The Girdle of Melian

y favourite pen! I first blogged about my favourite pen back in 2008. Here's what I wrote then: "Some writers use computers. Some use typewriters, some use pencils. And some of us use pens. We love our pens. We blog about our pens. If I had a typewriter from about 80 years ago, I would probably use it. But until I find or am gifted with such an item [I] will continue to use pens for all drafts and copy edits. Shorthand works best in pen and, though it's a pain to have to type scenes up later on, the process introduces an additional round of edits - those done while entering madly scribbled drafts in a slightly more polished form to the word processor (is "enter to" a verb?). Now the moment you've all been waiting for: this is my favourite pen. The Pilot G-TEC-C4. The finest nib, the smoothest ink flow, the cleanest lines... Plus it's available in every colour of the rainbow, and then some. The one and only drawback is that only the red, ...

nitting round-up for year's end! Last year I didn’t really set any knitting or other craft goals, except to not let them fall completely by the wayside. I mentioned that I needed an excuse to knit something as a gift...and a couple of friends got pregnant! Some of my other posts throughout the year: A Poem and a Few Songs for Burns Night, and ROW80, Including Knitting Playlists, IWSG Day, Knitting in Public, and Elephants! Kait Nolan's New Release! Also, New Mittens and Blog Plans Till January... ROW80, A Completed Project, and The Enchanted April (a finished baby blanket) ROW80 End of Round Wrap Up, and Visits to Yvoire (France) and Gruyeres, plus Photos from Vaud (Switzerland) (another finished baby blanket) Why I didn't knit much: I completed my second year of graduate school, and this guy came along: Another friend also had a baby this year, and a group of mutual friends put together two quilts, one for each of us. Here’s me starting to embroider...

ear-end writing review and goals! I've done this post rather sporadically since the first year I began blogging (2007!), first in 2010 , then in 2012 , 2013 , 2014 , and 2015 . Finally, I recapped my goals for 2015 , which carried over into 2016. Here are the writing reviews for 2017 and 2018 . My 2018 goals were as follows: A Round of Words in 80 Days Round 1: enter handwritten edits to The Handful of Time (working title) and reread query Druid’s Moon query The Charm of Time keep editing Mystery at Bertram’s Hotel (working title) on paper back to school! Round 2: enter handwritten edits to The Handful of Time enter handwritten edits to Mystery at Bertram’s Hotel do required research for both and come up with proper titles keep querying think about short story anthology final essays for graduate school! Round 3: reread both stories, enter final edits, and send to betas keep querying figure out this short story anthology idea Round 4: back to...

ere it is, at long last: The Annual Books Read Statistics and Thoughts Post ! Here are the statistics for 2017 , 2016 ,  2015 ,  2014 ,  2013 ,  2012 ,  2011  (and the  list ),  2010 ,  2009  (and the  list ). . Books Read : 289 , including the following (roughly, and counting three Yorkshire dialect books as one and the Harry Potter series as one and the Postman Pat books as one, which evens out the single poems a bit; I’ve also lumped all my school reading into one, and the five or six back issues I read of Mythlore ): 66 novels 133 board books, although these involve ongoing rereads, including the board books from previous years 27 essays and non-fiction and comics 14 short stories and scripts and plays 21 poems 23 YA/MG books 2017: 49 novels, 45 board books, although the railway books by Rev. Awry and the Beatrix Potter collection total 49 books (which involve ongoing rereads, including the board book...