A quiet radiance
Dec. 26th, 2021 04:28 pmChristmas leftovers have been consumed, two yoga sessions have been completed, and half a book has been read, curled up in my wing chair with a cup of tea. In other words, I spent Boxing Day exactly as I wanted to spend it (barring, given I am not back in Sydney with my family, the customary swim at either North Bondi or my favourite outdoor harbour swimming pool).
I've also spent a good deal of time making a start on the Yuletide collection. After so many years, I have this down to a methodical, fine art: I open the list of fandoms, narrow by medium (I normally start with books/literature and branch out into the other media at a later point), and work my way through the alphabet in reverse order. I don't open anything unless I feel confident from the summary that I'd be happy to comment and leave kudos. I comment on everything I read, bookmark the things I'm going to rec after reveals, and carry on until I want to do something different. (The reason why I work in reverse alphabetical order is that I assume most people work their way down the alphabet, and I want to make sure people who wrote in fandoms at the lower end of the alphabet don't feel despondent at a relative lack of comments.) In general, I try to treat every work that I read in the collection the way I'd like my own fic to be treated. This year — given I'm neither with family nor in-laws, nor trying to pack up and move house — I have fewer demands on my time, and so I'm working through the collection at a more leisurely pace.
There have been some real gems so far, and I find myself, as always, wishing that this focus on smaller fandoms was maintained all year round!
As well as reading Yuletide fic and my book (on which more in a later post), I devoured three new-to-me short stories: Rebecca Fraimow's Yudah Cohen series, which I discovered via a Yuletide recs post by
rmc28. The series is delightful (and the fic is great too), and I'm so happy to have been introduced to it — it was exactly the sort of thing I felt like reading on a rainy, grey day.
I hope you've all been having a relaxing Sunday.
I've also spent a good deal of time making a start on the Yuletide collection. After so many years, I have this down to a methodical, fine art: I open the list of fandoms, narrow by medium (I normally start with books/literature and branch out into the other media at a later point), and work my way through the alphabet in reverse order. I don't open anything unless I feel confident from the summary that I'd be happy to comment and leave kudos. I comment on everything I read, bookmark the things I'm going to rec after reveals, and carry on until I want to do something different. (The reason why I work in reverse alphabetical order is that I assume most people work their way down the alphabet, and I want to make sure people who wrote in fandoms at the lower end of the alphabet don't feel despondent at a relative lack of comments.) In general, I try to treat every work that I read in the collection the way I'd like my own fic to be treated. This year — given I'm neither with family nor in-laws, nor trying to pack up and move house — I have fewer demands on my time, and so I'm working through the collection at a more leisurely pace.
There have been some real gems so far, and I find myself, as always, wishing that this focus on smaller fandoms was maintained all year round!
As well as reading Yuletide fic and my book (on which more in a later post), I devoured three new-to-me short stories: Rebecca Fraimow's Yudah Cohen series, which I discovered via a Yuletide recs post by
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I hope you've all been having a relaxing Sunday.