially in a far better place than I've been since 2005. I'm comfortable in my own skin, with a distinct lack of chemicals. My deep-seated anxieties about the irony of the universe lashing out at me personally in unique and traumatizing ways is near-banished. I'm exercising and even going to ballet once a week. Creatively, I knit more than anything else, but I've also revived work on my Wraeththu novel book contract and will be having a First Pass Major Re-Read/Edit with my editor at the end of July. I'm living and sharing every day with the life partner I didn't dare to dream actually existed. I'm 130 days into giving a full years' experiment of seeing what it's like to choose not to drink.

So I think I get a bit wary of sounding like I'm vomiting rainbows. Of course there's some shitty stuff. I've had several bouts of sinus/throat issues, which haven't been fun. While I thoroughly enjoy my particular role at work, I'm ambivalent about the ever-changing landscape outside of that realm. I'll need to do a major exorcism of preconceptions about headquarters in general before going there in June, though perhaps the very act of going will provide some clarity I haven't had before. My left pinky toe is apparently going to hurt for the rest of my life, and I've screwed up my right shoulder somehow, as well as done something to my upper left hip flexor… all of which makes the ballet more painful than necessary. I need to keep constant vigilance not to succumb to hedonic adaptation, and to be very, very aware of any inklings of creating drama simply because my life is so stable.

But in general, I'm fully engaged in my life and content in ways I've not been for a very long time. So that's why I don't post all that often. Still, here's an update! ♥

So the dear heartofoshun stepped up to my request plate and requested this: Give me a Wraeththu ficlet! I'm thinking about Ashmael and Cal. It can be any kind of interaction that you choose. Doesn't have to a big aruna scene if something else strikes your fancy, of course, I wouldn't complain if you wrote one.

This does have aruna, though it's not super-explicit. Set a few days after Cal has come to Immanion and sent Thiede off into another astral plane. Thanks so much for the request!

Title: A First Time for Everything
Rating: General
Fandom: Wraeththu
Pairing: Ashmael/Cal
A/N: self-beta'ed. Short. 1355 words. Cross-posted to raythoo

( Read more... )

First and foremost, a very HAPPY BIRTHDAY, evannichols!!!! May you be celebrated in whatever manner you deem the most marvelous for you. :)

I finished the purple gloves for dreambastion, pics found here and here. (yes, I was playing around with brushes in photoshop for the second one) They were mailed out yesterday! I've assembled the cardigan (without the sleeves yet) and nearly finished the button band. I also will be knitting another baby bib for one of my adopted brothers.

Thanks to celandineb for the glitterati sunglasses! :D

Work on my original fic is going well, and for those who've provided feedback, it's much appreciated. This week I'm focusing on incorporating edits from elfscribe5 and emansil_08 (THANK YOU!!) for my Hector/Lord John fic, as well as doing a pretty major revision in tone and ambiance for my Wraeththu story to be in the fall compilation. Then it's back to original fic full on. And visiting persephone100 again this weekend, right after her birthday!!! So a great week in store, as well as spending a couple of days doing video editing and also learning more Access stuff and meeting with the health center folks.

A merry Tuesday to you all!

I don't usually post this much fic within a short time frame, but the Gimli stories are short and I actually began writing this particular Wraeththu story at the end of December. The characters, setting, and cultural elements to this story are actually taken from the story I submitted for the early-era Wraeththu compilation Storm is putting together (it was accepted, though it will need some expanding). The characters and setting became so real for me that I decided to write a sequel- there's enough information in this that it's stand-alone, but I'll look forward to the publication of said compilation, whenever that is, so people can read the genesis of this story. Cross-posted to raythoo.

Title: Escape from the Flame of Separateness
Primary Characters: All OCs with the exception of a harling-aged Tyr
Rating: Well, it has aruna, and language.
Word Count: 6,040
Beta: elfscribe5. Thank you so much for tidying up my prose and for your insights!!
Summary: Ottar's second year as a har of Freygard becomes nightmarish when his mentor is possessed by a nameless spirit and the aftermath of their subsequent aruna irrevocably changes his life.
Author's Notes: The title comes from a poem by Rumi.

( Escape from the Flame of Separateness )

I'm a bit late this year and realize this is mostly for my own record-keeping, but for those who might be curious or are here to read in particular fandoms, here is my 2009 summary of fics by fandom. Links are also included; most of them are to posts at my LJ, but there are a few that go elsewhere where you can leave a comment should you be so inclined. ;) The one totally new element was writing in another author's original fiction fandom, The Slave Breakers by maculategiraffe. I ended up being quite captivated as you'll see from the no fewer than the eight stories and some drabbles I wrote in that fandom alone. I also wrote a few Tolkien slash stories (I've written nearly all genfics in my Tolkien writing prior to this year), but for the most part they didn't prove to be all that popular.

In addition to the stories listed below, the major story that I worked on, but which is still with Storm Constantine, is my Wraeththu novella "Maelstrom and Mage". I did a major revision on it in 2009, then received Storm's many helpful suggestions and comments and rewrote 7/10 of it. She's had it since the end of October but in publishing, nothing happens quickly. So one story which occupied much of my creative energies is not public yet. Hopefully it will be published by her company, Immanion Press, in this coming year. That's really my one major aspiration for 2010: to see that novella in print.

( By fandom, in chronological order within each fandom, here's what I wrote in 2009 )

So there they all are! Not including M+M, I wrote and published around 145K words this past year. If I include the M+M rewrite and revision it's closer to 200K, which has been my norm over the past few years. That said, I will be stepping away from fanfiction, at least that's what I say now. There are some personal things I'll be working on, but doubtless I'll continue to write and post in at least a couple of fandoms from time to time.

To my readers, thank you for your comments and encouragement over the past year.

( I really don't mind these kinds of insights, but I really *do* mind when they occur at 2:30 a.m. when I'm unable to sleep. )

Now to finish my coffee. Boy do I wish I'd had more sleep. On the plus side, after my morning shift, our patron services team is being taken to lunch (or breakfast! It's served for most of the day!) at a Portland mainstay named Besaws. Thankfully we were given the menu a couple of days ago as I would be overwhelmed by having to choose a menu item on the spot. I'm still a little undecided.

And at each point, even when tossing and turning at crazy-thirty this morning, when I've been feeling cranky or whiney, I think about simons_flower and the fact that I should consider it my privilege to be alive to do these things. I hope that this lack of complacency about each day that I do wake up stays with me for a long time.

So here's another Wraeththu short story, primarily PWP. niennaainur requested Cobweb/Lianvis, a pairing I'd never before considered. I tried to make it as canonical as possible. I hope you enjoy!

Title: Desert's Fierce Kiss
Pairing: Cobweb/Lianvis
Rating: Adult
W/C: 2,745

( Read more... )

I just accidentally deleted all of my drabbles in the prior post in trying to fix a mistake in one of my posts. AUGH!!

Well, here are links to where they live in the other comms, I hope. Oh shit. I didn't have the Éowyn saved... I'm afraid it's gone now. No, wait: it's still in my notebook. Phew! So glad that I write longhand! ;) edit: star54kar still had it, too!

Richard/Alec, Swordspoint

two Wraeththu vignettes, featuring Velaxis and then Vaysh

( Éowyn genfic )