#because i'd love to try folding a crown binding again

[fictionadventurer]

Considering picking an offbeat (for me) creative possibility to try in the new year.

Radio drama script

Poetry chapbook

Invent a board game

Pick up a musical instrument again

Perfect the bread part of spicy cheese bread

Work on learning a foreign language

Build a kite

Shadow puppet animation

Learn a magic trick

Bullet journal

Collage

Flower arranging

[iturbide]

I love how this whole chain went from:

grab your mini pitchforks -> grab the popcorn

really fast. Anywho, other than that jazz, how are you doing overall?

I will gladly take popcorn over pitchforks any day (the pitchforks are their own brand of entertainment, but the popcorn is always fun)

Other than that I'm doing okay, though! Still really excited that the Lodestar.sys zine is out (I still think my piece in there is one of the best things I've ever written), but besides that most of my energy is spent keeping track of kittens so other things have been put on the backburner:

I mean. Look at these little hellions.

don't let Hubert's murderous look fool you, Ferdinand is equally naughty

With them in mind, my bookbinding experiments have been put on the backburner for a while; I'm about halfway through my test copy of Crown of Shadows, though -- the signatures are all folded and stitched, the textblock has been sanded, the endpapers are attached (though I want to give the whole thing a final sanding to get things nice and even), and the covers have been cut to size -- and I think it's coming together really nicely so far! I'm thinking about kicking into it again this weekend, since I'd like to get a few copies of Proof of Life together to use as a testing ground for some cover stuff I want to play with before going all-out on the hardcover.

After Crown of Shadows (which I might make another copy or two of, just to keep trying my hand at the flat back book format, we'll see) I'd really like to do a copy of Heart of the Moon with a rounded back, since that one's so much bigger: Crown of Shadows clocks in around 41.5k words and I managed to fit it into 6 signatures (a little big for a flat back, but still reasonably in range for it), while Heart of the Moon sits at 60k and looks like it'll need 11 signatures total, making it a good choice for experimenting with rounding.

(Once I have a little more experience with different formats under my belt, I'd really like to start binding more of my favorite fics and trying to get in touch with the authors to gift them copies of their works; I'm starting with mine since they're just for me, so it's fine if they go sidways...though I guess if anyone would want a hard copy of something I've written, let me know?)

Aside from there, I've been thinking about picking up a video game again but haven't done it yet (again, in part because of kittens who are Too Interested in the TV sometimes). Choices are between Legends Arceus again since I still want a shiny Hisuian Zorua or two, Horizon: Zero Dawn since I picked that one up a while ago and still haven't finished out the damn intro, the latest God of War because it's all Norse mythology and I'm predictable, or Three Houses to finish out that Azure Moon playthrough and go back to Claude because I love and miss him...but I haven't committed.

Instead I've just been playing stuff in the background and occasionally paying attention. I had a craving for Retro Anime recently and picked up Detective Conan again (I love this comedy murder show but it messes me up sometimes, there are some heavy episodes). Also finished Spy x Family and I'm sobbing I love them and October can't get here soon enough because then I get both the second half of Spy x Family's first season and Season 3 of Mob Psycho 100 which I am so stoked for you have no idea. And lucky for me, Nona the Ninth comes out in September, which should tide me over until the new anime I yearn for arrives.

Writing has been stalled basically since the start of the year and continues as such. I'm still stuck with just chapter 7 of last year's Chrobin Week to finish, and I have a bunch of other ideas that I'd like to start exploring, both for Awakening and Three Houses (since I'm desperately missing Claude), as well as an original piece that I've been rolling around for years that's come back to the forefront recently. We'll see what if anything comes out of any of that, but it might just end up being a sparse year on writing.

Anyway yes that's my long-winded status update ramble