My original plans for this weekend were simple but joyful: I would go on Saturday to a yarn/fiber-dyeing studio up in Vermont, to spend a possibly obscene amount of money (under the banner of The Twelve Days of Birthday, which is a concept I just discovered thanks to a coworker), and then on Sunday, I would go out for brunch with my parents, to celebrate their wedding anniversary and my birthday.

As it so often does, however, New England weather had other plans. We’ve gotten about six inches of snow in the past twenty-four hours, and while that’s not anywhere near crisis amounts of snow, we decided to post the brunch (and I postponed the studio jaunt, to my wallet’s relief) till the roads are clear.

I’m bummed about not seeing my parents, about not eating approximately twelve omelettes, about not buying yarn and fiber I do not need and also do not really have room for…but the introvert in me can’t help loving cancelled plans! Especially on a day when it’s snowy and quiet and my only real responsibility is to admire my cat as she watches the snow.

So why not do a wee wrap-up of the last two weeks? Of all the writing, reading, and crafting I’ve done?

Writing
Well, some writing has been happening, but not enough to make me feel like I’ve accomplished anything. To be fair, I am still working through both a massive writer’s block and a massive confidence in my writing, so I’m trying to give myself permission to not write, if I’m feeling particularly resistant to it (or am too busy/tired/sick/etc to do so). I realize that this is somewhat counter to my goal of “writing more”, but I’m trying to remove the guilt from writing, in the hopes that I can really unleash the joy in it again.

The writing that has been happening has mainly been on my dark fantasy apocalyptic sapphic romance (known as the Dashaverse, after its irrepressible protagonist), which has been the project of my heart since its first incarnation as a novella (!!!) on my now-defunct Patreon. So…almost ten years? No matter what else, I keep coming back to it, and it’s also garnered a lot of enthusiastic and helpful feedback in my writing groups and creative writing classes. So: I’m forging ahead! I would love to have a completed first draft of this by the end of the year, whatever that draft looks like. I’ve written 6299 words on it so far this year, which isn’t bad, considering how little I’ve actually sat down to write so far.

I also signed up for Get Your Words Out, which is both impressively organized and also a bit daunting in scope, but I set a low word count for the year (150,000 total, across all projects), and I think this will keep me nicely accountable.

Reading
Unsurprisingly, it’s way easier to read than it is to write. I’ve read six books so far this year, so here are my mini-reviews of each:

1. A Dowry of Blood by S.T. Gibson: Incredible potential in the idea of a queer reimagining of Dracula’s brides, but this ended up being scant on characterization, thin on tension, and meh on prose style, while avoiding any actual interrogation of all the abuse and manipulation going on.
2. Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan: A slim but profound book — all the conflict is subsumed by the normalcy of the day-to-day, until the narrator finally has to make a choice. We never get to see the aftermath, but we don’t need to: in this case, the choice was what mattered. Also: fuck everyone involved in running the Magdalene Laundries.
3. Amongst Women by John McGahern: Oh man, the father in this book drove me up a wall, but I couldn’t stop reading! Apparently I just love Irish literature? There are so many moments imprinted on my memory (the pheasant, the daughters’ shame as they walk to church at the beginning of the book, the ritual of prayer), thanks to the clear, luminous prose.
4. The Possession of Alba Díaz by Isabel Cañas: When historical horror hits, it hits, and sadly this did not hit for me. I think it could have made better use of its time period and setting, and the ending just sort of…happened? A bit of a bummer, because I loved The Vampires of El Norte; I think this would have been improved if it was about 50 pages shorter, just to trim some of the padding and get to the horror more quickly.
5. The Lost Reliquary by Lyndsay Ely: This was…fine. I think I’m tired of sarcastic, quippy warrior women heroines (though Lys offsets that a bit because she’s older than most, and she’s also not driven by romance), but I think the book wants to be both epic fantasy and horror, and has an uneasy relationship with both. If it leaned definitively in one direction, I think I would have enjoyed it more — but the ending is intriguing enough I’ll probably check out the sequel!
6. You Weren’t Meant to Be Human by Andrew Joseph White: Went in expecting body horror and aliens and got those things, but also got my heart broken, because the protagonist is just so…broken, even before things go so viciously wrong for him. It’s about agency, and losing it, or realizing you never had it; it’s about parenthood; it’s about mental illness and trying to find community and being trans in the USA, in this moment in time, and it’s about grief. Beautiful, harrowing, HAUNTING. A strong contender for my top ten books of the year.
   

Now I’m reading Bat Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng by Kylie Lee Baker, and I think I’ll pick up Mouthful of Birds by Samantha Schweblin, since it’s nice to read a short story or two a day.

Crafting
I’ve been sadly remiss in knitting/spinning lately! I do have half of a braid of Falkland roving spun up, so I think today I’ll spin the other half, and get that plied. I also have a sweater and a sock on the needles, so I’m nicely spoiled for choice. And this coming week, I need to get caught up on pictures of the last two sweaters I’ve finished, so I can update Ravelry.

Now: off to enjoy the soft quiet of a snow day, and maybe get some words down on the Dashaverse before I pull out my wheel and get to spinning.

May this be a kind and just week for us all.