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chocolatepot) wrote2023-01-24 11:21 am
chocolatepot) wrote2023-01-24 11:21 am
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Haven't been bookbinding much
It took me forever because I have so little time for reading, but I finished Ocean's Echo! It was just as good as Winter's Orbit, although I felt like the romance was backgrounded a little bit (I'd compare it to the difference between MDZS and TGCF for the danmei fans). Still, I loved the pairing of the dutiful soldier with the tricksy pain-in-the-ass, it's a good dynamic.
Started reading The Belle of Belgrave Square, an 1860s romance by Mimi Matthews. I picked it up because I read the first book in the series last year and found it pretty enjoyable - the love interest was a tailor/couturier with English and Indian ancestry, which is extremely unusual for historical romance (which is normally like "aristocratic/gentry white men ONLY"). Was a bit more hesitant this time because the love interest is apparently an older white military officer with a bad reputation for harshness (per the first book), but just in the first chapter the implications seem pretty clear that he's actually someone from the guy's unit who stole his identity and is now honorably taking care of the officer's illegitimate children. The heroines of these also have real problems - the first one had a sister who was "ruined" and this one has dickensian hypochondriac parents - so all in all they are satisfying stories with satisfying obstacles.
I mean, I'm only just into it and I already care even though they're an m/f couple, and I can't tell you how little I can be bothered for m/f couples in fiction these days. (It's really hitting me lately how little effort so many book and tv writers put into selling you on the couple.)
Speaking of the gays, I finished and posted another lesbian blackbonnet fic yesterday - A Perfect Pair. (I do not like the title but titles are hard and it's okay enough.) The process of writing it was really interesting because I had no real intention of it becoming sexy, events just ... happened that way as emotions carried things. I'm not generally a writer of sex scenes (I think this is only my third Explicit fic on AO3, out of 78 works? No, second, apparently the omegaverse Austen fic was M) and I nearly always have more interest in focusing on the romantic rather than the sexual, and no the two things are not inherently separate but I adore people staring into each other's eyes in the moonlight and generally have no interest in actually writing an escalation to sex - even writing kissing for me is like, eh. Not anymore, I guess!
(I have been learning a LOT about myself in the past year ... I went from "I'm bisexual in that I don't just admire women aesthetically, I think" to "oh, now I understand why some bi women call themselves lesbians," and I don't think this is unrelated to why I'm like finally discovering the appeal of sex at the same time I start getting more into f/f. Would have been useful to figure this out before 35, but oh well.)
There were multiple original writing projects I was going to try to do this month, but they just ... did not happen.
Started reading The Belle of Belgrave Square, an 1860s romance by Mimi Matthews. I picked it up because I read the first book in the series last year and found it pretty enjoyable - the love interest was a tailor/couturier with English and Indian ancestry, which is extremely unusual for historical romance (which is normally like "aristocratic/gentry white men ONLY"). Was a bit more hesitant this time because the love interest is apparently an older white military officer with a bad reputation for harshness (per the first book), but just in the first chapter the implications seem pretty clear that he's actually someone from the guy's unit who stole his identity and is now honorably taking care of the officer's illegitimate children. The heroines of these also have real problems - the first one had a sister who was "ruined" and this one has dickensian hypochondriac parents - so all in all they are satisfying stories with satisfying obstacles.
I mean, I'm only just into it and I already care even though they're an m/f couple, and I can't tell you how little I can be bothered for m/f couples in fiction these days. (It's really hitting me lately how little effort so many book and tv writers put into selling you on the couple.)
Speaking of the gays, I finished and posted another lesbian blackbonnet fic yesterday - A Perfect Pair. (I do not like the title but titles are hard and it's okay enough.) The process of writing it was really interesting because I had no real intention of it becoming sexy, events just ... happened that way as emotions carried things. I'm not generally a writer of sex scenes (I think this is only my third Explicit fic on AO3, out of 78 works? No, second, apparently the omegaverse Austen fic was M) and I nearly always have more interest in focusing on the romantic rather than the sexual, and no the two things are not inherently separate but I adore people staring into each other's eyes in the moonlight and generally have no interest in actually writing an escalation to sex - even writing kissing for me is like, eh. Not anymore, I guess!
(I have been learning a LOT about myself in the past year ... I went from "I'm bisexual in that I don't just admire women aesthetically, I think" to "oh, now I understand why some bi women call themselves lesbians," and I don't think this is unrelated to why I'm like finally discovering the appeal of sex at the same time I start getting more into f/f. Would have been useful to figure this out before 35, but oh well.)
There were multiple original writing projects I was going to try to do this month, but they just ... did not happen.