I’d like to wish everyone reading this a sincere and happy holiday season. I know that 2016 has been rough and tough for many people in many ways, and I hope that ye can hold on to the good times and press on to better things, because I’m sure better things are coming.
And if you’re having a nice time already? Brilliant. Long may that continue.
I am writing from a shiny new city-suburb apartment, which I love more than anything for all that the boiler occasionally fritzes and our neighbours are slightly rude. It’s incredibly spacious – more like a mini bungalow – and we finally have our personalities on display. My books, my ornaments, his books and game center – we can see everything we love so clearly every time we go into the sitting room, which is where we spend the majority of our time. The kitchen is very pressed for storage, but there’s plenty of space for a large dining table and clothes horse, and the oven operated perfectly for two pecan pies, a pumpkin pie, 3 batches of 12 pumpkin petites, and 4.5lb turkey. Christmas dinner was accompanied by a bottle of Charlemagne.
We caved and bought a fake tree, and honestly I couldn’t be happier. We got it in a sale, and it’s got two kinds of pine needle texture, with touches of realistic fake snow and sprigs of red berries, twigs, and pine cones. It’s suuuuper pretty, especially with all our personal decorations on it.
When I first saw the apartment – I viewed it on my own because my husband was at work, and he actually knew exactly what it looked like because his friend used to live in the apartment opposite it, so that was okay – I was so happy with the living area and bathroom, but I was worried about the bedrooms being too small. They’re definitely not too small! We have all the space we could possibly need in them, and they’re not too cramped. Slight issue with all my arts and crafts stuff (we don’t have under bed storage, which is where I would have kept the boxes) but I’m planning on getting some nice trunks instead and turning them into a feature piece, instead of hiding them away somewhere.
The apartment hasn’t come without its faults, of course, but by and large these have been resolved, in no small part thanks to the relentless energy of the hubby, who absolutely won’t let anybody get away with trying to mess with us. 🙂 The place was meant to be in perfect condition when we got there, but…it wasn’t. Before we could put anything away, we needed to clean the place literally from top to bottom. We spent about four days cleaning everything, and I mean everything – the insides of bedside drawers, the bottom of the wardrobes, the shower head…everything. It was exhausting, but it a way I’m glad – the place really needed a good clean, and it felt so good to have the place properly scoured. There’s a ventilation problem which means that mold will gather – my god, the window in the sitting room probably hadn’t been cleaned since the place was built – but we’re keeping a lid on it with open windows and heating. The laundry takes longer because it’s a combi-machine, and I can’t control the temperature or time (minimum is 40 minutes), so instead of being able to gently dry my blouses to get the wrinkles out, I need to make sure they’re 100% dry because I can’t put them in the dryer now – they’ll shrink, and it’s the same with my jumpers. 😦 But that’s just time management, and not really an issue.
We’ve had an absolutely lovely Christmas here. Dinner was fantastic, we’re literally surrounded by junk food, and I gotta say – our first married Christmas was totally great. I can’t remember the last time I had a day where there was no pressure to do anything, to finish something, to wake up or go to sleep at a particular time, to go out or entertain. It was so, so relaxing.
I start my new job in about a week. I got an internship at a bigshot law firm, and I’ll be heading to Blackhall next September to complete my solicitor course; another 3 years and I’ll be qualified. I’m pretty sure those years are going to absolutely fly. There’s stresses for the future of course – the course is up in Dublin, and we’d like to have kids, so working around that is going to be complicated and hard – but that’s not something I can plan ahead for. I’m trying to be better about not micromanaging every little thing in my life. I know that there are some things you can plan for, but there’s a difference between acknowledging that something will need to be addressed, and trying to plan every single detail for every single variable. I’m going into bigger and better things, and I need to acknowledge that I’m ready and I’m good for it.
I’m halfway through uploading my Arrow fanfic, and I just finished the first draft of the Suicide Squad one, which I’ll start posting in January. It’s six chapters, and I’m a little surprised that I finished it at all. The story was sort of an exercise – coming off the high of the previous fanfiction, I wanted to see if my ability was…well, a fluke. I wanted to see if I could write something just because I wanted to write something, instead of waiting for inspiration to hit me. Turns out, I can.
It’s very far from perfect. In fact, it’s a bit of a mess. But I feel like I took some of those cues from the movie, which was fun, but messy. I explored a couple of things I wanted to, then strung together the scenes with whatever I thought would suit. I wasn’t worried about it being ‘bad’ or ‘good’, I just threw stuff together, and out I came with a story – short, but not that short, clocking in at just under 34k – that I literally invented as I went along, just because I wanted to see if I could write for the sake of it.
I could. My writing isn’t a fluke. It’s not perfect, and my skills need work, but I’m learning more the more I do. And I’m giddily proud of the hot little mess of a story. It’s proof I can write, even when I thought I didn’t need any more proof. Nothing is more fragile than ego, apparently…
In any case, I might edit it tonight, or leave it for a couple of days. But I’ll have a story ready for upload in January, at any rate! Exciting stuff! My next plan was to write a short Legends of Tomorrow rewrite, and then the sequel to my Arrow fanfic, not to mention pummeling away at my original story, A Matter of Degrees (about a psychopomp immortal who is called to help solve some weird murders. Shenanigans ensue).
Turns out part of the secret of writing is to write what you want to read, which I knew but didn’t really realise up until now that I wasn’t doing exactly that. I currently have a dearth of what I want to read (I’ve either exhausted the resources on my bookshelves or via fanfiction), so provision of suitable content sort of became my own responsibility. So, somehow, I’m doing it.
Long may it last! Happy Christmas and bring on the New Year.
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