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wasalwaysagreatpickle · 4 years

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Friday 8 August 1828

7 50/60

12 1/2

All ready to be off, and breakfast in 20 minutes at 9 20/60 – Read Scotland tourist – saunter out to watch the arrival of the coach (from Edinburgh to Newcastle through Jedburgh) at 10 – said last night would send my luggage by it, and walk myself by Driburgh to Jedburgh – but determined this morning to miss Driburgh, and go by the coach – all in vain, the coach so full could not even take my luggage – wonder it did not break down –

Off in a chaise at 11 10/60 having put into the post office in passing a line or 2 ‘to the mistress of the Crown and Mitre Inn and coffee house Carlisle ‘to say my return there was uncertain, and begging her, at all rates, to send off my box by the York coach on Monday without fail – fine view of the Eildon hills (Scotland tourist 309/415), at 11 50/60 pretty hill-seated village of Newton – lodgings to let there could live there for a while – very hilly road – look over wide hilly plain! – pillar erected by the marquess of Lothian to the memory of those who fell at Waterloo, very conspicuous in the distance – fine rich country –

Turn left down to Driburgh suspension bridge (erected by the earl of Buchan Scotland Tourist 314/415) and alight at the bridge at 12 5/60 painted white – great white wooden suspension pillars with a transverse lying across them as a binder – not near so pretty as Melrose suspension bridge – the [zonic] round red sandstone temple to the 9 muses, on a little eminence at the end of the bridge, with a white Belvidere apollo in the middle of it – not in the regular grounds – not connected with anything – why put there? – Sir William Wallace, too, quite [white] on large red sandstone pediment at the top of ridge of hill among wood –

The abbey a considerable and beautiful remain but made up with garden walls, and orchards – the woman let me to what she called the hall – some of the gothic arch work round the stalls repaired in wood – and full of trumpery plaster of paris busts – in a niche – in one of the walls a good stone bust of the present lord Buchan when 59 – Sit Walter Scott’s burial place recorded as given to him in 1791 – his wife lies there – the house a modern good-looking sort of common reddish sandstone gents house closed up by fence walls – his lordship now in his 86th year, must always have been a man of sickly taste – his a natural son with him, but his nephew, Andrew Esskime, must succeed him – the scenery around the house would be beautiful if properly thrown open - scenery along the river pretty – precipitous red banks, and wooded slopes to the water’s edge – Lord B- [Buchan] takes toll or pontage for the bridge – the same rate for foot passengers at least as at Melrose –

Got back to the chaise at 12 50/60 it had just begun to rain before I left the abbey – inside for above an hour – till fair – rained very heavily for some time – some very fine timber about Ancrum house Sir William Scott, bart.

At 1 50/60 2 miles beyond Ancrum (right) see the long line of fir wood belonging to Chester (Ogilvie Esquire) – leave Ancrum 1/4 ? m. right – very hilly road – fine rich country – yellow corn – fine, green hedges and fir woods about the different [gentlemans] seats – especially the Marquess of Lothian’s Teviot hill – Lord Minto’s place among the wood on the hill, above and behind Chesters – at 2 pass over Ancrum bridge 3 red sandstone arches over broad shallow Teviot – turn left along beautiful little valley of the Jed – Jedburgh looks well – its new jail or castle on the hill and the fine old ruined abbey the tolbooth (old jail now partly turned into a library) in the town below fine objects –

Alight at the Spread Eagle Jedburgh at 2 40/60 See going towards the abbey inquire my way of a Mr White a brewer – very civil – even went all over the abbey and to the top of it with me – the abbey belongs to the Marquess of Lothian – by his sufferance they have a church in it – £2000 raised by subscription laid out in repairing the old tower (going to fall) a year or 2 ago – the marquess subscribed £200? – the present parapet round the top of the tower not like the old one good – but a great pity to have attended it – very large [remainder] – the largest I have seen – larger than Melrose – finer? if seen to advantage – too much choked up – the church in it spoils it – from the abbey to the castle or new jail – opened in 1822 – cost 6 or 7 thousand pounds 27 cells – a mill to grind barley for broth, instead of a tread mill – 2 men cannot work it longer than 5 minutes at a time – only 3 prisoners in for debt and 2 others – 1 man for attempt to murder, and a boy for petty theft – very neat, well-kept airy prison – went to the top – rather thick – or would be very fine view – fine view as it was over the town etc. –

[weens] Mr Cleghorn on the Newcastle road, about 7 miles off – went into the post-office (a booksellers shop) for a print of the abbey – the man very civil – sent to get me the best, though a bad one at 4d [pence] and then walked with me to see the point of view whence taken – took me to see ‘the philosopher’ James Veitch a self-taught mathematician and optician – a very John Oates but more learned – excellent microscope 4 guineas on a new principal, and a chromatic telescope when finished would be 12 guineas – both cheap – a very clever genius of a man – very civil to me – I talked about Euclid (algebra) etc. – he shewed me how he made an equal (a perfect) screw – shewed me a clock he had made which did not vary 4 seconds in a month – Lord Minto, and many other gents go and spend hours with him – he is a joiner by trade – likes Vincés astronomy - Lalandés and Callets logarithms –

Then my friend and I walked a little up the valley beautiful and continuous so for 4 miles – the Jed running along between fine red and wooded banks, the road crossing perpetually from 1 side to the other – picturesque straw thatched cottages – very beautiful little valley – at about the end of the 4 miles you turn off to weens on the Roole (as pronounced) water – Mr Cleghorn has lately lost an estate that had cost £12,000, and had to pay up arrears – it was bought on a bad title – he thus loses 1/3 of what he has, but this will not injure his respectability in the neighbourhood – his wife much liked – he quite a man of Science – has a taste for architecture etc. Travelled much abroad in Italy etc. – his father’s partner Mr Wilson who retired about 12 years ago has lost all he had but about £200 a year by buying on bad title – the cause came before the house of lords, and was lately decided against Messers Wilson and Cleghorn –

Walked round the great 3 branched oak tree – 6 yards round the bottom of the bole – ‘a very great tree for Scotland’ – my friend (Mr Renwick) gave me an egg cup made of the tree that grew in the abbey from the time of Surrey’s destroying it, 400 years – Mr Wight too met me again in the town and gave 3 little views 2 of Jedburgh and 1 of Kelso abbey – never met with people so civil – got back to the Inn at 6 10/60 – off Jedburgh a picturesque pretty little town – straw thatches going up to the castle – but picturesque -

In a chaise at 6 20/60 – hillyish road through a fine rich fertile well cultivated country – improves towards Kelso – Fleurs large handsome looking white-house (left) – beautiful descent down wooded road down upon the fine bridge and fine river (Tweed) – town very beautifully situated – beautiful and picturesque though not large remainder of the abbey – handsome square, or grande place – alight there at the Cross Keys – Yule, at 7 55/60 – (the white Swann the best inn)

Dinner at 8 40/60 – afterwards settling accounts and writing out today till 11 1/2 – rain from about 12 1/2 for above an hour and from about 6 1/4 to near 7 – went inside the first 35 minutes from Jedburgh – a gentleman would gladly have come with me from Jedburgh and paid 1/2 the chaise – declined – the poet Thomson educated in the school at Jedburgh near the abbey – born at Ednam near Kelso – upstairs at 11 3/4 –

In margin: Jedburgh abbey private property – belongs to the marquess of Lothian – by sufferance that the town has a church in part of the abbey – on this account repaired by subscription – the court of exchequer would have done it, but not being crown property, has nothing to do with it –

#anne lister #1828 #scotland #anne lister code breaker

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cookiedoughmeagain · 7 years

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Annual writing self evaluation - 2017

I was tagged by @grey-haven :)

*All answers should be about works published in 2017

1. List of works published this (last) year

In order of published date, most recent first:

A Hand in His Hair : Haven, Nuke, Rated E Haven Crew Prompts : Haven, Various, Rated G Were you ever going to tell me? : Haven, Nuke, G I Just Wanna Feel … : Haven, Nuke, E Real Distraction : Haven, Nuke, E Out of Space and Time : Haven, Daudrey, E It's Not a Date : Sometimes I write stuff that's not Haven! This is Peluso/Finn from Conviction. Rated T

Wanna make this more interesting? : Haven, Nuke, E After the Troubles : Haven, Various, G Take Care : Haven, Threegulls, G Coffee Break : Haven, Nuke, E Here Be Dragons : Haven, Nuke, G Duke and his boat cat : Haven, Threegulls, G Spun Around : Haven, Nuke, M Nuke and ThreeGulls Sketches : Haven, Threegulls, Nuke and others, T Around the World in 80 Arrest Warrants … : Haven, Nuke, G I Will Always Find You : Haven, Nuke, T I Wasn't In Any Club Last Night : Haven, Nuke, M Five different moments in the life of Duke and Nate, and one that happens without them. : Haven, Nuke, M Vacation : Haven, Nuke, M Proposal (with @grey-haven) : Haven, Nuke, G What Do You Desire? : Haven/Lucifer crossover, M Life Lessons : Haven, Nuke and Gloria, G Wedding Rights : Haven, Nuke, G High School : Haven, Nuke, T 1983 : Haven, Nuke, G Nefarious Creature : Haven, Nuke, E Have a little Faith : Haven/Buffy Crossover, Nuke / Faith, M Fear and Processing : Haven, Nuke, T Snippets From A Life That Might Have Been : Haven, Threegulls, T Mistletoe : Haven, Nuke, BalfourBryant, T Waking Up : Haven, Naudrey to Threegulls, E Long Distance : Haven, Threegulls, E Up Past Lookout Point : Haven, Threegulls, M A minute can last forever : Haven, Threegulls, E Addicted to the feel of her skin : Haven, Mara/Nathan, E Hey Kiddo, : Haven, Duke and Gloria, G If the Wind Changes : Haven, Threegulls, G i lik the fandum : Various fandoms, mostly Haven Game Night : Haven, Threegulls, E Moment by Moment : Haven, Naudrey to Threegulls, E Confidence is a Preference : Haven, Naudrey to Threegulls, E All Alone In The Night : Haven, Daudrey (sort of), M Every cloud has a silver lining : Haven, Threegulls, T Afternoon Luxury : Haven, Threegulls, T The Power of a Touch : Haven, finale fix-it, G You Think You Ever Would? : Haven, Naudrey becomes Threegulls, T

So, that's 91.5% of last years fics are pure Haven, 86% of those are Threegulls or Nuke and 46% of those are E or M rated smut. No real need to ask what inspires me to write, huh?

2. What work are you most proud of and why?

Probably Nefarious Creature because it started off as two different things and took some time to combine into one. Also I love where the title comes from. And the mix of smut and heartache.

But I also love I Just Wanna Feel …, the Fake Phone Number ‘verse (e.g. I Wasn’t in any Club Last Night) and the Nate Hansen AU series - Just because they are fun:)

3. What work are you least proud of and why?

I can't really pick any of those as something that I don't like. One that I find frustrating is Around the World in 80 Arrest Warrants, because I love the concept and I want to write more for it, but that is proving to be difficult.

4. A favourite excerpt of your writing

One of many possible options, this is from I Just Wanna Feel …

“Fuck off Duke,” Nathan said tiredly and turned to leave.

“Wait, Nathan don't let me scare you off. Stay and have a drink, you'll settle in.” Duke reached out as he spoke, grabbing Nathan’s arm to stop him from going, in a largely automatic gesture given that he knew Nathan wouldn't be able to feel it.

Except Nathan did feel it, Duke saw his surprise and his eyes flick automatically to Duke’s hand with a slightly stunned expression. Duke moved a little closer, partly blocking Nathan’s exit route against the crowd of people behind them. “It's happening again, isn't it?” Duke asked, intrigued. “Your Trouble’s fading.”

“I am not interested in talking about it with you,” replied Nathan.

“OK,” Duke said in acknowledgement. He didn't step away though. He moved a little closer instead and placed the palm of his hand on Nathan's forearm, fingers curling around to the soft skin inside. “Then you won't be interested in telling me why I shouldn't be doing this,” he said as his thumb traced a small circle on the inside of Nathan's arm.

“Duke,” Nathan said, careful and low; half warning him to stop, half pleading with him to carry on.

Duke moved his hand up towards Nathan's elbow, fingers stroking along the inside of Nathan's forearm, following the veins and feeling Nathan's skin shiver in response. He watched Nathan for a reaction, noting that he did not seem very interested in moving his arm away.

“Why deny yourself this?” Duke asked. “You know that I can separate sex from … well, anything else. It doesn't have to get complicated. It doesn't have to mean anything.”

Nathan's eyes flickered closed for a moment against the softly wandering tips of Duke’s fingers and his thumb which had now reached the inside of Nathan's elbow. “What would you get out of it?” Nathan asked after a moment.

Duke almost laughed, thinking A gorgeous man about ready to beg for my touch . Instead he just said, “You're so responsive. I think we could have some fun,” and he stepped a little closer as he pushed his fingers further up Nathan's arm, reaching under the edge of his t-shirt.

“I don't think…” Nathan began, hesitantly.

“You think too much, is the problem,” Duke suggested, adding, “Tell me to stop and I will. Move away and I'll let you go.”

Nathan did not doubt the truth of that. Duke might be a criminal, he might be many things, but Nathan had never seen any indication of him trying to force himself on anyone. He wouldn't need to for one thing, Nathan thought; he'd never seen him short of options for partners. Which kind of backed up the ‘it needn't mean anything’ concept, from Duke’s perspective anyway. Meaningless sex was something Nathan himself had less experience with; it was a concept he had not previously been interested in.

Duke’s fingers pushed further along Nathan's arm, reaching closer up to his body, and he tightened his grip a little as he pulled their bodies closer together.

Nathan thought about pushing Duke away, as he had before in the station. There would be something very satisfying about saying ‘No’ to the cockyass bastard. But, he did not want an end to the sensation of a hand on his skin. He did not want an end to that at all, and so he thought that maybe it was time he explored this ‘meaningless sex’ concept.

Nathan cleared his throat and shifted his weight forward a little, “Don't stop,” he said.

5. Share or describe a favourite comment you received

I've not really had any negative comments, so I love pretty much all of them. I love the comments from friends who I can be fairly sure will find something to like in what I post, and I love the comments that come out of the blue; those from a username I've never seen before, or from someone who has clicked on kudos many times but it's this one fic that prompts them to write a comment :)

6. A time when writing was really, really, hard

To be honest, my main struggle so far * is simply finding the time to do it. Or when I somehow come up with the most smutty plot idea when I'm at work and can't do anything about it. Or getting half way through one thing and then thinking of something else and not knowing which to work on first. Or my enthusiasm for something I've *just* written threatening to overtake me so that I post it without some much-needed editing.

* I say “so far" though, because I've only been doing this for a couple of years or so and it is entirely possible that at some point I will run out of ideas and spend my time staring at a blinking cursor instead.

7. A scene or character you wrote that surprised you

The smut. All of the smut, in the sense that I never would have expected to write any.

And Addicted to the Feel of her Skin, because I never thought I would write something that dark.

8. How did you grow as a writer last year?

Honestly, I don't know. I don't know if I did, but I kept writing so I probably learnt some lessons along the way.

9. How do you hope to grow as a writer this year?

As long as I keep writing I'll be happy, but maybe I should think about branching out into some different fandoms. Or at least some other characters ;)

10. Who was your greatest positive influence last year?

I have to agree with @grey-haven about the positive loveliness of the Haven fandom ... @beyondtriumvirate @yumearashi @serendipityxxi @fiore-della-valle @balfoursyard @queenbookwench @spankedbyspike , and @grey-haven too of course!

And Fragilelittleteacup on AO3 whose wonderful ‘Liquid Courage’ fic inspired my A Hand in his Hair. And @grey-haven for inspiring Spun Around.

And every lovely person whose name I don't know who commented or clicked kudos on my stuff :)

11. Anything from your real life turn up in your writing last year?

Not directly. Themes do, all the time. Or at least, they turn up in the place I'm writing from, whether they're still there in the finished fic to the same extent I'm not so sure. Themes like trust and control, and whether you can ever really know what another person is thinking. Themes like how scary it is to fall in love with someone and how difficult it can be to take that risk.

12. Any new wisdom you can share with other writers?

New wisdom? No. But some of the classics bear repeating:

Write whatever you feel, then go back and edit.

Finish something, then wait a few days and read it over again before you post it

Post it, and then go do something else (preferably away from the screen). Don't sit there clicking refresh to look for a reaction; it will drive you mad.

Keep a notebook by the bed for the inevitable middle-of-the-night ideas. And in your bag (or find a phone app that works for you).

13. Any new projects you’re excited to start this year?

um … more smut?

14. Tag any other writers whose answers you’d like to read

This is the part where my mind goes blank:/ It's always interesting to hear about people's writing, so; anyone already tagged and anyone else reading this who wants to do it or wonders how many fics they published last year (it might be more than you think!)

#2017 fic #my fic

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