The Middle Distance

OKaaayyyyyy, this is the state of things.

I was in a severe state of writer's block. I posted only two fics between June of 2018 and June of 2019. (one Sherlock, one GO, both were for prompt fest or exchanges with deadlines.)

In the past two months I have posted EIGHT Good Omens fics.

Now, three of them are old. They're first AO3 postings of collaborations that Quantum Witch and I did back in the mid-late 00s for our locked adults-only community. (There are still a few left to go). And the five that are new are very short - they're also for a prompt challenge fest, the 666 Fics Fics Fics collection.

But still! Five new fics in two months.

And that magic isn't fandom-restricted; I now have an outline and part of the first chapter of my alternate-history/true-crime/cosmic-horror/romance Holmes/Watson novel for Carnation.

La la la, working on two exchange fics tonight, la la la Both canon sources are comedies, as are both fics, ideally.

I don't feel funny. I am grumpy mcgrumpypants. Everything is annoying to me. The weather sucks. I am getting interrupted a lot. I desperately need a freelancing check that I have been owed for over a month that isn't here. It feels like it's been that time of the month for weeks now and I'm sick of having a gruesome murder scene in my pants. My cat still thinks knocking things over on purpose is hilarious and that's not the kind of humor that will work for me right now. Looking at funny pictures isn't helping. Maybe I should go all reverse-psychology and look at pictures of dead children or something.

HRUMPH.

NOT FUNNY.

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Uig, Isle of Skye, Scotland. For the landscape (steep and mossy, on a sea bay) and the climate (cool and foggy), and the random ancient standing stones everywhere, noted mostly by sheep. If I ever wanted to live in another remote rural town with a 3-digit population (grew up in one, so I'm pretty totally over it as a romantic concept), I wouldn't settle for anywhere but this one.

Uig links:

http://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/skye/uig/index.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uig,_Skye

http://www.iknow-scotland.co.uk/tourist_information/scottish_islands/isle_of_skye/isle_skye_trotternish.htm

Runners-up:

New York City, NY, USA.

Salvador, BA, Brazil

Chiang Mai, Thailand

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It's 21. I think that's too high. You can legally be in combat in the US armed forces in a war zone at 18, but can't legally have a beer to celebrate surviving another day. WRONG. And that is way out of touch with most of the rest of the world. But the reason it's so ridiculously high in my country is that we are very automobile-dependent, with very little public transportation that really works in any but the very largest cities. Drunk driving is a really terribly high cause of death here - I understand and respect any attempt to reduce that.

So, because our driving age is 16, there was a lot of lobbying on behalf of parents to find something to blame for all the tragic deaths. I can't blame them. But, all things considered, I really believe that the DRIVING age and DRINKING age should both be 18--and there should be lots of practice in both allowed throughout the teen years. And there should be a lot more investment in public transit so that driving is not the only way to get home ever from...anywhere in the world, if you don't live in a dense old-school city.

(My personal perspective: I do live in a dense city with 19th-century infrastructure, and haven't had a car in 16 years--and I LOVE IT. I would never want to live somewhere I HAD to have a car.)