A Reading & An Update · 4:07am Dec 13th, 2015
Seasons greetings to all of you! Whatever your religious affiliations, I hope you're enjoying the holidays - I certainly will be!
First off, I now (somehow) have 85 followers, which is utterly mind-boggling, but there you go. Apparently that popularity spell I got from that one-eyed man in Brighton wasn't a complete waste of money. Best £1.80 I ever spent! Anyway, welcome to all of you, and I hope I can make it worth your while to stay. 
Following in that vein: stories. I will be writing over Christmas because gosh dangit I ain't written shit for months. I've got essays and revision to do, but I had those when I wrote Hyperion, so screw it. Expect to see something at some point? I probably won't be festive (that may turn out to be a lie if I drink too much mulled wine and get emotional) but it'll be something.
In terms of the veritable mountain of editing work and also just talking to people that I promised to various parties would definitely happen in the next few days about a week ago - well, I did have semi-legitimate excuses for that. I thought I'd be free once exams were done, but the last few days of uni are anything but free, it seems - it's 4:00 AM right now, I'm still packing, and my train leaves at noon tomorrowday. BUT, once I get home I'll be able to slow down a bit and relax. Expect things. Edit-y things. 
Finally - I mentioned Hyperion earlier, and with good reason. It turns out that our resident living tense, Present Perfect, decided to review it! So he's read two of my three fics, and liked both of them, which is honestly a little daunting? But still very cool.
And then he went and followed me. My reaction went a little something like this:
I probably shouldn't gush like this since there's now a chance he might read this, but I'm still slightly flabbergasted.
But I must admit, that's got nothing on my reaction to what I found through his review.
Cherax is a man of many talents. He's an excellent and extremely under-appreciated author (something which I have said long before this, so no nepotism here!), and a very talented musician too. The one side of his work I hadn't paid much attention too, however, was his readings.
I must admit, I don't tend to listen to readings much. I've always been an avid reader, but audiobooks were a much rarer indulgence for me - I saved them only for stories that I loved. As I've grown older, I've stopped listening to them entirely - mostly, I admit, due to a lack of time. But I think it's perhaps my mental connection to it being something special, a rare treat, that makes Cherax having done a reading of Hyperion so very, very humbling for me.
This is one of the coolest things anyone has ever done for me. That sounds like overstatement, and in some ways perhaps it is, but for someone who I have talked to a fleeting few times to do this, to put the time and effort in, is just so cool. It made me very happy.
It's part of what I love about this fandom, part of what keeps me coming back. People often mock fanworks for being pointless, a waste of time, but they're the ones missing the point. The sheer amount of warmth and care that is so freely given through things like this - it's so much more worthy than a lot of other more "acceptable" pursuits.
It's funny. A lot of people on the internet get very cynical about it, and about the other people on it too. I don't, and it's exactly things like this that are the reason for that.
Sorry to waffle on like this - I didn't mean to get all preachy. But to Cherax - thanks man. It means a lot.
Now, to all of you who had to sit through that - have a silly comic!
haha, c'mon, you're making me self-conscious ._.
Hey, I'm just glad t'hear from you period, given the situation you spoke of a couple Blogs ago! Glad to hear "Hyperion"'s getting more recognition, too; good Celestia 'fic ALWAYS needs more love! And definitely looking forward to new stories, whenever and whatever they're about. 8D
Happy Hearth's Warming!
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In my defence, it was about 4:00 AM, and I was pretty loopy. Promise it's the last time - I'll be less embarrassing from here on out! =P
Sorry, didn't mean to gush quite so much.
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Aww, thanks Gojira! It's always nice to see one of your comments.
also it's possible that there might be some hedgehogs involved in my writing :V
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Merry happy! I hope you've been a good horse this year. Enjoy all your mulled wine - make like Hemingway and write up a drunken storm.
Our friend PP dramatically-read one of my thingies a while back and it gave me warm fuzzies all day long. I'm happy to pass a bit of that on.