Yuletide 2015

Stories For Me

I got three stories for Yuletide! They are all on the theme of women after they give up on their mother's dreams for them, which is not surprising based on my requests, but still interesting. Also, when it became reveal time, I recognized two of these authors from other fandoms. I recommend them if you're familiar with the fandoms.

So Is It Wrong To Dance This Line (1135 words) by gaialux
Fandom: Dance Academy
Rating: Teen and Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Kat Karamakov/Ethan Karamakov
Characters: Kat Karamakov, Ethan Karamakov, Natasha Willis
Additional Tags: Slice of Life, Implied/Referenced Incest
Summary: Often enough, all they had was each other and dancing.

In the Shadows, In the Light (1682 words) by escritoireazul
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Ice Princess (2005)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Ann (Ice Princess)/Gen Harwood
Characters: Gen Harwood, Ann (Ice Princess), Casey Carlyle
Additional Tags: First Kiss, Female Friendship, Yuletide Treat, Awkward Flirting
Summary:

Gen Harwood gave up figure skating to have a regular life. Now she just has to figure out what that means.

Plan B (2634 words) by carolinecrane
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Ice Princess (2005)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Gen/Ann
Characters: Gen Harwood, Ann (Ice Princess)
Additional Tags: Post-Canon, Yuletide Treat, Accidental Dating
Summary:

Gen walked away from her Plan A. Ann's Plan A just didn't work out, but Plan B's not always such a bad thing.

Story By Me

I was about 90% sure I wouldn't get matched on The Fast and the Furious because I only offered Mia and Letty and I figured anyone requesting it would request Dom and/or Brian. I got matched with someone who requested any characters and specifically mentioned being interested in Mia in the request, and I really enjoyed writing this alternate path for Mia after the first movie.

And You Welcomed Me (10724 words) by rsadelle
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The Fast and the Furious (2001), Fast and the Furious Series
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Mia Toretto, Original Female Character(s), Original Male Character(s)
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Post-Movie, Families of Choice, Roman Catholicism
Summary:

Mia makes herself a new family.

2015 Year In Review - Goals

I deliberately didn't make goals last year. In a lot of ways this was good for me. It was good for me to chill out and be able to remind myself, over and over again, "You don't have to do anything right now." At the same time, I feel like I didn't do anything this year since I don't have any goals to say I accomplished, and I think I need a little more structure.

2016 Goals

I'm not making any writing related goals this year. I will write, and I'm going to keep doing my weekly email check-ins and monthly LJ check-ins but I'm just going to write whatever I want and let it just happen. Goals for this year:

Save money.
This is kind of a hard one, since some of my other goals involve spending money and I would ideally like to buy new winter clothes next winter (since I bought new summer clothes this year). In practice:

• Increase the monthly automatic transfer from my checking account to my savings account.


• Minimal travel. My sister by choice had a baby at the beginning of December, and I want to go visit her and her family this spring. If I can swing a super cheap hotel room, couple of days at the beach this summer would probably be good for my soul. Otherwise, no traveling. (I do have enough frequent flier miles for a free domestic flight, but I would like to save those for a potential 2017 vacation with lakeeffectgirl.)


• Ask for a raise. This worked out for me this year, and it's a thing I have to do since this is the first job I've ever had where there isn't some sort of automatic yearly cost of living adjustment or performance review + merit-based raise.

Take care of my car. At the very least, my car needs some recall-based maintenance, a belt replaced, and whatever is causing my check engine light to be on all the time fixed (this has to be done early this year because I think my car has to pass smog inspection this year). Ideally, I would also have whatever is causing the SRS light to be on fixed. (I hope it's just the seat belts, which probably do need replacing and won't cost me any money.)

Take care of my health. My health is generally pretty good, but some things I need to do this year:

• Find a new doctor/nurse practitioner. I haven't been to a doctor in a few years, and I both have some specific health concerns and need a basic checkup, including blood work.


• Gum grafts for my teeth. I ate mandarins this winter, and the gum recession increased (probably because of the acidity) to the point that drinking cold water/eating cold foods hurt some of my teeth, which has done way more than any of my dental hygienist's lectures to convince me I really have to do this. Insurance-wise, this probably means I only do the first one this year.


• Deal with the thing where I get depressed in the summer. This has been going on for a long time, it got really bad this summer, and I need to be serious about taking care of it. I tried sleeping more this summer, which helped, but didn't fix it all and took a lot of time out of my life. The first step here is to talk to whatever health care professional I find.


• Take time off at least once a quarter, and take more time off during the summer. I haven't taken any vacation time since I got back from visiting lakeeffectgirl at the end of September, and I'm really feeling the mental/emotional strain of that. This week I'm going to start teaching my new coworker how to do my job so I can take some days off.

Local connections. I don't really have local friends. There's one other friend, but I don't know if we've spent enough time together to know if we want to be close friends, and mostly we see each other when another friend is in town. I'm really lonely for in-person friendships. I miss hanging out talking about everyday things that aren't worth sending an email about and seeing movies with other people. In practical terms for this year: Do at least one thing every month to either meet new people locally or strengthen connections with people I know locally. As my dad says, it's hard to make new friends if you don't go to bars or church, so this probably means branching out in trying out meetups (even when they're inconvenient) and/or possibly finding some sort of volunteer project to join or class to take. At the risk of being too picky, things I'm looking for in new friends:

• People who can/will listen nonjudgmentally. This means listening, acknowledging the reality of my feelings, and only offering advice when asked. I will, of course, do my very best to offer the same to them.


• People who will allow me my joy. I've gotten better over the years at gauging what sort of movies I should just go see alone, but I've also had experiences, with various friends, where I felt like I didn't get to enjoy something I actually really liked because the immediate reaction was for them to talk about how terrible it was. I'm also working on not saying mean things about things other people like.


• People who can keep up with a conversation. I have met some lovely people over the years who just made conversations drag because they couldn't move on with the group. There's being excited about a thing you want to talk about all the time, which is one thing, and then there's just not being able to keep up, which is not fun for me.


• People who can/want to hang out at times and places that also work for me. Deep down, I'm a little old lady: I go to bed early and I don't like really noisy places.

December Writing Goals Report, January Writing Goals

Report on December:

• Maybe return to the completely different thing. - No.


• Finish/post Yuletide story. - Check!


• Write miscellaneous snippets as inspired. - Check!


• Say positive things on Twitter. - Check!

Goals for January:

• Write something. Possibly movie fic, possibly Yuletide story sequel, possibly something else.


• Write miscellaneous snippets as inspired.


• Say positive things on Twitter.