Thunder and Lightning, Very Very Exciting

Today I've been catching up on sleep, and slowly, so very slowly, unpacking and washing stuff after a weekend away trail riding along the always stunning Howqua River.

It was an adventuresome couple of days with fantastic horses and experienced riders. The weather was mostly grey and cloudy, but not too hot for strenuous mountain work, or too cold, although it got seriously chilly at times when we left the valleys and were exposed to the full brunt those infamous alpine winds. Best of all, it didn't rain during the days. There was, however, much drama on the Saturday night when a late storm blew in. My sister and I were happily ensconced in our respective tents and snoozing away the tiredness of the day when lightning cracked, thunder rolled, and an almighty wind blew up. The ground actually shook a few times. This was no normal storm. This was a STORM!!!!

For a while there, with my little canvas world wildly flapping around me and giant raindrops pummelling down, I was worried my tent might not be up for it (I had visions of it blowing over, and myself running around in an undignified manner in the middle of the night with my soggy belongings looking for a place to rest my weary head), but after all our trips to the mountains together, I should have had had more faith - my trusty tent stood strong and stayed dry, the storm passed quickly, and I snuggled up in my sleeping bag and swag and slept soundly til morning. Apparently, my sister and I discovered the next day, the residents of the nearby (too crowded for my tastes) bunkhouse had been thanking their lucky stars that they weren't in tents, totally unaware that we were as snug as bugs in those proverbial rugs.

All in all, we had a great time. It was just what I needed to clear out my head and re-energise my body. Horses and mountains are good for that kind of thing.

And yes, we're already lining up another ride :)

Moving in a Direction that isn't Backwards

After a week of hot weather, fire horror stories, commuting problems, a major Arvo Job drama, hospital crap, a general queasiness pervading my days, and bulldozers razing a lovely, old garden to create a blitzed landscape up behind my house and across the boundaries of the two properties on either side of me, which has, by the by, completely changed the micro-climate of my backyard, I had a surprisingly lovely Sunday.

There was peace, there was quiet, there were cool breezes wafting through the house, there was much reading done (The Man Who Loved China by Simon Winchester), and after a couple of hours of sustained effort, there was a brand new story all finished on my hard drive just waiting for a polish in a week or two. And I submitted a story as well. I haven't done any submitting for quite a while, so I hope I've now reset my habits.

So there, I think I can get through next week now.

Because No Pain is a Huge Gain

So this was a week of heat, rejections, reluctantly leaving the cool environs of the Arvo Job to trudge the hot city streets in the middle of the day because of hospital crap, and, of course, the actual hospital crap. Now, the heat has passed, the rejections I've filed away in my head to deal with another day, and the hospital crap (I even had to go into the city yesterday! On a Saturday! What a waste of precious weekend time!) has paid off because I stayed drug free today, and tonight, for the first time in a couple of months, cross fingers, I'll be off to bed without taking any pain killers. The downside is that, aside from a few must-do chores, I slept away most of today. But now I feel good. And did I mention that there's no pain! Major win.

So let me tell you this very simple truth, which those with chronic conditions will already know, but which you will not be aware of if you're fortunate enough to be as bouncing fit as I was up until two years ago: any day without pain is a good day. Most people don't appreciate that fact until it's too late. Take my advice, and take a moment to enjoy your body if it's humming along nicely. Savour the feeling. Revel in it. Really.

Anyway, hopefully after two more trips this week, I'll be good to get active and productive writerlywise again. And I'll appreciate it, believe you me. I will savour it. I will revel in it. J

As Free as the Wind Blows

I thought we'd moved to a whole new level in our relationship what with the egg laying and everything, but no, after a couple of months of over the top friendliness and eleven eggs, just one shy of a magical dozen, the Chook has once more packed her bags and gone walkabout. About 6 days ago she started showing the usual time-to-move-on behaviour, and then on Sunday evening, she wasn't in her usual roost. I haven't seen her since. I'm such a fool. I should be used to it by now, I know, I shouldn't get my hopes up, but I thought she'd changed, I thought things were different this time, I really did... J

Ah well, the Chook is a restless spirit who prizes her freedom above all things. She cannot be bribed with scintillating, feline company, bought with first class food, or encouraged to settle for a mundane life of regular domesticity. She'll be back, or not, depending on her own whims.

In other vital news, it's HOT. Damned hot. Not-good-for-writing hot. Here in Victoria, the forecast is for 5 consecutive days of over 40 degrees heat. We're three days into it. In town early today, I saw that a few establishments were closed until Friday for staff safety reasons. Also, I suspect, they're not getting much trade. There are no tables outside anywhere - who wants to met friends and chat in a furnace? - and not many patrons inside either. It was the same in Melbourne yesterday. I was reluctantly out and about at 14.00, and usually bustling café districts were veritable ghost towns. People, if they absolutely have to go out, rush from one air conditioned enclosure to another.

While the first two days were hot and dry, since yesterday evening, at least up my way, every now and then, thunderstorms come through, bash the trees about a bit, make a cracking racket and throw the most thrilling and varied lightning displays, then dump a deluge of hot, fat raindrops that cool nothing but add buckets to the humidity levels. It's like we're having our very own monsoon season. Who knows? Maybe that's the way it's all heading.

So, two more days to go until we get a cool change. Onwards.

Eggstraordinary Surprise

I've just come in from a morning of being in the backyard and out and about and enjoying the fabulous weather to do some writing, and I found this gift from the chook on the spare couch-bed in my study, still warm. Not wearing my glasses, I thought it was something less savoury at first. Colour me surprised when I realised what it was  - I didn't think she had in in her. And it's a biggie from such a small chicken.

She's been coming and going for over two years now, and just when I think I've got her figured...

After my last post about her back in August 21, sure enough, she went completely vagabondy on me and I barely saw her for over 2 months. She became, yet again,  FIFO Chook, off having adventures, and returning every now and then to check we were still here, fill up on food, and grumble about the state of the world. I didn't worry about her this time, just muttered harsh words about her ingratitude and opportunistic nature. Then three weeks ago, she turned up and I knew immediately she was back for another round of domesticity. It's a real Jekyll and Hyde thing. That night, she popped back onto her usual roost just outside the kitchen, and has spent her days since sneaking into the house whenever possible, either hanging here in the writing room with me or sunning herself in the lounge room with the cats.

And now an egg. I'll no longer be able to accuse her of freeloading if this continues. I'll have to name her Productive Chook. I just wish she'd use the nesting boxes I've set up for her in different places. But no, that would be too common, too normal. Ah well, we'll see. This might be a one off performance.

I'd better watch where I step/sit for the next while until I've got this new state of affairs figured out.

Now, to my writing keyboard. No, November writing report first.

End of the Month Report: September 2013

Submissions: 8
Rejections: 6 (technically, one of these belongs to last month. I was waiting for an email, but when I checked the check-how-your-story-is-going link, I discovered the awful truth. On the other hand, this was the story I reported as being #927 in the reading queue a couple of months ago, and there were only a few places left for unsolicited work, so I was pretty much well prepared for disappointment.)
Acceptances: 1 (Winds of Change - dark, dark, dark, with added ghosts! Very happy about this one.)
Published: 0 (next month should be more interesting)
Stories out in the wild: 10
New stories completed: 0
Mood: Shocked by the fact that I saw Xmas decorations in the supermarket on the way home tonight. All right, that has nothing to do with writing, but I'm still recovering. Also, I'm a little worried about the weather. It is blowing a gale outside and the trees are making scary noises as they bend down and whack the roof and scrape the house. Another non-writing inspired emotion, but hey, it's not all about story scribbling.

Midweek Pause

My energy levels in general are still lower than normal and annoyingly unreliable, and I suspect my immune system is also presently battling the resident Arvo Job bug which has horribly felled far healthier folk than I over the past few weeks and reduced them one by one to disgusting, mucusy messes. I really hate being trapped in an office when there's an epidemic on the loose! You hear the rattling of diseased lungs all around you and know it's just a matter of time... :)  I'm phlegm-and-cough-free as yet, but am feeling incredibly flat, so today was most definitely a catch-up day. Hopefully my midweek recharge will zap any sickness-inducing blighters that have breached my system back to the plague pit from whence they came.

So yeah, lots of napping and reading with the cats, broken by a walk in the bug-killing Spring sunshine, but I did manage to do a line edit and okay the galley for an upcoming story (yay!), hit the Internet for a market search followed by subbing a story (cross fingers), and listlessly shove around words about cyborgs for an hour or so - not my most inspired work, but I think I got one really good paragraph out of it, so the exercise was not a total waste of time.

Some days, one good paragraph is the best you can hope for.

End of the Month Report: August 2013

Submissions: 6
Rejections: 5
Acceptances: 1 (A Moveable Buffet)
Published: 0
Stories out in the wild: 10
New stories completed: 1 (not really new - it's the expanded story, but it has doubled in size from 1k to 2k, so it's sort of a whole different story...)
Mood: It's a gorgeous spring day, lovely for walking and outdoor reading, and my opened up house smells wonderful; I've got a fair deal of Sunday work under my belt to add to an already productive week of writing so I'm happy there; plus I purchased my first Science Fiction magazine for my eReader, which, easy as it is to do, was nevertheless another imaginary hurdle to overcome and I feel confident I'll be ever so up-to-date with the latest publications from now on; also, I did a little housekeeping on my Shadow Awards spread sheets, so that makes me feel efficient and participatory; last but not least, I sold a story this month, and that's always a welcome change. All in all, life is good.

Now to get the ironing done, get the washing in and hastily move a little dust around. It'll be a token effort. Later, I'll settle down to watch one of the movies my brother dropped off today - probably Upside Down. It'll be interesting to see how they handle the very Land and Overland series sounding scenario. I'm not expecting to be blown away like I was with The Ragged Astronauts and The Wooden Spaceships, and it looks like it might heavily lean towards romance, but hopefully they'll attempt to do something a little more inspiringly mind-gamey and truly SFy than most of the lacklustre blockbusters that I've endured this year. One must try to be optimistic about these things.

No-Brainer

I love archaeology.

I love writing.

I've just discovered that Hadley Rille Books is calling for submissions for an archaeology themed, multi-genre anthology called Ruins Excavation, the fourth book in their series of Ruins anthologies.

As the title, and the series, implies, the story must feature ruins, real or otherwise, on Earth. Ruins! I love ruins! And I love stories with and/or about ruins!

You can read about the antho here.

Will I give it a shot?

Are you kidding? It's raining down hard outside, this is my wonderful Wednesday, catch-up day off, and there's already a WIP in my head wanting out.

This'll be fun.

The Mist: The Ride

My sister and I went horse riding in Daylesford today, and I managed to stay in the saddle for both the morning and afternoon rides, which isn't bad given it's been 5 months since my last equine outing, and even before that, my track record was reluctantly sporadic due the past 18 months worth of hospital crap. It wasn't a hard all-dayer. Both times, it was just the two of us so we could set the pace according to what I was up for, which was not a lot compared with my derring-do of yore, but any attempt to move faster than a trot was also seriously thwarted by the weather.

The morning was wet and hazy enough - the rolling hills remained obscured by fog for the whole ride - but my sister and I crossed fingers that it would clear up by the afternoon.

Alas, it was not to be, not by a long shot.

When we headed out again after lunch, the mist was thicker and more saturated, and it grew increasingly more so until we were moving through a drizzly, surreal, Stephen King-created, vapour-shrouded landscape of limited vision, stands of spooky, leafless trees vaguely outlined by the white stuff, sky and air and land and lakes merging with each other into dreamlike scenes, and an intense silence broken only by the sounds of horse hooves clopping, wet things dripping, and the plaintive bleats of newborn lambs coming from the unseen fields beyond. It was the kind of thick mist from which tentacles suddenly reach out to pull poor, helpless riders from their horses and drag them back into the murky miasma.

And it was cold, bone chillingly cold - we were mightily glad for our drizzle-repelling drizzabones, with many layers of clothing and downy vests underneath - and the ground was wet and far too soggy for speedy riding unless one desired to take a chance on spending the next few months with various limbs in plaster casts.

But we had a good time, took it easy, made jokes, and enjoyed the unreal atmosphere and strange visual and aural effects created by the uncanny weather. Afterwards - and this is a very important part of the Winter horse riding experience - my sister and I warmed our boots and bums in front of a roaring log fire, drank cups of hot tea, ate steaming leak and potato soup with toast followed by berry strudel, and all was wonderful and well with the world.
  
*satisfied sigh*

But for sure I'll be sore tomorrow...

A Wonderfully Gloomy Day

Today, the sky was inspirationally dark and gloomy, and it rained most of the time, so I ended up cosily hunkering down with the cats in my writing room and writing a lot - 6 hours plus worth of quality effort. And subbing quite a bit, including my new, fully finished, bird-based story. Forget about baking bread, which I'll probably regret tomorrow. Forget about the ironing, composing a deep and meaningful post, doing my tax return and tidying up all those everyday businessy must-dos that are accumulating. Go with the writing flow while it's flowing so flowingly, I say, because, well, it totally suits my purposes to say that.

A Welcome Change

After a record breaking, for this time of the year, ten consecutive days of humid 34-37 degree heat, a cool change swept across the state today, providing glorious relief for the sweltering masses. There was no way I was going to stay inside, so I took Rover into the backyard, set myself up on the Xmas Swing, and wrote for a few hours on my latest SF masterpiece (the writing experiment is going well). Then I did a lot of reading.

Alas, I'm off to hospital again next week for tests, meaning that about four days ago, a serious case of scanxiety kicked in. Last time this happened, six months ago, I couldn't compose a written sentence for the life of me the fortnight leading up to the scan. This time, fortunately, I'm channelling my imagination and nervous energy into writing, so at least I'm still productive. And it keeps my mind occupied with other things such as the mechanics of alien invasions, downloading humanity and the like :) However, I may not be terribly chatty on ye olde blogge over the next week until this matter is resolved.

Dial A for Adventure

I was reading this morning about a new phone app that deliberately gets people lost so they can experience the cold hand of fate and the thrilling vagaries of chance. This is how some people choose to escape the rule of GPS devices that always know exactly where you are and behavioural tracking programmes that take all the thought out of people's lives by anticipating desires and recommending what they should read, watch, think, do and whom they should follow and hang out with to achieve maximum happiness.

 Sorry, I'm a bit slow sometimes, but lets see if I understand this correctly - there are grownup people with minds of their own who are reasonably conscious of the fact that they're so enslaved by their mobile phones that their lives have been organized and homogenized and made safe to the point of blandness that they conclude that they need to shake things up to make life interesting again. In short, they self-diagnose that they're in sore need of an unplanned adventure. However,  instead of just putting the damn phone away for a while and going for *shudder* (is it even possible) a completely cost free, disconnected walk, they buy an illusion of freedom for $2.99, or whatever liberty is going for these days, and bravely set off on a journey where they once more hand over their choices to their phone? They toddle about the neighbourhood obeying the phone's command to 'turn left instead of right' or 'follow the next redhead you meet' and consider this an exhilarating foray into the unexpected? And by the by, isn't that a bit stalkerish? I swear, if I ever catch anyone tailing me who then uses the excuse that their phone made them do it...

Anyway, give me a break. This is all so irrational it makes my head hurt.

I also read article about the perennial criticism of how the very technology designed to ward off our intrinsic fear of being alone and apart from the comfort of the herd is actually driving us further into isolation. Mainly, it was a spiel on that modern phenomenon that we all know so well - people sitting outside on a beautiful sunny day oblivious to the weather and each other because they're busy phoning, Facebooking, tweeting, checking emails or surfing the net. Or people sitting with other people at a cafe but each is talking/texting to another, faraway person on their phones about how much fun they're having being with the people they're sitting with, perhaps snapping a "spontaneous" photo a la the standard, wacky fun pose for their Facebook page and sneaking in a few words about what an awesome time they're having with these awesome people, and if you don't believe them, check out the Facebook pages of those very same awesome people and they'll for sure confirm all this social awesomeness. 

Again, my head hurts, but I doubt things will change anytime soon. We are but undeveloped babes in the wood at this point in time, at the mercy of our primitive emotions and overwhelmed by sophisticated influences that push all our instinctual buttons and exploit our primal fears. The technology is all still too new, exciting, massively entertaining, and, let's face it, extremely useful, and we are are mostly still so afraid of the unknown and uncontrollable, anxious about the brutality of life, and too terrified of going it alone to risk not being connected. Friends and likes make people feel relevant, safe, and important in a tumultuous world that does its best to erase each person's uniqueness. I Facebook, therefore I am. Facebook is the cyber equivalent of those amulets made up of things like pebbles and feathers that have a special meaning for an individual and which are then worn to ward off the unruly demons of the natural world. And yet, just as superstition can be the undoing of otherwise rational people, the modern obsession with instant connectivity and an outright  dependance on social networks to bolster one's sense of being is as inimical to a well-balanced, happy individual as any banned drug. 

I just hope that we as a society eventually grow out of our infantile desire to avoid discomfort zones, to have nannybots coddling us and telling us how great we are every minute of the day, to have apps replace original initiative and recorded lives replace real living. I hope one day we take back control of this truly amazing and wondrous technology, that we learn to integrate and control it  on a personal level rather than blindly serve and obey it, and that we use it to expand our horizons into the great beyond rather than to shrink our individual worlds into tiny, homogeneous bubbles of self-serving, self-righteous self-adulation.

May we grow mature enough and wise enough to know the difference. And may we once again feel brave enough to venture forth upon adventures of the unscripted sort.

Clueless Cows

Enough with the gorgeous spring weather! How's a person supposed to hole up inside and get some writing done when Mother Nature puts on such a stunning, sunny come-hither display of vernal loveliness? Perhaps I should recharge and update poor neglected Rover, who hasn't done a thing since my last operation, and head out into the backyard for a few hours. I might then also be more likely to grab Rover on the way out the door tomorrow and resume my habit of writing on the train whilst commuting to the Arvo Job. Double win. Alas, I fear that if I choose the backyard writing option, I might be distracted by the Chook's antics, the cuteness of certain felines, and the hypnotic pull of a big, wide, beautiful, blue sky.

Last week, I was not so housebound, but I didn't get to blog about an event that got me thinking about so many things, so I'll play catch-ups now. Out of curiosity, we headed off to a local (only 60-70 kilometres away) horsey competition in Elmore, run by the National Cutting Horse Association of Australia.  We thought it was the actual national championships, but they're not until November. However, after a  fun day that just flew by, we've circled that upcoming date, and next time I'll take much money for products - umbrellas, hats, bags, t-shirts, halters, bespoke saddles, you name it, many depicting horses in all states of realism or animated cuteness. A few unicorns and Pegasi snuck in too, holding their own with the many images of working country horses in impressive poses.

On arriving, expecting to walk into a world of spartan toughness, much to our surprise we were confronted by horses bedecked in pink sparkles with pink ribbons and pink feathers woven into their manes and tails, ladies completely attired in pink and sporting many pink accessories, and weather-worn blokes wearing pink lingerie over their cowboy clothes. It turned out to be the Deb Elliott Memorial Ladies Pink Cutting, a fundraising and awareness rating initiative organised by Cutting for Cancer. It was a wonderful introduction to the world of cutting and the people who populate it. I took pictures, but these ones are far better.

Prior to this event, all I knew about cutting was that it involved a rider and loyal horse separating a cow from the herd and keeping it isolated for a certain amount of time. It turned out to be a lot more complicated than that. After a few hours of studying the information sheets, judging rules and point system, we were trying to second-guess scores, having a great time throwing around terms like 'coming down the time line' and 'hot quit', while discussing the animal psychology behind 'herd holding' and, basically, how the whole sport depended on it. For, first and foremost, if the cows were not so unrelentingly bovine, cutting simply could not exist as a sport. It was this information, proven over and over and over again, that fascinated me. The sheer and utterly frightening predictability of the cows had my thoughts going off on all sorts of tangents.

Firstly, and remember I'm not cutting expert, the herds are regularly refreshed so as to not mess up their instincts. The herd holder, basically a cow whisperer on horseback, calmly weaves back and forth 'programming' the cows to accept one part of the arena as their safe zone. An ever so relaxed rider comes down the time line, quiet and calm, and sashays into the herd, lackadaisically breaking off a group and weaving back and forth to whittle down the numbers until there are just two cows. At this point, the two cows get somewhat uneasy. Instead of working together, however, self-preservation kicks in and they split off in two directions, giving themselves a 50-50 chance of escaping whatever predator is after them, I suppose. The rider then clearly chooses one (you lose points if you vacillate or change your mind).The visible and violent jolt of electricity that passes through a cow the second it realises it is the target is both pitiful and (I'm so cruel) a little bit comic. It's so pronounced that I'm sure there's a behavioural term for it. Anyway, the cow goes from being a couldn't-give-a-turd-about-being-here beast just chillin' with friends to becoming a panicked, mad creature dodging and twisting and doing amazingly gymnastic movements in a frenzied effort to get back to the herd. All of our victim's mates are, by the by, calmly in the safe zone utterly ignoring their colleagues distress. After the rider and pony have held the cow apart for a designated time, they 'quit' the cow and it is allowed to return to its pals. Once again, in the flick of a behavioural switch, it immediately relaxes, and within seconds seems to have forgotten its ordeal. I have to admit, after a couple of hours of this, I was hoping for a cow rebellion of some sort -  for the herd to stick together, for a cool individual to not care about being alone and not succumb to the usual panic, for the herd in the safe zone to come charging to the rescue of their  persecuted member. But no, they all reacted the same every single time.

Another revelation was the fact that the horses have complete autonomy during the phase when the cow is prevented from returning to the herd. I always thought the rider lightly guided the horse, but no, the rider actually signals that he or she is  handing over control by "dropping'  the reins, and the horse then works as an independent participant until the rider picks up the reins again. In fact, any interference from the rider results in lost points. So all the lightening fast starts and turns and cunning blocks that one sees are ALL the horse's doing, which is why, of course, there are superstar horses on the cutting circuit that cost a king's ransom when up for sale. Like all sports, there will always be naturals. Some of the horses radiated fun and delight, more like big dogs eager for their owners to throw a stick as they scampered back and forth than equines, some were highly trained but their hearts weren't in it, while still others obviously hated the cows with a passion, and drew on that antipathy to get the job done. The last seems not to be an unusual state of affairs, for the rules, interestingly, note that points are deducted for horsey displays of aggression and unnecessary roughness - apparently some horses indulge in pawing, biting and kicking the cattle.

Cutting horses are extremely intelligent animals, and far more personable than most horses exactly because they do enjoy periods of absolute autonomy. Well, that's my theory, at least - give animals half a chance to be themselves rather than unnatural products of human rules and they'll surprise you with their uniqueness. These cutting horses know they're important. They're fully aware that they're clever and fast, and they openly revel in it, each according to their particular character, by being cheeky, regal, show ponies, arrogant or aloof. Cutting horses are the exact opposite of the cows they play with (or harass, according to your view of the sport), while the rider, perched above the two, is (I think when I'm in a certain frame of mind) the intermediary who exploits the two animals to look good, and takes all glory thereafter.

Anyway, that day at the cutting championships set me to thinking about herd behaviour, human psychology, human kindness, the mini worlds within our big standard world that humans create with like minded individuals who share their passions, inter-animal relationships, how I'd rather be a cutting horse than a cow, and how someone needs to sneak in under cover of darkness and rally all cattle into facing down those smart-arse cutting horses. At the very least, someone should teach those cows to come up with new bovine moves and twists that would knock the socks off the fancily dancing fetlocks of their superstar opponents.

   

Done WIP and a Little Dog

Today was a particularly gorgeous, getting- a-headstart-on-Spring kind of day, good for my usual Wednesday off for sleeping in, writing, breathing, napping and walking. With trees blossoming all around the house, and daffodils and jonquils blooming everywhere, the hood was a lovely place to hang out in today.

I finished my "funny" travelling salesman WIP this morning, although I'm not sure I'll get it sharp enough and polished enough by Friday to feel confident enough to send it off to the antho I'd really like to get into. I really prefer to let stories sit for at least a week between first and second drafts, but I don't have that luxury this time. However, I don't like sending off sub standard work either. Whether I decide to sub it or not, at least I've got another new story almost ready to go, and my momentum is steadily building. I'm already lining up my next WIP.

After writing, I headed off for my usual medicinal laps around the local botanical gardens. Along the way, I picked up this very cute, but collarless and tagless companion. He came out of nowhere, was an energetic and friendly little blighter who acted as if we'd know each other for a lifetime, and I began to get that familiar sinking feeling that yet another animal had latched onto me and become my responsibly. After he'd followed me for a while and showed no signs of ever nicking off again, I doubled back in an attempt to find his home, hoping to run across some distressed looking person searching for him. No such luck. Just when it looked like I was going to have to head for the RSPCA, his little ears suddenly perked up and, without a goodbye or a backwards glance, he zoomed off and just kept on running, definitely a dog with a mission, presumably obeying the distant call of his master's voice. At least that's what I read into his body language.

 Now I find myself a little worried. It's raining buckets outside, so I do hope he's somewhere safe and sound in a nice warm doggie basket.

It's Raining Rejections

For the past 24 hours, it seems that every time I check my emails there's another very nice close, but no cigar from an editor whittling down the number of submissions I have out out there in the wild. It's times like these that one's writerly optimism is tested. It's times like these that one's writerly confidence is measured. It's time like these that, hopefully, one's writerly stubbornness kicks in. I'll simply have to make a cup of soothing peppermint tea this evening, sit myself down at the computer and have a dedicated submission session, just me and the wide world and my stories. The trick, as I've said before, is to quickly get those little 'uns out and about again, so one can once more fantasise about them finding loving homes. There's nothing, as many songs will attest to, cheerier than a dream.

Aaaaah - thank goodness for my midweek breather from the Arvo Job. I'm breathing in, slowly, slowly. I'm breathing out, calm, relaxed. By Tuesday night, after two days of commuting and Arvo Jobbing, I'm really running on empty. This non-rushy Wednesday of sleeping in, writing (almost finished another story), reading, multiple medicinal laps at a speedy pace around the botanical garden (I'm about to head off with my mega-brolly, for the sky is as dark and ominous as my inbox at the moment) followed by a very, very cautious weights workout, a long arvo nap snuggling with the cats (I'm already looking forward to it) and an early night will recharge my batteries and get me through the last two workdays.

Hopefully my pre-two ops stamina will soon return. And someone will purchase a story.

Lovecraftian Brain-Laxative

I just started my steampunk Cthulu story and wrote 326 words in an hour. I'm back! My writing-mind is working again. All it took was a dollop of Victoriana, a dash of Lovecraft, and a few teaspoons of a secret try-this-just-for-fun patented mixture purchased at a mysterious sideshow from a shadowy stranger wearing a top hat covered in enigmatic symbols to get the cogs chuffing along again.

What a relief. After so many weeks, well, months even, I couldn't help but illogically and dramatically start to worry that perhaps my writing abilities were now floating beyond my reach in some creative ether, forever inaccessible :)

Now, it's my body's turn. I'm off for a shuffle around the park. I'd better take my brolly.

Duck Weather

It absolutely bucketed down today, but eager to build up my fitness as much as possible, I nonetheless ventured forth with my mega-umbrella and embarked upon my daily shuffle.

And I'm glad I did, because I had the botanical gardens all to myself. Well, almost.  It was just me and a couple of ducks who'd vacated the lake paddling along the paths. Still, they were no bother and didn't take up much room, so I could have a good think about life in general and specific stories as I splashed along in peace and quiet. Best of all, the fresh air obviously cleared my head, and it occurred to me in a facepalming-at-my-own-denseness kind of moment that a certain story I wrote at the beginning of the year for an anthology (it was rejected) also fits the theme of another anthology, and so I promptly subbed it on my return.

Working While I Wait

So I whiled away the morning reading New Scientist and writing a recalcitrant new story while I waited for the knock at the door that I've come to know so well , that most welcome sound which announces that the gas guys have arrived and I once more have a fully functioning household.

So yay, 'tis done now. Time for the whistling part of the day. Let the washing and sweeping and the bread baking begin.

Ungassed Again

It rained down hard yesterday, so naturally I'm without gas once more. *sigh* I should just get a direct number for those guys with the pump trucks...

Onwards towards the weekend.