What I Did in September

Not all that much going on this month, honestly! Few project ideas have appeared in my mind. Maybe something about not having university work beating down on me makes my brain less eager to escape to projects. What few things have I been up to, though?

Job Hunting

It begins... I am in the off-season for graduate roles so it's not too fruitful at the moment, but I've put together a sankey diagram and popped it up here, so you can check in from time to time to see how it's going. Wish me luck!

A Little Yellow Book..?

Okay, so I know I'm not supposed to talk about things here that aren't done (because what if I never finish them), but this one is a more-than-one-month-long project that I really think I will finish. I've not really finished a large project before this year - in fact, these blog posts have been helping me complete things for the first time, and I'm hoping that my skills have, like, progressed to the point where I can take on something larger.

Months ago, when first getting to know my girlfriend, I had a dream pockmarked with her hallmarks, wherein I held a little yellow book, filled with poetry about the moon. As I paged through, I began to notice that its texts and woodcut illustrations were riddled with riddles, puzzles, secrets. I told her about this and she said: "Holy shit. I need this book." So I'm making it for her!

I have so many wicked puzzles in development which I cannot spoil, but I will share here the hint I showed her, which is the (not-final) cover.

Zoom in and check out the hatching patterns!

Wish me luck finishing it! I hope to have it at least in-manufacturing from a print-on-demand place by the end of next month.

What I Read this Month!

Twig Arc 19: Root and Branch

This book practically has me crying nearly every chapter, at this point. It's so sad! Gosh, the scene where Sy finds out just how many memories Jessie's been dropping ruined me, reading in the dark with my new secondhand frontlight-featured kindle. (Lesson learned: put a case on your ereader lest it be shattered!) I was also reading while on my way to meet a friend and had to sit down in the beautiful Muru Giligu to process my feelings after finishing a chapter before continuing on my way to meet her.

At the end of this chapter, gosh, I'm a little apprehensive to see how Wildbow ends it! My heart is ready to be torn to shreds, eagerly offering handholds to him by way of the the love I hold for these characters, but, though I liked the ending to Worm, I felt let down by the ending of Pact, so I'm worried whether he'll pull it off! We'll see how it goes. (Though the name of the final arc being "Crown of Thorns" makes me worry that he's just gonna remove Sy from the plot and have The Infante fill his brain instead, doing the classic Twig moment of removing the characters from the story so I cannot empathise with them.) Fingers crossed it sings, instead. I will be reading the next arc immediately, rather than interleaving it. So excited.

And That's It!

Chat to you at the end of October!