I have been roadtripping from Texas to West Virginia to Pennsylvania to Ocean City and then back again, so we have only a smattering to report! But report indeed I shall.

Recently!

Writing

I still have a Secret Project what needs editing! I’m about 18k words in to the 40k it amounts to, and when I’m done with it, I may actually have something to announce about it, instead of being all vague and cryptic and possibly obnoxious. Ahem. If I hadn’t forgotten the bloody document on the desktop before we left, it would probably be done by now! *facepalm*

However, I did write a random short story while at my mom’s house, which was mostly for fun. :D Being able to sit back and just meander-write is always a joy.

Somewhat related: I read three freaking books on vacation! THREE! I haven’t read that many in months, let alone two weeks! Holy crap!

If you’re curious, they were the second and third books of His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman, and The Leaves of October by Don Sakers. HIGHLY RECOMMEND ALL.

Arting

I helped my mom by painting eyes on the horses she painted:

She also gave me a handful of jewelry that I can cannibalize for parts, and a couple pieces she wants me to remake/fix for her. Shiny objects ahoy!

Worldbuilding

One of my oldest and favoritest alien species are Korats, a hardy Lavanian predator with distinct color-phenotyped breeds. They, like many predators on Lavana, have a yawning reflex that they treat as a subconscious danger sense; if one is taken off-guard with a yawn, one will then carefully observe one’s surroundings and situations to see what prompted the display of all those thick, sharp teeth. I had never deliberately planned this; it was one of those worldbuilding tidbits that comes in a flash, and I never bothered to look into it.

Well, I’ve looked into it. Apparently, in wild animals, yawning can be both a low-level response to a threat (“you’re unimpressive, I’m not worried, yaaawn”) or, as Korats and some Earth critters (like baboons) use it, a display of very fearsome teeth to a potential aggressor. (There are also floating theories that it helps cool the brain a bit, which would also play into Koratian use for a nervous/excited/afraid body overheating a smidge.) It is, for Korats, still an instinctual/involuntary thing, but they’ve correlated that urge with a level of unease that they can’t always consciously detect, and they take it as a sign from their body to take a closer look at potential threats around them.

My intuitive worldbuilding is founded in science that I didn’t know at the time! Win.

Languages

I created a new cypher! This one will be offline-only and used to encrypt things I’d like to have a little extra security on; for that reason, I can’t give you any details about it, but I will say that, ten minutes after mapping the letter-changes out, I had half the thing memorized and could write simple sentences without looking at the translation key.

My brain is apparently getting good at this language stuff. In a somewhat unnerving way. ^^;

Musicking

I performed Sister of Shadows (an original Kemetic song about Nebt-het/Nephthys) for my sister and her beau around a campfire. If my fingertips hadn’t frozen off halfway through, I would have been happier! But at least she got to hear it – I’ve been having a rough time getting this one to record, for some reason.

I also wrote a soft, simple chant-song for the ocean orisa Yemonja/Olukun while at Ocean City and utterly enthralled by the sea. Likely will record and share that soon!

Upcoming

Madcap week at work to catch up post-vacation! I’m not going to try to plan any creative work; it’ll be crazy enough just to get through to next Monday!