forestofglory | Entries tagged with year in review

2024 was a mixed reading year for me. I read some books that I loved, some books that were fine. You can see all my 2024 books at Goodreads. I also spent a lot of time wanting to read new to me novels and not having the focus.

The best thing for my reading that happened in 2024 was I got a new bigger ereader. The primary goal was to reduce page turns and button presses for hand pain reasons, but having a bigger screen made it way easier to read PDFs and I read a lot of papers! I love the note taking features of the new ereader too!

A major focus of my reading in 2024 was research for projects I was working on. I learned more about Tang dynasty China for Harmonious Kinship and lot about doasist history for Wei Furen

My reading goal for 2025 is simple: Read joyfully! I’m sure what that means in practice but that’s the point.

Before the pandemic started I easily and happily read well over 100 books in a year. I read 170 books in 2019. Since the pandemic started, the most books I’ve read in a year is 73, and I’ve gone through months and months of not reading any fiction but fic. I miss being a person who reads that much. Reading has been a key part of my identity since I learned how to read. But I don’t think my reading brain is coming back, so I want to learn how to read joyful with the brain I have now.

And while I miss being that person who reads all the time, I think it's helpful and important to recognize that I do like being a person who reads academic papers, studies classical chinese and watches silly chinese reality shows. Those other things take time. I don’t think that’s the only reason I’ve been reading less, I really do think I’m less able to engage with new stories, but its good to keep in mind that other things have changed too.

I am going to be experimenting with reading differently. Maybe I’ll try reading in different times and places, maybe I’ll try reading less. I am not going to push myself to read things that I'm not feeling. And I’m going to acknowledge that change happens and that’s ok.

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

Happy New Year! May 2024 be a good year for us all!

2023 was a bit of a mixed year for me. Some good things happened. I got to go to the UK and visit with friends I hadn’t seen in years and years! Which was definitely the highlight of my year! I've also really enjoyed studying Classical Chinese with more structure because of my tutor.

On the other hand my health was not great. I had covid and couldn't do anything for weeks and weeks, and my hands were generally not good. I also feel like I took family members to endless medical appointments, and I hope there will be a bit less of that this year.

I’m working on some longer year in review posts, one about writing and one about media, that I will hopefully post soon.

I always try to spend time making things and learning things, as that makes me happy. So I wanted to reflect on what I made and learned in 2022.

In 2022 I struggled to sew because of my tendonitis. But I did finish several things despite that. I made three shirts, two pairs of shorts and a dress – all for the kid. I also finished a complicated quilt top, and made some drawstring bags to use as reusable gift wrap.

In terms of cooking tendonitis is once again a dominant presence as I’ve been working on finding ways to cook that don’t hurt my wrist. I’ve tried several gadgets ment to help with cooking with hand pain. My favorite is the curved blade which lets me do some chopping with my non-dominant hand. I've also been trying more shortcuts. Pre chopped frozen onions are very handy!

My biggest learning project continues to be teaching myself Classical Chinese, which I enjoy but am very slow at. In 2022 I studied lessons 4-13 in A New Practical Primer of Literary Chinese by Paul Router and Lessons 1-7 in An Introduction to Literary Chinese by Michael A. Fuller. I finished the intro section in Router and didn't feel ready for the next section. So I decided to do the intro section of another book. I got through many fewer lessons than if I was taking a class but hopefully going at my own pace means I'll be able to solidify my knowledge before moving on.

I've also been reading non fiction. I'm still deeply interested in Chinese history with a focus on material culture. I'm also in an urban planning book club, which is very fun.

In 2022 I organized some group reading about Chinese history. Here on DW I hosted a read along for The Social Life of Inkstones. It was fun to read everyone's thoughts on the book.

I have also organized a monthly paper reading club in one of my discord servers. We read a paper once a month and talk about it. We all struggle a little to make time for it, but we've had good conversations. Plus it has helped me read more papers, not just hoard them on my hard drive.

I don't have any specific goals for learning and making this year. Just hoping for more focus and less pain.

2022 was a year where I struggled to focus on reading and watching things. The pandemic and my own health issues both contributed. Even though tendentious is physical ailment, I found dealing with it very stressful and that affected my ability to focus

I'm going to discuss first the books I read and then the shows I watched.

( Books )
( Shows )

My main goal going forward is to enjoy media when I have the time and energy to do so. I hope I'm more able to focus in the coming year.

Whatever you choose to read and watch in 2023 I hope it brings you joy

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.

2021 was a mixed year for watching things for me. While I did watch more things then last year, I also went through periods of not being able to watch anything. I once again watched mostly Chinese media.

By myself I watched five shows: A Girl Like Me, Russian Doll, Daily Life of the Immortal King, Word of Honor*, and The Moon Brightens for You.

Then with R I watched the second half of Star Trek: Discovery Season 3 and all of the first season of Star Trek: Lower Decks. We keep saying we are going to get back to watching things together and then not. But hopefully soon! There’s more Trek that we are meaning to get to.

I also watched a lot of things with my online group watch, which is focused on watching Chinese media. It’s been really fun watching things and talking to people about them. We finished watching The Untamed in May, then watched Word of Honor, and last fall we started watching Nirvana in Fire which I’ve seen before but really rewards rewatching.

We also watched a bunch of animated things: Scumbag Systems, Heaven Officials Blessing, Cinderella Chef, Thousand Autumns, The Kings Avatar, and part of Can Ci Pin(we were going to watch the all it but the subtitles are broken). I enjoyed all of these and probably wouldn’t have watched them on my own.

In 2021 watched far more movies than I had in any year in recent memory. Which was only nine, but that’s a lot for me. These where almost all for my Wuxia 101 project: Come Drink with Me (1966),Reign of Assassins (2010), Hero (2002), The Grandmaster (2013), Iron Monkey(1993),A Touch of Zen (1971),The Yin-Yang Master: Dream Of Eternity(2020),Enter the Dragon(1973), and Raya and the Last Dragon(2021)

In 2021 I was a slow and inconsistent watcher, a trend that I expect will continue. But I did watch several things I really enjoyed! For 2022 I look forward to watching more things with the group watch, getting around to some more shows on my to watch list, and hopefully finding time to watch things with R again. I also hope to watch some more older Wuxia

*I watched Word of Honor partly with my group watch and partly by myself, but I’m counting it here

In 2021 I had a lot of free time and not many places to be, so I ended up doing a lot of self-directed learning. Here’s a couple of things that I learned about last year:

Classical Chinese: After believing basically my whole life that language study was not for me, in 2021 I started studying Classical Chinese. I love it so much, it really satisfies the part of my brain that likes puzzle and littling things building up to big things. I wrote more about this here

Wuxia history: Since I’ve been enjoying so much wuxia recently I wanted to understand the genre better. I find the idea of a genre as works conversation very useful, so I set out to better understand the conversation wuxia is having. For this project I watched many older movies and read a couple of academic books. I want to keep going and watch some more older movies, and also read some 20th century wuxia novels. I’ve barely scratched the surface of the genre, but its already made my watching of more recent wuxia dramas richer.

Figurative patterns for quilts: In 2021 I didn’t sew any garments using new to me patterns. I just keep sewing the same patterns in different sizes, but I did try some new patterns for quilting. Previously I’d made simple classical blocks and done a lot of improv piecing. In 2021 I did figurative quilting for the 1st time, making first space bees and then chickens. I was intimidated by these kinds of patterns, and they are rather fiddly but they have more room for error than I 1st thought. I’m very pleased with how both projects turned out!

Writing: 2021 was a year of slow and steady writing for me. My progress in learning to be a better writer was also slow and steady. While I am sometimes frustrated that I can’t write as fast as some people I know, writing small amounts most days adds up. Last year I really got into 15 min writing sprints, just having a small distraction free time helped me get focused on what I was writing.

I also experimented with format in my fics. I love writing epistolary fic, but I hadn’t written fic that mixed letters with 3rd person narrative before. But after reading “On a Long Journey” I really wanted to try it. Towards the end of the year I also experimented with format by writing some small weird fics that don’t have much plot. This was good practice in making ideas more story shaped, something I struggle with.

What fun things did you learn in 2021?

Books Read: 73
Nonfiction: 19
Oldest book: Passions of the Cut Sleeve: The Male Homosexual Tradition in China by Bret Hinsch (1990)
Most recent book: Scales and Sensibility by Stephanie Burgis (Oct 2021)
Books by non-white authors: 45 (%62)
Graphic stories/Sequential Art: 33 (%45)
Novellas: 4

In 2021 I read exactly the same number of books as I read in 2020. The overall number of books is still low compared to pre-pandemic times. This is probably due to pandemic brain making it hard to focus and to the increased amount of fanfic I’ve been reading.

I read 19 non-fiction books, these were mostly academic books about the history of China, books for my urban planning book club, with a few memoirs thrown in. Non fiction books were some of the books I got most excited about reading this year. Also I find that non-fiction takes a different kind of focus than fiction so I was able to read non-fiction during times when I couldn’t manage fiction.

In 2021 %62 of the books I read where by non-white authors, mostly because I read fair amount of manga. But I also read some novels and monographs by not white writers.

Surprisingly I only read four novellas! In past years novellas have been one of my go tos when I have trouble focusing, but not this year. I’m not sure why.

For 2021 I did not set myself any goals at the start of the year. Then in June in fit of optimism I set myself the goal of reading 6 books by new to me Black authors. It was a goal I did not meet, though I did read three books by new to me Black authors, so the goal did help expand my reading somewhat.

For 2022 I’m going to continue not to set myself reading goals. I’m still in a mental place where I am struggling to focus. I what hope for myself and for all of you is that I will be able to read with joy and enthusiasm in the year to come.

2021 was not the best writing year for me, a lot of the time writing was difficult, and I was only able to write small amounts at a time. Nonetheless those added up, and I wrote some things I’m proud of.

I wrote four pieces for Lady Business:
Short & Sweet: Very Short Fiction
Short & Sweet: Blast from the Past
Adventures in Classical Chinese
The Layered Pleasures of Alternative Universe Fic

Two of these posts were for Short & Sweet, my column about short SFF. Sometime in the middle of the year I realized that I was not reading enough short SFF to continue writing about it regularly, which is a bummer! I like short SFF and I think it doesn't get talked about enough. However I just haven’t had the focus to read it since the pandemic started.

Then I wrote about my new fandom adjacent hobby of learning Classical Chinese. And finally I wrote about AUs! It was fun to write a critical essay about fanfic, and I’m especially proud of that piece.

Another writing milestone for 2021 was that I was long listed for the Best Fanwriter Hugo! It’s an honor that I was not expecting at all.

Over the year I kept up with a couple of recurring series here. One was Observations my twice monthly posts about natural and built environments. I also posted Media Round Ups at least monthly where I talked about things I had been reading and watching recently. Over the year I managed to post here at least once every week.

As well as writing criticism I wrote fanfiction as well. In 2021 I posted seven fics and 39,372 words of fic to AO3.

The first four of the fics I posted where for The Untamed:

Gone to the Other End of the Sky
(5,168 words, Gen Space AU) This was part of the longer space AU project that I started and abandoned. This section works ok on its own, so I cleaned it up and posted it.

Family Economy (10889 words, Jing Ling & Luo "Mian Mian" Qingyang) The third story in my series “Your Life Again, Your Life Anew”

Letters (1633 words, gen) After reading Letters and Epistolary Culture in Early Medieval China by Antje Richter I wanted to try writing letters in the format mentioned so I asked for prompts on Twitter.

To Live Without Regrets (16,341 words, Teen, Lan Wangji/Wei Wuxian) I wanted to write a fic exploring Lan Wangji's Chief Cultivatorship, and his post-cannon feeling about justice and I was finally able to do that here.

Then I wrote three short Word of Honor fics. These are all a bit structurally weird, but I enjoyed writing them!

Knowing Everything in the World (1393 words, Gen, Chengling focused) I wrote this mostly to play around with the idea that Drunk like a Dream is memory enhancing drug.

The River Moon is Waiting (2260 words, teen, Space AU told in vignettes) I had a lot of worldbuilding ideas for this Space AU but not a lot of plot ideas, so I wrote this to play around with the world.

Correspondence (1688, Gen, Zhang Nianxiang centric, epistolary) I really love writing epistolary fic, and it was fun to play around with some minor characters that I like.

This year so many people encouraged me to write, spitballed ideas with me, helped me with research questions, read and commented on drafts, and copy edited my work. None of this would have been written or posted without help. Thank you so much to everyone who supported me!

Overall, 2021 was a year of slow but steady writing for me. In terms of criticism I was not as prolific as in 2020, but I still wrote some good pieces. I posted slightly more fic in 2021 than in 2020. I hope that in this new year I’ll be able to find more time and energy for writing. I'm excited to write more criticism about transformative fandom, and to work on my story crafting skills.

In 2020 I was anxious and unemployed so I did a lot of sewing! Making things with my hands, and playing with fabric are very soothing to me. I finished four quilts: an engagement gift, a rainbow baby quilt, a mostly pink one, and one with pigs. I also finished an additional three quilt tops: a gray and pink baby quilt, a forest quilt, and a Sea Quilt. For a total of seven finished tops.

None of the quilts I worked on in 2020 featured traditional blocks. Instead I used two basic designs -- improv blocks (eg the Forest quilt) or strips of fabric (eg the pig quilt). I hadn’t made any strip quilts before this year, but I wanted to make something fun and quick at the start of the pandemic. They go together really fast!

I also made five garments for my kid. They are a rabbit button up, a mouse button up, a bunny dress, a sheep shirt, pink shirt, and tan ‘pirate” shirt that I forgot to take a picture of. This year I mostly stuck to patterns I have made before for kids clothing. New patterns are stressful, plus I think I have devolved a reasonable set of cute gender neutral patterns to work form.

I also made three things for other kids; a baby shirt, a toddler shirt, and a baby jacket. It was nice to use some of my hoarded fabric that's now too small to make stuff for my kid. And the toddler who I made the shirt for really really liked it!

One thing I regret is that I didn’t sew any garment for myself. For some reason the prospect really stressed me out! I’m not sure what that’s about but I hope to maybe finish the one thing that I’ve had cut out for over a year now in 2021. Other than that I’m planning to continue with more of the same, more simple and soothing to sew quilts, more things for my kid, and the occasional thing for other kids.

Books Read: 74
Nonfiction: 12
Oldest book: The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner, published 1996 (A reread)
Most recent book: When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain by Nghi Vo
Books by non-white authors: 24 (32%)
Graphic stories: 22
Novellas: 13

This year I read many fewer books than I have since I started keeping track almost ten years ago. There’s a bunch of factors that go into this, the biggest two being the pandemic making it hard for me to focus, and all the fanfic I read but didn’t track. Also relevant was that the library was closed from March to June due to the pandemic. A final factor was that ever since the library did a catalogue update in June 2019 it’s been impossible to use the online holds system for manga, so I have not been reading much manga. This especially noticeable in how much lower precent of the books read in 2020 are by non-white writers vs books read in 2019.(Writing this out inspired me to go investigate this problem again -- and I may have found a work around.)

I do feel a bit glum about these numbers. However I need to remind myself that reading is something I do for fun, it's not a competition, not even with myself. I did read a lot of great books!

Another notable trend this year is that I got back to reading academic non-fiction. There were two factors here. One I was laid off in January 2020 and with everything going on, I’ve been unemployed since. That gave me back some brain space for reading. The other factor of course is fandom. Due to my interests in Chinese dramas I’ve read a bunch of academic history about China.

In 2020 I decided to try not setting any reading goals for the year. And that worked out pretty well, especially with what a difficult year it turned out to be. For 2021 I’m going to start out with no reading goals as well. I will check in midyear and see if I want to add some goals. For me reading goals have mostly been to encourage myself to read more books by non-white authors and more non-fiction, and I am doing ok in those areas, so I feel ok continuing on with goal anarchy

2020 was a hard year in a lot of ways, but being stuck at home and unemployed meant that I had lots of time to explore my local environment. So in the spirit of making the best of things here's a list of my best outdoor finds of 2020.

Neighbourhood Fish Pond: early in the pandemic when we were exploring the neighbourhood, we found someone’s front garden with a small pond with three fish in it. This turned out to be a great place to take the kid on a walk. She really loves watching the fish. Later, more fish were added to the pond making it even more exciting to visit.

The Perfect Beach: We found the best beach possible for our family! It’s not very far away, it’s sandy rather than rocky, it’s on the Bay not the ocean so the waves aren’t too big for little ones and best of all, it’s uncrowed enough on weekdays to be safe. Currently it’s to cold and wet for any of us to find the beach enjoyable, but we are looking forward to more beach days when it's warmer.

Bay Trail: This trail is being built all around the shore of the Bay and several sections near me where recently finished. They are nice for flat walks, with a good view of the bay. I’ll will definitely keep walking here after lockdown is over.

Mango Desserts: Hui Lau Shan, a Hong Kong based dessert franchise, has opened a shop that is within walking distance of my parents house, so it is now possible to meet my parents at their house, walk over and buy desserts, then walk back and eat said desserts in my parents backyard. So far we’ve only managed to do this twice, but it was great both times. There are several more things on the menu that I want to try, so when the weather warms up and the restrictions are reduced, I look forward to going back.

What fun things did you find outside in 2020?

In 2020 I posted five fics for a total of 36182 words, all in The Untamed fandom. I’ve seen other people compare their fic word count in 2020 to previous year, but since I posted my first fic in June 2019, I don’t really have a basis of comparison, I just want to share the stories I wrote this year. I enjoyed writing all these stories and I am happy with how they came out.

Shadows of the Past
(Jin Ling & Lan Sizhui, Teen, 1409)
This is my “yelling about genocide” fic. I wanted to explore how these two characters’ different family histories with regard to the genocide in the story would impact each of them and their relationship with each other.

A Duty of the Living
(Wen Qing & Jin Ling, Teen, 9162 words)
This is the second story in Your Life Again, Your Life Anew and it's the ploty-est and most difficult to write story that I’ve posted so far. It was a real struggle. Turns out plot is really hard! I’m still not totally happy with this story, and it doesn’t help that it wasn’t very well received. (I know why: it’s the sequel to a gen story about side characters that features a disease outbreak that I posted at the start of the pandemic, which was probably not what people were in the mood for just then. But it's still a bummer.)

Seven Cups of Tea
(Wei Wuxian/Lan Wangji, Gen, 2968 words)
My first epistolary fic! The working title for this one was “Wei Wuxian does Taran Wanderer” and I really wanted to lean into the wandering around, making stuff and figuring out who you are aspect of that book. Also I wrote this story as I was reading Tea in China: A Religious and Cultural History by James A. Benn and I added a lot of historical tea details inspired by that book.

Can't Stop Thinking of That Far Road
(Junior Quartet friendship, teen, 20853 words)
This is my longest and most technically complicated fic so far. It’s long enough to be a novella! This is an epistolary fic with four letter writers, which was a lot to keep track of. I also did a lot of research for this fic, mostly about food and festivals. I’m really happy with how it came out!

Traveling Traveling
(Space AU, Gen, 1790 words)
I wrote this for MXTX Gen Week, which was my first time writing for an event. I can’t usually write to deadline, but I was talking to friends on twitter about the worldbuilding prompt, and suddenly I had 600 words of fic. This was intended as a prequel for a longer project, but the longer fic is currently stalled out and I don’t know if I’ll be able to finish it. I really love the worldbuilding I did for this, so I’m glad I was able to post at least something in this space AU.

This was also the first year I betaed other people’s fic! That has been surprisingly fun and interesting. I like talking to my friends about how their stories work, and they find my sometimes very nitpicky comments helpful.

The stories I wrote in 2020 tended to focus on friendship rather than romance. I also found that I was thinking a lot about worldbuilding, especially food based worldbuilding. This year was also the first time I wrote any epistolary stories, and I found that I really love writing them.

When I started thinking about what I wrote in 2020, I thought I wouldn’t have that much to post about. However, when I looked back on what I wrote, it was a lot! I posted something here on Dreamwidth every week this year, maintained three blog series, wrote several things for Lady Business, and wrote some things that I’m really proud of. I’m eligible to be nominated for the best fanwriter Hugo for my writing about media, fandom, and other SFF adjacent topics.

If you just want the highlights version, here are the three pieces that I’m most proud of:
Reccing as Critical Practice
Chinese History Books
On Seeing Race in My Neighborhood

Lady Business Posts

In 2020 I wrote six solo pieces, co-wrote a piece and contributed to a group post on Lady Business. I’m so grateful for Lady Business and the community around it, which have been an inspiration and solace during 2020. Here are the pieces I wrote, presented in chronological order.

Best of the Business: Highlights of 2011-2020— Do you know that Lady Business has been around for ten years? This piece, published in January 2020, invited contributors to highlight their favorite contributions over the years. It was nice to look back at the things I’ve written for the blog in the last decade.

Untamed Fic Starter Pack—

renay watched The Untamed in early 2020. Since I had been reading a ton of Untamed fic, I put together this starter pack for her, and others. I enjoyed thinking about the different categories of fic for this, so as to really give a good feel for the breadth of the fandom.

Short & Sweet: Trans and Nonbinary Authors— I actually stared writing this in March in response to a controversial story, but then with everything going on this year it didn’t get posted until August. But it’s always a good time to boost stories by trans and non-binary authors, and I really do love all the stories on this list!

Reccing as Critical Practice— I’m very happy with this piece! I had something I wanted to say, and I think I said it well. Reccing really is undervalued as a form of criticism and I hope people who read this essay will value it more.

Short & Sweet: 2020 Stories— I talked about some stories published in 2020 that I read and enjoyed. Despite it being a terrible year, a lot of wonderful short SFF was published in 2020. I wanted to bring some more attention to that, especially considering that the awfulness of 2020 caused people to miss things.

Untamed Starter Pack Expansion Kit— I have been reading so much Untamed fic! So I wanted to do another rec list. I got to revisit most of the categories from the first post, and shout about stories I loved.

Chinese History Books— As a direct result of my recent interest in Chinese media, I’ve been reading a lot of academic histories of China. I wasn’t sure that people would be interested in reading about those kinds of dense monographs, but

renay encouraged me to write about it for a non-academic audience. It was good to really think about what I get out of reading academic history, and despite my worries people seem to have enjoyed the post.

Cosy Up With Our Short Fiction Recs— Jodie suggested that we co-write a post about soft and short SFF. It was a lot of fun to work with her, and I’m always ready to rec cosy SFF!

Ongoing blog series

This year I maintained three ongoing blog series.

Media Round Ups— These are posts where I talk a bit about things I’ve read or watched lately. This year I had a hard time focusing on the media, but I did read a fair number of books, and watched a few shows, and I managed to post one of these at least once a month. It’s nice to have a place to reflect on media and share thoughts with all of you.

Monthly Goals— This is a twice monthly series. I post at the beginning of the month, looking back at last month's goals, and set goals for the month. In the middle of the month, I check in with how I’m doing with my goals and sometimes adjust them. I started doing this in August 2019, so this is the first full year of these posts. I find it really motivating and helpful to write down goals publicly so this series has been good for me. Also it’s nice to have a spot to link pictures of my sewing.

Observations—In this new series that I started this year, I wanted to talk more about nature and urban planning: two things that I have a fair bit of formal education in but wasn’t writing a lot about. This series has been less theoretical than I hoped. I haven’t written about urban planning concepts or why I hate agrarianism. However I have enjoyed writing about taking walks, bay area weather and other things I’m observing. My favorite post in this series so far is On Seeing Race in My Neighborhood

Other

Five fandom 5+1s and a Meme

This spring, I wanted to produce some cheerful content to help deal with everything that was going on in the world. I think the intro paragraph I used for these posts sums up the project well

Welcome to Five Fandom 5+1s and a Meme! This is a series of posts about stuff that’s important to my own personal fandom history. I wanted some space to talk about happy and whimsical stuff and explore the different ways I’ve experienced fandom over time. I thought it would be fun to borrow the popular fanfic structure of 5+1 things. I’m using the word fandom very broadly here, to include SFF book fandom, transformative fandom, and just liking things. The things I’ve picked to talk about might not be the best or my favorites but they are fundamental to my experience and have shaped my thinking.

Here’s the six posts in the series in the order they were posted:

Five Books and One Movie
Five Critical Essays and a Squee!
Five Institutions and One Conversation
Five Fictional Moms and an Aunt
Five Short Stories and One Poem
Trope OR Trope Meme

Themed rec list

Another project I worked on this spring when I wanted to write cheerful posts. These have a mix of media types and genres and were a lot of fun to put together.

Food
Awesome Built Environments

So, despite the way everything about 2020 made it hard to focus, I had a good year writing-wise! I was able to keep up a steady and consistent output which is a thing I have struggled with in the past. I also wrote several things that I’m really proud of. I hope to keep writing things I enjoy and can be proud of in 2021.

In 2019 I read a lot of books! And even more sequential art! I wanted to look back at my year of reading so let’s have some numbers:

Books Read: 173
Nonfiction: 19
Oldest book: Magic Mommas, Trembling Sisters, Puritans & Perverts by Joanna Russ
Most recent book: Catfishing on CatNet by Naomi Kritzer
Books by non-white authors: 102 (59%!)
Graphic stories: 120
Novellas: 11
Highlights:

Sing for the Coming of the Longest Night by Katherine Fabian and Iona Datt Sharma — I utterly adored this queer, cozy Jewish novella!

Not For Use In Navigation: Thirteen Stories by Iona Datt Sharma — this collection of short stories was just lovely! The characters are so well drawn and I really enjoy the focus on people doing the boring work that makes the world work.

A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine —I loved the worldbuilding in this science fiction novel, but my favorite part of this book is how the characters are constantly trying to solve their problems with diplomacy and not violence.

Silver Spoon by Hiromu Arakawa — I found this manga about a city kid who goes to agricultural school heartwarming. I enjoyed all the ways the story wrestles with the idea of a vocation.

Because Internet: Understanding the New Rules of Language by Gretchen McCulloch — This book was just so funny and interesting, and now I feel more confident using emoji!

Catfishing on CatNet by Naomi Kritzer — This minute into the future YA novel features online friendship and a really adorable AI.

Descending Stories Showa Genroku Rakugo Shinju by Haruko Kumota — I loved this ten volume manga about Rakugo storytellers with its themes of finding your own voice versus being part of a tradition, and its complex intergenerational relationships.

I keep tracking numbers but the last few years I have been feeling that they aren’t very useful for comparison between years. I’ve been reading more and more sequential art and while I like tracking it I don’t really feel like it's the same as prose. I could track separately but really I doubt I would track at all if Goodreads didn’t make it very easy for me, and I don’t want to get into a more complex system though I admire those who have them.

I do still find the number tracking useful for comparing with in a year. For example, this year I read 59% books by non-white authors! Which is the highest percentage I’ve managed since I started keeping track of this stat. If I didn’t track at all, I wouldn’t be able to get that stat.

Another reason I’m finding these numbers less valuable than in the past is that this year I’ve read a ton of fanfic and I haven’t recorded it in any real way. Which means that I’ve read a lot more prose than these numbers really reflect. Still, I’m glad to have my Goodreads account to look back on and help me keep track of the various books I read, even if I find the numbers it gives me not very useful.

However, I’m very proud of how many books by non-white authors I read. I really upped my game there! I’ve also been focusing on reading fun and comforting stuff and letting go somewhat of my need to keep up with new releases—though I still read plenty of hot-off-the-press books. I also read a ton of manga which I haven’t done in a while but really enjoyed.

In 2019 I had two reading goals for myself. The first was to read 30 books by non white authors with 40 as stretch goal. As we can see I did awesome on this, reading more than double my stretch goal mostly thanks to manga. My other goal was to read 15 non-fiction books (with 20 as a stretch goal). I also succeeded at this goal, reading a total of 19 non-fiction books though again a lot of those where sequential art.

For 2020 I’ve decided to start without any reading goals, except to reevaluate my reading goals every quarter and think about if I want to change them. There are ways that I could improve my reading. For example, while I read many books by non-white authors last year, I could be reading more diversely within that group. But having goals just seems stressful so I’m opting out for now. So I will continue working on reading in the way that gives me the greatest pleasure. I’m going to read as much fluffy fic as I want. I’m going to keep reading tons of slice of life manga. And I’m going to work on not frittering away my time on the internet when it would be better spent reading.

How was your 2019 in terms of reading? Do you have reading plans for 2020?

In 2019, almost all the TV I watched fell into three categories: kids cartoons, Chinese drama and Star Trek. For the most part I watch TV pretty slowly, a couple of episodes a week. Though sometimes I get very into something and watch it faster. I thought it would be nice to look back at the year and what I’ve watched and what I’ve written about it. This year I’ve been doing regular media round ups as well as writing some longer reviews. So I’ve written a little bit about each show and linked to any earlier writings. These are in roughly chronological order of when I finished watching the show.

Star Trek: The Next Generation

R and I watched this together -- we mostly watched this last year but we watched the second half of the last season in January 2019. I’m glad I watched it, but boy did the show under-use its female characters!

Writings: We Finished The Next Generation!

Stargate

Another show I watched with R. We watched about 2.5 seasons before we got distracted by other things. We might get back to it at some point, but then again we might not. I generally enjoyed this, but I have concerns about how it valorises the military.

Writings: Mentioned in media wrap ups here and here

Legend of Korra Seasons 3 and 4

I’m glad I finally got around to watching this! Overall I think I liked Legend of Korra less than Avatar: The Last Airbender (ATLA) but still found it worth watching. I liked Korra and her friends, even if I found some of their romance plots aggravating. And I enjoyed seeing how the world had developed since ATLA, and getting cameos of characters from that show.

Writings: Season 3, Season 4

Guardian

This was the first Chinese Drama I watched! I loved it! It’s intensely slashy despite censorship, it has a lovely found family vibe, and great characters. In some ways the details of the show are a bit haphazard, the worldbuilding is not well thought out and the plot has some holes, but it's an absolute masterclass in using food to show character and relationships. As well as really enjoying watching this I got involved in the show’s transformative fandom, which is active on Dreamwidth. That’s been great! I’ve met many nice people and read a ton of great fic.

Writings: Mentioned in media round ups here and here And I also spent a lot of time staring at food in the show and wrote some food meta: All the Food and Drink in Guardian a chronological list, and Three Things About Food in Guardian. As well as two fics “Five Times Shen Wei Fed People and One Time Someone Fed Him” and “Cooking Arrangements”.

Hilda

I loved this cartoon about a girl who loves to explore. I really enjoyed Hilda’s mum as well as her friends. It’s so nice to have a kids show where the mother is present and even gets to join some of the adventures. Plus the show’s take on nature and friendship is just lovely.

Writings: Mentioned in media rounds ups here and here

She-Ra seasons 2 and 3

This continues to be cute and colorful! I love that there’s so many powerful female characters and really enjoy the focus on friendship.

Writings: She-Ra: and the Princesses of Power Season 3 and season two was mentioned in this media round up

Star Trek: Discovery Season 2

I watched the second season of Discovery with R. Overall I enjoyed this though I had some problems and didn’t love the ending. But there are so many great older women characters!

Writings: “Moms, Space Dyslexia, and Explosions: Star Trek: Discovery Season 2”

The Untamed

I got really into this Chinese drama set in ancient fantasy China. It’s based on an m/m novel but due to censorship there’s no acknowedged queer relationships, just many many insense looks and such. But there are a lot of complex family relationships as well. This show gave me so many sibling feelings! There’s a really central relationship between siblings and I love it. In general I’m quite fond of the tangled web of characters and relationships in this drama thought I do wish the show did better by its female characters.

I’ve been calling this “The swooshy show” around the house. One of my friends who watched it told me that she didn’t realize it was literally as well as atmospherically swooshy. The characters all wear long flowing robes and jump around a lot. I’m deeply into the swooshy aesthetic.

Writings: Mentioned in media rounds ups here, here, here, and here. And I wrote a fic as well “One Time That Wen Qing Got Lost and Five Times She Was Found”. I also have a Twitter thread of recs for female centerted fanfic of the show and the book it's based on.

Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid

This a very cute anime about a dragon who decides to be a maid for the human woman who saved her life. It's very domestic with a focus on daily life. It's also pretty queer with the characters saying “I love you” to each other even if they don’t quite come out and say they are in a romantic relationship. There’s a bit too much focus on some of the characters’ large breasts, and a couple of drunk scenes that made me uncomfortable but mostly this is a very charming show.

Writings: Mentioned in media rounds ups here,and, here

Nirvana in Fire

After I enjoyed Guardian so much I wanted to watch another Chinese drama and I had heard many, many good things about this one. So I convinced R to watch it with me. It’s a very political show set in not quite historical China (there are some magic elements). The show is exceptionally well plotted, and has very pretty costumes. Also many wonderful characters. This was nice to watch with R because the plot was so twisty it was fun to have someone to discuss it with.

Writings: Mentioned in many many media rounds ups including here, here, here, here,here,here, here, and here. (Some media round ups skipped because I didn’t say anything substantial)

Star Trek: Voyager

This is what I’m currently watching with R. I’ve very much enjoying it. It’s a nice amount of twisty puzzle, and moral dilemmas, with lot of found family stuff thrown in too. We are currently in season 3 and I’m looking forward to more.

Writings: Mentioned in media rounds ups here, here here, and here Also I posted and asked for episode recs please stop by and tell me your favorites even if you missed it the first time.

All in all, 2019 was a great TV year for me. While I know plenty of people who watch much more than I do, I really enjoyed what I watched this year. I discovered that I enjoy Chinese drama, I met some great characters, I had some great conversations with R about the things we watched together and I got more involved in transformative fandom than ever before.

In 2020, I expect that I’ll continue to watch more things along the same lines. I have several more Chinese dramas on my to-watch list and I’d like to get around to the 4th season of She-Ra and maybe The Dragon Prince. R and I are continuing to watch Voyager, which should keep us busy for a while.

What TV did you enjoy in 2019? What do recommend that I watch?

It’s time to look back at what I wrote in 2019 and reflect on the year. Also to remind everyone that I’m eligible to be considered for the Hugo Award for best fanwritter for my work over the course of the year!

This year continued to write Short & Sweet my short fiction focused column at

ladybusiness The column featured several rec lists including Pals of Robots and Short Fiction Series. I also wrote a personal essay on my recent reading struggles and why I haven’t been reading as much short SFF as I used to: On Not Reading Short Fiction

Also at

ladybusiness I wrote about reading older SFF books by marginalized people and recommended some of my Personal Signposts in the Land of SFF And I also interviewed Bogi Takács which was the first time I’ve done an interview!

In 2019 I’ve been on a fandom journey. In February I wrote Fandom, History, Belonging which talked about how it can be complex to feel like a fan or part of fandom. At the time I wasn’t very involved in transformative fandom, but that has changed a lot over the year. In June I wrote about starting to read fanfic. I felt a bit strange about it because I didn’t fit the narrative, but people were very lovely, and also left me many many recs for fanfic about moms! As well as reading a ton of fanfic I also wrote some for the first time this year. And I spend a lot of time starting at food in the Chinese drama Guardian.

Also this year I hosted two challenges Stacking the Stories a short fiction reading challenge and Teeth and Bones a fanworks challenge. They were both really fun. I might do that again some time.

Another new thing I started in 2019 was writing a series of semi-regular media rounds ups and wrote a bit about almost every book I read and show that I watched. It’s been fun to talk more regularly about the media I’m consuming!

So it's been a good writing year for me! I tried many new things and wrote things that I’m proud of. I hope you enjoyed some of them too. And if you are nominating for the Hugos please consider my work! Thank you.

Goodreads tells me I read 105 books in 2016. This imperfect especially as I was a bit inconstant about how I counted manga a graphic novels. I also seem to have counted one book I abandoned in disgust. Anyways this many fewer books than I've read in any other year where I have full goodreads count. I'm going to blame this on baby N as this was my 1st full year being a parent. I also think that as N has gotten older I've been finding more time to read so I expect this number to be higher next year.

Fiction: 85
Non fiction: 18

Of the non-fiction 11 where academic monographs, in keeping with my goal of reading 10 of those (Though one I skimmed.) I feel pretty good about having achieved that goal though I still miss my grad history seminars and having discussions about the history I've been reading.

13 Novellas
22 comics/graphic novels/manga

I still count these even if they are shorter to read then full novels.

I'm not currently keeping track of the gender of authors because I'm happy with the stasis quo here. (Ie I read lots and lots of books by women.) I'm think thinking of keeping track of books by queer/trans authors going forward though. I could use some more data on this to see if it something I should address.

I read 14 books by non-white authors or 16% which is below my goal of 20%

Oldest book: Anne of Green Gables
Youngest book: Hurricane Heels by Isabel Yap

Highlights:
The Citadel of Weeping Pearls by Aliette de Bodard
The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson
The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl, Volume 1
In the Labyrinth of Drakes by by Marie Brennan
Poisoned Blade by Kate Elliott
The Sounding of the Whale: Science and Cetaceans in the Twentieth Century by D. Graham Burnett

Next year I want to read 10 more academic books and also read 24 books by new to me not white authors. These need to be novella or longer, but I'll also count graphic novels and manga. I'm going to count authors I've read one or two short fiction pieces by as new, but not authors where I've read a lot of their short fiction.

I've been saying for few years that I want to read more books by POC but I haven't been doing that. So to push myself I'm going to try reading a bunch of new authors. I went with 24 because that is 2 a month an seemed doable.

On a vaguely related note I'm working on finishing up my 2015 short fiction reading. Is there anything I should be sure not to miss?