Thus it begins! These links have been collected over the past six weeks. There are a lot of them. You’re welcome. ;)

BUT FIRST, I would like to let you all know that I now have a Pinterest account, where there are many shiny things. Come see!

This Week’s Shinies:

• First Transgender to be Ordained as Catholic Priest – Progress! Huzzah!
• R’ha, a Scifi Short Film – This is freaking amaaazing! And NO HUMANS.
• Billions of Earthlike Planets in Milky Way – *geeks out!*
• The Rainbow Serpent…s
• World’s largest natural sound archive now fully digital and fully online.
• 1912’s Perfect Woman Was From Brooklyn, Weighed 171 Lbs, Had Pear-Shaped Body – This. Yes.
• A sweet, slightly sad comic about friend-love.
• MCA Hogarth’s Year Round-Up – If you want to know how an indie author/artist makes her monies, this is a refreshing insight into the work it takes.
• Draenei Barbershop, by Kyoht – Because I am still a WoW geek. =3
• How to say “Happy New Year!” in approximately a zillion languages. – I know it’s a bit belated, but I still think it’s awesome.
• Writing is for the Heart-Broken
• Tolkien on Language Invention
• Real Spaceman Tweets to Fake Spaceman, From Space – So much geekery, so much love.
• Female Parkour on Youtube – Jaw-droppingly, heart-stoppingly amazeballs.
• Moments That Restored Our Faith in Humanity – or made us cry like babies. Ahem.
• Supporting authors when your heart is bigger than your wallet
• Receive a personalized piece of new artwork in your mailbox every month! – An extremely affordable offering from a very talented artist!
• Tor Reviews Good Books – And Wants Recs – Specifically, in fact, recommendations of books by or featuring women and/or genderqueer people. :D!
• Real Book Tea – O_O
• A Quick Checklist for Books Reviews – Useful for those of us less-accustomed to leaving thinky reviews!
• WTF, Evolution – “Evolution, you are drunk. Go home.”

Current Earworm: Wolf by First Aid Kit. I cannot get this out of my head!

It’s been six weeks since my last post.

Some of those weeks were holidays, and boy howdy did I do so much crafting and driving and enjoying-family-time and snow-watching. Some of those weeks were preparations for my new year, which included a lot of wrapping-up and future-planning. And the rest of those weeks were recovering from a really busy time, both at work and at home, and trying to do further wrap-ups before February 2… which happens to be today.

To my credit, I’ve been blogging pretty consistently all January over on my Kemetic blog, Grave Moss & Stars. And I’ve still been earmarking the links I want to share in the compilation posts. And I’ve still been creating a metric tonne of paintings and jewelry, which I will share in the Monday creativity post.

I just… haven’t gotten the gumption to resume posting here. Suspecting I have fewer than 3 readers didn’t help my motivation. ^^; And, as you probably know, the longer you let a silence linger, the harder it is to break it.

BUT.

Since it is February 2, I am back.

And I will resume posting, at least twice a week, and hopefully on the same days. (Though my Friday link posts will probably move to Saturday…)

And if you’re out there reading, give me a wave. :)

This post written explicitly to break the ice and the silence, to pave a way back in. I know it’s useless otherwise. More goodies on the way, though!

I have a Macbook Pro at work and PCs at home. The CMD key on my Mac, the PC equivalent of CTRL, is where my PC ALT key is. This results in me having to switch kinetic habits with every computer. ARGH.

This Week’s Shinies:

• Dave’s Mapper – A dungeon/city/map generator with a great hand-drawn feel!
• Stars (requires Chrome!) – This is jaw-dropping and just… I LOVE SPACE YOU GUYS
• Celebrating Women in Tech: Grace Hopper – She invented the first code compiler!
• How eBooks Saved My Father’s Reading – This is a pretty awesome thing. :D
• Photos from Seattle’s First Day of Marriage Equality – Yep, I got misty-eyed.
• Hack The Cover – On designing a good ebook cover.
• Dogs Can Drive – Yes, literally. O_O!
• Cheetahs in Super Slow-Mo
• The Star Trek Medical Tricorder Is Real – !!! Why hello, Future, please do come in.

Current Earworm: Forever One by Kobra and the Lotus, thanks to my sister seeing them live as an opening band recently!

The Friday Quote:

Don’t let your struggle become your identity. ~Ralston Bowles

Instagrams of the Week:

In the spirit of the season! Our in-progress tree, and OH MY GOD IT SNOWED A TINY TINY BIT THIS IS INCREDIBLE BECAUSE IT’S TEXAS:

IT SNOWED IT SNOWED IT SNOWED A TINY BIT BUT IT STILL COUNTS AS SNOWWW~!!!

Recently!

Writing

I… slacked. I finished one chapter of The Last Devil and started another, but there’s not a ton of progress there. =/

Arting

A wee gift painting! The tiny letters spell out “ocean heart” in Kalash.

Languages

More word study posts in Uhjayi! One all about love, and another about forms of “change.”

Musicking

I’ve begun the process of using GarageBand for full-length, with-lyrics songs. It is considerably more challenging than making entirely random go-with-the-flow instrumentals. BUT I SHALL CONQUER.

Upcoming

• Still working to finish the rough draft of The Last Devil before J and I go visit family for Christmas!
• Crafting Winter gifts for family!
• Four Egyptian mini-paintings! Yes, still.

Omigoodness busy busy busy.

This Week’s Shinies:

• Sample Issue of New Language Magazine – *geeks out*
• Ancient Greek Sky vs Ancient Chinese Sky – Because starmaps are always beautiful, and the cultural differences are amazing.
• Lexember – A new conlang word every day for December! What’s not to love?
• Earthrise by MCAH – A new scifi serial, free to read and already awesome!
• Poseidon never looked this good.
• A very odd gait. – The video is… well, kind of surreal!
• This is your brain. This is your brain on harmony.
• World’s oldest D20.

The Friday Quote:

Life is like music; it must be composed by ear, feeling, and instinct, not by rule. ~Samuel Butler

Instagrams of the Week:

On the left, you have my friend from the third floor balcony of my workplace; on the right, you can see what a well-insulated nap I had! (Two dogs, two cats, one me, and one panda pillow.)

My goodness. I came off a lovely, luxurious Thanksgiving vacation-weekend and back to work… and then a sudden influx of additional freelance work on Friday that will last me probably until next Thursday. But I was still creative!

Recently!

Writing

Work continues, much more slowly without the pre-50k momentum, on The Last Devil. I find myself wanting to start a new project before finishing this one, but I’m fighting the urge and have planned out my progression over the next several projects. Now if I can just stick to the plan…

Arting

I made shiny objects! :D (Click to see more, and to buy them if you’re so inclined!)

Languages

I did another word study post over at my Uhjayi microsite! :D

Musicking

My first Hometaping is over, and I created 20m13s of new music during the month of November! That is pretty huge, guys. :D :D :D

Click here to listen to the whole mini-album!

Upcoming

• Still working to finish the rough draft of The Last Devil before J and I go visit family for Christmas!
• Redoing a few of my FAWM songs in GarageBand.
• Four Egyptian mini-paintings!

This week went by in a rush, and tomorrow it is December 1st… with a high of 78*F. Oh, Texas.

This Week’s Shinies:

• Swedish Toy Catalogue Delightfully Reverses Genders in Toy Ads – BEST. BEST BEST BEST.
• The Boy With Tape On His Face – Comedy… in silence! I love this.
• PVC Pipe Instrument – A guy makes an instrument out of PVP pipes and plays a ton of recognizable snippets from favorite songs. I WANT ONE OF THESE.

Current Earworm: “A Simple Song,” played on a five-octave mbira ohmygod.

The Friday Quote:

If I were not a physicist, I would probably be a musician. I often think in music. I see my life in terms of music. ~Albert Einstein

Instagrams of the Week:

We placed a new bead order from our wholesaler, and ohmygoodness. The photo on the left isn’t even showing all of them – there’s more in the box!

I got a four-day weeeekennnnd~ *dance* Happy Turkey Day to those who celebrate!

Recently!

Writing

I aimed to hit 50k on my NaNoWriMo novel before the weekend ended, and by golly, I did! :D :D :D

This is my tenth NaNo, my ninth win, and the ONLY time I have ever been ahead of the daily wordcount quota every single day! I have set a new standard for myself!

I also rewrote my NaNo profile to have some substance and got all silly-proud of the list of novel projects from 2003 on. :D

Arting

I maaay have taken advantage of the Black Friday crazysales to order some beads. *ahem*

Nothing actually put into form yet (or onto paper/canvas) this week, but I’ve got four mini-paintings upcoming for four Egyptian gods! Have I mentioned that painting detailed hieroglyphs with a toothpick onto a 2×2″ canvas can be a little… nerve-wracking?

I also took the time to update our Mythic Curios archive with photos of past paintings and jewelry!

Worldbuilding

As has been the pattern this month, while I’m writing a humans-only novel, I keep getting flashes of non-human worldbuilding ideas in my head. They come and go in the span of five minutes, zipping in throughout the day. Should probably start writing those down…

Languages

I did a word study post over at my Uhjayi microsite! Etymology is fun, kids – especially for conlangs. :D

Musicking

My partner and I acquired a used Martin backpacker. It is pretty sweet! Kinda like a hybrid of a guitar and a banjo-mandolin-bazouki-somethinglikethat.

Upcoming

• Just because I hit 50k on The Last Devil doesn’t mean the story arc’s done. I’ll still be writing that, with a goal to wrap up the rough draft well before J and I go visit family for Christmas!
• GaraaageBaaand.
• The aforementioned four Egyptian mini-paintings!
• BEADS BEADS SHINY BEADS

Loving up this glorious extra-long weekend! Spending most of it writing and sleeping in, so forgive me if I’m a wee bit short on links today. :D

• Two lesbian YA eZines/anthologies now released! – I cannot even tell you how good the writing is, how open-hearted the authors are, and how much I loves these stories and this project.
• Take What You Need – Seen at a gas station. I love this.
• Discover your Elvish horoscope! – Yes, as in Tolkien’s elves. This is hilarious and great.
• Author Elizabeth Gilbert on creativity, anxiety, and genius.

Current Earworm: The entire OceanLab album called Sirens of the Sea, including Just Listen.

The Friday Quote:

You’re only given a little spark of madness. You mustn’t lose it. ~Robin Williams

Instagrams of the Week:

A breath of fresh air.

Working heaaavy overtime Thurs/Fri sort of shot my energy levels in the waduh (that was a terrible Indonesian pun, forgive!), but I still did things! This post proves it!

Recently!

Writing

Weeeell, I have not written much at all (just a chapter) since last Monday. HOWEVER, this week is a three-day week with a four-day weekend, and since I won’t have family guesting at my house for Turkey Day, I will have a TON of time to write.

Although I did squeeze out a few random shorts to satisfy the majority of my muse that really, really misses writing non-humans.

Arting

I crafted a bracelet! No bead is repeated, and I even cross-matched the silver/gold metal on the magnetic clasps and the jump rings. I am… super-happy with this, honestly. =3

Worldbuilding

I believe my Everything To Lose universe is getting a touch bigger. Not only do we have a human and enman accidental co-colony on a world that fell out of the network of both spacefaring species, we have humans and the xin in the past… and now, perhaps, these entensha and humans in “modern times” (i.e. the same era as Everything To Lose) or even a bit in the future.

Entensha are highly-evolved quadrupeds, and there is some world they share with humans, in peace, cohabitating… but they don’t converse. Neither species knows the other’s language. Human scientists and doctors don’t know much about entensha technology and physiology and, hell, even psychology… and vice versa.

The trick to making this setting successful and believable will be finding a reason for the mutual peace and silence that isn’t sinister or false. And I’ve got some ideas…

Musicking

Oh my. Ohhh myyy. I discovered GarageBand; my work comp is a Macbook Pro, and I take it home on the weekends. I made a few song snips, one with lyrics!, and then set out to do something a little fuller.

This is the result. (Click to listen, right-click to download.)

…I think I quite like GarageBand. =3

Upcoming

• More NaNoWriMo! I have a lofty goal of hitting 50k before next Monday.
• Definitely, definitely more GarageBand and other musical exploits in the name of Hometaping!