I am my own worst enemy when it comes to resting. I've never been very good at being ill because there are always things I need to do. Plus I'm rarely so ill that I don't eat, so I have to get up to cook anyway.

But it's why I'm constantly feeling like I'm not getting things done: I feel pressure to do things. And I'm the person putting pressure on myself, not other people. So I have Rotaract things to do and fic to write and RP tags to do and I even put pressure on myself to get TV programmes watched.

The trouble is that I have the idea that I get things done, then I can stop and do what I want to do. Except that because I need more sleep and have to stop to rest, I don't get as much done. And while I'm resting I worry about how much I need to do, and then try and work it out so I do things like cleaning & baking while I'm up, and then when I need a lie down I can do things on the computer.

I almost need to have less to do, but then I wouldn't know what to do with myself. If I didn't have Rotaract and fic writing and RPing I wouldn't know what to do with myself. I don't think I'd last a week before I was bored.

But this is who I am, I don't know how to be relaxed and non-pressured. On the plus side, my mum has the same views on getting things done and then resting, and I get my control-freakish tendencies from my dad, so I can just blame it all on my genes...

I was going to do all sorts of things this weekend, but I felt crap the whole time, so apart from watching the tennis, I've mostly watched bits of Stargate and Atlantis. This is all because I decided I might try the scifibigbang.

It was good to watch them again - I remember now just how good those two series were and how much I liked them. But they were useful too - one piece of my plot comes from one line that Weir says in Ghost in the Machine.

I now have a plot worked out that I reckon could come to 25,000 words. Whether I can finish it in the time (and whether it will come to 25,000 words) is something else, but I won't know until I try.

And, because I have seem to have something about Big Bangs and romance, it is going to be Jack/Elizabeth. Which is a much rarer pairing than Sarah/Harry (Doctor Who). I re-read all the fic I could find and discovered that, counting drabbles, I've written nearly half of them...

The new ballet term started last week, so tonight was the second class. It's such a different experience from last term when I had no idea what I was doing and gradually got the hang of it and then it was the end of term. This term there's a few of us from last term and lots of new people. It's strange having twice the number of people I was used to before.

But it's also really strange feeling like I know what I'm doing. I don't completely, but everything is either the same as last term or similar enough that I understand it relatively easy. It makes it all a lot easier, so I can concentrate on doing it right, not just vaguely doing the right thing at the right time. Not that I always manage that anyway, but.

The next thing will be remembering to look up and put my shoulders down, but perhaps that will be next term.

• I discovered Quantum Leap is on ITV4! I am watching yesterday's episode now. They're showing series 3 at the moment, which I have definitely not seen all of, but it's been so long that I can't remember which episodes I've seen and which I haven't any more.
• Someone at work brought in their Kindle, so now I don't need to go to PCWorld to try one now. And now I've tried it, I can definitely say that I prefer the Sony. The Kindle doesn't allow you to use it by touching the screen, which is taking all the fun away.
• This morning the police closed the road between my home and my work, which led to long queues, which meant my 15 minute journey to work took an hour. Which definitely wasn't fun.

I have been good this weekend and got some writing done - namely my story for lotr_community, which was due in today. There was only two weeks to write it and I spent the first week writing fandom_stocking fics, and then second week working. But now it is done. The stories won't get revealed until tonight (or it might be tomorrow night, now I come to think of it) so I can't post it until then.

But I have posted a Jack & Elizabeth (Stargate Atlantis) fic: The Blue Devil. I wrote the first draft of it in December 2009. Then was too busy to write more for a few months, but managed to finish it off. Then tanaqui was too busy to beta it for a few months, but it was worth the wait. So then I somehow managed to come up with a title a couple of weeks ago. Now I've got round to posting it. Although I can't for the life of me work out why/how I came up with that title. Oh, well.

Now I need to finish some other stuff I've started. I decided, in order to help me finish stuff to join fanbingo. There's no deadline on it, but my challenge to myself is to fill it this year. My card looks like this.

I'm also quite tempted by Big Bangs. There's an LOTR Big Bang starting this year at lotrgficbigbang and I do have a story starring Arathorn and Gilraen that I started a long time ago and pretty much needs starting again. It might be long enough, but I think I need more time to get back into that way of writing. So maybe next year.

There's also the tardis_bigbang. For the first week of picowrimo I wrote about 1000 words a day of a DW story. It needs a lot of re-writing and I'm not halfway through, so I could finish that. Except that the TARDIS Big Bang doesn't give enough time for writing, so I would have to start now probably.

And looking at this Jack & Elizabeth story again reminded me that I have a plot written down starring the two of them that would be a crossover between all three Stargate series and could well be long enough for a Big Bang. The scifibigbang is for Science Fiction and Fantasy, so all three of my ideas could be eligible for that. And based on last year's dates, it could be enough time for me to write something.

Decisions, decisions....

I have now posted all my fandom stocking fics. I may or may not get round to posting them elsewhere as well, so for the moment they are on my fanfic LJ.

They are:

Doctor Who:
A New Life for livii
Martha tries out adoptive motherhood. Starring Harry and Martha

Five Minutes Ago for dbskyler
After Terror of the Zygons Sarah is keen to get back to London. Starring Sarah and the Fourth Doctor

UNIT Christmas Party and Zombies for carawj
This year's UNIT Christmas party will be one to remember. Starring Sarah and Jo

The Importance of Being Female for silly_cleo
The Doctor is no match for the combined force of Jo and Amy. Starring Jo and Amy.

Thames Octopus for rivendellrose
Harry has a story. Starring Sarah and Harry.

Too Many Concert Goers for jjpor
The Doctor and Ace go to a concert. Double drabble starring the Seventh Doctor and Ace.

Friends and Romans for clocketpatch
Ian and Rory have a roman sword fight. A drabble and a half pair starring Ian & Barbara and Rory & Amy,

Explanations and Underestimations for infiniteviking
Jo helps the Doctor in the lab. A drabble starring the Third Doctor and Jo.

Life in the Olden Days for minerva_fan
Barbara gives Ian a history lesson on relationships. Double drabble starring Ian and Barbara.

The Wrong Way for curuchamion
Harry meets some interesting-looking aliens. Drabble starring the Fourth Doctor, Sarah and Harry.

Sarah Jane Adventures
Buried Alive for shinyjenni
Sarah Jane and Jo in a coffin. Drabble starring Sarah and Jo. Spoilers for Death of the Doctor.

Letting Go for tigerkat24
Sarah Jane has to learn to let Luke go. A drabble starring Sarah and Luke. Spoilers for The Nightmare Man.

Doctor Who/Sarah Jane Adventures
Smurfs for cosmic_llin
Sarah Jane has a problem, the Seventh Doctor has a solution. Starring Sarah and Ace

Stargate/Doctor Who
Humans for eponymous_rose
Teal'c and the Doctor find they have something in common. Starring Teal'c and the Eleventh Doctor.

Quantum Leap/Doctor Who
New Worlds for azarsuete
Sam leaps into Harry Sullivan. Starring Sam, Al and the Fourth Doctor.

I used to be really good at getting things done, and then over the years I've got better at putting it off. Over Christmas I wanted to update the Rotaract website and move the calendar over to Google Calendar. I never quite got round to it.

I was going to do it last week, but I spent it writing fandom_stocking fics. So I thought I'd do it this weekend. So I spent Saturday reading fandom_stocking fics and responding to comments, and playing Lego Harry Potter on the Wii.

Sunday afternoon I was going out for tea. So I sat down in the morning and got it done. In an hour. It was painless (mostly). Why couldn't I have done that sooner?

After selenay wrote a post all about her back, I thought I'd write one about what it is I've got. Not least because I keep getting asked questions about it and what I can do etc.

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My mood is totally affected by the weather - today is warm and sunny and spring-like (if only because a temperature above freezing feels warm) and I'm happy. Also, fandom_stocking went live today, so I had lots of nice things in it this morning:

An Ian and Barbara icon from lindenharp

Hush-hush: A Harry Potter fic featuring Sirius from trovia

Rainy Day Tales (part 2 & part 3): a DW/Press Gang fic from lost_spook

A sweet Luke-centred fic from cosmic_llin

A graphic of my choice from arenee1999

An IOU from carawj

A Harry (Sullivan) picspam from livii

And happy new years from dbskyler and eponymous_rose

Next year I will make my request list better - having read lots of other people's with an eye to writing something I have a much better idea of what's useful to put in there.

I will post up what I wrote at some point, but I want to wait until people have seen their own first. And I wrote 15 ficlets between 100 and 1100 words, so they'll take a little while to upload.

I had every intention of actually updating at some point this week, but I went back to work and then remembered why I have no time. And today's xkcd is a pretty good demonstration of how my working day goes. Especially the bit at the bottom that says "Are you done yet?" "No, and the requirements have changed". This is usually when you're nearly done, it's 4pm and it has to be done by the end of the day...

I get back from work about 6pm - if I can escape early then it's earlier, or if I have to stay late it's later. But it's 6pm if I leave on time. Although annoyingly, it's also 6pm if I leave ten minutes late, because that's long enough for the rush hour traffic to have gone.

So then I have to cook and eat dinner, have a lie down because I haven't had one since I got up. During this time I'll also read my emails and RSS Feeds and Twitter feeds. By the time I've done all this, it's 7pm or 7.30pm depending on how long dinner took and how long a lie down I needed.

I have to go to bed about 10pm because I still need 9-10 hours of sleep because doing anything at all wears me out. So that gives me about 2-3 hours of evening. At some point during that time I need another lie down, so we're down to about 1-2 hours to get anything done.

And you can't concentrate for that long, especially after having concentrated all day, so you have to stop whatever you're doing for breaks, which leaves me with about 0-1 hours to get anything done in, depending on how tired I am. And the further through the week we are, the more tired I get.

Which leaves me with what feels like no evening at all to get anything done in. Hence why I don't get much done during the week. Although I'm sure some days I have more time than that, I just don't know where it goes...

I am determined to blog more this year. I keep thinking of things to post and then end up too tired and/or dizzy to post them and then forget what they were.

I also want to go out more this year. Two years ago, before I got ill, I planned to do lots of day trips, and I am well enough to do some. It just takes my whole weekend when you include recovery time. But I should be able to fit in one a month. June and November's will be tennis, but apart from that I have more London museums to do and I want to go to Stratford and Portsmouth (when the weather's warmer). If anyone wants to come along or meet up, let me know.

And that basically concludes my new year's resolutions. This year will be different because I'll be leaving Rotaract at the end of June. I have borrowed my sister's copy of Lego Harry Potter for the Wii, so I have that to work my way through. And I am hoping to buy a house. But I can't make any plans in that direction until I've established whether I can get a mortgage - that's waiting for the independent financial advisor to come round at work.

Since Yuletide has half been revealed and fandom stockings don't get revealed for a few more days, they'll count as 2011's stories and I'll do the meme for 2010. Which I keep wanting to call this year. And since eponymous_rose has slightly different questions from the ones I did last year, I'll steal hers.
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Despite the lack of official announcement, it looks like the authors on Yuletide have been revealed. So I can reveal that I wrote:

In Need (Doctor Who/Sarah Jane Adventures/Sarah Jane Smith audios) for luthien. I've written a lot of Sarah Jane Smith, but given that this Yuletide had such a short writing period, that was just as well. And it's hardly as if I don't enjoy writing her. Luthien asked for something showing the difference between Sarah in School Reunion and SJA or with past companions in. So I sort of did both in one by using Jo to show how much she's changed. I also got to put Jo's character tag in as Jo Jones, as that's how she's credited in SJA.

Since I managed to get this off to beta with a week to spare, I went through my friends list to see who had asked for something I could write without a lot of research. So I ended up writing three Treats, none of which made it to 1000 words:

Making Up (Make it or Break it) for jedinic. I had really wanted to write something for this, but Nic wanted Payson/Sasha and I just couldn't bring myself to write it. But she suggested something from Lauren's POV, which I could do. And then I found that I really liked writing Lauren. The scary part came when I had to ask a stranger to beta because Nic is the only other person I know who watches Make it or Break it. But thenewradical was lovely and did a great job.

Rumours (Blake's 7) for lost_spook. Lost_spook suggested something from the POV of a Federation guard and I thought that would be a really interesting POV to look at. Although given that my first draft came out at 150 words (including the biggest plot hole in the world ever), I thought a double drabble would be the best thing to do.

Just Visiting (Sarah Jane Adventures/Doctor Who) for luthien. I kept thinking about the other companions Sarah talked about at the end of Death of the Doctor and about the people online who decided that Sarah saying that she'd come across a rumour online must be true, and I wondered how a rumour like that could come about. This niggled at me for a while and I only had the time on 23rd, so I just wrote a double drabble for this.

Now I just have to upload these to all sorts of archives...