forestofglory

2024 was another mixed writing year. I continued to struggle with hand pain (it’s getting better but slowly) and various issues that made it hard to focus but I posted some things I’m proud of.

As well as contributing to various group posts I wrote two long piece for Lady Business:

On Cozy SFF

This started out as a passionate defense of cosy SFF but then I realized that I don’t actually like a lot of stuff that gets labeled cozy. But I still have a lot of thoughts about the subgenre. This piece had an amazing reception! The comments on the post are so good and thoughtful, plus it got linked to in several other places and even inspired a panel at a con!

Chinese History Starter Pack
https://ladybusiness.dreamwidth.org/370188.html

I wrote this for the people who ask me where to start reading more about Chinese history! This rec list includes both books and papers with a little bit about why each one is worth reading and why it could be a good starting place.

For the third year in a row I recced a thing every day in December. This has been such a fun tradition I'm glad started doing it. All my recs from this year and previous years can be found under my #DecRecs tag.

I'm super proud of my first posted translation for classical Chinese: Wei Furen! This is the culmination of years of study, and I learned so much working on it. Not only language skills but also a lot about historical Daoism. I’m hoping to post some more translations on foreststudio this year.

I also posted what turned out to be the longest fic I’ve written, and separate annotated bibliography – the end notes just got way too long


Harmonious Kinship (20935 words) by Forestofglory
Chapters: 5/5
Fandom: 长歌行 | The Long Ballad (TV)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Ashina Sun/Li Changge
Characters: Li Changge, Ashina Sun, Li Leyan, Ashina She'er, Mimi (Chang Ge Xing), Princess Yicheng of Sui
Additional Tags: Canon Divergent AU, Arranged Marriage
Series: Part 1 of Harmonious Kinship
Summary:

Changge goes along with her mother's plan and is sent out of Chang'an to safety. Soon after she returns to the city, the emperor arranges to marry her to Sun to satisfy his agreement with the Ashile. Changge goes along with this for her own reasons and soon finds herself embroiled in complex politics.

Annotated Bibliography for Harmonious Kinship (3022 words) by Forestofglory
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: 长歌行 | The Long Ballad (TV)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Additional Tags: Meta, Research
Series: Part 2 of Harmonious Kinship
Summary:

An Annotated Bibliography for my fic Harmonious Kinship. I list the sources I used for research and talk a little bit about each one.

This doesn’t contain any spoilers for either The Long Ballad or my fic (unless you consider historical events to be spoilers) so it should be readable for people who are just curious about my research process.

Not sure what's next for me in writing I'm currently taking an indefinite break from writing fic, but I do have translation that I just need to read through one more time before I send it to beta, and I'm toying with some ideas for another long post for Lady Business.

Harmonious Kinship (20935 words) by Forestofglory
Chapters: 5/5
Fandom: 长歌行 | The Long Ballad (TV)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Ashina Sun/Li Changge
Characters: Li Changge, Ashina Sun, Li Leyan, Ashina She'er, Mimi (Chang Ge Xing), Princess Yicheng of Sui
Additional Tags: Canon Divergent AU, Arranged Marriage
Series: Part 1 of Harmonious Kinship
Summary:

Changge goes along with her mother's plan and is sent out of Chang'an to safety. Soon after she returns to the city, the emperor arranges to marry her to Sun to satisfy his agreement with the Ashile. Changge goes along with this for her own reasons and soon finds herself embroiled in complex politics.

I've been very slowly mentioning this fic in various online places, because 1) self promotion sucks, and 2)this fic is less polished than what I usually post and I'm a bit ashamed about it. I've been working on it on and off for over a year, slogging through bad hands, a sometimes bad brain, and I am just ready to be done with it. So I finished the draft and I had it SPAGed (You do not want to try to read my work without copy-editing) and posted it.

I did do a lot of research for this fic so I'm working on an Annotated Bibliography which is pretty fun. I'm trying to make it readable to people who aren't into The Long Ballad and haven't read the fic because I think there's few of you who are interested in my research and such even if you aren't in the fandom.

After this I'm planning to take a break from fic writing and focus more on translation which I'm enjoying more than writing.

2023 was a mixed year for my writing. I posted more at ladybusiness than ever before! But I didn’t post much fic. I struggled a lot with hand pain and was sick for a long time, both of which had a negative impact on my ability to write. Here’s an overview of what I did write!

At the start of the year I organized a group post at ladybusiness of our favorite short fiction of 2022

In 2023 I set a goal of writing a rec list every month. And I mostly succeeded, missing one month due to illness and one month just cause. I rounded up all those rec lists here. For December instead of writing a rec list I posted a rec a day for DecRecs, which you can find at my #DecRecs tag

I also wrote a little bit of fic in 2023, posting a total of 3,238 words on ao3 over three fics, one co-written.

While it wasn’t a productive year in terms of word count, each fic was part of a new thing I tried this year: an exchange, co-writing and writing a drabble. Here are the three fics:

( Read more... )

In 2024 I want to be better at contributing to group posts at ladybusiness so I'm making it a goal to contribute at least once a month.

I'm also setting myself a goal of finishing and posting at least one fic over 1k.
And my stretch goal is to write something for a fandom event.

Hopefully a few small goals will help motivate me, but not be overwhelming

Fire Light (200 words) by Forestofglory
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: 长歌行 | The Long Ballad (TV)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Li Leyan, Ashina Sun
Additional Tags: Double Drabble, Mostly Fluff, Grief, references to canonical child death, woodcraft
Summary:

Leyan watches Sun light a fire

I recently finished watching The Long Ballad and I'm still very obsessed with it! I really wanted to write something for it, but most of my ideas need a bit more time and research. So I decided to try writing a drabble -- a fic exactly 100 words long. These always seemed very challenging to me! Anyways it didn't quite work out as planned instead I ended up with a double drabble, but getting it to be exactly 200 words wasn't as hard as I thought!

End Racism in the OTW | Desk Tour: Dr. Jiang Yanli (2196 words) by coreomajoris, Forestofglory
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: 陈情令 | The Untamed (TV)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Jiāng Yànlí, Luó "Mián Mián" Qīngyáng, Wèi Yīng | Wèi Wúxiàn
Additional Tags: Worldbuilding, Fanart Welcome, Textiles - Freeform, artifact fiction, Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic
Series: Part 1 of Fragments
Summary:

Transcript of video interview of Dr. Jiang Yanli, textile historian at the California Institute for Magic and Cultivation.

I co wrote this for End Racism in the OTW!

This was the first time I've co-written a fic and it was super fun. I showed Coero my draft of this which was just a list of items and they where like 'This would be better as an interview can I help you with that" and of course I said yes, and as a result you all get a fic that makes much more sense.

Also it was an utter joy to just nerd out about textiles

The stuff going on with respect to racism and other problems with the OTW is super bad, and I hope it can be fixed. (I'm not to hopeful) But I was super impressed with this event!

Last week one of my friends decided to run a Women of MDZS Flash Exchange. I'd never done an exchange before but I decided to sign up. This was good first exchange for me because it was low stakes, a bunch of my friends where taking part, and it was theme near and dear to my heart.

I was nervous about writing to a deadline, but I was able to come up with story idea and write it in the time allowed.

Here's the story I wrote:
福食; Lucky Meal (842 words) by Forestofglory
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: 陈情令 | The Untamed (TV)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Bàoshān Sànrén/Lán Yì
Characters: Ā-Qìng (Módào Zǔshī), Bàoshān Sǎnrén, Lán Yì (Módào Zǔshī)
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, accidental auntie acquisition
Summary:

One day at the market A-Qing runs into a new stall run by two mysterious women

And I got this awesome story featuring textiles!

Fabric (958 words) by Cinnamon Seadragon
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: 陈情令 | The Untamed (TV)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Jiāng Chéng | Jiāng Wǎnyín & Jiāng Yànlí & Wèi Yīng | Wèi Wúxiàn, Jiāng Yànlí/Jīn Zǐxuān
Characters: Jiāng Yànlí
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Somebody Lives/Not Everyone Dies, Friendship, Memories
Summary:

Jiang Yanli's wardrobe is full of memories

I haven't finished reading through the collection but there's lots good things there!

This was fun. I might do another exchange someday

Continuing my project of writing a rec list every month this year here's "Short Unique Fic: A Mulit-Fandom Rec List"

Over at ladybusiness I just posted "Middle Grade and Young Adult Graphic Novel Rec List"

It turns out that there are a lot of awesome MG and YA graphic novels getting published these days! So if that's your jam check out my rec list!

I'm setting myself a loose goal of writing a rec list every month this year. Last month I did Worldbuilders Book Club Rec List so I have the first two months covered. I think it will be fun to write more rec lists, I do enjoy telling people about stuff that I loved.

One of my friends is doing a cool reading challenge called the Worldbuilder's Book Club. The challenge involves reading 12 books, one in each of 12 categories. I thought it would be fun to rec some books for the challenge so I've put together a rec list!

2022 was not a great year for me writing wise. I have been dealing with tendonitis in my right wrist for over a year now. It's harder to write when I'm in pain. Several things that I used to do to help write no longer work. I'm slowly learning ways to work around it but that is taking some time.

I once again wrote both criticism and fanfic. I’m going to talk about each separately.

( criticism )

( fanfic )

I wish I had been able to write more in 2022, but I’m happy with the things I did write. I hope that in 2023 I can continue to find more ways to work around my tendonitis and write a bit more than I did last year.