jkatkina

One of my ancient traditions had been, for many years, to spend the last bit of Christmas Eve writing a "parody" poem off of that one that starts "twas the night before chrismtas", about and for a dragon cyberpet writng/drawing community I had been a part of. (I say "parody" in quotey quotes because, for real, they got increasingly less silly and more sincere as the years went on.) This comm was a big part of my growing up, and my main hobby stuff and source of inspiration for ages.

Ten or so years ago, this community finished a long, slow decline, such that we all drifted apart and the old forums were abandoned.

Then, this November, out of the blue and a shock to all of us, I think, one member of that old cavalcade put out the call that she'd made a discord server, and like 90% of our old crew descended. That's nearly sixty people, out the blue, for a community that vanished a decade ago.

I just spent my first Christmas Eve in years and years writing that poem for those people. I don't know how long this community will last this time around, but at the moment, I feel a profound sense of homecoming. I feel, for just a moment, at peace.

I've been going to this coffee shop near work for about a week and a half, a few days a week, to write NaNo stuff after work. The first night I went there, the mocha was fantastic (which was why I'd chosen that place to go in the first place), but also the vibrant older Italian lady behind the counter kept bringing me little treats -- a cookie with my mocha, a very generous sample of their pizza. It may have been a ploy to get a new regular.

It worked.

I even brought TL there last Friday. We had the meat-olives-and-bread board they serve (it has an italian name I'm forgetting rn), and it was huge and delicious, and the lady had once more included a treat -- some cheese along with everything else. I asked her her name, and she told me, and like a dingus I didn't write it down and immediately forgot.

Today I went there to write, and I asked the lady's name again (and she remembered mine). She seemed pleased.

Towards the end of my visit, when I was passing by the counter, she snagged me as she was chattering with another woman and told me "I'd like to introduce you to my wife."

I was so delighted that she'd clocked me and TL, and was giving me this wonderful queer signal, that I got all grins and red-faced and awkward, told them both I was delighted to meet them, and retreated back to my table. They were still sitting together and chatting by the time I left and I said goodbye to them.

I don't know why it makes me so happy to be spotted out in the wild by other queers, but by god, it does.

So, we're probably going to try NaNoWriMo again this year. It seems to be settling into a pattern where I do one year NaNo, one year Huevember, and you know? it works.

We still have a ton of outline from 2017's go at book 2 of Daemon's Luck, so that's exciting to start digging into again. I don't anticipate managing to hit the wordcount -- two years ago I was still at the print shop with many days off, and this year I'll be working on a pretty intense (AND SO COOL you guys HNNG I hate NDAs) new show during november.

That said, I'm looking forward to lunctimes at coffee shops and TL and I spending a ton of weekend hours typing intensely at our respective laptops and iPads. There's something so purely intense about NaNo, man.

Since I've mostly been doing social Dreamwidth stuff at lunch during the work week, the weeks when work gets busy are turning out to be weeks when I disappear. This week, I had a bunch of broad high-angle neighbourhood shots. So many houses. I've never done that few backgrounds in a week before. Shame!

I've been working on more writing. There's a challenge up on

rainbowlounge for Valentine's Day -- if you've seen me posting writing in this journal before, it's been for that community mostly. The skinny is that you pick prompt lists in the form of "colours" from

rainbowlists and write stories based around prompts or combinations of prompts -- it's kind of a rad way to get the juices flowing if you're out of ideas or just want to write drabbles, and it's helping me fill out Kaitan and Tuanada's backstory. The comm's quiet lately, but I'd love to see it have a resurgence, with this shot in the arm DW's had lately. Check out

rainbowfic for the writing, or Fensirt for the stuff that I've submitted over time!

And as for the actual valentine's challenge...

rainbowfic writing challenge

Caught Sweetly Between Love and Family

Join us at rainbowfic to write some sweet Valentine's Day and Family Day original flash fiction. Contest runs from February 14th (today) to February 19th.

details: 💗 Each entry must be between 100-1000 words; 💗 Entries must be posted to rainbowfic; 💗 Post stories about fluff, romance, families and friendship; 💗 Choose at least 1 colour list of prompts from rainbowlists to flavour your entry; 💗 Get more details here

MAIN COMMUNITY PROMPT LISTS SOCIAL/OOC LOUNGE
CHALLENGE LINK COMMUNITY RULES

Name:	jkatkina
Story:	Fensirt
Colors:	Amber 4. Clod Skylight 2. Smell of asphalt
Word Count:	501
Rating:	G
Summary:	Two meetings.

( The angry little hunch of a redhead was at the fence again. )

I keep trying to figure out what the hell kind of character Kaitan is. She’s been slippery since her inception, since so many of the core pieces of KTFE I used to build her are really unmoored without the context of being real old and real sad. Anyways, she’s so far mutated from that base that it’s hard to say, aside from aesthetics and a certain inclination towards mischief, she’s not the same character at all.

( She's a mess of contradictions. )

I’ve fallen into the delightfully stereotypical habit of going to coffee shops to write. This is in part because my city has some really gorgeous and chill coffee shops — you throw a stone, you hit a coffee shop. They’re only outpaced by sushi joints, which means there’s one (or several) to suit anyone’s tastes. Often, but not always, TL and I go on these excursions together; it’s lovely, it feels like old times.

In other part this is because, during the time I was trying to balance freelance and working part-time at the print shop, I got into some bad habits at home. The computer room in our apartment has had some bad juju since we moved in, and I kind of made it worse by spending a lot of depressed, frightened, paralyzed days trying to do work in there. It’s hard to get anything done there even now, when I’m working full-time in a good creative job. This got really bad over the holidays: I fell full-force back into the same miserable paralysis I thought I had escaped. It was kind of a wake-up call, but I’m still mulling over how to emotionally disinfect the space (and get my head back on straight, to boot).

Thus, in the meantime, coffee shops! It’s that or fall off the horse entirely with writing, which I’m unwilling to do. It’s not the kindest on the wallet, but hell if it isn’t cheaper than renting a studio space.

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Old traditions

Gaysto

One more around the bend

Snuggle day!

Sweaty and sandy and the smell of the sun

Kaitan

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