starfishstar (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
starfishstar) wrote2019-12-29 04:28 pm
starfishstar) wrote2019-12-29 04:28 pm
Entry tags:
Little Women + 100th Book + fests are wonderful
Yesterday, I took my mom to see Greta Gerwig's new adaptation of Little Women. It is absolutely as good as you've heard! Highly recommended! Greta Gerwig is so brilliant. I almost never see films (it's nothing against them – they're just somehow not what ever occurs to me? what occurs to me generally seems to be books and plays) but this one, I might have to see again. It's such a rich retelling.
Also, the theater (at a local indie cinema) was packed. Which was awesome to see! (This is a little cinema where it's often easy to be one of the only people at a given screening.) I'd brought my mom, and I ran into a friend who'd brought her daughter, and there were lots of other mother-daughter sets there, too. Very sweet. (Though I also continue to be mad that even though Little Women is one of the most classic American books, almost no men seem to bother to read it...because it's about girls. For crying out loud, guys. Get it together. We read all the books about American boyhood, don't we? But I'm trying not to dwell on that.)
~
The last few years (as I've read more and more, and kept track of my reading more and more) I've found it fun to make note of when I hit my 100th book of the year. Since I started recording what I read (five years ago) I've had a higher total count each year (38...76...107...114...then 128 books last year!) and of course that means I also hit the 100th book earlier each year (Dec. 21... then Nov. 24... then Oct. 20 last year).
This year, though, has been really hard and chaotic, so I only just hit book #100 two days ago, on Dec. 27. But that's okay! I'm glad/surprised/impressed I made it to 100 books this year at all. #100 was a book of Langston Hughes poems, in audiobook form, read by the author himself. (It was short enough that I'm not even sure I should count it as a "book," but it was a very good listen.)
~
For the same reasons (life these last few months has been especially hard and chaotic) I haven't participated nearly as much in fest/fandom stuff as I usually would. I didn't participate in Holmestice at all (which feels weird) and I haven't even read a single thing from it (also feels weird). I literally have the fest's master list open in another window, but haven't had time to look at it, at all, still.
I got excited about rediscovering the Remus/Sirius Small Gifts fest this year, and wrote a couple of things for it...but then didn't have time to read a single other person's fic from the fest. Which I feel bad about. I'm not usually a person to participate in something but not comment on everyone else! (Which is part of the problem, I have to admit. I'm such a completist/worrying-about-fairness person that I feel like I have to read and comment on everyone. So if I know I probably won't have time to do everyone then I don't dare to start at all.)
The one thing I did manage to do this year was Yuletide. I don't know why that worked when other things didn't; maybe because there's so much scope, with so many different fandoms, that it's easy to pick which small corners to get involved in, without having to do Everything. I didn't sign up for Yuletide either, but I wrote a couple of treats, and I've been reading my way through some selected fandoms. (With a bit of an idea that I'll try to do a recs post...but...don't hold your breath for that either, I guess.)
I suppose the upshot is that I've been writing, because I need to write, because it feels like the thing that saves me when things are hard. But – atypically – I haven't been able to also participate in the community stuff that happens around the fic-writing, which is usually so important to me. So that feels weird, not to be the Super Good Overeager fandom participator I usually am! (I'm literally sitting here with a writing-friend-but-not-fandom-friend, and was just telling her all about how fests work and how cool it all is and how great the community of fandom is!)
Next year, hopefully, things will be easier. (HA, HA, I was recently looking back at some old posts and saw I said almost exactly the same thing at the end of last year!)
.
Also, the theater (at a local indie cinema) was packed. Which was awesome to see! (This is a little cinema where it's often easy to be one of the only people at a given screening.) I'd brought my mom, and I ran into a friend who'd brought her daughter, and there were lots of other mother-daughter sets there, too. Very sweet. (Though I also continue to be mad that even though Little Women is one of the most classic American books, almost no men seem to bother to read it...because it's about girls. For crying out loud, guys. Get it together. We read all the books about American boyhood, don't we? But I'm trying not to dwell on that.)
~
The last few years (as I've read more and more, and kept track of my reading more and more) I've found it fun to make note of when I hit my 100th book of the year. Since I started recording what I read (five years ago) I've had a higher total count each year (38...76...107...114...then 128 books last year!) and of course that means I also hit the 100th book earlier each year (Dec. 21... then Nov. 24... then Oct. 20 last year).
This year, though, has been really hard and chaotic, so I only just hit book #100 two days ago, on Dec. 27. But that's okay! I'm glad/surprised/impressed I made it to 100 books this year at all. #100 was a book of Langston Hughes poems, in audiobook form, read by the author himself. (It was short enough that I'm not even sure I should count it as a "book," but it was a very good listen.)
~
For the same reasons (life these last few months has been especially hard and chaotic) I haven't participated nearly as much in fest/fandom stuff as I usually would. I didn't participate in Holmestice at all (which feels weird) and I haven't even read a single thing from it (also feels weird). I literally have the fest's master list open in another window, but haven't had time to look at it, at all, still.
I got excited about rediscovering the Remus/Sirius Small Gifts fest this year, and wrote a couple of things for it...but then didn't have time to read a single other person's fic from the fest. Which I feel bad about. I'm not usually a person to participate in something but not comment on everyone else! (Which is part of the problem, I have to admit. I'm such a completist/worrying-about-fairness person that I feel like I have to read and comment on everyone. So if I know I probably won't have time to do everyone then I don't dare to start at all.)
The one thing I did manage to do this year was Yuletide. I don't know why that worked when other things didn't; maybe because there's so much scope, with so many different fandoms, that it's easy to pick which small corners to get involved in, without having to do Everything. I didn't sign up for Yuletide either, but I wrote a couple of treats, and I've been reading my way through some selected fandoms. (With a bit of an idea that I'll try to do a recs post...but...don't hold your breath for that either, I guess.)
I suppose the upshot is that I've been writing, because I need to write, because it feels like the thing that saves me when things are hard. But – atypically – I haven't been able to also participate in the community stuff that happens around the fic-writing, which is usually so important to me. So that feels weird, not to be the Super Good Overeager fandom participator I usually am! (I'm literally sitting here with a writing-friend-but-not-fandom-friend, and was just telling her all about how fests work and how cool it all is and how great the community of fandom is!)
Next year, hopefully, things will be easier. (HA, HA, I was recently looking back at some old posts and saw I said almost exactly the same thing at the end of last year!)
.