Dandelyon's Worlds

I'm not sure what to do with this challenge. I've focused on original fiction rather than fanfition, to the extent that I have had time for writing (and reading, for that matter), for a very long time. It's not that I object to crossover fanfiction or exploring alternate ways things can happen, just that there's only so many spoons, only so much time and energy. Occasionally I've come a bit that I very much enjoyed.  But I don't write it and don't seek it out.

Alternate universes can be fascinating in general.  I read a lot of urban fantasy, which is basically alternate universes compared to today's world (It's certainly alternate to have a world with overt, flashy magic that is otherwise much like the one we live in.)

And I also have really enjoyed working in shared universes, and I miss the creative boost of bouncing ideas off other people in that kind of shared endeavor and getting inspiration from their ideas and thoughts in that cooperative creative mindset.  I miss it, especially Torn World, which was very active for a while.

Similarly, I miss role playing games, both tabletop and LARP.  I'd love to find a group doing a game via zoom where I could sit back and play a character.  I don't think I could do a good job running a game while also writing novels (I think either the game or the fiction would suffer from lack of mental bandwidth), so I don't want to try to gather a group around me, at least not at this time, though I miss running games too.

 

I write songs too, though I'm not as prolific as some of my filker friends.  Filk is what led me to learn about and try FAWM, which is February Album-Writing Month.  The challenge is to write at least 14 songs in the month of February--that is, enough for an album.  The first time I joined, I got a song or two, and counted it a good effort, since that was more songs than I'd have written otherwise.  One of the premises of FAWM is that practicing a thing makes you better at it.  So far, that has proved to be accurate, since every year I've written more songs in February than the previous year.  Last year I got more than 30!  (I'm still astonished).  I spent months getting to really know the best songs I wrote then, so I'm not aiming to keep up the increase in quantity this year.  Instead I'm hoping to increase quality and to also manage to keep up writing at least a little fiction on a daily or almost daily basis.

Writing.  I write fiction too, though not as prolifically as I want to be doing.  Some of that is the emotional and physical chaos.  I'm (still) working on getting my bedroom renovated so I can buy a new bed, and there are still things I haven't found after repeatedly having to hurry to move stuff out of the way of things like roof leaks so they wouldn't be damaged, or out of rooms that had to be emptied and repaired because of those leaks  Writing takes mental bandwidth, so all the things that steal that bandwidth slow me down.

Art.  I paint and do fabric arts.  The fabric arts I love the most are time-intensive, sewing lovely things by hand.  A lot of them owe a lot to crazy-quilt, bringing diverse fabrics and colors and threads together to repair a thing or make something new.  i do some machine sewing too, but the chaos in the house has not been helpful for that either.  The hand sewing is also a meditation for me, sometimes a prayer for the world, that all of the diverse people and beings of this world can come together harmoniously and in beauty.

This started out as a dress.  Initially I repaired the top part with some of the dark blue flowers you see here, but eventually that didn't hold and I turned it into an altar cloth.  I am slowly lining the last unlined bits, and hope one day to have reinforced the fragile initial fabric enough that it won't need any new repairs.

This is a painting I did of a frog leaping into the sky.  I took the picture with the paintbrush on it, and decided I liked the whimsy of having it look like the frog is grabbing it.  The painting is acrylics on an 8 inch square canvass.

So, that's a little about me and my creative life.  It's that openness to creativity, both making your own and celebrating what others make, that drew me to and keeps me in fandom, I think.  Nobody here tells me it's a waste of time to sing a song, read a book, or sew flowers and butterflies on something old.