Looking in the Weatherglass

Dear Yuletide Author,

Hello! It is very exciting for me to know that you're reading this (and sorry that it wasn't up quite before assignments went out), because this is my first ever Yuletide as a participant! So first up I just want to say that whatever you write for me, I will be thrilled just that you wrote it for me, regardless of the details of the story. I've provided some story ideas in the original prompts, and I give a bit more detail about those below, but please definitely consider those as optional starting points. If there's another idea that you're excited to write, please do run with that.

I apologize that so much of this journal is locked. Feel free to contact me anonymously; I will also post back here once I've checked with a couple people whether you can get in touch with them to ask questions. If you want to see a collection of shiny objects that have recently caught my attention, I'm barometry over on Tumblr. If you'd like to see what types of stories I usually read, I have an extensive and entirely unsorted collection of bookmarks on AO3.

Here I will try to give you some general details about my likes and dislikes, before moving onto more discussion of my specific requests:

( Dislikes )

( Likes )

Okay, more specifics of individual requests:

( 1. October Daye series by Seanan McGuire (Quentin, Raj, May Daye, Jazz) )

( 2. Alice (Hatter) )

( 3. Mansfield Park by Jane Austen (Henry Crawford) )

( 4. Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman (Richard Mayhew, Marquis de Carabas) )

( 5. Arkham Horror (Board Game) )

I hope there is something helpful or illuminating for you here, Dear Author! But let me once again repeat: if nothing I've said inspires you, please feel free to go in a totally different direction. I look forward to seeing whatever you end up writing!

See you on the other side!

Barometry

( There really is something to this writing-as-a-habit thing. )

Anyhow.

I also made the mistake of beginning to read a novel yesterday, before I did any work in the evening. As I have said before, I am almost completely unable to stop reading a(n engaging) book once I've started it (if only this were true of literature, or academic papers.) So three-and-a-half hours later, I finally got up off the couch, but by then it was too late to do anything but sleep. This is why I am on a no-fiction diet, people (I am also avoiding fic like the plague).

I think I'll wrap up with a couple of things that are awesome:

1. When I was in my early teens, I had a tape of a radio play the BBC made for Murder on the Orient Express. I listened to this tape while falling asleep for years, until finally both cassettes were lost and/or eaten by broken tape players. For me this is the definitive edition of this story.

I've tried and failed to find it on the internet before, but I decided to try again this weekend and it was available on iTunes! (And also as a torrent, which I confess is how I actually acquired it.) I am so happy to be reunited with this radio play, you have no idea. I also have several other plays in which John Moffat plays Hercule Poirot!

I would heartily recommend these dramatizations, but I have no idea if they're objectively any good or if I'm blinded by a fog of sentimentality. I leave it to you.

2. I have new shoes! Mine are off eBay in a discontinued colour (cognac?), so they didn't actually cost $110, but they are wonderful. My feet have been getting increasingly cranky about any heel in a shoe, and insufficient width, and these are absolutely flat and very wide. They are also "minimalist" shoes, which feel slightly more like walking barefoot than a normal shoe, and I really really like that about them. I want all the colours, and it is only their exorbitant price tag that is preventing me.

If they had a winter boot that wasn't absolutely hideous, I would totally drop $250 on a pair.