#a personal note

I just wanted to drop a line and say hi, I know it’s been awhile. I’ve been going through an intense work period on top of personal stress. My work requires lots of travel and weird hours and I am just exhausted. I haven’t had mental space or the creativity to write and I am sorry for being behind on my requests and writing challenges.

I probably won’t be back to full capacity for another month or so as I’m on the road again. I also had to have a very difficult goodbye this morning at the time of my departure that has left me a lil heartbroken. I anticipate not wanting to write about lovey dovey things for a minute. And if you’re curious, it’s all good things— I’m only sad because it was beautiful and kind and I will miss this person immensely. I will see them again in the coming months, but I just don’t do well with change these days and this transition is hard. It’s hard to be away from the people who are your village. The people you care so deeply about and who make you feel less alone. I selfishly got used to having a companion and it was so nice not to live in the world feeling alone, even if it was only for a few months.

thank you to everyone who has checked in, I promise I will be okay ❤️ I will do my best to get back to writing soon and to get back to the Eldest Daughter Collection.

I have more to say but I'm throwing it under a cut because it'll be long and not relevant to most people here.

Of course it doesn't. However, even knowing that, there's this gnawing fear of not being good enough. I started this to have fun and I'm already getting those doubts. And I'm not asking anyone to try and quell all that. I have to keep sight of what this is for.

Even if humans, themselves, may disapprove of strange alliances with beasts that they fear, Momma Dragon will still find it in her heart to listen first.

Happy New Year, everyone! I know time feels meaningless these days, but it keeps moving forward and I hope you all manage to make something of it - this unreal year of 2023. I think it might be one of those numbers that if you were to be shown it when you were five, you would’ve said it’s made up. Wherever you find yourself in life, remember that there is no wrong or right way to be alive. Too many of us feel like time is wasted when we are not at our best, producing, working, advancing towards some far-away goal; as though the time we spend hacking through dense emotions, figuring ourselves out and simply being alive is not worth anything. There is no score board at the end of our time on Earth. All the people we have known, befriended, made happy or disappointed have their own lives to inhabit. We can’t exist defined through and by them without completely stifling our own lives.

My biggest lesson of the year we’ve only just left behind happens to be letting go - of aspirations that no longer suit the person I am, of goals that have someone else’s ambition tangled in them, of everything that requires bending into shapes that don’t suit my nature. I can’t say I’ve done brilliantly, or that renouncing these things doesn’t still ignite endless guilt. But it’s the only way forward.

I’ve written more in 2022 than I have any other year (over 200K words!), and there have been moments when I felt the happiest I have ever felt. And the best thing is, those feelings echoed in others. I’m grateful to all of you who have read my stories of the year past, and who have shared with me your precious thoughts on them.

In this year ahead, I hope to keep writing more of what resonates with people, but I also hope to change, and these two intentions may, at times, be at odds with each other. Writing fics is fun. It is also hollow in many ways. Writing is a rich experience, meant to be indulged without restrictions. Fic writing, aside from being set in worlds of someone else’s making, is also restrictive in what readers will allow. What they will even give the time of day. It’s a tricky balance.

You can’t very well write whatever you please when it comes to fics. You want your stories to be read, but your stories will not be read unless they fulfill certain requirements. So write whatever you want, you might say. But then it will not be read. I know it won’t. So the reward only exists insofar as the writing experience is concerned, but it fades in the response. Then, I might as well enjoy writing my own worlds and characters. Plenty of writers here have made the choice to either leave or devote their time to original writing. I can’t say I’m not leaning towards making the same choice.

For now, I want to say thank you for this year of discovery and community, and I hope we can still indulge from time to time. I love this fandom and I still want to be a part of it. I hope you all have a peaceful year where you continue growing into yourselves and enjoy living life, less by metrics and more by moments.

Well, it’s been a few years since I wrote one of these. Thankfully, I had the opportunity to sit down and think about the musical moments that stood that caught my ear in 2022: Tracks (separated by commas)-Wherever Your Heart Is, Homesick, Great Divide (The Lone Bellow, Love songs for Losers) https://youtu.be/I6OxXihGrvg-Re-enchanted World, Has It Been You? (John Mark Mcmillan)…