Oh No December

I intended to make another attempt to do a post a day in December. Last year was unsuccessful but, hey, I tried. ALAS, it is 2020, so I missed the fact that December started yesterday. Well done me.

This year, well, everyone knows about this year. It started in March, lasted approximately three decades, and now it’s December. I went to the Gallifrey One convention in February, which is clearly absurd, as according to our normal understanding of time that was about nine months ago. It wasn’t. It was about seven years, I think. In conclusion, I normally enter December feeling awful about how rubbish I’ve been the previous eleven months, but this year it’s different! This year it’s all okay; it was rubbish, and there is absolutely no way I can blame myself for it cause worldwide pandemic. Hurrah!

That said, I shall endeavour to keep these posts cheery. As cheery as one can be when it is cold and dark and the faces of wolves are staring in at you from the windows. I SEE YOU WOLVES. So I shall share three yayful things.

Yayful Thing 1

I wrote quite a few things this year. It’s a bit brilliant that the whole actually writing things thing continues, but it does, and it’s brilliant. And this month my very first (and very last, the range ends next year) Big Finish Main Range four-parter is released!

The Grey Man of the Mountain features the Seventh Doctor, Ace, and the Brig; it’s a bit Scottish and there are snowstorms and spookiness and lovely cups of tea as they investigate the legend of Am Fear Liath Mòr, or The Big Grey Man. For there is a mysterious creature that haunts the summit of Ben MacDui…

Twas tremendously exciting writing this, for all sorts of reasons. But the thing that really hits the most is that I’ve written a full-length story for the Big Finish Main Range. Twenty years I’ve been listening to these, and for five of those years they were *the* Doctor Who. I never really connected with the books, I admit, and there was no telly Who. I remember giddily listening to Storm Warning – the first Paul McGann audio – for the first time, and it was just so *magical* to finally have an adventure after the telly movie. And then another. And another! And then to have more of my beloved classic Doctors, to explore ideas and characters and worlds that never had a chance on the telly, brillliant. And those feelings are all tied up with the joy of being a part of online fandom, and the friends and communities and fanfic of the early 2000s.

They mean so much to me, and the idea that I’d get to write one of them one day was not even a thing in my head it just seemed so unlikely. But here we are!

Yayful Thing 2

Another fine year of podcasting! Both Verity! and Hammer House of Podcast continue, and thank you most kindly if you listen to either. I share here my most favourite podcast episode of the year (that I participated in, anyway). It is very serious and highly researched and truly epic in its deep and intense examination of thematic…stuff. I present to you: Verity! Extra Doctor Who Saves the Universe! (1976).

Yayful Thing 3

One of the things that’s got me through the sheer unadulterated ghastliness that is 2020 is, um, stationery. NO MOCKERY PLEASE. I’ve always loved stationery. But then I found out about bulletjournaling and my eyes lit up like perfectly normal sized Christmas lights. “OH, a way I can both JUSTIFY and ACTUALLY USE questionable stationery purchases?!! Marvellous.” So, yes, I have much of the stationery, and I love it, and there is ZERO GUILT as it’s been over two months since I started this BuJo thing and Every Single Day I’ve made use of some of this massive nonsense I’ve bought. And it makes me very happy. I hope you too, dear reader, have found ways both sillly and profound to help you through this year.

Until, fingers crossed, tomorrow! Farewell!