Look! Two in a row! Pretty sure the world’s gonna end.

Recently!

Writing

I have not actually written a damn thing this past week. Busy!

Arting

On the other hand, boy howdy did I art. I did a painting for Mama J’s birthday on Friday, and a very special painting for my sister on Sunday, which I will hand-deliver to her in about two weeks! And oh, the doodles, especially while at FenCon this Saturday. Have a look at my favorite below:

This is Tsaho, an enman scout; that thick arm of hers was sheared off and replaced with a robotic prosthetic, and she doesn’t like it much. (She’s also perpetually grumpy.) She’s one of the four main characters of Everything To Lose.

A random lovely lady at the filk circle at FenCon leaned over and told me that Tsaho was beautiful. Beautiful! I am full of glee that someone who is not me will consider Tsaho beautiful. =3

Worldbuilding

A novel project cooking up in the back of my head has another piece of worldbuilding added to it: the last names of people (who are humans) are either their profession or, a twist on the Donaldson = Donald’s Son pattern, Lilychild or Ariaborn. (In other words, mother’s name + child/born/son.) It’s a matriarchal culture. :)

I also sketched out the design for the small vehicles of the symbiotes (the arboreal octopi/flightless plainsbirds). It’s … honestly, it’s like an off-road Red Flyer wagon with a windshield and a front motor. They’re autodriving and only big enough for one person (and small amount of belongings/groceries) at a time. Think driverless taxi cabs: they’re everywhere in the city, and you call one to you whenever you need a ride somewhere. Personally-owned vehicles are rare in urban areas. There are also reasonably quick-moving scrolling walkways in the most busy and compact of areas – like in airports for us – so that people who don’t want to wait for a rocketwagon can move briskly without sprinting.

Languages

…I still don’t know what the symbiotes are called. ARGH.

I dug up an old favorite song – Carrie Newcomer’s Holy As A Day Is Spent – and translated it to Kommu to begin learning to sing it. It’s been a very long time since I’ve done something this simple – just cyphering English to sing – and it sounds wonderful. I’m having to take a French approach with fitting the Kommu syllables into the English pattern; the ends of words fall off or slur onto the beginning of the next, and sometimes the middle syllable of a longer word disappears (okay, that’s a little Japanese, not French).

Musicking

See above! Yes, okay, that’s cheating. :D

I am both wanting to have the time to filk and really looking forward to seeing my family in early October. My partner and sister and I have started a wee tradition of singing/playing around a small fire for my mom and her fiance, and it’s such a heart-warming experience that I really can’t wait to do it again. I am excited to bring my guitar this time! I can do more than sing and drum!

Not my news but still worth squeeing over: My partner wrote a Firefly filk to the tune of Kishmul’s Galley by the Corries, and he sang it at the FenCon filk circle. SO AWESOME, YOU GUYS, OMIGAW.

Upcoming

Ah, well, I’m pretty much going to work my arse off this week in preparation for a two-week roadtrip to see family in October, so um, er, I’m not planning much. :D