The Year in Random Review
Dec. 31st, 2014 07:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hrjSince I have some time to kill before heading off to a NYE party (and it would be dangerous to think I could catch a quick nap), herewith is the "first sentence of each month's postings" meme. I reserve the right to strip off the introductory link-statement for any of them that are LHMP posts.
January: Just for grins and giggles -- and for various other sociological reasons -- I've taken up the challenge to enter the West Kingdom's A&S championship this year.
And, in fact, I carried through. I didn't enter as many of the individual competitions as I originally planned to, but I entered enough to technically qualify for the overall championship. No chance at all of winning -- that wasn't what I was in it for -- but a goal achieved.
February: As you may remember from the last post, we get a view into what else was going on at these banquets (besides eating) from the 1548 menu which describes a “flower game” that comes after the confectionary course and before the collation.
This was one of a series of posts doing a structural analysis of a set of feast menus from the 16th c. Italian chef Messisbugo. It was a really fun project and I hope other people got some useful information out of it.
March: So I still haven't finished blogging the books I bought at Kalamazoo last May (and true to my vow, they're still sitting stacked on the coffee table in the living room waiting for me to do so).
I did, in fact, catch up with my book-intake blogging before going to Kalamazoo again, and have kept up-to-date on it ever since then.
April: In honor of @LeVotreGC's twitter movement #whanthataprilleday (posts in ancient or medieval languages), I offer a translation** into Medieval Welsh of the opening paragraph of my Mabinogi-pastiche lesbian romance story Hoywferch:
And, in fact, this exercise may have been the kick-in-the-pants I needed to return to the story and clean it up a bit. It is currently out on submission and I should hear back on whether they want it by the end of next week. If this market doesn't want it, I'll figure out where to send it next.
May: I'm working on a number of writing-related projects at the moment, but there's nothing to actually show for it yet. But just to feel like I've been doing something, here's the list:
Out of 10 projects I listed in that post, 7 of them were completed/accomplished as planned or in an equivalent manner. Three weren't: 2 blog posts that would have required significant research (and my research energy has gone elsewhere), and I wasn't able to convince Bella to take up the Skin-Singer collection (on the other hand, the final story for that is completed, so maybe that should count to tick off the box).
June: I hope to finish up the intake-reviews in two more sessions.
Yes, once more I'm powering through the book-intake posts from shopping at Kalamazoo.
July: Even though I'm relaxing my one-a-day rule now that June is past, I didn't want to start off on the wrong foot by skipping a day.
I started the Lesbian Historic Motif Project in June with a post every day, then slacked off to only three per week. I've kept that schedule up successfully since then and have enough material to continue at that rate for perhaps a couple of years at this point.
August: The 1996 collection Handbook of Medieval Sexuality should be viewed in light of its chronology in the emerging field of the history of historic gender and sexuality studies.
Statistically speaking, a first-of-the-month post has only a slightly less than even chance of being from the LHMP.
September: Emma Donoghue writes incredibly fact-dense books drawn from impressively deep research into English historic lesbian culture.
But, in fact, due to the vagaries of the calendar, the universe aligns such that 5 of 6 first-of-the-month posts in the second half of the year are LHMP posts. This is, to some extent, representative of what I've been doing with my time.
October: The heart of Brooten's research are a handful of references to erotic relationships between women in literature that is not necessarily focusing on the social politics of sex (and therefore where the discussion is not as self-consciously polemical).
As I said …
November: I was busy transcribing text for what was supposed to be chapter 1 of Mother of Souls and I realized that the impending pregnancy discussed in that chapter just didn't work at all in terms of timing and needed to be put off for a year.
Courtesy of a wall full of colorful post-it notes, I organized all my plot ideas for Mother of Souls and Floodtide and started the serious phase of my next two books. I'm really rather excited about the complexity involved.
December: This is a sizable work, tackling the broad topic of female homoeroticism in 16-17th century England.
And with that, my year comes to a close.
January: Just for grins and giggles -- and for various other sociological reasons -- I've taken up the challenge to enter the West Kingdom's A&S championship this year.
And, in fact, I carried through. I didn't enter as many of the individual competitions as I originally planned to, but I entered enough to technically qualify for the overall championship. No chance at all of winning -- that wasn't what I was in it for -- but a goal achieved.
February: As you may remember from the last post, we get a view into what else was going on at these banquets (besides eating) from the 1548 menu which describes a “flower game” that comes after the confectionary course and before the collation.
This was one of a series of posts doing a structural analysis of a set of feast menus from the 16th c. Italian chef Messisbugo. It was a really fun project and I hope other people got some useful information out of it.
March: So I still haven't finished blogging the books I bought at Kalamazoo last May (and true to my vow, they're still sitting stacked on the coffee table in the living room waiting for me to do so).
I did, in fact, catch up with my book-intake blogging before going to Kalamazoo again, and have kept up-to-date on it ever since then.
April: In honor of @LeVotreGC's twitter movement #whanthataprilleday (posts in ancient or medieval languages), I offer a translation** into Medieval Welsh of the opening paragraph of my Mabinogi-pastiche lesbian romance story Hoywferch:
And, in fact, this exercise may have been the kick-in-the-pants I needed to return to the story and clean it up a bit. It is currently out on submission and I should hear back on whether they want it by the end of next week. If this market doesn't want it, I'll figure out where to send it next.
May: I'm working on a number of writing-related projects at the moment, but there's nothing to actually show for it yet. But just to feel like I've been doing something, here's the list:
Out of 10 projects I listed in that post, 7 of them were completed/accomplished as planned or in an equivalent manner. Three weren't: 2 blog posts that would have required significant research (and my research energy has gone elsewhere), and I wasn't able to convince Bella to take up the Skin-Singer collection (on the other hand, the final story for that is completed, so maybe that should count to tick off the box).
June: I hope to finish up the intake-reviews in two more sessions.
Yes, once more I'm powering through the book-intake posts from shopping at Kalamazoo.
July: Even though I'm relaxing my one-a-day rule now that June is past, I didn't want to start off on the wrong foot by skipping a day.
I started the Lesbian Historic Motif Project in June with a post every day, then slacked off to only three per week. I've kept that schedule up successfully since then and have enough material to continue at that rate for perhaps a couple of years at this point.
August: The 1996 collection Handbook of Medieval Sexuality should be viewed in light of its chronology in the emerging field of the history of historic gender and sexuality studies.
Statistically speaking, a first-of-the-month post has only a slightly less than even chance of being from the LHMP.
September: Emma Donoghue writes incredibly fact-dense books drawn from impressively deep research into English historic lesbian culture.
But, in fact, due to the vagaries of the calendar, the universe aligns such that 5 of 6 first-of-the-month posts in the second half of the year are LHMP posts. This is, to some extent, representative of what I've been doing with my time.
October: The heart of Brooten's research are a handful of references to erotic relationships between women in literature that is not necessarily focusing on the social politics of sex (and therefore where the discussion is not as self-consciously polemical).
As I said …
November: I was busy transcribing text for what was supposed to be chapter 1 of Mother of Souls and I realized that the impending pregnancy discussed in that chapter just didn't work at all in terms of timing and needed to be put off for a year.
Courtesy of a wall full of colorful post-it notes, I organized all my plot ideas for Mother of Souls and Floodtide and started the serious phase of my next two books. I'm really rather excited about the complexity involved.
December: This is a sizable work, tackling the broad topic of female homoeroticism in 16-17th century England.
And with that, my year comes to a close.
