Fandom chatter, music chatter, musings of no particular import

[lucymonster]

Chocolate Box is revealing this weekend, and I'm caught between excitement for my gifts (yes, I have shaken them to within an inch of their life; yes, they look absolutely perfect) and disappointment in my own output. With the day this close and no new words flowing, I've had to stop lying to myself about my ability to treat this round and admit that I'm in full-blown creative burnout. It's been coming for months and I knew sooner or later it would catch me up, but it's a shame not to be able to contribute more to one of my favourite events of the year. 

Actually, when I think about it, I fell into a hole early last year as well - it was much worse, and the only time so far I've ever had to default on an exchange. Januaries and Februaries are often weird for me, with a combination of post-holiday exhaustion and New Year projects swallowing all my energy. But I really want to be back on form for Kink Lucky Dip and May the 4th, so between now and March, I've basically decided not to write at all unless I get so gripped by inspiration that I can't resist. No trying to force it. No 'oh, just a hundred words a day'. Clearly the well is dry and I need to wait while it fills back up.

In a similar vein, I'm glad I put music on my list of new media that counts towards my non-New-Year's-resolution, because my ability to read anything that isn't either fanfic or a textbook is shot. When I'm really tired, I don't always even listen to the music I'm taking an interest in - I've been wasting ridiculous amounts of time browsing review sites and genre primers, compiling long lists of things I theoretically plan to listen to at some point. It all skews heavily towards metal. I've never been someone who only listens to one genre, but growls and blastbeats are scratching an itch for me that nothing else does right now.

That says, as I write this I'm listening to the extremely non-metal Tamino and feeling great about it. Sun May Shine is eerie and atmospheric and has hands down the most haunting falsetto I've ever heard. My little sister got me into him on a long drive in the dark last year. I really need to get her to send me her whole playlist from that trip. Her taste overall is about as different from mine as it's possible to be, but on the rare occasions we overlap, we overlap hard.