Stack Attack

Around about Monday midnight, two cats came hurtling into my study, the one chasing the other, and sprang high onto my big worktable, but not high enough.

Bang! Cat number one (the chased) kicked back against a particularly precipitous pile of "really important stuff"and sent it spilling onto the floor. Followup bang!  Cat number two (the chaser) got into a twist trying to avoid the avalanche and sent what little remained also onto the newly-formed island of paper below. Ah, the joys of sharing a house with felines.

There was no way I was going to tackle tidying it up then. It'll have to wait until Wednesday, I thought with a weary groan, and spent the next day and a half skirting the messy mound. I was mightily tempted today to not do it, but being a grown-up, I did, both to clear the room and my head - and I must say my worktable looks a lot less cluttered now. I suppose I almost owe the cats a thank you. Then I wrote for 3 hours. Afterwards, once I'd had a nap, I set aside thirty minutes to attack a few "garden stacks" aka weeds, so the patio also has a more streamlined look, and gave myself a stern lecture about not letting things that tend to pile up get out of control. Weed a bit each week. Tick off an arduous (boring) everyday task or two each day. Clip and file articles, and write notes as I go. Don't procrastinate. Don't stack.

98% of what was in that toppled stack ended up in the recycling bin. Throwing stuff out is always the quickest way to get such jobs done. Amongst all the old magazines and forgotten printouts, however, I found a folder full of critiques from the spec-fic novel writing course I did a few years ago with Paul Collins. I reread the submissions and the kind comments, and wondered why I haven't done more with this novel, why I'd almost forgotten about this great opus that I was once so fired up about. I've written most of it, and it's been sitting on my hard drive for long enough. Of course, I haven't really been up for a longer project over the past couple of years of medical crap, but perhaps it's time to see if I can scrounge enough energy and head space to finish it.

No point putting it off any longer. Life will be much neater with it done.

Whether it makes it out into the world, of course, is an entirely different matter altogether.

Some Good PR for SF

Stay your alarm, reads the review by Helen Elliot that I read this morning in the Age, 'The Humans' is not speculative. It has more in common with the most memorable fairy tales than anything else because it has a simple moral instruction at its centre; kindness as opposed to selfishness, warmth in the place of chill.

Because, like, you know, speculative fiction can't be about moral instruction, kindness and warmth... And fairy tales aren't speculative fiction, oh no they aren't, so get your nasty specfic cooties off our most beloved stories! Also, the novel is witty, droll, tender, romantic, and sad, so yeah, with all those praiseworthy qualities, it definitely can't be speculative fiction.

The book in question is The Humans by Matt Haigh. This post is not about his book - I'm sure it's a  great read - but about the usual haphazard labelling of genres, and the predictable implied hierarchy of merit. So, according to the review, The Humans is about an alien - a Vonnodorian - from a galaxy where mathematical genius is the norm. The Vonnodorian dispatches a mathematics professor and assumes his human identity. Much observation of the human race ensues and the ever so logical Vonnodorian, much to his surprise, develops fond feelings for our erratic species.

Nope, not speculative fiction at all.

In the usual litfic tendency to cherrypick who gets to pass through the hallowed gates of literary respectability, and despite the main character being from another galaxy and engaging in what I imagine are debates about humans that have already appeared in hundreds of brilliantly written and thoughtful SF short stories and novels, this book gets the mainstream seal of approval. Kudos to Matt Haigh. I wish him all the best. However, I can only surmise he escapes what the reviewer obviously regards as the dreaded speculative fiction label (possibly to do the book a favour because she views The Age readers as being biased against it) because the alien in the novel cunningly morphs into a middle-aged, Cambridge mathematics professor with marital problems, one of the customary mainstays of mainstream fiction (though a professor of English is even more acceptable). Mind you, I've read plenty of SF with that exact same hero, and pretty much the same scenario and well-written to boot, so, hmm, back to square one.

As I've wondered time and time again, who gets to choose what is "respectable" fiction, and what is sniffingly rejected as genre dross? What criteria do they use? How widely read are they? What are the limits of their imagination? Oops, I might be getting a bit snippy there myself...

On a brighter note, over at The Atlantic, science fiction gets the thumbs up in an article about a couple of M.I.T. Media Lab researchers who are teaching a course called Science Fiction to Science Fabrication aka Pulp to Prototype, in which they use texts (not the movies) like Frankenstein and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? to encourage students to anticipate the consequences of their inventions and designs:

Reading science fiction is like an ethics class for inventors, and engineers and designers should be trying to think like science fiction authors when they approach their own work.

They even quote the late, great Frederik Pohl:

Frederik Pohl once said that it wasn’t the job of science fiction authors to create the automobile but to describe the traffic jam.

It follows that it is our job as technologists not to avoid creating the automobile, but to look at the traffic jam and design so that doesn’t happen. Thinking about these things at the beginning and iteratively throughout the process allows us to create better technology. Just as storytelling gives you more lives to live, speculative design or science fiction prototyping gives you more iterations to consider before your creation goes out into the wild and becomes hard to control. Once a genie is out of the bottle, it isn't inclined to allow itself to be stuffed back in. Once an abusable technology is in the hands of a fascist government or rogue nation-state, its leaders aren’t likely to return that technology for an upgrade that removes the features they’re using to spy or express their political agenda. Designing the genie so he can’t be used that way, before he gets out of the bottle, is the safest choice.

It's a good read, positive about science fiction and the vast philosophical playground the genre typically covers. As per usual, I'm just left wondering why well-written stories about far reaching subjects that span time and space should be deemed less valuable a contribution to literature than, say, the shenanigans of shallow, inner-city narcissists. I read all kinds of books, as do all the speculative fiction writers I know, and there's good and bad stuff in every genre. Unless one has done an in-depth study of the works available, one really should refrain from making snide remarks about something one knows nothing about. Besides, using a certain genre as a broadly accepted insult is just plain rude. It happens. We know it does. I saw it in a movie just the other day. I could see the joke coming a mile away - 'I write science fiction', said the nerdy character. Cue the laughs.

*sigh*

I know this is a lost cause, but can't we writing folk and readers all just learn to get on with each other and practice the common courtesy of mutual respect for the hard work of our fellow scribes? Read or don't read books according to your interests, that's each individual's prerogative, but let's ditch the pettiness and toss overboard the judgmental pretensions that can sour the experience.
   

A Relative Triumph

After a few hours of tapping away at my trusty writing keyboard, I've finally finished a new story, my first for, hmmm, I'm not sure exactly, but it's definitely been many, many, many months, way before the first of my two operations and recuperation periods this year, since I last wrote 'The End'. My brain has just been a too lax and fuzzy, made flabby by lack of routine and addled by pain killers, to do more that stop and start and tinker. I've had ideas and been fired up, but haven't been able to sign off on anything. Hopefully, this means I'm back on track and can get stuck into a couple of half-finished pieces on my hard drive that I'd like to get off to certain anthologies next month. Did I just write next month? Someone needs to get a move on.

Anyway, this newborn tale is only a light-hearted littlie which probably won't rack up more than 2k words by the time I've polished it, but it's new and it's FINISHED and I will submit it next weekend.

Now I'm going to reward myself for that minor victory with a long walk. When I get back, I'll submit two stories and do a quick spot of absolutely necessary housework (aaaargh). I also need the fresh air to recover from this extremely kind piece about yours truly that Steve Cameron has posted over on his blog. It's left me feeling both hugely grateful and a tad like a roo dazzled by the headlights of an oncoming car. All I can say is that I'm also glad I went to that Sean Williams workshop so many years ago and met Steve. If not for his enthusiastic comments in the corridor after the mostly negative reactions (too complicated) of the other participants (back then, such things still cut me deeply), I might have doubted that that particular piece work had a future (it was part of my beloved space opera trilogy, which is still waiting for a good edit and restructuring). Also, lucky me, I got to read Steve's brick story, which then went on to become the much lauded So Sad, the Lighthouse Keeper.

Doctor's Orders

So, with a little help from family, friends and wonderful hospital staff, I’m back from my latest adventures, those of the not-so-fun, medical type.

If I’d dragged myself to the computer and blogged last night, I would have uninterestingly posted: ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow. Likewise, if I’d crawled to my keyboard this morning. Possibly in a few hours when the pills I’ve just popped wear off, if I feel inclined to bore you, I might once more haul myself here and tap in ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, but right now, I’m fine. I’ve been doing exactly what my post-surgery sheet says I should do – nothing strenuous - which I’ve interpreted as permission to chat and email to my heart's content, watch movies, read for hours, sit in the garden and study cat-chook behavioural dynamics, and indulge in long and leisurely scourings of the internet without feeling guilty. I also choose to take it as an excuse to do a lot of linking and copying rather than raise a sweat composing an original post.

So I discovered that Richard Harland has also blogged about the joys of attending Supanova last weekend *** over at Ripping Ozzie Reads. I did see him and Michael Pryor, whom I recognised from this session of the novel writing workshop I did two years ago, and suitably steampunk the pair and their friends looked too.

And apropos the link to Women Fighting in Reasonable Armor that I posted last week***, back in January, spec-fic funnyman Jim C Hines posted a piece called Women Striking a Pose (Women and Fantasy Covers) in which he put his own body on the line and copied the often ludicrous I-do-fight-but-much-more-importantly-I’m-darned-sexy stances women warriors are forced to adopt to sell their creators' prose. His verdict then was: My sense is that most of these covers are supposed to convey strong, sexy heroines, but these are not poses that suggest strength. You can’t fight from these stances. I could barely even walk. A few days ago, to balance the equation, Jim blogged about posing like a man for urban fantasy and romance covers. One of his conclusions this time was: Male poses do not generally require a visit to the chiropractor afterward.  I love the shots with his teddy bear. Very sexy.

And startlingly in tune with my own private zeitgeist, Kristine Kathryn Rusch has posted about the Real World and life’s many adventures getting in the way of writing:

I want to be robo-writer, the person who can write through anything. But I don’t know any writers like that... Some things just slow you down or take you out for a while. And while I understand that, I sure as hell don’t like it.

She concludes with wise words about writers giving themselves a break:

If you’d call in sick to a real job, then don’t write today. If your boss would tell you that you’re being ineffectual and you need some time off so go home, dammit, then you should really knock off writing for the day. If you’d take a vacation or compassionate leave or family time at the day job, then do so as a writer.

Which brings me back to my very own veg-out today. Happily zonked out on painkillers, I’m tempted to hit the keyboard and bash out some sub-par prose, I really am, but instead, I shall go outside again, stop to smell a rose along the way (and yes, there are Real World roses in the back garden for me to sniff), sit in the sunshine, crack open a book and just be for what's left of today.

*** okay, two weeks ago. What can I say-time flies in blogland.

Many Writerly Rivers to Cross

Today was sort of set aside as a catch-up-with-myself day, which the non-writing part of me has hitherto seized with both hands. I slept in even longer than I planned to after shushing the alarm clock this morning and turning over for another snooze. When I finally got up, I enjoyed a gigantic, no-rush wake-up pot of tea and a leisurely read of some lightweight froth that I can’t even remember now. Prolonged dawdling about in jammies trying to formulate a rudimentary plan for the rest of today then ensued, and this massive effort was followed by a long brekkie in the backyard and lots of staring at the garden and the sky. All of this was much needed after yesterday’s workshop. Not that the course was exhausting – it was the 6th day of commuting to Melbourne and back that kicked in, and a sense of displacement that needed to be banished with a good spend-time-at-home grounding.

Yesterday’s workshop was the usual first session, half-muddled experience of many strangers getting to know each other, people from all walks of life measuring their writing experience against each other and trying to figure out where they fitted in, and different dreamers at different stages of their career or hobby nutting out an agreement as to how we should proceed with the critiquing. It’s an incredibly varied group ranging from total beginners to writers with pro sales and many publications under their belts, so it’ll be interesting to see how we negotiate the needs of the many. I look forward to getting to know these people. As per usual, however, what happens at the workshop stays at the workshop.

The course provided me with a valuable yardstick for sussing out my own place in the minor scheme of things. I’m still reticent until I get to know people, but nothing like the shy and insecure mess I was a 4-5 years ago when I started out on these workshops with a 2-day Sean William's course. I used to hate public critiquing of my work – I took it WAY too personally, and foolishly believed that everyone else was a better judge of my work that I was - but I knew I had to make myself go to these workshops and toughen up or I’d never survive the business of writing. And it seems to have paid off. Compared with some of the very nervous newbies there yesterday, I felt like a veritable workshop war veteran. I know I won’t be at all bothered if some, or even all of them, shred my work, but most of of the newbies, I fear, have yet to live through the trials of not being hailed as a genius by every other person on the planet. It can be a tortuous experience.

This sense of being an old hand was reinforced by the fact that Steve Cameron is also doing the workshop, and that we could swap stories about our stories – how they were doing, who liked them and who didn’t, our hopes and plans for them – and catch up on industry news. These conversations made me realise just how far I’ve come in the past 4 years, and gave me hope that I might actually be chipping away a tiny niche for myself. They also vindicated precious time spent checking blogs and news sites to keep up with what’s going on in Aussie Spec Fic Land :)

Well. Now. It's time separate the wheat from the chaff. Sort the sheep from the goats.** Put my money where my mouth is. So. Yeah. Hmmm. Should I go take a nap on the backyard swing? Or write for a few hours?

Whoa - there, right on cue, I just got a rejection. The story was too much fantasy, not enough sf, which I suspected might be the case, but it was the only reasonably suitable story I had back in the stable in time for that mag's reading period, and I try not to second-guess editorial tastes these days.*** But. Get ready for another cliché. Water off a duck's back. See? Tough as!

**I chose to write. So does that make me wheat or chaff? A sheep or a goat?
*** It was a "good" rejection. They asked me to submit more work. As for the rejected story, I've already sent it off to another publication.

The Long and Short of It

In this piece over at the Shimmer blog on being a pantser or a planner, the consensus of the admittedly small sample group seems to be that writers like to:

1) Wing the short stuff.
2) Plan the long stuff.

Me too.

Why, just yesterday...

Another Sunday of solid writing - I'm well pleased with myself, I am. Today I gave my "Berlin Wall" ghost story a final polish and submitted it, making it my fourth new story for 2012, and tinkered on the sf/f tale that I'd like to get done in time for a certain reading period next month.

Then that'll be it for short stories for a while because I want to put aside as much time as possible in March to get stuck into my YA novel again - you know, the one that doesn't have a kick-ass title yet and which I workshopped at the Year of SF & F writing course way back in 2010. I did work on it during my 2011 Annual July Winter Writing Break, but not so much since then. I've decided that the time has come to get it done before another year suddenly passes me by!

Time wastes our bodies and our wits, but we waste time, so we are quits.
Author Unknown

Lining up at the barrier

The upcoming weekend + Melbourne Cup public holiday (an Aussie horse race, one that famously 'stops the nation' for any non-racing, overseas visitors who might be wondering)+ an extra day off from the Arvo Job = FOUR days off in a row!

So I'm sharpening my keyboard, revving my brain, limbering up my characters, and organising my storylines in readiness. As soon as the starting gates open, I'll be off! It's time to hit that YA novel that still doesn't have a kick-ass title yet, and hit it hard. These things don't write themselves.

Getting down to business

There's exciting news for genre writers over at Twelfth Planet Press:

Twelfth Planet Press is looking to develop a new line of dynamic, original genre novels. Twelfth Planet Press novels will push boundaries to question, inspire, engage and challenge. We are specifically looking to acquire material outside that which is typically considered by mainstream publishers.

We are looking for science fiction, fantasy, horror and crime. We will consider borderline literary, new weird, steampunk, space opera, hard science fiction, soft science fiction, urban fantasy, cyberpunk, military science fiction, young adult, paranormal romance and everything in between.

So line up. The starting gun fires January 2012, which gives us all a few months to polish, polish, polish.

And if you're a writer trying to survive the hurly burly of modern publishing and don't read The Business Rusch, all I can say is that you really, really, really should.

Ironing out the details

I spent 5 hours on the YA fantasy novel today. My diagnosis is that I've tried to cram two books into what I need to edit down into one, so I spent today rebuilding it from the beginning chapter by chapter.

Otherwise, it was a lovely, peaceful, rainy day, perfect for losing oneself in writing projects. I've just wound up a most productive day by submitting 3 stories, but now I realise that I have to get my ironing done for the Arvo Job work week ahead. Blah.

Wet weather writing

So this is what the view looked like from under my umbrella on my bracing walk today at about 4 o'clock in the afternoon. I told you it was cold and wet.

After splashing around the botanical gardens, I'd planned to buy another notice board on the way home because this morning I suddenly became convinced that pinning up cards with storylines and characters to create an overall visual plan of the YA novel project would help solve my structural problems (I often think that acquiring the exact right officey organising doodah will provide writing salvation). Unfortunately, Chickenfeed (a shop full of cheapie bric-a-brac for those unfamiliar with the name) was all out of these magical writing aides. I'll search elsewhere tomorrow.

Rain, rain, stay today

I couldn't have asked for better weather for my AJWWB - it's been pouring down all week. Excellent snuggle up with the cats at the keyboard weather, the sound of rain on the roof adding to the cosy factor. So far, I'm getting about 6 solid hours of work done a day and am building up to more as my brain limbers up and remembers how to do long haul fiction writing. Each afternoon, after a morning of reading, writing, checking my emails for rejections and feeding the soggy-looking chook, I bundle up, open my umbrella and go for a walk and a think, then visit the library or catch up with folk, and possibly do a bit of shopping (which seems more like a recreational activity than a chore when you're on holidays) before heading home for the second keyboard shift. Evenings are for other things.

My big project seems to be a big muddle at the moment, which is to be expected at this stage, with the inevitable choices of what to keep, what to ditch and what to add whirling inside my head. When trying to second guess readers, editors and publishers gets too much, I take a break from the big stuff and work on a shorter piece. I finished the Spirit story yesterday. Now it can sit for a while.

Anyway, back to work :)

What have you got to lose?

Have you got a genre novel tucked away somewhere? A manuscript that is perhaps a little bruised and battered from doing the rounds? Or maybe a shiny new work that needs a home? If so, you should head across to Angry Robot and check out their Open Door Month:

In March 2011 we will be accepting submissions from unagented authors for the first time. The clock starts ticking on March 1st, and we close the doors again on March 31st.

What they're looking for:

All our books are “genre” fiction in one way or another — specifically fantasy, science fiction, horror, and that new catch-all urban or modern fantasy. Those are quite wide-ranging in themselves; we’re looking for all types of sub-genre, so for example, hard SF, space opera, cyberpunk, military SF, alternate future history, future crime, time travel, and more. We have no problem if your book mashes together two or more of these genres, but they must have that genre foundation – no thrillers with the merest touch of SF, for example.

This is exciting stuff. Actual invitations to submit novels are few and far between. I'd write more about how exciting it is except I'm too busy heaving the first book of a space opera series that I completed long ago from the bottom drawer.

What the heck, it's worth a go.

Only a physicist

This response, in a New Scientist interview a few weeks ago with physicist Brian Green, to Is there any question that keeps you up at night? comes as such elegant relief to the usual background blather of comments and opinions that it has stayed with me. There’s no talk of mortgages, commodities, price indexes, the correct way to do this or that, creative fixations or human idiocy, no hint of what everyone should think, wear, understand and do, but a clear, crisp focus on the fundamentals of existence:

I wish it was just one. There are two that, if I allow myself to think about them, make my heart sink. Why is there something rather than nothing? It’s a simple question that’s been asked for so long and the idea of nothing seems logically sensible. But when I truly imagine nothingness, well, I find it almost scary. Why isn’t there nothing?

The other question is the nature of time. Time is with us, every moment. I can’t even say a sentence without invoking a temporal word – moment. But what is time? When we look at the mathematics of our current understanding of physics, time is there, but there’s no deep explanation of what it is or where it came from.

So: nothingness and time. The mind of a physicist is indeed a beautiful thing.

Viewing the world through my own tiny, cracked prism, what woke me up last night was a writerly nightmare of the type I don't usually have. In it, I had just written a spectacularly brilliant piece on Rover, I was walking through the park holding my notebook triumphantly aloft and feeling euphoric about my accomplishment when a flash flood tore across Albert Park and ripped the notebook from my grasp. I floundered though the water, recovered Rover just as it was about to go down a drain, but alas, its circuitry was sodden and the Great Work was gone. The final, dramatic scene had me standing limp and lost as the light darkened around me, staring despairingly at the useless little computer in my hands.

Talk about self obsessed.

Worldcon: A Really Rapid Roundup

So many people are blogging about AussieCon4, and most of them are insiders with far better photos of the behind the scenes happenings and major events, far more intimate meetings with interesting people to tell about, and certainly a higher grade of gossip than me, so I’m just going to do a ramshackle rundown of a few everyday things that happened to me, amused me, or in some way caught my inconsequential attention. There will be much gratuitous name dropping as well.

1) The funny film montage shown at the opening ceremony. Cutting back and forth between Aussie films and SF classics, it gave us, among other things, Sarah Connor watching Mad Max blow up Kenny’s poo truck and the Terminator emerging from the flames, Storm Troopers shooting down Ned Kelly, hobbits hiding from the Wolf Creek psycho, David Gulpilil watching X-wings bomb Darwin, and Crocodile Dundee doing his call-that-a-knife shtick to Darth Vader. By popular demand, the montage was shown again at the closing ceremony.

2) The Write the Fight workshop was fun because we got to get up for a change and jump around and pretend to hit each other. Predictably, there were a few guys, some in berets, who were eager to impress Alan Baxter by expounding their knowledge of commando techniques for quickly killing people or by trying to grab his leg when he was demonstrating kicks, but he very deftly and graciously deflected their attempts at hogging the limelight.

3) I enjoyed any session or panel with Kim Stanley Robinson in it. The man is brilliant, funny, compassionate, optimistic about the future, ideological, and just plain lovely. He got top points from me for continually referring to Economics as a pseudoscience, and belittling it as the astrology of our times.

4) While standing in a long line waiting for the above mentioned Kim Stanley Robinson to sign my Blue Mars, I got to chat and joke with folk from Finland, the UK and Western Australia. We felt sorry for poor KSR, but not sorry enough to remove ourselves from the queue, and explored the possibility of just asking him to simply spit on the title pages of our books. It got a bit gross. I suppose you had to be there.

5) The later people arrived for a session, the closer to the front they wanted to sit, and then preferably right in the middle so that half a row of settled folk had to get up to let them past.

6) I recall suffering through a dark, bleak, very weird, Brazilian SF film and groaning with the rest of the audience at the end when it turned out to have no point whatsoever. It was like a parody of an art house movie, and yet it wasn’t. The comments from the audience made it worth the agony. It was a real bonding experience, but the memory of that film still makes me shudder.

7) I got a bag of lollies from Twelfth Planet Press when I bought a book. I love freebies and personal touches.

8) Coffee with Kaaron Warren. I signed up for my first kaffeeklatch as a tentative exercise in practicing my convention socializing skills and overcoming public shyness, thinking there would be no pressure to perform because I could hide amongst the other 8 participants. Shock, horror, I was the only participant. Amazingly, I remained calm. Fortunately, I didn’t babble. I wasn’t brilliant, but I didn’t babble. Happily, Laura E Goodin and a few other writerly folk and their friends and family joined us, so I got lean back and listen to how the other half lives (you know, how it is when your stuff gets published a lot and editors actually invite you to submit stuff) and I even occasionally butted in. The only fudge was when Kaaron kindly asked me if I was a writer and I went into my default, dismissive waffly mode. The highlight of the klatsch was when Kaaron suddenly jumped up because she had spotted Robert Silverberg , sprinted across the room for an autograph and a fangirl chat, then returned with stories of his niceness.

8) Peter M Ball signed my copy of Bleed. I tried to ever so casually mention that we shared the TOC of Moonlight Tuber #1, but my brain inexplicably latched onto Midnight Echo, so I babbled something about Midlight Mumble Mumble instead. Peter was a real gentleman and very gracious about it.


9) Have I mentioned the Build a Lego Dalek workshop? It was fun.






10) I got a big hug from Sue Bursztynski, and she shared the news that her book Wolfborn has been picked up by a publisher and will be out in December. Go Sue!

11) Coffee with Catherynne M. Valente, during which I did not mumble or babble, said a few relevant things, and scored a treasure.

12) Coffee with George R.R. Martin (I just can’t repeat that often enough) during which I also said a few coherent words. See, practice pays.

13) On the last day, I was much amused by a panel with Greg Benford, Alistair Reynolds and Charles Stross during which many science jokes were made about centrifugal forces, teleportation, FTL ships and stasis fields, and the audience laughed in all the right places. I love SF people!

There’s more, but that’s enough. I’ve got some more sleeping to do.

Coward of the County

Well, despite my procrastination (read: subconscious desire to avoid the rigours of having my work publicly critiqued by a group of strangers) it looks like I've got a workshop organised (the enrolment should be finalised tomorrow). It's a year long endeavour, the longest I've yet attempted. I hope I'm up to it, because it will take a lot of time and energy, but, cross fingers, by the end of the year, I'll have a polished novel *gulp* ready for submitting.

Yep, with my writerly confidence slowly trickling back, it's time to pull out that dusty old dream of getting a novel published, give it a good shake, and see what happens. I might even work up the guts to start sending out again the two masterpieces I've got tucked away on various hard drives - I wasn't very good at dealing with rejections last time I tried that gig, but I've toughened up a lot since then. Rejections? I eat 'em for breakfast now.

And on the subject of guts, I'm also trying to work up the nerve to submit an old tale of mine to the anthology Australis Imaginarium.