On All My Motions

Wrapping it up.

( The last main thing — I think — that I haven’t mentioned over the past five months: )

This year’s Circle of Friends Remix (cof_remix) is now finished. The listing of stories:
    •  eilandesq: remix of jedibuttercup, with “No Longer Unspoken”
    •  jedibuttercup: remix of sroni, with “All That Glitters Is Not Gold”
    •  sroni: remix of kerravonsen, with “Only One”
    •  kerravonsen: defaulted
    •  aadler: remix of eilandesq, with “That Thing You Do”

All are encouraged to read these submissions, and leave feedback for the authors. I hope it’s as much fun for you as it’s been for us.

Barely over a day left for me to finish, polish, and post my remix; and not only do I work late tomorrow, it feels like I’m coming down sick with something.

This will not be one of my better submissions.

Looking back on the year just past, I had to face something which had been gradually becoming apparent for some time. I don’t have the fire for writing that I used to.

Part of the “Well, duh-h-hh!” on that one came from plain output. In 2017 I only did two stories. That’s pretty lame. More telling is when I look back and see that I did only six total in 2016 and 2017 together. As a measuring stick, I did eight stories in 2003 alone, six each in 2005 and 2006, and seven each in 2012 and 2014. My recent output doesn’t match those peak years …

… but it does kind of match what I was doing when I first started out. My first four years writing Buffyfic, I averaged three stories a year. Granted, I was doing other things at the time (working two jobs, finishing graduate school, getting in a relationship with a woman who was way too young for me but too hot to pass up, then working another job that I hated so much that I joined the Army to get away from it), but that wasn’t the problem. My time on various deployments showed me that my biggest obstacle to writing wasn’t busy-ness — the Army does tend to keep you busy when you’re in a combat zone — but overabundance of distractions; as in, writing came a lot easier to me when I had no other recreation whatsoever. So, yeah, after I learned what kind of output I could manage, I kept up something similar even when I wasn’t on active duty, but the habit eventually seeped away when my regular civilian life turned into the only life I had.

That’s not the real worry, though. What I hadn’t recognized as a continuing issue (as distinct from an acknowledged but minor-and-occasional problem) is that I’m no longer reliable.

The last three times I’ve entered summer_of_giles, I’ve either finished my contribution in subsequent chapters after the event ended, or (in 2017) dashed off something that was substantially less than I had originally intended, just to not fail yet another time. The tendency is even more pronounced in remixes … and terribly so, since — with RemixRedux on hiatus the last few years — all my remixes have been at circle_of_friends, an event I originated and moderate. I’ve missed my own deadlines in three out of the last four years of circle_of_friends. One of those was in Phase 3 of the year when CoF had three phases, the latter two of which were voluntary; that, and the fact that it was the first time I had been so tardy, helped me pass it off as a fluke. It’s no longer a fluke, however, it’s pretty much the norm.

That can’t continue. If I’m no longer as interested in writing, I’ll just gradually move on to other things. If I am writing, though, I damn well need to meet such obligations as I freely assume.

Last year was a bad year for fic production, enough to catch my attention. This year has to be better. The recent pattern is no longer acceptable.

As with so many others on my friends list, I found my Photobucket account throwing up an ugly “you need to upgrade” graphic in place of all the images — mostly story covers and award graphics — for which I created my PB account in the first place. And, as all those other folks had to do (those who didn’t throw up their hands and write it off as a bad loss), I’m painfully creating a new account to accomplish the same thing, and going back to change the links in various areas. (No fun, folks; counting my own personal website, I have graphics being displayed in four completely different locales, and I can only hope I catch them all. Plus, I used my PB account to hold a couple of markers for sroni, and I’ll have to duplicate that and get the new links to her as well.) I started off on Flickr, but it was really cumbersome, so I tried something I’d seen referenced and signed up at Imgur, and that’s working out with much less hassle. Photobucket actually was better, darn it, but their price hike is simply beyond belief.

Susan has finished her first year in California, and is moaning over whether or not she can last two more, as per the original plan. She loves the climate and the scenery, but the prices are horrendous and the prevailing political attitudes do NOT agree with her … and, when you work for the government (even the federal government) on the Left Coast, you darn well don’t rock the boat. She always talks politics during my weekly phone calls, just to have someone to whom she can vent.

Kevin is currently planning to make a vacation trip, along with Mei-li and Amber, over the next Chinese New Year (February), and he’s said he hopes some of us can join them. I’m probably better able than Susan to manage something like that, simply because my income is lower than Susan’s but I save at least a third of it every month, but a trip to Thailand is not as casual for us as it is for Kevin. The flight cost wouldn’t be that much more than to China — if at all — but other expenses … let’s face it, whenever we visited in Shenzhen, we stayed in Kevin’s apartment and his in-laws provided all our entertainment and most of our meals, which I don’t think we could count on in Thailand. I’ll have time to get ready, but it’s a substantial enterprise.

(It would be really nice if sroni and Conal could also make the trip. Even apart from my son-in-law and daughter-in-law, my own immediate family — me, Susan, Kevin, sroni — have never all been in the same country together outside the US. This would be an event.)

Finally, cof_remix is reaching the end of its sign-up period, and we’ll be starting the remix at the beginning of August. We already have enough participants to go on ahead … but if anyone would like to try something new, it’s not too late to jump in!

Oh, yeah, and my submission for this year’s Summer of Giles is due in four days. Don’t want to forget that.

Hard to believe how time has passed. It keeps on doing it, though.

Number of my fics where the “f”-word has appeared: 20
Number of times some form of the word was used: 37
Number of characters in my fics who have used it: 12
Greatest offender: Faith (who else?), with 24 of the total 37
–  Eleven times in one fic
–  Three times each in two fics
–  Twice in one fic
–  Once each in five fics
Second worst offender: Xander (once each in five fics)
Others: three OCs, Gunn, Joyce, Kennedy, Marcie, Nancy Doyle (twice in one fic), and an otherfandom character in a crossover

Number of fics with f-word appearance per year:

Susan was hired for the VA position she most wanted, the one in California; the position provides a massive raise — about 65% — so even with the higher cost-of-living there, she should be able to do okay. More than that, her supervisor here told her she didn’t have to provide a full month’s notice, two weeks would be enough, so we’re planning to drive there together (I’ll fly back) toward the end of this month. She’s already placed the four cats with someone else, and is trying to find a home for the oldest and largest dog (she’s taking the two smaller dogs with her).

Oh, and she had a minor accident last month — someone rear-ended her on the Interstate, and now she can’t get the hatchback on her car to close — so we’ll be trying to get the insurance company to cover repairs before she makes the California move.

So far, through April and May and now edging into June as well, it has rained every single day I’ve been off work. Our lawn really needs to be mowed, but even when it isn’t raining there’s never enough time for the grass to get really dry. Small problem, yes, but still frustrating.

I passed my DOT physical, except for the eye test, and passed that part handily after I got my eyeglasses prescription updated. I still don’t know for sure that I want to go back into driving; with Susan relocating to California, I’d be leaving our home unattended for weeks at a stretch, plus I’m not sure how it would feel to spend so much time on the road without someone to come home TO. Still, if I decide to go that route, I’ve re-qualified now, and it would only be a matter of convincing someone to hire me.

I’ve finished the second story in the twelve I announced I’d be writing this year … which, two in five months still leaves me badly behind schedule but no further behind. (For some reason “Curious Poses” resisted me for quite a while before finally allowing itself to be finished.) Even so, the response has been … well, I could say ‘uncharacteristic’. In retrospect, maybe it was a mistake to post “the Other Night I Dreamt of Knives” on Memorial Day; even the people who read it may have just been too busy with holiday stuff, but this was the first time in over ten years that I posted a new story on LJ and got no comments whatsoever. Have I become spoiled? Entirely possible. Or maybe I’ve just been posting so little lately that too many people have got out of the habit of following me. I’ll have to do something about that.

Time for bed. Morning shift tomorrow.

I’ve posted end notes for “Curious Poses”.

Susan had a phone interview with one of the VA positions in Seattle; since then, they contacted two of her co-workers for references, but she hasn’t heard anything the last few days.

We discovered an under-the-floor water leak that may be the actual cause of our floor-warping problems, or may be aggravating the other issue I described.

Writing has not proceeded as quickly as I wished, but I think I might manage something substantial over the next few days.

VA medical appointment for me Tuesday; I need to make a list of all the medications I’m currently using, and a second list of issues and symptoms I don’t want to forget to bring up while I’m there.

Last week I went karaokeing with my youngest brother. Got to sing three times — “Thunder Road” (Springsteen), “Jack and Diane” (Mellenkamp), and “867-5309/Jenny” (Tutone). My voice is adequate without being spectacular, but I do have some talent at choosing songs I can belt out to full effect, and I got plenty of favorable response. (Except for “Jack and Diane”, everything I sang was a staple I’d previously proven effective; the new addition was a judgment call which worked out as well as I had suspected.) I used to enjoy doing karaoke, but it’s probably been over a year since the last time. Still fun.

PS: forgot to mention, I signed up for this year’s summer_of_giles. Also, does anyone know if RemixRedux will run late this year, or even skip a year? because I’ll have to modify my plans if they do.