Who Cats

This is an ongoing problem for me: I slip a Dr Who disc into the Blu-ray and pop put to the kitchen to pick up a waiting tray of tea and toast (or unhealthy goodies), but when I get back, there are multiple cat-shaped silhouettes lurking in the half-dark blocking my view. This only happens with Dr Who.

Lured by the wildly swirling time tunnel through which the TARDIS hurtles, the hypnotised moggies sit right up close to the screen staring at the psychedelic movements. Occasionally, they raise paws to bat a particularly enticing vortex. I need to shoo them away quick smart and with rough words or they just keep coming back for more. I thought it was amusing when it first happened, but I soon discovered that they can actually sit there for an entire episode blandly staring at The Doctor and his doings, or walking backwards and forwards in front of the screen, waiting, waiting, waiting until the amusing, feline-friendly visuals return at the very end, at which point they get excited again. I've almost broken the habit, but, as these photos from last night prove, Jenny still hasn't quite got the message.

And yes, posting about my cats means I didn't, alas, make it to Continuum today. There was simply not enough oomph left in my already well squeezed-out toothpaste tube of energy to get me down to Melbourne and then through more than a couple of hours of keeping up with lots of bustling, challenging people before I would have had to head home again, which, given the door price for a single day, would have been bad economics. Plus, for added energy-drainingness, the trains are partially out this weekend, the last leg of the journey replaced by buses. So I stayed home instead and rewrote a story that I'll submit tomorrow, which made me feel good and pleased and happy, although it probably wasn't as career-furthering as a spot of strategic networking (unless it sells to the intended market!), or as fun as all the wining and dining happenings at Continuum that folk are blogging about.

Ah well, we do what we can do as best we can.

Note From Editor: Aliens Spotted in Dallas

Even though the official release day for Aliens: Recent Encounters is 17 June 2013,  editor Alex Dally MacFarlane reports here on her blog that she saw, and actually fondled, copies of the anthology  in a Barnes & Nobles in Dallas. She even provides a cool shelf photo.
  
Sooooo, things are hotting up. It's sooooo exciting. I sooooo still can't believe I somehow squeezed into that amazing TOC!

There's also an interview with Alex about the anthology and her own writing over at SF Signal.

Now to get some writing done in between loads of washing. Here in Australia, this is the Queen's Birthday long weekend, so I'm eager to get the domestic stuff out of the way so I can catch up with my muses, a few movies, some rest, and hopefully a day of socialising with the good folk down at Continuum tomorrow.

Roll up! Roll up!

Once more, it's time for the great Aussie Spec Fic Snapshot.
Background: it all started back in 2005 when Ben Peek did a quick inventory of the Australian spec fic scene and interviewed these 43 people.
Then in 2007, this lengthening list was compiled.
Onwards to 2010, and even more people were added here. Who knows where it will all end?

This year, from  June 1 to June 7, 2012, in the lead up to Continuum 8 in Melbourne (you know, the con I won't be able to attend *sniff*) clicking the links below on a daily basis will take you to interviews with people currently beavering away in the Aussie spec fic scene. You might even (he he) bump into me at some point...

http://thebooknut.wordpress.com/tag/2012snapshot/

http://kathrynlinge.livejournal.com/tag/2012snapshot/

http://helenm.posterous.com/tag/2012snapshot

http://bookonaut.blogspot.com.au/search/label/2012Snapshot

http://www.davidmcdonaldspage.com/tag/2012snapshot/

tansyrr.com/tansywp/tag/2012snapshot/

www.champagneandsocks.com/tag/2012snapshot/

http://randomalex.net/tag/2012snapshot/

http://jasonnahrung.com/tag/2012snapshot/

http://mondyboy.com/?tag=2012snapshot

Eventually, all of the 2012 interviews will all be archived here.

This year, in honour of their memories, the first two snapshots are:

A tribute to Paul Haines.
A tribute to Sara Douglass.

Best-Laid Plans

Determined to have one last weekend pretending my health is fine before the whole hospital hoopla hits, I headed off to Melbourne for JD’s spec-fic workshop, where things went unexpectedly awry.

My original cunning plan: To use the workshop as an impetus to finish and polish a new story for the final session which would then knock the socks off everyone with its perfectly executed prose, sharp images, sublime dialogue, complete control over characters, wondrous world-building and multi-layered political-fantasy plot – all this, and a dragon too!

What happened: In an impromptu rejig of the schedule, everyone got to read the first, unfinished draft that I submitted at the second session two months ago (to show that I wasn’t cheating and was actually working on something). It was basically a clunky foray into the raw landscape of an idea, and most of it has been deleted, shuffled about or rewritten since then. *sigh* I’ve never ever shown such an undeveloped story to anyone before. I’m thoroughly hardened to people critiquing a finished piece, truly, but to have a whole room full of people eyeing off one's fits and starts and dead ends was just plain embarrassing.  

Of course, in the greater scheme of things, my sensitive writerly ego barely rates a mention. I was actually a bit down on the train trip home. With everyone making plans for the final workshop and arrangements for going out drinks and a meal afterwards, and all the talk of Natcon panels and guests, it suddenly hit me that I really am going to miss out on a great big chunk of life soon. Exciting and interesting things will be happening in the world beyond, but I won’t be able to participate. I have to get used to the thought that for the time being, plans are for other people.

But not to worry - I will get used to the thought. And I will get through it all. And I plan to watch every HBO series and sci-fi box set in the known universe as I do so.

Summer in the City

Today’s trip to the Melbourne Showgrounds for Supanova was a recon mission. This pop culture expo has been on each year for the past decade, but I’ve never checked it out. Silly me. The atmosphere was fantastic. Despite the crowds, people were calm and well behaved – I’ve never experienced such orderly and good-natured queues, and because people weren’t jumping around trying to cheat the system and outmanoeuver each other, the lines moved quickly. There was lots of laughing, hugging, people complimenting each other on their costumes, like-minded friends greeting each other, and light-hearted discussions about the finer plot points of books/TV shows/movies/games.

Besides, there was always lots to look at and smile about – scary aliens, adorable aliens, sexy aliens, cloaked LOTR folk, cloaked Hogwarts students, the most amazingly detailed fantasy and Goth gowns with bead work that had me swooning with envy, big-horned demons, booted SF military aficionados wielding weaponry (Stargate, the Umbrella Corporation, a Zombie Protection Officer) scores of young girls in maid or sailor outfits wearing cute, fluffy cat ears, clutching cute, fluffy cat bags and/or hugging cute, fluffy toys (usually cats), priestesses, warrior and mainstream princesses, angels, Jedi knights, samurai of varying levels of cross-genre, people with cardboard boxes over their heads, The Hitcher from The Mighty Boosh, and a couple of guys in bright blue NASA overalls.

Even going to the loo was an adventure. Instead of the usual delicate powdering of noses and applying of eyeliner, there were ladies-who-lunch-on-brains smacking on another layer of grey foundation and freshening up their blood and gore. Instead of insecure teens endlessly fussing with their latest haircut, there were steampunk ladies adjusting their behatted wigs and space cadets confidently tossing their impossibly lustrous, fake locks. Instead of checking reflections to see if their bums looked big, woman were straightening their epaulets and realigning their wings. Girls valiantly negotiated hoop skirts around tight corners, or squeezed extremely wide and stiff, multiple layers of petticoats into narrow cubicles, thus demonstrating that the modern world does not design these spaces with the sartorially imaginative in mind, which I suppose illustrates another cookie cutter aspect of our society. Baroque will never make a comeback simply because it's too expansive, so we’re doomed to recycle the same 50 years worth of streamlined fashion.

Anyway, it was good to see the many stalls spruiking Australian ventures of all stripes- small press books, comics and artwork. I came across a few familiar faces at the author tables and bought raffle tickets to support Continuum 8 – cross fingers.

Summer Glau was also there somewhere with all the famous folk behind the barriers that admitted only folk with the big $$$ tickets. She was due for an appearance at 14.30, but we headed off just before then, our mission accomplished. T-shirts had been purchased, along with startup Aussie comics and hard to find DVDs. Next year will involve more planning – prepaid tix, an itinerary to cut down on aimless wandering, and perhaps I’ll sign up for a writing workshop. Foodwise, I’ll go into con mode, and stock up on cheese sandwiches, fresh fruit and gingerbread, and drag barrel of water on wheels along behind me. I’m still rehydrating

There might even be a costume, or at the very least a pair of fluffy cat ears...

All geeked out

Continuum continues, but without me today. My brain, refreshed by all the SF & F talk at Continuum 7, decided it would rather spend the day at home writing. Also, I just couldn't get myself excited about getting out of bed at the crack of dawn and catching the early train to Melbourne this morning because that's what I'll be doing tomorrow morning, and the morning after, and the con finishes at 16.00, so here I am. And happy to be here too, I am.

As for Continuum 7, well, there were panels about the nature of writing, about writing tropes, about making money from writing (as per usual, the verdict was that it's difficult), about YA writing, about how networking can help you sell your writing, about the writing market for werewolves, vampires, zombies and other assorted monsters.

But it's important at these conventions to get away from all the earnest navel-gazing-about-writing panels and make sure one enjoys the fun of SF & F in all its forms (I still treasure fond memories of constructing a Lego Dalek at Worldcon.) So I also went to a get-together for chatting about Joss Whedon and all things Whedonesque (apparently you have to keep watching 'The Dollhouse' until episode 6, and then it all comes together and becomes the most brilliant series ever), saw clips of upcoming SF movies, and sat in on a live recording of 'The Writer and the Critic' podcast with Kirstyn McDermott, Ian Mond and their special guest Catherynne M Valente, who was one of the convention's GOHs. Unfortunately, I had to exit before the Q&A session to catch the Sunday night train home - drats.

Best of all, I went to a session with John Richards, who since 2006, together with co-writer Adam Richard, has pursued the goal of getting a new ABC comedy about a group of gay SF fans called Outland from the fund-it-yourself-with-unpaid-actors pilot (which starred Narelle Harris) to production stage. We got to be the first audience to see a couple of scenes from the series, and John was endearingly nervous that we might not like it. He needn't have worried - within seconds everyone was laughing. It was immediately obvious, as he had already said himself, that his two main influences were the BBC shows Spaced and The Book Group, both absolute favourites of mine. Each episode of Outland, as with The Book Group, takes place in a different member's home, and is also built up around a specific SF work - one of the two clips we saw used the grotty corridors and sense of lurking danger in a public housing towerblock to evoke the atmosphere of Alien. Very funny stuff.


Alas, even before it has aired, not everyone is getting the series. Yesterday, in the Sunday Age's magazine 'M' they did a few piece called 'The G Word' about how Aussie television is chary of writing in homosexual characters. The journo wrote about Outland: This new comedy from the ABC is all about geeky gay sci-fi fans. One the one hand, it's faintly dispiriting to have the gay characters portrayed as weird and marginal. On the upside, at least they're on TV.


The journo is utterly missing the point. The overarching joke is that the main characters are weird and marginal because they're top notch, every-breath-they-take sci-fi nerds obsessed with the minor details of mainstream and obscure SF works, not because of they're gay.

I love Christine Anu there in the middle as as the only woman, indigenous, wheelchair bound, tick-as-many-minority-boxes-as-possible-for-ultimate-SF-cred character.

Anyway, that was a fun session. Now, back to my day.

Conning along

So I've carried on Continuuming. With much reluctance, I had to leave to catch the last train home, which is at 22.15 on a Sunday. I would have like to have seen the 'Home-grown Talent' screenings they were showing at 23.00. Ah well.

Anyway, knackered now. More later.

Chatting at Continuum

After the Arvo Job yesterday evening, I walked up St Kilda Road to the city to catch a couple of hours of Continuum 7, the annual Melbourne speculative fiction and pop culture convention before catching a late train (the Friday Night Packed to the Roof Footy Special - aaaah!) home.

It was fantastic to let loose and talk shop with folk who also get genuinely excited about topics like markets, editors, rejections and, of course, those elusive acceptances. I caught up with Steve Cameron, whom I met at a weekend workshop held by Sean Williams a few years ago, and discovered that his story ‘So Sad, the Lighthouse Keeper’, after many rejections and rewrites, will be in Coeur de Lion's forthcoming science fiction anthology Anywhere But Earth. Colour me green with envy. I saw this story when it was but a baby, and it had everyone at the workshop talking then, so I look forward to seeing what it eventually morphed into.

I also caught up with a few people from the YOSF&F workshop held by Paul Collins last year, and we got to see Paul presented with the A Bertram Chandler Award for Lifetime Service to Australian Science Fiction. Afterwards he launched his latest YA title, Mole Hunt. I, naturally, have a signed copy.

Chat, chat, chat, it was all fun. Anyway, I must head for bed soon - there is much to do this lovely long Queen's Birthday weekend.