The Twelve Ideas of Christmas

As I mentioned back in October I have a lot of unfinished work in my archives, as well as plenty of as-yet-to-be-written books in my head. I'm planning to finish Twenty-One this month if possible. For 2020 I'd also like to write more of my own ideas in my spare time. The big question is, where do I start?

After a five year hiatus there is a huge pile in the archives, so for the next twelve days I'm going to post my favorite ideas for you all to have a look. After Christmas I'd like to get your vote for what I should write first.

To kick things off, today we have:

One of the Darkyn stories I never had the chance to write was Falling, featuring Kyan and Melanie from Twilight Fall. They were the first outline I pitched for Lords of the Darkyn. Melanie was multiracial, and neither sweet nor wholesome. Kyan was Asian. Both of them played antagonists in the first series. Those are the reasons NY passed on a book for them.

I've always thought that was a hugely stupid decision. Some of my best Darkyn characters, like Lucan, started out as antagonists. I've never understood Big Publishing's aversion to other-than-white protagonists, but now I don't have to please them.

At the end of Twilight Fall Liling helps heal both characters before Kyan carries Melanie off into the sunset. The story I would write would be what happened next for them.

Falling is Idea #1.

Comments

nightsmusic said…

I love this idea! But you know, you really need to write what your heart is telling you to write. At least, I would have to do that.

I bought a tiny, $20 bluetooth keyboard that sits on top of my laptop keyboard. It's not much smaller than the laptop's, but it works. I'll need a day or so to get used to it, but I think it's going to work! Much better than spending $500. It was getting painful to try and type with the built in one.

December 13, 2019 at 4:49 PM

Downsizing

This was my fabric stash once I sorted everything -- 22 full bins. I spent a day taking out and boxing up what I could part with, with the goal of trying to reduce it by half, so I'd have 11 bins. I was very strict with myself, and removed everything that for one reason or another I was sure I wouldn't be able to use. This is what I ended up with -- 12 bins of fabric that I'm keeping. It's not quite half, but close enough. Half of what I took out went to a local quilter friend, a school and Goodwill. These four tightly-packed bins will be going to the local quilting guild once I make arrangements with them for a drop-off place. I am relieved and a little sad and now determined to control my impulses to thrift more fabric. I don't want to do this again, so until I use up six bins, I can't for any reason bring any new fabric into the house.

In Progress

I promised myself I would show you the good, bad and ugly of my cleaning this year. This is what it looks like when you dump thirty years' worth of stashed fabric on the floor -- and oy, what a pain in the butt to pick up again! This is what it looks like after it's been sorted, folded and placed in containers, which took me about a week. Now the hard part is to downsize my stash by at least half, I think (that's my goal, anyway.) I've already e-mailed the president of the local quilting guild, a local friend who is a quilter, and a public school art teacher I know to see if I can donate some of the excess to them. The rest will go to Goodwill. Already I've reduced my vintage textiles from two bins to one, and my scraps from three bins to one. It's probably the hardest clean-out I've done, which is why I saved it until last. I know I have too much fabric, more than I can use in my lifetime -- but at the same time, I love it. So I have to

Other Stashes

Along with clearing out the spare bedroom and tidying my office and our guest bedroom, I decided to reorganize some of my stashes. This is all the yarn I have on hand, sorted by color. It looks like a lot, but lately I've been using up a minimum of half a bin every month, so this is approximately a year's supply. All of my solid color cotton perle thread. I go through a lot of this every year, too. I need a container in which I can fit all of it together, but I haven't found the right one yet. I won't show you all of my fabric -- I'm still reorganizing this stash -- but I went through everything and donated two bins of fabric I won't need to the local quilter's guild.

Valerean

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