Oh yeah, a fan.

 As someone who had an... off-beat kind of growing up experience because of factors... I missed a lot of pop culture stuff. 
And I don't get a ton, a ton of references. 
I was in my late 20's when I binged Buffy and though I like certain artists or books or whatever, I've never really been a "fan." Even when hockey was a weekly ritual, I was in for the experience of making food for my people and watching the French broadcasts for nostalgia reasons.

So one of the unexpected things about having a mini-me -- (and the mini-me is way smarter, stronger, clever, funnier, magical and sparklier) is discovering fandoms and through all that, discovering what it is to take joy in a massive community at the same time others are..).

 The books were in my TBR pile. 

I don't have a lot of spare time to binge shows and honestly most of what I watch is cozy UK series...knitting, cakes, etc because I'm all for curating your own reality as much as possible...so to binge a scripted show in a week... and a hockey show at that (we made a decision that hockey wasn't going to be a weekly feature in our house with the offspring and not an extra-circular for reasons I saw back in  2018 and no regrets. We live where we live, so there needs to be enough awareness to not be in culture isolation but it's not a pursuit or a hobby or a fandom that we engage in).

Yeah. 
I love so much about this show. 
But as a writer, who writes genre fiction seeing how other people react to genre fiction maybe for the first time ever experiencing it is kind of surreal..kind of like, "Oh, they're learning about the club I'm in."

Including my Mate who kind of somehow, slid his way into my re-watch.  

And the cutesy PR stuff? Gah. Love, love. 

(And watching an author hit the literal jackpot? Amazing. That just puts a damn smile on my face). 

 

 It's a frozen hellscape out there. Find joy where you can. 

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DBXLIl-CAMO/?hl=en

here to whine

Snowing. 
 For a month. 
And that is not an exaggeration but winter fact. 

*sigh* 
And please hold the commentary of, "Well you knew there was more snow there..." Yes. 

But it's amazing how the weather factor was at the bottom of the list when other prioritizes came first.  

Maybe it's the urge to hibernate or not quite recovered from the holiday-ness (it was a cheerful, colourful blur) but I'm feeling sluggish and my writing sessions are not going at the pace I prefer (ha). 

But I have more trust this year that words will get down. New books will emerge. 

So that's something that makes me smile during this first week of the new year. Hope 2026 is good to you, friends.  

 

Because it's Solstice...

In my author world, my feed is filled with year wrap-ups. 

I published one book this year.

That's it.

And I think it's the best book I've written so far and that's the goal but yeah. And I am going to finish off the year with the close out of a series and one more release (so that makes two books published just in the nick of the time) but I feel... like I don't have the energy for that type of engagement on my socials.

Stillness is the theme of the Solstices and I don't know why that has been lost in all the fluffery of pagan everything on the inter-webs (don't take this the wrong way --- I adore the fluffery so often! I post with fluffery! Love how it's in the mainstream and there's a whole Solstice ritual on TikTok right now making the rounds! Seriously, teenage me would be gleeful) but coming across this post today, made me reflect that this year for me, writing wise has been about holding steady.

And maybe that's enough.

If you dropped by here, I wish you a peaceful holiday season and the rest you need. 

 

*** 

 

Today is the shortest day and the longest night, in the Druidic calendar it is called Alban Arthan, the Winter Solstice. It is tempting to consider this day to be the triumphant rebirth of the Sun, but the Sun has not yet returned, it has only stopped falling. This is the still point of the year, the moment when the descent ends, but the climb has not yet begun. It is a liminal period that lasts for several days until the dawning of Christmas day. For three days the Sun appears to stand still, balanced on the edge of absence, not moving forward and not slipping further away.

The Sun rests here because the Earth herself is turning, her axis leans towards our star.

Nothing about this moment is symbolic alone, it is actually happening. The light that warms our blood, that ripens seed and leaf, that sings to bulbs hidden in the bed of soil, that keeps oceans moving and winds alive has now entered its deepest inward breath. It is like an intake of breath before we raise voice in song. We are not separate or passive observers of this mystery, our bodies know this turning, our bones register the long night. Our dreams deepen because the Sun has drawn away.

This is not psychology.

It is relationship.

The Sun does not return because we hope for it to do so. It returns because the cosmos is ordered, because cycles continue to hold, and even the greatest fires must bow to rhythm. However, without this fire there can be no life, there can be no green surge in spring, no harvest to gather in autumn and no breath in our lungs.

The Solstice is not a festival of triumph, we do not celebrate a conquest, it is not the victory of light over darkness. It is the moment when we discover that the darkness has gone as far as it can. The world does not change because we demand it, it changes because it has reached its limit. On this shortest day and longest night, we honour endurance of the Sun and the endurance of the Earth, and our own small endurance within that perpetual dance.

This is a teaching.

There are moments in life when forward motion might fail us, when striving only deepens the night, when actually the most powerful act is simply to remain and hold the line, to stay awake in the dark, to refuse despair without pretending that hope has already arrived. The Sun does not leap upward today, all dramatic with bells and whistles, instead it rests and gathers itself in the long night, and because it does, light will eventually return. Therefore today we do not rush the dawn of the morrow, we wait and honour the pause. We might sit with what has been lost, stripped away and reduced, we pause to acknowledge the quiet strength it takes to endure. This is the Solstice mystery, that when nothing more can be taken from you, when the night has done its worst, when all that remains is a single and steady flame, that that is truly enough. From that stillness the year will turn, from that darkness life remembers itself.

May you stand still today, unbroken, and may the light, when it comes find you ready.

 - Kristoffer Hughes

It's a tradition

 Thinking of this place.  

I always seem to be in the stage of missing community... 

Also? This is where I used to write about kink. 

And though I have lots of writing out in the world (just last week, another book out) this is the OG. 

We went to a dungeon recently. 

It was --- 

Too intimate to talk about. Too sacred to give words to. 

Processing still. 

But what I love about this stage of throwing in kink when you can, of slipping into D/s when we can, of me being squarely in the absolute position of the person who runs this damn habitat...

is how collaborative it is now and fun. Way, way more fun than when it was when I started here. 

I told him to fuck off in a room full of people with scenes going on (as part of our scene). 

Do you know how long it took me to do that??? How amazing I felt? That I could actually, use my voice in a space like that? Yeah, it was wild. 

And then the next scene which was exactly what he wanted that invovled rope-- was laughing and giggly and .. fun. 

So. 

I'm still here. In the thick of it (just different but similarly the same juggling of plates) 

Thought about this place because it's where I worked out a whole lot of daddy issues (laughs) and this year my choice was monster cookie and salted pretzel. 

small dose.

 blog cleanse.