Internet, meet Pippin. Pippin, meet interne...oh, you're taking a nap. I see. Well, you can meet the internet later.

1. Read more. Get back into the habit of reading again.

Aha. Nope. If anything, I think I may have read less this year than last year. But I did finally finish The Chimes at Midnight, which makes me happy.


2. Write something every day. Even if it's just a handful of words. Write. Every. Day.

Again, aha. Nope. Failed that pretty quickly.


3. Get Hell & Homework ready for publishing.


This was probably an unrealistic goal. H&H is nowhere near ready for publishing, but it's getting closer, and I've made several adjustments to it that will benefit the story greatly. It's a work in progress, and it's becoming something awesome.


4. Be the person Horatio thought I was.

Actually, I think I've done pretty well with this resolution. I'm working on becoming a better person every day. I'm not now, and I'm never going to be, perfect. But I'm working at it anyway.

1. We are tentatively in the market for a kitten. I say "tentatively" because my dad hasn't made a full decision yet, but he's leaning toward 'yes'. EDIT 12/23: We're getting a kitten. We're going to the humane shelter in seven hours to look for one. I am beyond excited.

2. I live in Arizona, which means I really don't understand the meaning of "cold", but my feet are freezing and I am unhappy about it.

3. I sent B. the current draft of Hell & Homework and she's enjoying Ren's angst and petulance so far. Which is excellent.

4. This short-but-sweet fanfic fixes the problem with Independence Day: Resurgence and is adorable. You should read it.

5. T. and I exchanged gifts this past week. She gave me a Labyrinth-themed charm bracelet she made herself. It is amazing. I adore it.

6. For asinine reasons, J. won't be able to spend next Saturday or Sunday with his family. This is crap, and I've invited him over Saturday to spend the evening with us.

7. My brother tells me Moana is fantastic. Tragically, I won't be able to see it or Rogue One until after the holidays, due to lack of finances. Oh well.

8. Work on Underground has stalled since Kitten died, and I can pretty much guarantee I won't be catching up to meet my end of December goal. I'll give myself the rest of the month off and finish the book in January.

9. The playhouse for Squirtle and Torchic is almost finished, and for that I am grateful. It's been a pain to build.

10. Clam Chowder Day is approaching. It's happening on Wednesday and I am. So ready. For this soup to be in my mouth.

BONUS 11. It's the Korrasami anniversary and I am sobbing over my precious, beautiful, flawless bisexual dorks.

So I finally had the chance to see Independence Day: Resurgence, a movie I'd missed in the theaters. Normally I'd make some kind of flailing post about what I liked and what I didn't, but I'd rather focus on one particular thing that bothered me when I watched it this evening.

( Spoilers spoilers spoilersCollapse )

I don't really remember life without Kitten. She'd be turning 22 years old in January if she had lived that long.

She followed us home from school one day, just a tiny little tabby stray. I remember begging my father to let us keep her. He doesn't like cats and never has. But he relented, on the condition that we got her tested for feline leukemia and that he got to name her.

My Dad is probably the least creative person in the world. He named her Kitten.

We put up posters at first, thinking she might have been someone's pet. But weeks turned into months, and nobody claimed her.

So she stayed with us.

It's been too long for me to remember much of what she was like as a kitten. As an adult, though, she was the imperious queen of our household. She was so dignified, but every once in a while, you could get her to chase string or a laser pointer.

She liked to be held in different positions by different people, and she'd adjust herself in your arms until she found Her Spot. She tolerated the dogs, but secretly loved them.

She was gorgeous, in that brownish gray kind of way. And she had the sweetest voice I could ask for, even when she was shrieking at me for food or attention. Her purr was one of the most soothing things in the world.

She didn't purr much in the end. I think she was too tired.

We've known this was coming. She was 21, for crying out loud. No cat lives forever, no matter how much we want them to. But she'd been doing so well. Up until three months ago, she was eating hard food and probably could have taken on a Puma and won. Sure, she was a little slower and arthritic, but she was doing fine.

And then she developed a mouth infection of some sort. We could never get her to cooperate with the vet long enough to find out what exactly was wrong with her. But she was old, ancient, and the vet told us to switch to soft food for the time being.

Two months passed, and she went through so much soft food, waking us up at all hours of the morning for more.

And then last week, she stopped eating the soft food. She took tuna for two days, and then beef broth, and then she wouldn't eat anything. She stopped yelling at us, because she just wasn't hungry. We think her organs were starting to shut down.

The past few days were the worst. We watched her, we discussed her condition as a family, and we made our decision. She wasn't going to last through the month, and letting her go on like this was just cruel.

We took her in to the vet on Monday. We talked things through, we cried, and we agreed that putting her down was the best move.

I held her as long as I could. I told her she was beautiful, that she'd been so good, and that she was a cranky, obnoxious old thing and that I loved her so, so much. I held her head when they sedated her. And then I couldn't hold her anymore.

She was my kitty cat. She was my gorgeous, infuriating, screaming mess of a cat and I loved her more than anything. She comforted me when Ginger died, she was with me when we lost Herbert, and Scout, Thor, and Horatio. I thought for sure she'd outlive Draco, and I don't know what to do with myself knowing I was wrong.

You were so good, Kitty. You were the best. I love you. I miss you. Say hello to the others for me, okay?

Kitten, c. 1995-12/12/2016

I'm...not okay today.

At any given moment, I may be hacking away at any number of projects, because I like to overwhelm myself. Self-induced breakdowns are fun!

Ahem.

Right now, however, I'm focusing on three projects and letting everything else slide down to the queue. This isn't as overwhelming as it could be, because I tend to focus on different aspects of the writing process on each project. So while I'm only actively writing one thing, I keep my brain open for edits/research on the others. It ensures that I'm never bored, and means that when my muse deigns to speak to me, he's got a truckload of ideas to work with.

Like tonight, when I crashed through barriers on no less than five projects. I'm not going to tackle working on all five at once, because that way lies madness, but I'm stoked to have notes to jot down for the queue. And actual inspiration for the important projects.

The important projects are, of course, the following:


Underground, Fantasy, Fanfic sequel to Labyrinth.
Novel, no planned sequel. (Third person POV.) Undergoing a full rewrite. 85,000 of 120,000 words at present.


Hell & Homework, Young Adult Urban Fantasy.
Novel, first in a planned trilogy. (First person POV.) Undergoing edits, full rewrite pending beta reader feedback.


Slippery When Wet, Urban Fantasy/Horror.
Novella, no planned sequel. (Undecided POV). Researching.



If I start yammering about something else before January, feel free to whack me with a waffle.

...like a dream that you can't quite place.

1. With the exception of the Sir Didymus and Ambrosius figures that they will hopefully be making, I have completed my Labyrinth Funko Pop! collection. (Seriously, Funko, get on my level here. I need Didymus like breathing. Also ballgown Sarah. And some fireys.)

2. I had a job interview yesterday. With any luck, I'll get the position and be able to start bringing in some income.

3. Sister is spending the weekend in Switzerland. I hope she eats her fill of chocolate. (Her trip to Marseille went very well, and she bought me a coin at the Chateau d'If, which thrills me.)

4. Spent a day in Flagstaff last week, and it was a lot of fun. We went to the Lowell Observatory, where I bought a very pretty necklace with Pluto on it. I love my dwarf planet.

5. All of the Sims 3 expansions went down to $5 this past weekend, so I snagged Seasons and have been having fun with that. My Sim has a stalker, which is a new development. It's kind of creeping me out. (Pets remains my favorite expansion, since I can't imagine playing the game WITHOUT it at this point.)

6. We're building Squirtle and Torchic a playhouse for Hogswatch. It's gigantic and going to be amazing when it's done.

7. With any luck, my axolotl pins will be arriving sometime at the end of the month. All but the ghost fairy/fairy kei pins are done and ready to ship. Just my luck falling in love with the complicated one.

8. C. convinced me to watch Sword Art Online mainly so I could understand the YouTube Abridged series, and I enjoyed the original, but I am absolutely in love with Don Fluffles and the shenanigans in the abridgment. It's problematic at times, but so was the original series.

9. I've been rereading a metric ton of Tamora Pierce's work this past month, and it has reminded me how much I identify with both Alanna and Tris. My babies.

10. I've decided that I require Sarah and Jareth dolls. Therefore, I have acquired a Dragon Games Darling Charming and am actively on the lookout for a First Chapter Alistar Wonderland to turn into my OTP to end all OTPs. They will be glorious when complete. (Going for the ballroom scene, but I may use Darling's armor to make Sarah an armored outfit just because.)

Bonus 11. While I have not yet acquired the Labyrinth Board Game (it must be mine), I have fallen in love with the Goblins expansion to it by virtue of them having a figure of my favorite goblin in the whole film. Squee and delight.

November is over, but NaNo is only about halfway done for me. I still have roughly 40,000 words left to write to hit my word count goal of 120-125,000 by New Years, but the bulk of my writing is done.

This year has been hard for me. The election really knocked me off my feet, and while I did make a word count comeback, the quality of those words took a sharp downward spiral.

And despite having the most detailed outline I've ever worked with, I've struggled with knowing where I'm going with the story. It's taught me more about outlining than I ever thought I needed to know, which is nice for future books but frustrating for the present.

I've also noticed weaknesses in my writing style that are discouraging. But at the same time, now that I'm aware of those weaknesses, I can start addressing and strengthening them. NaNo 2016 has taught me easily as much as Camp NaNo 2014 did, and for that, I'm grateful.

Furthermore, I've made some major breakthroughs with Hell & Homework while my brain was occupied with fanfic, so it'll be nice to have Underground finished to go back to my original content. I'm still waiting for feedback from the current tier of beta readers, but I'm drafting plans to integrate into the next draft on my own, which is always exciting. I'm essentially tearing out the master bedroom of the book and rebuilding it from the ground up.

It's going to be hard, I'm going to whine, and the book will be so much stronger for it. Also, Envy will get a cameo, and that's going to be marvelous.

The autumn has once again brought me to this blessed day of Halloween, and I am full of festive glee. Today, I play. Tomorrow, I start NaNo, and the cycle begins anew.

I'm still volunteering at the book fair, but today I'll be doing it as a pirate. At closing, T. and I are headed to Chipotle for $3 costumed burritos, and then there's a trunk or treat at my parent's church. Which I will be attending because they do a chili cookoff and I am all about that yes indeed.

My outline for NaNo is done; my playlist is never full, but still in good shape; my mind is sharp, my sense of smell is keen, and I am ready to rock this year.

Catch y'all on the flipside.