Month: December 2020

2020 Overview

Posted December 31, 2020 by dove-author in Miscellaneous / 0 Comments

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Yearly Happenings

Wow. 2020 was… a year. Simultaneously over so far and lasting forever. I don’t think it was kind to anyone I know and I don’t think I need to go into too much depth why. Suffice to say the pandemic made everything a thousand times harder. I was doing so well at the start of 2020. Ahead on most of my must-complete goals, and then saw myself struggling to get everything finished because of the stress and uncertainty.

But, in writing this, I am grateful that we’ve made it to the end of 2020. I’ve had good things happen this year too, largely in the shape of new friends and staying in contact with old friends.

As always, though, my memory is just utterly abysmal and I’m still playing catch-up on… everything I’d intended to do during the year and, to be honest, my holiday. (All right, my break from reading academia.) I’m also surprisingly tired still. I felt like I was finally getting somewhere with that, but you know. 2020 was 2020.

I got some things published! Surprisingly! Though not as much as I’d hoped to get done. I have one academic paper to my name now! Well, my pen name. Which I suppose I will eventually have to poke at.

I put out one small digital-only collection of soft short stories for people who wanted or needed some gentleness and fluff this year. Just put them all together in a small volume and hopefully it’s helped people out. And.. beyond that I’ve just spent the year trying to deal with everything it’s thrown at us and at the very least not falling further behind on things.

2021 will see me still playing catch-up on a lot of things, so… I guess we’ll see how it goes. I aim to publish at least one collection, but beyond that? Who knows what the year will bring. I’m certainly not up to making any plans right now. I’m barely keeping up with everything I need to do before 2020 is truly over.

Publications

  • “Aromanticism, Asexuality, and the Illusion of New Narratives” in Ties That Bind: Love in Fantasy and Science Fiction
  • A Little Gentleness and Other Stories
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Guest Interview: Renay on The Hugo Award Recommendation Project

Posted December 23, 2020 by dove-author in Guest Posts / 0 Comments

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Today I’m interviewing Renay, one of the minds behind the ! The Hugo Rec Project is a yearly spreadsheet collecting works eligible for the Hugo Awards! This is a fabulous resource both for nominees and people interested in seeing what was especially notable the past year or what trends may be emerging in the SFF field. I’m super-excited to get to help bring some more visibility to the project and to have Renay visiting today! So let’s dive into the interview!

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Week 50 Round-up

Posted December 12, 2020 by dove-author in Miscellaneous / 0 Comments

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Weekly Accountability

Hi, everyone! It’s that time again! Weekly updates delivered every Saturday! Please remember that Let’s Read Academics will be on hiatus from December 21st to the start of January!

Completed Projects

Nada

Goal Updates

  • 6/12 books
  • 0/50% essay
  • 0/chapter reworkingThat darned chapter reworking
  • 0/collection-exclusive short story
  • 0/RotTR LPs

This is a sliiiiight lie. I actually have more of the short story done than this. I just failed to track how much. So! Starting the count from scratch!

Writing Updates

Writing happened? No, I kid. Writing did happen, a very little of it because my brain’s been rubbish still. 🙁 And like I said above, I failed to track it properly.

Life And Other Such Important Matters

In this year’s long, long list of “Oh, you thought things were improving?”, we are now officially in household quarantine for at least until testing results are in. It took something like five minutes for someone to go out to the shops. I cannot even.

Personally, though, I’m all right, I think. Anxious and tired, but that’s nothing new. I’m still pondering how to rearrange the furniture sensibly, so nothing’s changed, but I’m trying to get back into my lists because organisation really helps. I just need a way to pick myself up and keep going after I fall off.

So this weekend has lists! We’ll see how it goes. This is technically the first item on the list, though not the one I’ve done first. It’s not a fancy list, but that’s okay. I find it helpful to start small, even if it makes me feel a bit sad looking at the list and noting all the things I could add.

See, the thing is: I could add them, but then they wouldn’t get done. For me, anyway. So starting with a small list that I can add to actually works out better because it has multiple functions: If I finish it, I can feel good about finishing it. If I don’t finish it, I feel less bad because there were fewer items on it and thus I have failed less spectacularly. And anything else I get done and add is just an awesome bonus!

And the idea is obviously to build that up since it’s only so small because it should make it easier to get back up if I trip. Then, as I manage to build things into routine more, I can add things. At least that’s the theory.

I really hate the fact that I fell off making the lists, though. I used to have them every week and they were super helpful, but somewhere along the line depression meant I stopped completely and since then most every attempt to get back to it has failed. But I can do it. Eventually. We try and try again and, honestly, even if I fail again I will have made progress for a little while and so can make progress again.

Stand-out Positive Moment

I got ear gunk out of Twi’s ear! I think. It may have been nose gunk, but I don’t think so? Twi’s been having issues with her ear and we can’t really see what’s wrong, but I know that cleaner and my frankly rubbish ear massages do seem to help her feel better. So the vet said to give that a try and come back if there’s no improvement. So getting to a point where I seem to be better at massaging her ear and likely getting some of the gunk out? AWESOME!

This Week on Patreon

All the Patreon posts from the past week, collected in neat and tidy lists, divided by tier.

Free

$1+

How about you? What have you been up to lately? Has anything awesome happened?

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