Write Every Day, June Day #21

[auroracloud]

It's Midsummer Night's Eve in Finland - Midsummer is traditionally one of the biggest holidays/festivals in Finland, still one of the only days in the modern times when almost every place is locked up. I like the idea in principle, but I'm not hugely into it in practice, since celebrating it usually means getting very drunk and then being boring idiots, and I'm not into that at all. (For the record, I know how unusual a Finn this makes me, not liking to get drunk, don't remind me. Trust me, I've been reminded more than often enough throughout my life.)

Anyway, I did come to visit family for Midsummer, because it seemed nicer than hanging out in the city on my own. We have, um, eaten things? I've been catching up on comments, the majority of the others are watching a murder series on TV that's slightly too gruesome for me, and I think that says enough about how wild our celebrations are, hah. But the weather's nice and I've brought my swimsuit, hope I can go swimming at some point.

Today's Writing

I did some research reading and notes before I left home. I tried to write in a notebook on the bus, but that didn't go so well, because I started getting motion sickness. I did get almost a couple of hundred words on a new fanfic done, though, and I just typed them up. I also have been editing some fics, including one of the Cottoncandy Bingo fics. So while the new words number less than 300 so far, I still feel I've been doing plenty. Although savvy as I was, I started editing an older fic and only then noticed that I'd already started editing it in another document. Guess I'll have to compare the versions to see which edit is better!

I'd still like to write a bit more fic tonight, we'll see if something speaks to me. Though I ought to also move a bit, since I spent some hours sitting on a bus today.

Tally

Day 1: alexcat, alexseanchai, auroracloud, carenejeans, cassini, china_shop, cornerofmadness, falkner, luzclarita, ofmonstrouswords, shopfront, silveradept, sylvanwitch, used_songs, ysilme

Day 2: alexcat, alexseanchai, auroracloud, carenejeans, china_shop, cornerofmadness, falkner, ofmonstrouswords, sierranovembr, silveradept, sylvanwitch, ysilme

Day 3: alexseanchai, auroracloud, carenejeans, cassini, china_shop, cornerofmadness, falkner, ofmonstrouswords, shopfront, silveradept, sylvanwitch, talkingtothesky, used_songs, ysilme

Day 4: alexcat, alexseanchai, auroracloud, carenejeans, cassini, china_shop, cornerofmadness, falkner, ofmonstrouswords, shopfront, sylvanwitch, tinx_r, ysilme

Day 5: alexseanchai, alexcat, auroracloud, carenejeans, cassini, china_shop, cornerofmadness, falkner, ofmonstrouswords, sierranovembr, silveradept, st_aurafina, sylvanwitch, yantantether, ysilme

Day 6: alexcat, alexseanchai, auroracloud, carenejeans, cassini, china_shop, cornerofmadness, ellieet, ofmonstrouswords, silveradept, sylvanwitch, talkingtothesky, yantantether, ysilme

Day 7: alexcat, alexseanchai, auroracloud, carenejeans, cassini, china_shop, cornerofmadness, ellieet, ofmonstrouswords, sierranovembr, silveradept, st_aurafina, sylvanwitch, ysilme, yantantether (15 so far)

Day 8: alexcat, alexseanchai, auroracloud, carenejeans, cassini, china_shop, cornerofmadness, ellieet, sierranovembr, silveradept, sylvanwitch, talkingtothesky, yantantether, ysilme (14 so far)

Day 9: alexcat, alexseanchai, auroracloud, carenejeans, cassini, china_shop, cornerofmadness, shopfront, sierranovembr, silveradept, st_aurafina, sylvanwitch, talkingtothesky, yantantether, ysilme (15 so far)

Day 10: alexcat, alexseanchai, auroracloud, carenejeans, cassini, china_shop, cornerofmadness, navaan, ofmonstrouswords, silveradept, st_aurafina, sylvanwitch, talkingtothesky, tinx_r, yantantether, ysilme (16 so far)

Day 11: alexcat, alexseanchai, auroracloud, carenejeans, cassini, china_shop, cornerofmadness, navaan, ofmonstrouswords, sierranovembr, silveradept, st_aurafina, sylvanwitch, talkingtothesky, tinx_r, yantantether, ysilme (17 so far)

Day 12: alexcat, alexseanchai, auroracloud, carenejeans, cassini, china_shop, cornerofmadness, ofmonstrouswords, sierranovembr, silveradept, sylvanwitch, talkingtothesky, tinx_r, yantantether, ysilme (15 so far)

Day 13: alexcat, alexseanchai, auroracloud, carenejeans, cassini, china_shop, cornerofmadness, ofmonstrouswords, sierranovembr, silveradept, sylvanwitch, talkingtothesky, tinx_r, yantantether, ysilme (15 so far)

Day 14: alexseanchai, auroracloud, carenejeans, cassini, china_shop, cornerofmadness, silveradept, sylvanwitch, talkingtothesky, used_songs, ysilme (11 so far)

Day 15: alexcat, alexseanchai, auroracloud, carenejean, cassini, china_shop, cornerofmadness, silveradept, sylvanwitch, ysilme (10 so far)

Day 16: alexcat, alexseanchai, auroracloud, carenejeans, cassini, china_shop, cornerofmadness, sierranovembr, silveradept, sylvanwitch (10 so far)

Day 17: alexcat, alexseanchai, auroracloud, carenejeans, cassini, china_shop, cornerofmadness, silveradept, sylvanwitch (9 so far)

Day 18: alexcat, alexseanchai, auroracloud, carenejeans, cassini, china_shop, cornerofmadness, shopfront, sierranovembr, silveradept, st_aurafina, sylvanwitch (11 so far)

Day 19: alexcat, alexseanchai, auroracloud, carenejeans, cassini, china_shop, cornerofmadness, shopfront, sierranovembr, silveradept, sylvan_witch (11 so far)

Day 20: alexcat, alexseanchai, auroracloud, carenejeans, cassini, china_shop, cornerofmadness, shopfront, sierranovembr, silveradept, sylvanwitch (11 so far)

Day 21: china_shop

Let me know if I missed you, or if you wrote but didn't check in yet. You can join in or drop out any time!

Comments

[alexseanchai]

mrgh

also this impressively fucked-up scenario (in which Adrien's experience of child abuse is even worse than canon and it isn't even Gabriel's doing! nor Émilie's, to be clear, and the person whose doing it primarily is has no idea how much worse her attempting to improve Adrien's relationship with his father is actually making Adrien's situation) was after midnight so it counts. (post says twenty of six, post says about ten hours ago, one of these is a lie, but still)

[auroracloud]

Good luck figuring out that technical stuff! I'm utterly clueless about those things.

Dates and times on different sites are all kinds of weird. You count it however you like!

[ysilme]

Glad Midsommar! We used to go to the Saturday events of the Swedish society of the next large town, but stopped when all our close friends from there moved away. But we're going to have a little bonfire tomorrow night just for ourselves.
I totally get being the odd one out because you don't drink; although it's not as bad in Germany as the saying goes for Finland (which is all I have as a comparison ;o) ) it's unusual and often causes remarks and attention if you don't or rarely drink any, and particularly if you don't like beer, like me. :-P I like the taste of some drinks, like good, dry, wine, very dry cider, or smoky and peaty single malt Whisky, but I don't like the feeling of inhibition alcohol causes and really only want it for the taste. Also, I'm having allergic reactions one out of two times I drink alcohol, but totally unpredictable, which is why I usually avoid it if not at home as I don't care to have to deal with that as well.
I'm glad to hear you had at least a decent time with it with your family, and also got some writing time in!
Sorry I haven't reported in for a couple of days, too. I've been reinstalling my desktop (which didn't go without hickups as it's typical for Windows) and also cut my left index finger badly enough to be hampered while typing for a couple of days, so it's been mostly editing for me, and between 100 and 750 words each day since the 16th, although yesterday it's just been a meagre alibi sentence as I was also having a bad sun allergy flare and was just generally miserable.

[auroracloud]

Thanks! There are bonfires here, too (or rather, were, since that was last night), but somehow in my family there's never been a tradition of going to see bonfires, probably because nobody was building them in places where we lived or spent our Midsummer. Though I've gone to see one on occasion, and it is pretty awesome. :-)

And no worries, I'll add you in for the days you reported now! Sorry that you hurt your finger and have had problems with sun allergy, too. Hope you feel better soon! But well done for writing on all the days, even if you occasionally need an alibi sentence day. :-)

When it comes to drinking, I think it's getting better in Finland these days, mostly because the younger generation (the current teens and twenty-somethings) aren't nearly as into drinking themselves crazy as e.g. my age group was in the same age, or the older generations. I don't now what brought on the change, but I'm glad of it. In my age group, most people have gotten more reasonable with age, so it's easier to do social stuff without everyone being drunk. You still get looked really odd if you don't drink any alcohol and don't have a medical excuse for it (like being pregnant or being on a medication that isn't compatible with alcohol). But at least it's possible to have social life not centre around alcohol, even among the small friends groups I've found where we hardly drink anything because nobody is that into it.

I also often get weird reactions from drinks - I think it's the preservatives or something they add in many of them - so I mostly avoid drinking any alcohol at all, or I only drink something like one glass of wine or one bottle of good cider that I know doesn't make me feel unwell. I also like a few things for their taste - many wines, some fruit liquors, good sherry or port, and proper Breton apple cider made from real apples in real oak barrels. (I'm pretty specific about my ciders, yeah. There are a lot of things in the shops they call cider, but actually they're just alcohol, fruit juice, sugars and additives mixed up, and those are awful and I hate them being called ciders because they're not. They could just as well mix grape juice with vodka and additives, and claim that's wine.) But even with them, I have to be super careful. And I don't like beer either. That gets you weird looks here, too, but at least since I'm female, it gets me fewer weird looks, because it's seen more as a "male drink" here while women are supposed to be into, uh, I guess those fake ciders and wine.

[sylvanwitch]

I very much hope you enjoy the rest of your visit without having to socialize too much or otherwise do anything that will make you tired. I think 300 words is an EXCELLENT word count for a day that involved traveling by bus. (I can't even read a MAP while in a moving vehicle or I get motion sickness, so I can definitely empathize with your situation.) I hope your muse is inspired by warm days and swimming and being in places that make you happy. :-) *hugs*

I had a friend from out of town visit. We went for a long walk by the river and then went for Indian food. It was delightful. Prior to her arrival, there was a flurry of cleaning, but before I did all that, I wrote a 1336 word sex scene. Apparently, I had a lot I wanted to...um...express? Lol! Anyway, I think I see the ending in sight!

[auroracloud]

Thank you! I've been able to take it quite easy so far, and the weather has been nice (ie. not too hot most of the time). :-) I've found I can read books on a bus if I sit at the front and don't read when the bus is swerving and turning a lot (e.g. when it's at a city centre). Though if I do it for too long, I might still get motion sickness. But I've learned the hard way that I must not use my laptop on a bus, and it seems notebook-writing is also out (I used to be capable of that, I think). In an ordinary car, I absolutely can't read anything except maybe glance at my phone for a bit. But a bus is big enough that it moves a bit more steadily, I guess.

Sounds like you had a lovely day! And congratulations for still doing all that writing! Sounds like, er, a pleasant activity, glad you had so much to express. ;-) Yay for seeing the ending in sight, as well!

[china_shop]

22nd: More note-taking, some struggling with the beginning of a sequel, and some being stuck on a separate flashfic. Nothing is coming together today, so I think I'm just going to let it lie and hope tomorrow is easier.

Happy Solstice! ♥

[auroracloud]

Sounds like you tried to work on the stories, at least, and probably that's the kind of work that your creative mind was able to do at this point. I'm sure that also the days when we struggle are useful for writing, even if it doesn't seem so at the moment. Yay for note-taking, too, I've been doing a lot of that lately as well!

Thank you!

[sierranovembr]

Today I managed report writing, coding, AND 246 words of fic. And now I have to sleeeeeeeeep. :)

[auroracloud]

Well done, sounds quite productive! Hope you had a good night of sleep. :-)

[cornerofmadness]

I didn't know that the solstice was such a big deal in Finland, interesting (I enjoy celebrating it myself)

I got 184 words for my summer of giles story and 500 words on an unexpected comment_fic

[auroracloud]

It's generally a big thing in the Nordic countries - though it isn't precisely at Solstice, usually. The traditional day for Midsummer has been 24 June, so I think it's the same thing as with Christmas: there's been a big celebration for the peak of light/darkness a few days after the Solstice itself, when you can first tell that the peak has been reached because the days are getting shorter/longer again. But these days it's always celebrated so that the Saturday of a particular week is Midsummer Day and Friday is Midsummer Eve, I guess because the employers didn't want so many public holidays in the middle of the week. I forget how the week is defined, but Midsummer Day falls between 19th and 26th of June, depending on the year. This year it happened to coincide with the actual Solstice. :-) I think it's a big deal in the Nordic countries because the summer nights are so very light and the winter nights so very dark. Also, we Finns may have been influenced by the Swedes, since it was the same country for so long. But I do really like the idea of celebrating solstices and other festivals marked by the actual seasons and the changes in day/night. :-)

Yay for words! It's fun when unexpected fic happens. :-)

[cornerofmadness]

Ah that's good to know, that will be helpful should I ever attempt a Finnish character. Thanks.

[auroracloud]

Feel free to ask me if you ever happen to need information about being Finnish / living in Finland - I have lifetime experience! :-D (I've lived in lots of different areas as well, so the experience is a bit wider than for some people.) (A good thing to know about Midsummer is also that nearly everything is closed down then. I say nearly, because grocery stores and supermarkets are open a lot more these days. Tourists have been known to be very confused, coming to Finland on what they think is an ordinary summer Saturday, and finding nothing's open.)

[cornerofmadness]

I appreciate that offer.

Also good to know. Yeah we used to have a lot of stores and places closed during holidays. These days it's mostly just schools and banks

[silveradept]

Happy Solstice. I was going to say that I hadn't written anything, except that I revised an article that I had gotten comments back from a beta on, so as to make it better and stronger, and it's longer now than it was before, so there were clearly words added. No fic progress today, other than reading, but there's plenty of writing done.

[auroracloud]

Revision counts even if you don't add words, at least for me (I always overwrite things and need to cut down lots of extra stuff, but it's better for the story I do that). But it also definitely counts if you add words! Revising writing is as important as writing the first version. :-)

[talkingtothesky]

Heyyy. Sorry, this continues to be a bad month for my writing, I've not been checking in. But I did write on Day 15, Day 17 & Day 21.

[auroracloud]

Sorry you're having a bad month for your writing. But well done for writing on those days! Good luck getting your writing to pick up soon! *waves pompoms for you*

[carenejeans]

Happy Solstice!

I wrote 432 words of free-writing, trying to drag some ideas out of my uncooperative brain. It worked! I now have a small list of self-generated prompts. 8-)

Now to work on some of them...

[auroracloud]

Thank you! And wheeeee for free writing working! Glad you got some prompts out of it! I definitely find free writing useful when my creative brain is being uncooperative and/or when I need ideas (or more concrete ideas than a vague "this character would be cool").

Good luck getting yourself to work on your prompts, as well!