2025 Writing Log, Part Eleven
Mar. 15th, 2025 09:43 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rynling- I’m writing a second-person POV FFVII story about the Shinra employees living in post-Sephiroth Nibelheim called “What if you romanced one of the failed Jenova experiments in Nibelheim?” which is exactly what it says on the label. I don’t think this is the sort of thing that’s going to benefit from a more polished style, so I went ahead and posted the first chapter on AO3 (here).
- I got started on my story for![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
phoenixdown_ex, and I’m having a great time. Some people in this world have impeccable taste, and I’m grateful for the introduction to my exchange partner.
- I submitted a pitch for a postapocalyptic dark fantasy story called “The Legend of Black Anne” (based on a weird bit of tree folklore) to the 2025 Press Anthology (here). This year’s theme is “ghosts & forests,” which is relevant to my interests.
- I got invited to join a panel at next year’s MLA conference in Toronto, so I typed up an abstract for my article on the manga artist Kyō Machiko (this one here) and sent it off. I love when things are easy.
- I finished my essay “In Praise of Moss: An Argument for Sustainable Disability Positivity.” It’s not the most insightful or academically rigorous essay I’ve written, but it’s something I really needed to write. I also got started on the zine formatting and printed a small sticker to send along with Etsy orders when the zine is printed.
- This week’s post on my book review blog (here) is about Hiromi Kawakami’s newest novel in translation, Under the Eye of the Big Bird. This is a fun sci-fi story with an interesting narrative structure and a wonderful translation, and it’s about one of my favorite topics of all time, the quiet and gentle extinction of the human race.
- I forgot to mention last week’s book review post (here), which is about a Japanese-language essay collection written by someone who started posting quirky autobio essays during the pandemic and got famous on Twitter. It’s not bad, and I had a good time with it. The author actually wrote to me to thank me for the review, which was amazing.
- I finished my sakura korok drawing for the March of the Koroks art event (here). Submissions are open until March 25, and you don’t have to be a member of the Zelda Creators server to participate.
I finally managed to get an appointment for Eevee the Pomeranian puppy to be spayed, and she recovered from the surgery in no time at all. What a good and healthy girl! Meanwhile, her hair continues to grow longer and fluffier with each passing day. Here’s a photo of her being regal:
- I got started on my story for
phoenixdown_ex, and I’m having a great time. Some people in this world have impeccable taste, and I’m grateful for the introduction to my exchange partner.- I submitted a pitch for a postapocalyptic dark fantasy story called “The Legend of Black Anne” (based on a weird bit of tree folklore) to the 2025 Press Anthology (here). This year’s theme is “ghosts & forests,” which is relevant to my interests.
- I got invited to join a panel at next year’s MLA conference in Toronto, so I typed up an abstract for my article on the manga artist Kyō Machiko (this one here) and sent it off. I love when things are easy.
- I finished my essay “In Praise of Moss: An Argument for Sustainable Disability Positivity.” It’s not the most insightful or academically rigorous essay I’ve written, but it’s something I really needed to write. I also got started on the zine formatting and printed a small sticker to send along with Etsy orders when the zine is printed.
- This week’s post on my book review blog (here) is about Hiromi Kawakami’s newest novel in translation, Under the Eye of the Big Bird. This is a fun sci-fi story with an interesting narrative structure and a wonderful translation, and it’s about one of my favorite topics of all time, the quiet and gentle extinction of the human race.
- I forgot to mention last week’s book review post (here), which is about a Japanese-language essay collection written by someone who started posting quirky autobio essays during the pandemic and got famous on Twitter. It’s not bad, and I had a good time with it. The author actually wrote to me to thank me for the review, which was amazing.
- I finished my sakura korok drawing for the March of the Koroks art event (here). Submissions are open until March 25, and you don’t have to be a member of the Zelda Creators server to participate.
I finally managed to get an appointment for Eevee the Pomeranian puppy to be spayed, and she recovered from the surgery in no time at all. What a good and healthy girl! Meanwhile, her hair continues to grow longer and fluffier with each passing day. Here’s a photo of her being regal:
no subject
Date: 2025-03-15 02:15 pm (UTC)Eevee continues to live up to her name. She's so cute...
no subject
Date: 2025-03-17 12:24 pm (UTC)I feel like a lot of American sci-fi that isn’t about explosions has become uncomfortably wholesome, with the characters doing therapy talk at each other while the tropes toe the line of Orientalism. A good example of this trend is A Psalm for the Wild-Built, which I hated.
Meanwhile, Kawakami writes nonhuman/posthuman people as unapologetically strange, and Under the Eye of the Big Bird leans into a non-teleological narrative structure without being confusing or precious about it. A lot of reviewers on Goodreads didn’t appreciate this, but I did.
no subject
Date: 2025-03-17 08:21 pm (UTC)"ghosts and forests" is indeed extremely your vibe. And also a good vibe. Heck yeah.
no subject
Date: 2025-03-19 03:05 pm (UTC)I was really taken by the theatrical trailer for the upcoming movie 28 Years Later, which seems to be about people running around in the woods shooting zombies. I was like, "I would love to watch this movie, but maybe with 100% less torture and sex assault." Unfortunately, if I want to see something like that, I guess I have to write it myself.
no subject
Date: 2025-03-20 07:08 pm (UTC)*sigh* why do so many creators think torture and sexual assault are good tools. Why.