Dead Men Up and Walking

So late Sunday night I finished and emailed the final edit of The Snowy River Feral for what is referred to somewhat ignobly as The Dead Men antho in the contributor emails buzzing back and forth. The answers for my author interview to help promote the book went off over a week ago. The cover art has been finally finalised - looking good. I've been peeking at the other stories - they look good too. Things are falling into place and hotting up. Now I just have to sit back and try not to fidget too much as I wait for October (not so far away), for that is when the antho finally comes out in all its glory and with its full title rightfully restored. I feel like a kid gazing longingly at a bike-shaped package under the Christmas tree, itching to unwrap it and take it for a whizz around the block.

Given my glee, it was only to be expected that the Real World, which constantly, above and beyond the call of duty, I sometimes think, goes out of its way to keep me humble, tried to stuff up my good mood with a two-rejection Monday night. But hah, I can take it! There's a book full of zombie and vampire stories on the way with my name in it, so suck it up, Real World, suck it up!

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.

Much Ado About Substance

HERE the Los Angeles Review of Books gives science fiction writing the once over. Fantasy gets a slap on the wrist too. Reviewer Paul Kincaid covers in depth the short stories chosen for the three biggie 2012 Best of the Year anthologies, namely Gardener Dozois's The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Ninth Annual Collection, Richard Horton's The Year's Best Science Fiction and Fantasy:2012, and Nebula Awards Showcase 2012.

Best of is a loaded term that is always going to provoke debates - or at least it should, if we want to keep our genre exciting and relevant. Plucking certain mortals from the mud below and elevating them to a celestial position high above others is always going to pit one person's love of straightforward, ideas-based fiction without any new-fangled experimental bells and whistles against another person's love of escapist entertainment versus a third person's loathing of mundane prose and a fourth person's hankering for more interesting story structures. Your OMG, it's the most blooming awesome story ever in the history of the universe, and if you don't agree with me you're stupid might be my meh! Talk of spheres of influence to rival the old Cold War carving up of the world into political blocks, whisperings about competent but bland talent being helped along by friends in high places, complaints about uniform editorial tastes and grumblings about timid writers resorting to backwards-looking tropes are bound to erupt, and once again, your personal writerly or readerly POV will kick in and inform your position in the debate. All of this, as long as it's done within civilized conventions, is allowable and necessary. Freedom of expression and transparency are always desirable, although one should remember (geek alert) that much like the command of a starship, an anthology is not a democracy.

There's a lot to cogitate in Paul Kincaid's article of the good, bad, maybe, and absolutely spot-on sort. Basically, he seems to think that contemporary science fiction writing is much like a cardboard character of old who is bound for a tragic ending, picturesquely languishing upon a chaise longue in a perpetual state of exhaustion and ennui as he or she sighs and awaits the final curtain.

I do hope he's wrong.

From Spacecraft to Starship

I have to admit, I nicked that great title about Voyager 1 from this Washington Post article. It was just too cool and evocative to not nick.

But as a great fan of the workhorse technology of the Early Space Age that just keeps going and going and going, I was always going to do a quick post to celebrate that on this day,  35 years ago, way way back in 1977, Voyager 1 was launched. In a sequence that often confuses peoples, and mucks up careless sources, it's sister probe Voyager 2 blasted off first, a month earlier in August 1977, but because Voyager 1 was launched along a shorter and faster trajectory, it all sorted itself out in the great beyond and Voyager 1 actually reached Jupiter and Saturn first. Timing is everything.

After an impressive reconnaissance of Jupiter, Saturn and its moon Titan, Voyager 1 whizzed on ever outwards, passing Pioneers 10 and 11 to become the most distant man-made object from Earth. Voyager 2 is trailing its sister probe, and against all odds, both Voyagers continue to happily chug along, enjoying the stellar sights, and gathering and dutifully sending information back to their distant creators with their archaic, but still functioning, instruments:

Each only has 68 kilobytes of computer memory. To put that in perspective, the smallest iPod — an 8-gigabyte iPod Nano — is 100,000 times more powerful. Each also has an eight-track tape recorder. Today’s spacecraft use digital memory.

Primitive they may be by today's standards, but like the admirable Martian rovers that just kept on giving and giving, the two Voyagers have exceeded all expectations by keeping it together and steadily approaching the end of our solar system. Scientists predict that any time now, Voyager 1 will break through the hot turbulence at the edge of our solar system's heliosphere and sail on into the (perhaps) relatively cool calmness of interstellar space beyond.

So, yes, Voyager 1 will become a starship. What a promotion!

Ah, they built 'em tough in the old days. There's a lot to be said for screwdrivers and simplicity. I like my space technology to be rugged and robust and repairable. That way, when we finally do head on outwards, we'll be able to jump start engines, weld together emergency parts from scrap metal, and fix malfunctioning computers with a swift kick rather than having to find the nearest spaceship outlet selling slick, disposable, slot-in units with a limited warranty. 
 

An Unmade Day

So that make or break my day email finally arrived (not the humorous antho. This was a different obsession.)

I fiddle-faddled around for ten minutes before I finally opened it.

*sigh*

Nearly, but not quite.

It would have been soooo great.

Ah well, onwards...

At least there's only a few minutes left of this day, so the damage to its well-being is minimal. My writerly pain will soon be over :-) And tomorrow, as we all know, is another kettle of fish altogether.

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.

   

End of the Month Report: August 2012

Submissions: 6
Rejections: 6
Acceptances: 0
Published: 0
Stories out in the wild: 7
New stories completed: 2 (Movement, finally! Good brain! Keep them coming.)
Mood: Chewing my fingernails and watching my inbox for one particular rejection/acceptance that will make or break my day when it arrives. Will I ever learn?

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.

Good WIP

My travelling salesman story is funny again, I think.

Ah, the thrill of a fast-approaching deadline! I could practically feel the wind in my hair as a typed like a maniac this fine Monday morning.

Vale, Neil Armstrong

So I woke up to the news that Neil Armstrong had passed away at the age of 82, and thought not another one. It seems that the members of a certain generation of space dreamers and inspirers and adventurers and doers are leaving us one by one, and one is left with an uneasy feeling that we might not be worthy of their legacy, might not be up to the task of exploring those distant and dangerous frontiers that await us. But thank goodness we were privileged to know them for a while.

Neil Alden Armstrong was a Navy pilot (he flew 78 missions over Korea), test pilot, aerospace engineer, NASA astronaut, university professor, husband, father and grandfather, and, from all accounts, a truly nice guy. And he liked horses. He was also, of course, a legend - the first human to walk on the moon. The man and the dream are hard to separate, especially for those of us who sat enthralled in front of our TV sets on that memorable July day in 1969 (we knew it had to be a seriously important event because they let us skip class and sent us home from school) to watch a shadowy image transmitted from a place far beyond Earth. After that, anything seemed possible. The sky was not the limit and humankind was headed for greatness, and we couldn't have had a better figurehead to herald in that era than Neil Armstrong. He never let us down, even as those around him let the dream drift, and he never grubbied that special moment in history with his subsequent behaviour. For his whole life, he remained that rarest of things - a genuine hero that we could safely admire and be inspired by.

His first spaceflight was the Gemini 8 mission in 1966, when he performed the first manned docking of two spacecraft. His second and final spaceflight was as mission commander of the Apollo 11 moon landing on July 20, 1969. What a pity we didn't get the chance to witness a third spaceflight and take up his offer in 2010 to be commander on a Mars mission. His life was full and amazing enough, but still, Neil Armstrong on Mars - can you picture it? And see how, with that one remark, he once again prodded our imaginations.

Vale

Neil Alden Armstrong

August 5, 1930 - August 25, 2012

 

"I am, and ever will be, a white socks, pocket protector, nerdy engineer."

-Neil Armstrong, 2000.

Aw, That's Nice.

The place where Curiosity landed a few weeks ago shall henceforth been known as Bradbury's Landing. Here's the NASA link. And here's a picture of Ray's piece of prime Martian real estate (if we ever do get there, you can bet it'll cost a pretty penny to snag a plot in this nostalgic neighbourhood):

-

How cool is that? I love the tracks leading away from the landing spot as Curiosity sets forth on its journey of exploration. Anyway, according to NASA:

This was not a difficult choice for the science team,” said Michael Meyer, NASA program scientist for Curiosity. “Many of us and millions of other readers were inspired in our lives by the stories Ray Bradbury wrote to dream of the  possibility of life on Mars.”

I love those guys and gals at NASA. If think that if I had my time over, I'd be a rocket scientist, building cute rovers and tinkering with deep space probes and hanging out at bars frequented by adventurous geeks and noble nerds who passionately believe space really is the final frontier. And a writer too, of course.

And apropos Ray, I had a Martian Chronicles moment the other day on the train platform. I was holding my closed-but-not-yet-strapped-shut-umbrella in a certain way and, suddenly flashbacking, it seemed to look a lot like a certain weapon in a certain mini series, and I felt like aiming the tip at the people on the opposite platform and making spacey shooting noises. But that would have been undignified for a lady of my age (the under tens have all the fun).

Hmm, seeing this photo, the connection seems a tad tenuous now. Maybe you had to be there, a bit bored and unenthusiastic about the day ahead, desperate for excitement and looking at it from a certain angle...

 



Rebellious WIP

Rats! My "amusing" travelling salesman story wants to be a deep and meaningful love story that includes insightful comments on marketing and capitalism.

Damn you, story, just be funny!

Witty WIP?

The galley text for the Dead Men anthology has just arrived - time for me to put on my special nitpicking reading glasses and go looking for mistakes. It's so exciting!

The editors also sent a gentle reminder that they need the promotional author interviews in by next week - time for me to stop faffing around with "clever" suggestions on the best ways to kill zombies and just send off my answers.

It's also time for me to ease back into working on some of my more serious WIPs. However, at the moment, and I'm not sure why, I'm a mite obsessed (a phrase en par with being 'a little bit pregnant') with getting into this humour anthology. It's paying professional rates and has already received over 700 submissions, so there's hardly any competition, but hey, I'm happy to indulge, for a reasonable amount of time, any mania that gets me madly editing and polishing, creating new stories and wildly subbing. My first two attempts at this antho were rejected within hours, but I've just experienced the triumph of my third submission actually making it past the first stage firewall and being considered by the antho's editorial board (I'm calling them the 'Council of Five', and I picture them seated at a high table wearing inquisitorial robes as they interrogate each trembling story brought before them ). The story that made it that far was actually the brand new story I crowed about finishing a few days back, which wasn't too bad a result for its first time out. Alas, in the end, my exceedingly humorous, Hemmingwayesque story set in a French restaurant in 2029 did not get enough 'yes' votes to make it into the final round, but I did get an invite to submit another story. So where before I was dubious about my ability to tickle the funny bones of this antho's editors, but was nonetheless driven to try, I've now caught a whiff of  'maybe I can do it', and am rallying for one last, mighty attempt before the deadline hits at the end of the month. You see, I had this hilarious idea on the train on the way to Arvo Job on Tuesday that would be perfect...

So, once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more, with my piece about a futuristic travelling salesman. Ba-boom!

Show Me the Money

That inveterate stirrer China Mieville suggests that writers should be paid a salary to do their creative work.

He also goes on about the future of the novel, chastises backwards-looking, publishing gloom-mongers, brings haughty literary gatekeepers down a peg or two, and says deep and meaningful things about post-modernism and such, but I was mostly interested in the salary idea.

I quite like it.

Whether modern capitalism is up for it remains doubtful. As China rightly points out, many professions that do the most good for society are hideously undervalued by the present system, though I'm sure this injustice makes perfect sense to those individuals and their hanger-on best friends who benefit most from our modern feudal hierarchy. They'll have some incredibly rational spin-story up their money-stuffed sleeves to explain why it simply must be so.

And appropos modern capitalism and its tendency to mercilessly suck the vibrancy out of people for a buck, here's an interesting piece that I've been meaning to link to for the past week on how all political struggles today amount to a war over time.

This reluctant trading of time for money is a something that most writers with day or arvo or night jobs feel keenly, I suspect.

Now, where can I sign up for that salary package?

Tuppence For My Thoughts

Increments. I'm clawing back minutes from  my still overwhelming desire to nap all the time and slowly, very slowly, re-establishing old habits and getting my brain back in writing shape.

I'm not writing for 1.5-2 hours each day before heading off for the Arvo Job (*sigh* those were the days), but I am sitting at the keyboard every morning and doing 30 minutes of work. Slowly, very slowly, one sentence at a time, stories are coming together. My brain is making fewer and fewer grating noises. Soon, I'll try to get up earlier and add another 30 minutes to that workout.

I'm not writing on the train yet, but I'm not snoozing all the way into Melbourne either, which is another minor triumph. I'm retraining my brain to not automatically start dozing as soon as I sit down by reading. Once again, the session lasts a magical 30 minutes, then, so far, no matter how hard I try, I do nod off. It's the same thing on the way home. The books I'm getting through are light and fun tomes that I can sneak in as an acceptable and more interesting alternative to napping, and hopefully I'll be able to extend these reading periods minute by minute, and eventually, when my brain is more limber, switch back to writing on the train. As I said, increments. My brain is like one of those pudgy, down-and-out, Rocky-like characters who slip on their old tracksuits and try to get back in shape so they can once more be contenders.

Anyway, at the moment, my light and easy read is the short story collection Partners in Crime (the cover on my copy is very boring compared with the very Jazz Age, 1929 first edition cover pictured here) one of the Tommy and Tuppence books by Agatha Christie. I read this series many decades ago, and absolutely adored it then, so I knew PiC would be just the ticket. Very light, very easy, very charming and amusing, full of words like 'foozle', expressions like 'old thing', and cases that involve discussions about haughty, titled folk and the likelihood of a hat pin being used as a possible murder weapon in a time when thoroughly modern girls with bobbed hair wear their cloche hats pulled tight down over their heads. Even thought there are corpses a plenty and much mayhem, it's all so good natured and friendly, cosy and reliable that one quickly forgets about the poor victims. Deep these books are not, but certain pertinent social observations are clever and snortingly funny.

The gaiety, the banter, young characters who have experienced the horrors of the Great War and are determined to live life to the full. The dazzling Jazz Age and its bright young children trying hard to forget the darkness and death they knew only too well was still out there waiting for them. T&T got my brain ticking along again in the nicest possible way, and sent me off on tangents about society, wars, permissiveness, and our modern obsession with crowbarring in unrelenting doses of UR ST whenever we have a fictional male-female partnership. One of the best things about the T &T books is that one simply doesn't have to put up with that kind of rot.

R.I.P. Harry Harrison

I read yesterday morning about the death of Harry Harrison, another master writer of SF lost to the ranks, but I didn't have time to pay my respects then. However, this did give me all day to contemplate the great man and just how much I owe him. So many hours of entertainment, so many adventures, so many thoughts, so much fun. My special favourites are, of course, special favourites the world over, but that doesn't make the experiences I had any less personal or any less unique, for such is the magic of books.

My very first Harry Harrison obsession was the Deathworld series (so yes, when the military crew cut guy in  'Avatar' started to spout about how dangerous the planet beyond the perimeter was, I had definite Deathworld flashbacks. Sparkling Pandora, of course, was a milksop of a world compared with Porgorstoraand.) I chewed my nails anxiously as I read of carnivorous plants and such, for Jason dinAlt was up against a real killer of a world, but fortunately his gambler's ingenuity knew no bounds.

My second great Harry Harrison love was the ever popular series that gave us James Bolivar diGriz, alias Slippery Jim, alias (sound the trumpets, please) The Stainless Steel Rat. Just saying it makes me grin. I have to confess though that once Slippery Jim married the homicidal maniac Angela, I became a bit concerned that Harry might tame Angie, stick an apron on her and have her discover the delights of baking space cookies. I needn't have worried. For me, one of the very very best things about this series is that Angela so competently combines being a wife, and later a mother, with banter and shootouts, and that The Rat has to constantly bring her down a notch or two. They were always my idea of the perfect couple. When the twins, James and Bolivar diGriz, were born, again I was a mite concerned, but as soon as Angela took to concealing weaponry in their pram, I knew that all was well. Thank you, Harry, for not domesticating Angela. And for not turning The Rat into an imperious Dad. The love was always there, but the diGriz family never went all Fifties on us, and oh, how I wished I could be a part of their rambunctious household. By the by, in this world, the SSR series helped me to convince my two brothers when they were way young that reading need not be a dreary school exercise and might actually have something going for it. Thanks to Harry, they both went on to read many other books in their own time just for fun.

The Stainless Steel Rat and Bill the Galactic Hero showed me that SF could be fun, but Harry was no slouch at deep and serious as well. Make Room! Make Room! gave me the heebie jeebies for years and was one of those influential books that shaped the way I, and many others I'm sure, think. I thank Harry for providing that brain furniture too.

R.I.P

Harry Harrison

March 12, 1925 - August 15, 2012

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.

Writers Trail Scientists in Important Survey

Scientists rule. We, however, namely editors and writers who pride ourselves in burning the midnight oil and downing buckets of a certain brown liquid to prompt ideas and make important deadlines, are a laggardly number five according to this 'Which Profession Drinks Most Coffee' survey on caffeine consumption trends in the workplace (USA). Given that pushing yourself beyond the limit with the help of legal stimulants is considered praiseworthy and admirable in this day and age, we, namely editors and writers, have with this survey just suffered a serious drop in the hardworking cred stakes.

Alas, there's no mention of tea anywhere. Poor, uncool tea just doesn't count. It simply doesn't evoke the same image of a dishevelled, obsessed individual in dire need of a shower gulping one strong, hot beverage after another whilst solving all manner of problems which, like any good home renovation program on TV, must be unraveled by a certain cut-off time or the end of the universe will ensue. Tea reeks of enjoyment, of relaxing afternoons in the garden, leisurely reading and possibly cucumber sandwiches. I doubt anyone will ever do a survey about workplace tea drinkers, and even if they did, no-one would want the brag rights to being named the number one sippers of special leaf brews.

I suspect there's a general perception of a certain air of slackness about we Earl Grey lovers that isn't compatible with the modern world's productivity mania.

Wanted, Preferably Alive, Please.

So every now and then one looks at one's blog's statistics, and one oohs and aahs over people from exotic faraway lands dropping by (thank you), and then one checks traffic sources and stuff to see why those people ended up here and discover that they were probably seeking a learned dissertation from an expert on some esoteric subject but got me rambling on about some inanity instead, or they were looking for another Gitte Christensen (usually that Danish actress or the bigwig manager of a major company). This week someone - how exciting- put in the search words 'Gitte Kristensen criminal'.

Not me, was my first thought. But then I reconsidered. Maybe, I thought, a group of friends from my wild youth in Denmark were having a reunion party and my name came up in conversation, and then they began to wonder what had become of me, and maybe in their drunkenness they forgot that I was a true Christensen, not one of those pretenders starting with a 'k', and maybe they surmised that by moving to Australia, a shady land riddled with the descendants of convicts where TV production companies obsessed with tattooed criminals spend a substantial amount of their budgets on creating countless mini series about underworld figures, I would naturally fall in with a bad crowd (they're drunk, remember) and turn to a life of petty larceny.

That, or someone out there is looking for a Gitte who is a lot meaner and tougher and maybe bigger than me. Possibly she has tattoos - not that there's anything wrong with that.

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.