mixed habitat & densely vegetated hiding places

This year I posted 36 fics in 11 fandoms, for a total of 40,028 words. That's three more fics than last year, but 16,000 fewer words, which reflects the fact that I wrote more drabbles and other short things.

I continued to enjoy writing mostly for exchanges. The inspiration from the prompts and the hard deadlines work well for me, so I plan to keep it going in 2022.

I was proud of most of what I wrote this year, though sometimes outside stress from RL stuff made it hard to focus, and there were times when I was struggling and had to settle for stories being done rather than perfect. But on the other hand, sometimes being able to lose myself in a story or a character was a welcome break from RL stress, and a means of feeling like at least I was accomplishing and contributing something despite other challenges. Writing is work, but it's empowering work. That has always been true for me, and it was especially true this year.


( Star Trek (TNG, VOY, DIS, PIC) [16 fics] )

( Harry Potter [9 fics] )

( She-Ra and the Princesses of Power [4 fics] )

( The Little Mermaid [2 fics] )

( Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts [2 fics] )

( one-offs (Always Coming Home, DuckTales, The Venture Bros.) [3 fics] )

I was just sitting down to do lirazel's talking meme prompt, and wouldn't you know it—turns out it's her birthday as well! Happy birthday lirazel!!! *confetti* She asked: "You've got Ursula Le Guin listed in your interests--which of hers is your favorite book, and what do you love about it?"


This is a tough one because I love so many of her books. But if I have to pick just one, I think my sentimental favorite is Always Coming Home.

It's not a novel, but rather a fictional anthropological study of a far future society—a collection of stories, poems, songs, plays, articles, and histories, often written in the first-person perspective of the people who make up this culture, and sometimes as a dialogue between the characters and a voice that seems to be an avatar of the author, as though Le Guin herself were interviewing them.

I first read the book when I was in middle school, and it immediately grabbed me. It was so different from anything else I'd read, and I loved being immersed in this setting, at first totally unfamiliar and then gradually built up bit by bit, story by story, voice by voice, until by the end I felt ready to step through the pages and live there. I loved that it was set in the Bay Area (where Le Guin and I are both from) and that it's a post-apocalypse but not a grimdark one. It's not even obvious at first that it's set on our own planet or what happened to "us" in these people's distant past. I loved that Le Guin included information on their language, which launched my fascination with linguistics and constructed languages—an enduring passion that continues to this day. (A lot of sff readers were introduced to these topics by Tolkien, but Le Guin got to me first.)

I think the unconventional structure of it fed my own creativity. It made me look at writing and worldbuilding in new ways and realize that the horizons of fiction were broader than I'd thought. It made me think about all the "ordinary" people who live in fictional worlds—the people the main character passes by on their way to the next grand quest—and what their lives and stories might be like. That really shook up my perspective and it influenced the kind of writer I grew up to be.

I got the book from the library, and I kind of accidentally stole it. I renewed it as much as I was allowed to and I still didn't want to give it back, so... I didn't. Eventually the fine grew to be as much as the cost of replacing the book, so I just told them I lost it and paid up. When I moved, I quietly hid it in the middle of a box of library donation books, so at least they got it back eventually. :P I do have my own copy now, purchased from a legitimate retailer, even!

Here are a few short excerpts from the poetry sections:

( Poems from Always Coming Home )