Dear Diary

I know it's not officially winter yet, but you can't fool my bod. All the signs are here. It's dark in the morning. The incidences of Lurgi are increasing. I need a jumper and a huge box of tissues in the morning... and the heater is staying on without anyone wanting to turn it off.

It's very hard to get out of bed in the AM.

I've removed the non-helpful insole from my boots, and that has been very helpful in getting them to fit. I still want to get a new pair when these ones finally go to the great boot-maker in the sky... but now that mission is far less urgent.

I now have enough cabochons to choke a horse. All pure polyputthekettleon of course. And some of them need sorting.

Of the ones that need sorting, there are eight different sizes and some of them are a matter of a micron. Makes me wish that there was some sort of coin-sorter equivalent for plastic flat-back gems. But I'm taking that a pinch at a time.

Of the ones that don't need sorting - they will still need glue despite alleging to be stickers. Dollar shop stickers are pretty notorious for not acting as advertised. So bugger that and pass the araldite. Or superglue. Both seem to be pretty bloody good at sticking things to other things with a minimum of fuss. I think I'll offer the "feathers" as a colour choice and make them on demand. Shouldn't be too much of a hassle.

And when I'm bored with sorting cabochons, I can unearth my file set and try to make a rig to make more wire-efficient pins for my growing supply of small-bore seed beads. I have to use the "inefficient" pins until they're gone, because unbending and re-bending is both a pain in the anatomy and it leads to weak wire.

I am starting my work on Beauties and the Beastly, today. I'm seriously considering starting a new file for the actual book and leaving my nut notes to be nut notes. Steampunk flowers of Victorian Womanhood fighting werewolves, romancing werewolves... one of my heroes is gender fluid and it all ends up with a pan/poly joining ceremony.

It's going to be needlessly complicated, eccentric, rollicking good fun. Current goal - 120 000 words. That's about "average" for a novel, I'm told. If the forces of fate change things and I have to aim higher, I'm sure I won't have much of a problem.