Hello again, dear readers! Another month is almost out the door somehow, so that means it is time for another check-in with my randomness! Shall we?
Writing
The short answer to the question, “Did Cori write this month?” is “nope.”
The slightly longer answer, if you’ll indulge me, is that I’ve been kicking ideas around so much you’d think my brain wants to go out for soccer.
Here’s where we’re at: I do still want to write a novel this year. At this point, it feels weird if I don’t, whenever or however it happens. I still think I like the idea I was kicking around at the end of last month. So. That’s a good place to start.
Here’s the wrinkle: Partly inspired by my daughter and her own creative endeavors, partly because I’ve been reading too much of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series, and partly because I am all about front-loading work so I can be lazy in the long run, I’ve decided I want to create a world. A whole, big fleshed-out world (or at least one solid corner of it, to start) that I would then just be able to set all future stories in when I write. The idea is that if I wanted to write two or three books about the same characters, I totally could, but if I want to jump around from city to city or country to country–or heck, even era to era–I could totally do that, too.
So, that’s been percolating, and obviously I need to get that in place before I can actually start writing that next novel (maybe, this year, it’s a novella, who knows). I kind of have a bit of history in mind, along with a little bit of the mythology. I know what system of magic I want to use. Well, steal from another story of mine, actually–though I don’t want to use that specific world exactly.
My current plan is this: First, I need to get the next story I’m going to be sharing with y’all all ready (I need to format the manuscript and then get the chapter posts created), because Never Be the Same is rapidly approaching its conclusion. Second, I need to do a revision pass of Ember of the Dragons. I think I’ve put that off long enough. I don’t think this will be the only pass, but I do need to give it one, then maybe look for beta readers. Third, I will need to re-read my story that the magic is coming from–both versions, because I’ve written it twice and it’s still not quite right–and all of the notes for that. Then, dear readers, I can dive into the nitty gritty of building out this world. I’m looking at that as my summer project. I’m kind of excited about it, but we will see how it goes!
Gaming
There is both too much and not a lot going on over in this corner. Mostly, I’ve just been bumming around in Animal Crossing, as is to be expected. Been redoing my character’s house room by room as I get the time. That’s been fun. Island life continues to be a nice little refuge from the real world.
I started up a game of Knights of the Old Republic, got through the opening battle, woke up on Taris, and remembered how much of a slog I find Taris. Haven’t played again since, although I am hoping to go back to it and push through that first planet, because it really is a fun game I’ve been wanting to revisit.
Then, against my better judgement, I spent an evening messing around with my tapestry in the Dragon Age Keep (which is EA/Bioware’s highly flawed way of carrying over the choices from your previous games even if you’ve changed the system or platform you’re playing the game on) and made a new world state. Then I fired up a new game of Dragon Age Inquisition. Couldn’t help myself, really. I just started that last week and haven’t played much, but I do hope to dip in and out of that enough to finish before Dragon Age Dreadwolf comes out. That may or may not be this year, so I think I can manage it. Going with an elf mage, I think. She’s going to try to romance Solas, because I am a sucker for pain, I guess? Anyway, look how pretty:
Yarncraft
Usually, sometime around June or July, I lose my knitting mojo for a few months. Then I get excited about stuff I want to make for Christmas gifts and it swings back into gear. With the Year of Gnomes knit along last year, that didn’t happen, and I was grateful for that. But. I think it was just delayed and decided to kick in this month instead.
I think this is largely because I am struggling a bit with the Colour Lab Crochet Along blanket I’ve been working on. I finished part 2:
And I’m plugging along on part 3:
Of course, part 6 drops tomorrow. So, yeah.
I am legitimately digging the squares. If the whole thing was just different squares, I would feel a lot better about it. But the triangles are all kinds of fiddly. On top of that, the way the pattern is written is not super compatible with a Cori, plus it uses 80 different colors of yarn (that is not an exaggeration, it’s the whole “colour lab” part of it), PLUS the pattern is being given to us in a way that is not very printer-friendly either. I, personally, do much better with a printed pattern, so I’m having to do a lot of copy/paste into Word before I can even think about starting. It’s made me a little cranky about the whole project, to be honest. I have considered just not finishing it, but dang it, I want to make this blanket. I’m just going to have to do it on my own time. I do like the join-as-you-go method that we’re using for the blanket. There’s that.
Distracting me from the blanket a little, but much more enjoyable to make, Sarah Schira got the rights to release her Grimblewoods Collection (Ravelry link) of gnomes to the general public this month and has been hosting another gnome knit along. Those gnomes were some of my favorite knits last year, so I decided to make a new set (gnomes only, no toadstool or cottage for me). The first two patterns released from the collection were Gnedward and Gnola (Ravelry links). Gnedward is all done and, of course, adorable.
He’s trying to convince me he would be a good travel companion on our upcoming family trip. He might be winning the argument.
I finished Gnola up last night. She’s cooler than I am.
Anyhoo, there you have it. That’s what I’ve been up to in February. Now it’s time to start looking forward to March. I’ll see you then! Take care! Spring is so close I can almost feel it, y’all. The daffodils in my front yard feel the same way.
coriwrites 