cornerofmadness

Spent it at the foot doctor's for a follow up and then a visit from their friends (the ones that annoy me) It wasn't a bad day, wasn't a great one. At least we all feel better than we did yesterday.

I managed to get some writing in today so that made me happy. I want to finish this Hazbin story even though the readership for it is low (I like the story so there's that)

I got cards from Betty, sylvanwitch and dragonydreams thanks!




Advent Joy

Day 23 - Play a boardgame or do a puzzle. I love both. Does solitaire count?

Day 23 tea - Candy Cane rooibos tisane green rooibos, peppermint 'candy cane' flavoring, stevia (can we stop presweetening crap? Stevia gives me headaches) tastes like peppermint.


Let's continue with the Music Monday and let's do holiday songs this time, Christmas Hanukkah Yule, let's hear them.

( let the music sing )

Literally took 2 months off and I have no idea how that happened. So I dictated a few articles and Word did a few things that surprised me. I was dictating about Maria Montessori and her lover Guiseppe Montesano and Word translated his name to Joseph. (dude if I wanted it to say Joseph....) And she was the head of a school for retarded children which is what it was called back then but word put in astericks like I said a swear (because of course we no longer use that word) I'm like dude I said what I said....


But really it is so accurate I'm surprised because a) it's word b) I was so used to horrible programs in the late 90s early 00s). It is the one thing going right with this research.

I got the first volume of Lackadaisy by Tracy J. Butler from my friend JK. And the second is on the way in theory...glad I don't buy things from Amazon. I'm jazzed to have this though. Thanks JK

Also Mom's birthday is coming up and we were looking for places to eat. I saw a nice looking Italian place, pulled up the menu...80-100$ for pasta. Are you insane? Sorry Mom but that's a hard pass.





Advent Joy

Day 19 - Leave food and water for the birds and stray animals - done. I already do this and the deer and raccoons are turning their noses up at my offerings, brats. Get out of my garden

Day 19 tea - Holiday blend - hey one I hadn't had before. Black tea, red rooibos, peppermint, alfalfa leaves, malva and erica flowers and vanilla. Hmmm yeah no. that damn red rooibos taste doesn't play well with the weak peppermint for me. Pass on getting more of this.



Community rec - go check out fandomtrees still plenty of empty trees and I know some of you write in those fandoms.

I was setting the table and the bejeweled Christmas napkin rings cut my finger open. Side eyeing them so hard.

Today I didn't get nearly what I wanted to do done. I did post up 2 fandomtrees stories and thought about trying this open call that didn't get enough stories. My problem is I only have TWO stories with couples and neither are 21st century. Do I have time to do 5K + in the next few weeks...Hmmm Maybe one of you has something




Advent Joy

Day 17. Try a new recipe I went with this recipe from the Abruzzo region since that's where my family is from Ragù di agnello It came out very well.


Day 17 tea- Another literary tea, my favorite, Edgar Allan Poe which is lapsang Sou Chong, pue er and beetroot, I do love it.


As for fannish 50 I was thinking about what happens when your fandom becomes problematic such as anything by Neil Gaiman right now or Harry Potter. I was honestly debating should I watch the wizard baking challenge since I want no money flowing to that woman. The other day I saw someone on Bluesky saying if you mention HP they're blocking you because you obviously hate transpeople and are working against them if you stay with your comfort fandom.

I don't think it's as easy as that (or that's exactly fair) on the other hand I'm not out there buying their stuff either. There is no easy answers for that but it's been stuck in my head since I saw that post.

Still exploring the themes from last week, bad teachers/schools. There are very problematic themes in a lot of YA dark academia stories, where part of the dark is just how bad the teachers are (which isn't the point of dark academia) In this situation (so very prevalent in Harry Potter) the teachers fail these students time and again (imagine the fact there is no social workers with Hogwarts and they keep sending Harry home to physically/mentally abusive caretakers)

But a lot of Goodread/Netgalley arcs I've seen take it one step further; the students have to fight to the death in some cases. School competitions, no problem we have that literally everywhere. Fighting for position in the academy, fighting to not getting expelled, fighting to the death is a level above, sort of taking the idea of 'you have to have high stakes' a bit too far. Would you send a student to a school who was going to fight your child until they're killed? Would you want to be that student? I recently struggled thru an early Stephen King The Long Walk where 18 year old boys are walked non stop for hours/miles until there is just one. Fall behind? You get shot.

So this is not a new thing but it has certainly gained popularity after the Hunger Games. I would love to see other high stake things happening in a school that doesn't involve harming kids/teens


OPEN CALLS

Phantom Worlds: The Cellar Door Looking for horror stories that take place when alternate realities invade our own.

In The Mood: The Future

Robots Past & Future

Wyrd Wytchy West

Last Girls Club Spring Issue Theme: Lost at Sea

Brink Literary Magazine January 2025 Window Hybrid fiction with the theme of Renewal

Submissions: If I Die Before I Wake, Volume 10: Tales of Cryptid Chaos

Five Paying Literary Magazines to Submit to in December 2024

Beaver Magazine: Now Seeking Submissions

24 Manuscript Publishers Always Open To Submission

37 Themed Submission Calls and Contests for December 2024


From around the web


How to Use Exposition to Evoke Emotion

5 Ways to Fight Your End-of-Year Writer’s Fatigue

Top 8 Lessons I’ve Learned as a Writer in 16 Years



From Betty

Building Temeraire: How Novik Included Diversity and Justice in a Historical Setting

How to Write Three Types of Friendship Arcs

Why Breaking Stereotypes Makes Stronger Characters

Don’t Like “Forced Diversity” in Stories? Let’s Talk About It

A Distribution Primer

Weathering Disruption with Creativity Intact

Social Media Words of Wisdom

Every Story is a War

The Ripple Effect: How to Weave Plot with Character

Character Secret Thesaurus Entry: Being Pregnant

Turning Off the TV in Your Mind

The Benefits of Brainstorming for Writers: Part 2

3 Tips for Finishing Writing Projects in Time to Enjoy the Holidays

Learn to Love Accuracy in Writing



Advent Joy

Day 15 - Write a short story or poetry. Done

Day 15 tea apple cinnamon coffee cake - this is one of ones I bought the same day I bought the advent calendar. It's more like almond flavored. That's about it. It's tasty but it's not apple cinnamon coffee

I went through the fandomtrees spreadsheet for ones starting at zero and the ones I had already pulled off via tags earlier and started. One already has a ton of fills but it was paranormal experiences and I had that done so it's still going and another was recipes. I.e. Dana is doing the low hanging easy stuff.

there are actually a couple of Murder she Wrotes, a prodigal son too! As big as Helluva Boss/Hazbin Hotel is right now, it was NOT popular at this challenge. just two of us each (and I'm one of two in both). I was talking about this with a few others but these multi fandom challenges are getting harder and HARDER. There is podcast fandoms, your typical tv show/movie/book fandoms, video game fandoms, there seems to be almost no fandoms with more than 3-4 people in it and then people make it difficult with non-canon/rare pairings or no icons (and even I did that because I'm loaded with them now) I get the feeling we're seeing this at Valentine's Day....

But if you want to write/draw a little something for me my tree is here.

Today at the coffee shop, I said hello to the barista who was at galaxycon and then look over and see two of my friends from Athens there too. We talked a while. they were also were at galaxycon

Tonight I'm struggling because my sugar went well over 300 and I'm not sure why. I'll do the con pictures tomorrow.



Advent Joy

Day 9 - Look up to the sky and appreciate its beauty - Honestly I do like grey winter storm skies. Today there was grey puffy cotton candy clouds in part of the sky, rolling waves of charcoal grey and black ones going on and on unbroken to the horizon. Some had gold shimmery outlines where the sun struggled to break through. And on occasion the sun did shine through but it was silver like a metal disk.

Day 9 tea- Caramel Walnut Shortbread tisane. - green rooibos, Caramel Walnut Shortbread flavoring safflower and orange blossoms, tasted like liquid cookie, yummy but yes yet another tisane. Sigh.


Let's continue with the Music Monday and we're sharing songs that contain a certain color, starting with the rainbow and picking up a few of the other biggies down the road. Feel free to chime in with your favorite song(s) that follow the weekly letter. Hit me with your favs. I love hearing new music or revisiting older pieces. Indigo is the next color in the rainbow. I almost skipped it since it's been kicked out of the rainbow but I'm old and I'm keeping it in. That said I don't even need a cut because I know exactly two songs with indigo in it (and the latter I barely remembered).

However, Mood Indigo is one of my favorites.

This is the one I barely remembered and now I see why

So I called the vet again and got Ms Surly this time who was appalled that I was not told to bring Rocket in immediately yesterday (I think I talked to the young one yesterday, the one Surly bit the head off last time when Rocket skinned his tail).

Good news - leg's not broken. Bad news - they think it's an abscess. They kept Rocket overnight for pain meds and high dose antibiotics. They might have to keep him tomorrow too as I got to work all day then to the interview then to the doctor. Honestly it's the best place for him as he refuses to stay inside.

However, he is a FIV + cat and an abscess is going to be bad, potentially fatally so. And since this is the apartment's cat, think anyone else around here is going to help foot the bill? Yeah no. Ah well, I can't let him suffer so I'll deal.



Challenge #11

In your own space, create a fanwork.

Post your answer to today’s challenge in your own space and leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

Title:
The Sweet and Uncertain First Steps


Summary: Hunter is attending school for the very first time and he is nervous, overwhelmed by the questions swirling in his head. Can he do this? What is his magic? Is he falling in love?

Rating: teen

Notes: Written for the getyourwordsout tarot card challenge. My cards are :
Two of Cups - Union, attraction, combination, affection;
Six of Swords - Adaptation, adjustments, science, travel;
Seven of Swords - Dishonesty, presumption, sneakiness, assumptions
And for the allbingo prompt of I wanna be loved by you.


Challenge #15

Fandom Snowflake Challenge's 2023 Fandom Wrapped!

Your top 5 fandoms for 2023 were:
1. The Owl House
2. Prodigal Son
3. Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Angel the series
4. Fullmetal Alchemist
5. Star Trek (all versions

Your top 5 fandom spaces (Discord, Twitter, etc.) in 2023 were:
1. AO3
2. Dreamwidth
3. Livejournal
4. Bluesky
5 Twitter

The top 5 things you did to contribute to fandom in 2023 were:
1. writing
2. reading/commenting
3. cheerleading
4. charity auctions like fandomtrumpshate
5. supporting exchange communities

Your top 5 most appreciated fandom contributions were:
judging by kudos it was

1. Burning from Within

2. Job Offer

3. Meaning in the Misery

4. Rescue Me

5. A confession of pain

They're all The Owl House except 5 which is Prodigal Son. Also I'd like to think my fandom trumps hates stories were well appreciated too

In Logan there was a Full Wolf Moon Misfit Market and I wanted to go. But it was meant to be raining and for some reason I thought it was outside. The FB page was sparse with info but the vendor names led me to believe this was going to be fantasy/pagan related.

Logan is only 50 miles. It's certainly closer than Huntington (my closest mall) and Columbus but it feels SO. Much Further because the other two you're on straight shot roads but Logan is on a straight shot too...if you love curves. You really can't set cruise and go. So it feels so much further.

I said screw it, you're going. I couldn't find it at first because it was inside a building with NO numbers, no name, nothing but a tiny sign pointing at it. I'm glad I went. It benefited the animal shelter and the vendors were cool. I got some beautiful dice and picked up a tip. Okay on her end, she was short circuiting her partner's dice sales. There were metal ones. I've been eyeballing them in the past. I had them in my hand thinking these are heavy and I said so. She admitted not only are they heavy they tend to chip stuff up, especially dice towers. While I don't have a tower, I'm thinking good to know and no than you.

I found a locket with gears (nothing I couldn't have made on my own) but also had a mini first aid kit inside them (they sold survival jewelry and I'm a little miffed I didn't buy the fire starter too). As I'm the ship's doctor with my air group I had to have this. I found another metal/rock pendant must have. Silver and stones are my weakness. I got a flower agate hunk for Mom for Mother's day.

So all and all it was good BUT I had no idea another friend of mine was going and I missed her. She got to play with the animals. I didn't know they even had them there (that was a bit of a fail on their part)

The dice goblin gets another set


The dice Mom got me for christmas

Challenge 5

Search in your current space, whether brick-and-mortar or digital. Post a picture (a link to a picture will be fine!) or description of something that is or represents:

( cutting for length )

Challenge #12 - Tell Us about a Personal Win.

Tonight was one of them. It's the first time in almost four months I went out to do something fun. I went to a Cirque Mechanics (the small traveling cirque du soleil troupe) show Zephyr. I met up with friends and we went. It was just wonderful. I have long been fascinated at what a human body CAN do. I still want to know what has to be hiding in the one acrobat's top knot that she can be hoisted in the air and swung by her hair. I'm still stunned by the strongman of the troupe holding a may pole on his forehead (no hands) while another little acrobat is doing her thing ten feet up on that pole Or how one of the male acrobats could jump backwards through hoops or another of the male acrobats on this spinning hamsterwheel some twelve feet up on the OUTSIDE of the wheel jumping rope.

Why me going to this was such a win is I've been stuck in the house after discovering I have endometrial cancer. I had to miss all of my favorite things for halloween out of fear of falling/hurting myself on paranormal investigations or getting covid. Nothing was delaying my surgery and then post losing a few organs I had to stay pretty much doing nothing much for 8 weeks to heal.

Another win was the fact, I dealt with the cancer diagnosis well. I managed to get from diagnosis to post op in a month.

Other wins include the fact I sold two short stories and a novel last year. In fact the novel is out next month. You can read about it here. I do have some arcs for review for These Haunted Hills if anyone is interested.

Last year I wrote about 240K of fanfic and 64K of original fiction and this year I'm at about 15K combined for fanfic/ofic

How can so much of it slip through my fingers. I've done...still nothing other than look over my two galley proofs and get them back to their respective publishers. Ugh. How could I do so little? How did going to the library and the grocery store seem to eat up much of my day?

Challenge #9

Rec Us Your Newest Thing. Post your answer to today’s challenge in your own space and leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

I have nothing that new. I can't stream so I'm out of the loop on many things. I have one show I'm really enjoying on Syfy Surreal Estate but it is not becoming that treasured obsession where I love playing in the fandom.

I have to go back a couple years to find that in both Prodigal Son and The Owl House, two shows that got killed in the second season (at least TOH got to wrap it up) for reasons literally no one understands. Disney admits canceling TOH was a mistake. Fox touted Son as the number one crime drama and then boom the day before the finale aired, canceled it taking the entire cast by surprise. Those were two that I highly rec to anyone. The fandoms are cool, Pson is cooling off but TOH is still pretty damn hot with daily comics among other things.

the other thing that I've gotten into lately is Critical Role. I got to watch Legend of Vox Machina at my brother's and I went back to listening. I had tried a few years ago and nope, at that point (mostly because if I'm at my computer I'm working either at the day job or writing at night) The problem with this is I can't get current because WOW most of these are 4 hours each and even the latest one which I tried recently is in the high double digits for episodes. This is such a huge time commitment (and so far Bells Hells isn't grabbing me like the other two) I might go back and try to catch up some more on The Mighty Nein as I like the characters better but if I'm doing that I'm not getting anything else done. Sigh. That said, Matt Mercer is very good at description and setting a scene and there is something to be learned there writing wise.

I had 4 hours to think. I had something I was very much looking forward to participating in but I thought it over. There was the displacement of the con mods by a more or less hostile take over after a couple disgruntled volunteers led a smear campaign with zero proof of anything. And I'm like why should I do this now? I loathe everything that happened so there's yet another thing I'm not going to get to do and the disappointment roll right on (at least I won't have to finish up that cosplay in a rush).

I'm also trying to decide on two winter shows that are freaking mid-week. One is 40 miles away in Athens (Cirque du soleil) and the other is 90 miles away in Columbus that I really want to do but I'd have to leave work FLY up the highway for this Renn faire in the Columbus Science Center at 6 pm and leave in time to go to my lab on friday...ugh (Now I'm feeling my age)

Challenge #6

In your own space, share a favourite piece of original canon (a show, a specific TV episode, a storyline, a book or series, a scene from a movie, etc) and explain why you love it so much. . Post your answer to today’s challenge in your own space and leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.


This is timely as this week is The Owl House's 4 years old. This is my latest fandom (which sadly got canceled after the second season but was allowed to do 3 hours of S3 to wrap up the damn cliffhanger). My current icon is Luz, the main protagonist. This was a Disney animation (of all things) There isn't a character I didn't like. The world building and story line were far more sophisticated than I expected in a show aimed at the 13-16 crowd (Luz is 13) in fact, break downs of the episodes on Youtube I've used as part of my how-to write posts, that's how good the story telling was. Also the villain is one of the best, most believable villain I've seen in a long time (I'm jealous he's not mine)

What did I love about it? Everything. Luz is the outsider at school (well that's all but cliche at this point but still it resonates with many) but she's also a Latinx bilingual bisexual. And she ends up in another world (which is a trope I don't even like normally) and that's not the thing that hooked me. It really was we have a female character of color as the protagonist and she's bi. She ends up with a girlfriend (Amity) by the end of S1.

We also have her mother figure, Eda whose curse can be read as a chronic illness and her former/future lover, Raine is nonbinary and everyone respects their pronouns. Luz makes friends with Willow and Gus. Willow has two dads. Gus is a character of color. Eda's sister, Lilith is asexual. Willow is pan and one of my favorite characters, Hunter (who enters in S2) is bi as well. Hunter is also used to illustrate the dangers of gas lighting and parental abuse.

So we have a show with great rep where race and all sexualities are normalized. It's a shame it was canceled. Disney thought there was little interest. They admitted after Comicon last year that they made a mistake seeing the size of the panel attendance and cosplay. (I'm currently doing Eda in her PJs as we're around the same age but her normal day clothes include heeled boots I can't do because of my own disability also because it's fun to run around a con in bunny slippers) I DO have to wonder if certain political pressures on Disney for being so woke had a role in the cancellation. I am sorry to see it gone.

I hope that there is new life to it somewhere and I'll be honest unlike a loud section of fandom I don't really want it 20 years down the road with Luz et al's kids. There's a time skip that could be rich with stories or right after the time skip when they start college. Or maybe some books. Ah well. Until then there's always fanfic and fan art. There are multiple artists out there doing daily comics (they are impressive)