What's Up This Week

[a_whale_bone]

I've been ill for pretty much all of 2024 so far, so I've not had much energy for anything. I'm slowly starting to feel like I'm coming out of it now, thank god.

Reading

I managed to read a fair bit recently. My favourite book so far this year has been The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida by Shehan Karunatilaka, which was somehow funnier, weirder and bleaker than I expected. I'm planning on picking up Chinaman: The Legend of Pradeep Mathew because I enjoyed Karunatilaka's writing so much. I also loved In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado, which is a fairly harrowing memoir on domestic abuse, but it's so beautifully written, with each chapter driven by a different narrative trope, that I blasted through it in a couple of days. The chapter written like a choose-your-own-adventure novel has stuck with me ever since.

I'm currently reading System Collapse, the latest Murderbot book (still fun) and I've started The Worst Journey in the World by Apsley Cherry-Garrard, about Scott's expedition to the South Pole.

Writing

It's taken me ages to get back into the swing of writing this year, and I'm not quite there yet, but I have managed to tidy up a few things that have been lingering. I've not written much new stuff, but editing has got my eye back in. I have to finish up my fic for Candy Hearts, which is unexpectedly going right to the wire.

I wrote three Rogue One fics for Seasons of Drabbles:

Write down what you remember (200 words, Bodhi-centric)

Not Yet (300 words, Jyn Erso & Saw Gerrera, pre-canon)

Settling (600 words, a series of double-drabbles in a daemon AU. Featuring Jyn Erso, Bodhi Rook, K-2SO).

I also edited and posted the 10th chapter of my Rogue One/Hunger Games AU To The Victor. I enjoy writing the mentor and Capitol stuff so much that I've still not got to the actual Games kicking off, but I do have a bunch of stuff for that written - I just need to get it into shape. There's just a lot more characters to juggle once that really gets started, and it's quite difficult to make the action in the arena compelling when your POV characters are watching it at a remove.

Lastly I decided to stop procrastinating on posting the Victorian M/M fic I've been working on. It's technically an AU of my original work but I hope it will stand alone, especially as it has its own plot now. I posted the first two parts here: luthier_balloonist
Watching

I actually went out last night! To London! I haven't been out properly since my baby was born in 2022, and before that it was all pandemic lockdowns, so it's been ages. A friend and I went to the Comedy Store to see the improv performance. It was fabulous, not least because one of the players was Sophie Duker, aka one of my favourite Taskmaster contestants. She and Josie Lawrence were hilarious together, and if they could turn any of their sketches into some flirty romance they did.

I also started watching Culprits on Disney+, which I'm enjoying a lot so far. Joe seems to be living a pretty great life - he has a handsome boyfriend he's really into, two great kids, a nice house - but his past criminal life is catching up with him. It stars Nathan Stewart Jarrett, who I love. He's excellent in this, and on a completely shallow note he looks absolutely incredible with long locs, and in the first episode alone he wears a) a natty suit, b) very short shorts, and c) nothing at all. I feel very catered to.

Comments

[murderershair]

Seven Moons of Maali Almeida! I've had it from the library for months now and really enjoyed the beginning but I think I might have to restart it or set aside more time to get back into it because I've lost the rhythm now that it's been so long (and my last attempt was on a standby line out in public where of course I promptly encountered the "eggplants" section, haha). I'm now on Exit Strategy of the Murderbot novellas, though I also picked up She Who Became The Sun and Eliot Page's memoir from the library.