As far as I remember from the 41 winters of my life so far, I’ve never been bothered too much by turning the clocks back in the fall and the lack of daylight in the late afternoons. I wasn’t a fan, but I always just dealt with it ok. I have no idea what’s different this year, but I’m so sick of the lack of light already and it’s only been a week for us here in Germany. I don’t know if it’s just the lack of daylight that has put me in a weird, lazy, gloomy mood or something else as well. But I don’t like it.
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I’ve had some busy times on Twitter these past few days, when amidst some Outlander Fandom drama, the one and only Caitriona Balfe liked one of the tweets in which I promoted my “Golden Rule” of Fandom and Privacy post again. Yikes!
Gotta say: still pretty chuffed about this. Because of course it brought traffic to linked blog post.TY @caitrionambalfe ? pic.twitter.com/QLnR6uX6JF
— Susanne D (@dennasus) 4. November 2016
Almost 900 people came to the blog to read that post and it was shared on Twitter and Tumblr and God knows where else and the response from other fans was very positive and supportive. I guess there are more of us normal fans than the crazy ones after all. Thanks for that!
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This year I had decided – rather on a whim – to take part in NaNoWriMo once again. After a mere five days I have to admit defeat. Again. Admitting defeat might have contributed to the gloomy mood I’m in this weekend. I still like the general idea of my story, but I’ve realized I haven’t really thought it through yet and making it up as I go just takes too much time from actually churning out 1667 words a day. Especially besides work and chores and other stuff I have or want to do.
Maybe also my heart wasn’t really in it this time, at least not yet, especially with a story still so vague in my head. At least I’ve learned another thing about me which is that I need to have a very clear outline of how I think the story will go. I wrote the most words during NaNoWriMo the first time, when I had a very detailed chapter-by-chapter outline. I still didn’t write chronologically, but at least I had the clear idea of where each puzzle piece would fit. This time… not so much.
Now I could claim that I will keep working on this story and write it anyway, but I also did that the previous times – as I shamefully found out when I searched for the NaNoWriMo tag here on my blog. And I never followed up on that claim, so I better not even make it this year. Maybe I’ll try to find the time to write more – about anything – elsewhere. Like here on this blog?
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On the bright side at least the most busy time at work is finally over. The two events last week went okay-ish. We didn’t have as many participants / visitors as we had planned or hoped for, but at least nothing went wrong, which is kind of relief. I hope we learned a lot about how to do it differently and better next time.
With planning and organizing for these events and other projects at work these past few weeks, I was once again reminded that one of my biggest problems is, that I’m kind of perfectionist. Not necessarily the kind that goes out of her way to make sure everything works perfectly. But in the way that I will beat myself up afterward, when there were had been tiny glitches or mishaps. Nothing big and nothing that really derailed anything. Just tiny moments, which still stick with me and bother me, because I’m going over and over how that moment could have gone differently. Could have gone better. Even those moments that didn’t really go wrong. Does that make sense? Probably not. But it was some interesting insight into my psyche once again.
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By now it’s less than four weeks till my trip to Edinburgh to see my 20th Frank Turner show. I’m very much looking forward to that trip and I hope it will all happen as planned. The staff of the airline I’m booked on went on strike for a day last week, but have now agreed to talks so I hope there won’t be any more strikes for the next few weeks. I’m all for worker’s rights and unions and all, but I really hope that these issues will be resolved till December and I can get to Edinburgh without problems. I’m selfish that way…
I’ve got a pretty clear idea how I want to spend my 48 hours in the city and I hope I’m not planning to much and thus get stressed out when I’m there. I’ll arrive Friday at noon and after checking into my B&B I’m planning to go jewellery shopping at the Sheila Fleet store. I fell in love with her jewellery when I saw it on display at the Urquhart visitor centre this summer and bought my first ring later at Jenners in Edinburgh. Ever since then I’ve been browsing their online shop and looking at rings or pendants I’d like to buy. I’ve got my eyes set on a few pieces and I hope they will look as good in real life (and on my fingers / around my neck) as they do on the website. Good thing I’ll get my Xmas bonus at the end of November so I can afford to splurge on jewellery in December.
I’d also like to have high tea somewhere, before or after my shopping spree and later on visit the “You are here – A journey through maps” exhibition at the National Library of Scotland. I can be a nerd about maps sometimes and that looks like a really interesting exhibition. I’ve also already picked a Indian restaurant close to my accommodations, where I want to eat afterwards that Friday evening
Saturday morning I’d like to take the bus down to Portobello and spend some time at the beach, which I missed being able to since I’ve returned from Scotland in July. Just take a stroll or sit on the beach and stare out across the water. And I can’t quite believe that I never made it out to Portobello in my previous visits to Edinburgh. Let’s hope the weather actually permits a trip like that. Saturday evening is the Frank Turner show and on Sunday I’ll leave again at noon, so I won’t do have time for anything tourist-y that morning. But at least I can have breakfast in peace and head out to the airport afterwards.
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I’ve been reading a lot of novels so far this year. Mostly chick-lit / contemporary romance novels, because I haven’t been in the mood for anything than easy reads of the feel-good variety. I liked some more than others, but usually felt interested and entertained enough to finish reading them. This week was the first time I actually stopped reading one after 1/3 of the story, because I thought the main character was annoying and stupid and I just didn’t get why she did what she did. On the one hand I feel a bit guilty for not finishing a book, but on the other hand I really don’t want to waste my time reading a story that just annoys me.
Instead I’ve chosen another Jenny Colgan novel to read – “Meet Me at the Cupcake Cafe” and after the first few chapters I definitely like all the characters so far. Just the right book to curl up on the sofa, with some hot chocolate and – if not cupcakes – at least some other sinful sweets…