February 28: Editing Dragonling, Apothecaria, April plans, and Cat Story

Oh it's been several days now, hasn't it.

I got edits to A Dragonling's Family to 71% complete last night, huzzah. That was my big creative goal for the month! Now I can slack off for the next two days.

I've been reading the new Time Princess story, "The Underground City: Stirring Shadows Part 1", for the last several days, since its release on February 22. Time Princess released two really awful stories last year ("Lunar Legends" and "Mysteries of Zentico"), and maybe this reset my expectations for TP stories to the point where I react with "oh hey I really enjoyed this story despite several glaring flaws" to some of the more recent stories. 

Anyway, now I have to wait for Part 2 to read the rest. It's nice that Time Princess stories can make it past my general reflex against reading these days. Despite me knowing perfectly well that things like "comics" and "interactive fiction" are reading, my brain clearly doesn't file them into the same category as books. Brains are weird. I should try reading a book again, though, it's been a while.

I've done a little more miniatures painting this past week, but not as much as in the first half of the month. Been letting myself slack off instead of sitting down every morning for a little painting. I should probably do some painting today just because I'm not doing much else with my day. 

Writing Apothecaria has been more of a struggle than it was in the early days. Spending a lot of time thinking about what to write and not using prompts. When I finally got to a prompt-based section of the story, I only wrote five or so entries before running out of prompts. Now I have to decide what Cassie is doing with the rest of her week and mph. Early in the story I'd just have her wander around looking for random reagents, but that's not as fun as it was when I hadn't explored much of the locales yet. I was thinking last night that it's gotten to the point where illustrating is easier than writing. "Hmm, I wonder if I could work ahead on illustrations instead? what if I just drew some pictures and then eventually wrote entries to go with them?"

...

I feel like this is not the path of wisdom. 

I am almost to one year of daily Apothecaria posts. So weird. One friend commented that my streak of posting Apothecaria daily would have to end eventually because it's not like I'm gonna write this for the rest of my life. Which is true! But also I will get to the end of the story eventually (assuming I don't quit because it's no longer sufficiently fun) so it's possible that the streak won't end until the story does. TIME WILL TELL.

Lut and I are about three episodes into RWBY season six now. We watched a movie, too -- The Marvels -- which I enjoyed more than Lut did.

Oh, and I have plans for April! A friend and I plan to watch the eclipse together on April 8, and even to drive a few hours to get well into the path of it. The 2017 eclipse was more fun than I expected so I've been thinking ever since that I should catch the next one that was nearby. The day after the eclipse, by coincidence, my sister is flying in for a work conference. So I'll see her for a few days, too. That'll be nice.

I did a few push-ups today and now my left arm is all 'you will PAY for this indignity!' Ow. Corporeal forms are an awful lot of trouble.

I had just thought of something else I wanted to include in this and then instantly forgot as soon as I got the document open. Brain. Why. I don't think it was to tell a cute story about my cat but I remembered one now in place of whatever the mystery item was, so here.

It had been warm for several days, getting up to 80F on Monday. So Lyric's been spending more time outside. She especially likes to go out in the late afternoon and sometimes to stay out all night. On Tuesday afternoon, she went out. Before I went to bed, I checked at the living room door to see if she wanted back in, and was startled to find (a) no cat waiting to come in and (b) a dusting of snow on the ground. I called for her a few times, did a chore, and checked the door again. No cat. I checked the kitchen door and she wasn't at it either. I considered just going to bed, but decided to check the garage for her first. I stepped outside and called out, "Lyric", and immediately Lyric bolted out of the garage and sprinted for the open door. I don't know why she didn't come when I called for her by the living room door, since I'm pretty sure she could hear me from there. But at least she didn't have to spend the night sheltering in the garage.