Supa Princesses and a Much-Needed Multi Pass

Supanova was fun, as per usual. Sure it's crowded, and sure you get to queue a few times, but the atmosphere is always incredibly genial and everyone is there to have a good time. I also like that the attendees are of all age groups, with your tiniest tots (there were two cute sisters dressed up as unicorns, and a couple of small Captain Americas with diminutive shields) mingling with happy groups of young gamers and manga fans made up as their favourite characters, right through to veteran oldies. Comics, artwork, books, movies, games, modelling - all aspects of the scene are covered, and it's a place where those just starting out can sell their wares alongside established artists.

And always, there's a parade of costumes to admire, everything from your Wookies to your Doctors, Mulders, Scullies, Leias, Solos, Vikings, robots of different persuasions, samurai, zombies and zombie hunters, one dragon, many unidentifiable (to me) gamer characters, and much Game of Thrones finery, which enthralled many of the small girls present. One particular knee-high admirer just stood in the busy exhibition hall staring up at four female Throners with an air of disbelief, a huge, blissful smile on her face while her dad looked on, and everyone politely moved around the group and made room for her moment. Every year the cavalcade changes. There didn't seem to be any steampunk costumes  this year, no Daleks or Weeping Angels, there was nary a Star Trek officer to be seen, likewise Resident Evil soldiers and girls wearing fluffy cat ears.

But there were princesses. Disney royalty and the aforementioned Game of Thrones ladies were definite hit this year, though some carried it off better than others. At one point, a pink clad figure came schlepping by, her posture stooped, bags hanging criss-cross over her outfit, and she was rather indecorously downing junk food. I felt she was letting the side down. But the others all seemed to keep their princess personas going no matter what, regularly but discretely touched up their make-up and kept an eye on their hair, and were exceedingly gracious to all the little girls (usually in pink dresses themselves) who ran up to them for a close gander, arranging their big dresses and posing with the star struck kiddies for photos.

I bought a few things, of course, including the obligatory, geeky T-shirt (actually, I got three) and a Leeloo Dallas multi pass to  hang on the odds and sods board over my writing desk. It's a bit of a running family joke, and makes me smile when I see it.

We also attended a talk with Gary Lockwood and Keir Dullea from 2001: A Space Odyssey, and heard all about the brilliance of Stanley Kubrick, Arthur C Clarke anecdotes, amusing and serious information about the making of the film, the public reaction afterwards, and much trivia about Hollywood in the 60s. There were plenty of other guests, the stars of shows from the olden days as well as the latest productions, but after a second whizz around the grounds, we called it a day.

Because it's Time to Buy that Annual T-Shirt with a Geeky Message Which I'll Probably Only Wear Whilst Writing.

Plus, this is a family thing. We do it each year.

So, to bed, to bed ASAP, for I'm off to Supanova early in the morning.

I'd better pop the tickets in my bag. Wouldn't want to be halfway to Melbourne and realise I'd forgotten them.

See you there, maybe. There's usually an awful lot of people.  

Bards and Sages Quarterly, April 2014

So it's finally out, a story I wasn't sure would ever see the light of day but remain forever locked away in a dark drawer because it was a bit too, well, you know, weirdy-fun?  Instead, it was picked up by Bards and Sages Quarterly the sixth time I subbed it.

The story of which I speak is A Moveable Buffet,  my humorous piece set in a swank restaurant in Paris in 2029, which features 3 human law enforcers - a Frenchman, an American, and an Aussie - as well as a colourful alien from a distant galaxy. There is international crime, a mystery, a spot of action, and possibly... well, you'll have to read it to find out more.

Presently, you can procure e-copies by either popping over to Amazon or Smashwords.

I hope you enjoy it.

Aaaah, I love the smell of a new publication in the morning.

Hair-Trigger Scribes?

Reading Jane Turner's regular column 'Turning Pages' in The Age this morning, I was pointed towards a piece from last year in Ploughshares magazine by novelist Rebecca Makkai.

Titled 14 Ways to Tick Off A Writer, the content is, I think, self-explanatory. If you're in doubt, she opens with: Writers are fun and easy to annoy. Minimum effort, maximum rage. She goes on to provide details about how to poke your favourite scribe with a stick just for the heck of it. Mind you, she's mostly referring to novelists with actual publications under their belt, so much of this was news to me.

Anyway, the one I liked most is: Turn up at a reading. Raise your hand to ask a question. Launch into a ten minute description of your novel-in-progress. But in a whiny voice, with a question mark at the end. That totally makes it a question.

This I can relate to. It gives me flashbacks of the uncomfortable sort. I love attending literary festivals, buying books, bumping into folk and chatting, hearing the wise sages of writing dispense interesting facts and advice, but am far less enamoured with the question times after.

Sure, every now and then, you get a good session, with smart people who raise interesting topics that aren't all about them. However, more times than I can count, I've curled my toes and stared hard at the floor while long-winded people try desperately to impress the writer up on the stage with their own brilliant output by going into great detail about the amazingly different novel, which is sort of like the guest speaker's, they're presently working on. Or worse, they give a not so quick rundown of the three manuscripts at home in their drawer that no publisher will take, the inference being that they'd like the guest speaker to champion their masterpieces. Or they launch into a dissertation about how they, with their particular genius, interpreted the writer's work in a way that no-one else has ever done before and they've made a fifty point list of fascinating observations that they alone have uncovered which they would now like to share...

Cue groans.

I feel sorry for some of them, I do, the ones with their neediness so nakedly on display or those determinedly struggling with awkwardness so as to seize what they believe is their big moment, but at the same time, such behaviour seems rather obviously ill-mannered to me. Festival attendees are supposed to be smart people, yet some simply cannot comprehend that the audience has paid to hear pearls from the proven writer, not listen to the ramblings of floor stealers.

I suppose it's all human nature though, the kind of boorish behaviour that celebrities draw from certain types. You get the wannabes and attention seekers at conventions of all kinds, be the speaker a star of SF, a Wall Street predator imparting advice on how to smilingly rip money from the hands of the gullible masses, or a combination of the two, namely a Kardashian.

I Write, Uhm, Stuff...

The Locus Recommended Reading List for 2013 is up here. For once, thanks to my mighty e-reader and the easiness of downloading magazines as they come out, I'm a little more au fait with many of the works mentioned. As I scan the list this year, I can nod in approval, frown with disapproval, tut-tut and cheer, making it a far more participatory process.

And while you're over at Locus, stop for a quick read of Kameron Hurley's essay 'Making Excuses for Science Fiction'. I've been there. I still find myself there from time to time if I carelessly wander during a conversation. Mostly I just avoid telling people outside a certain group that I write because then they'll want to know what I write, and I don't want to go there because, like, you know, they wouldn't understand! Or so I tell myself. And often it's true - I can see the odd expressions on their faces. Mostly, it's just too hard.

Kameron Hurley also tackles geeky elitism as part of the problem, and  wisely writes:

Yet I contributed to this very narrative about my work. Instead of talking about my books as serious (or at least fun) literature, I found myself fall­ing into the same self-conscious trap I had as a kid, when I muttered about how I was writing a story about an expedition to Venus where the volcanos erupted with flowers. I said stuff like: ‘‘Oh, you probably won’t like it. It’s pretty weird,’’ or ‘‘It’s not for everyone,’’ or ‘‘You’ll only like it if you read a lot of science fiction.’’

I anticipated their reactions, and pulled my punches.

One might think I said these things in a pure fit of shame. But as I got older and moved in geekier and geekier circles with folks who loved the same books I did, I recognized that some of this was not shame, but pride. There was some elitism in it of the, ‘‘People like me just get this and you won’t’’ variety.

That’s not pulling a punch. That’s punching yourself in the face.

 And yet it all just boils down to telling stories and readers hopefully enjoying them. Why, oh why, must we complicate things?

The Robot Doggie in the Window

I'm a relatively connected and well-read girl, so I was delighted, but not surprised, to see a full scale Dalek holding a huge popcorn container and slurpee turn up at our regular movie theatre a couple of weeks ago, to read a Dr Whom cartoon in the Age newspaper on the train on the way home last night, and to discover this morning that Episode 13 of the BAMF Girls Club featured a certain bowtie-wearing and sonic screwdriver-wielding gentleman popping into the chaotic household shared by Buffy, Hermione, Bella, Michonne, Lisbeth, and Katniss (who recently had her own tie-in episode because of her upcoming movie.)

What did astonish me, however, this afternoon whilst out for a spot of shopping, was passing the local upholstery shop, an establishment that usually reeks of rural conservative properness, as is only fitting for a business that can make or break your most recent redecorating scheme, and spotting a very professionally homemade replica of everyone's favourite robot dog comfortably ensconced amongst the dignified wingback chairs. That's an affirmative - there was a K-9 in the window.

That's the kind of unexpected, everyday wonder that makes me think there's hope yet for humanity.

And do I have tickets for the Great Event tomorrow? You bet, what with all my ABC signals mysteriously vanishing when regional Victoria switched to digital. Yep, that's a techno advance worked out great for me. This way, if I'm careful, I have a ghost of a chance of seeing what happens before all the blogs blow the lid off John Hurt's Doctor.

Also, I must honour the child within who spent many hours in the schoolyard with friends screeching 'Exterminate! Exterminate!' and zapping Cybermen.

A Most Satisfactory Sunday

After some token housework and zealously obliterating another papery stack (into the recycle bin it mostly went) to clear more space in my study, I spent a few happy hours sorting through my published SF short stories, picking three for a reprint anthology, checking the manuscripts and subbing them. Ah, the trio of  memory lanes I traversed in the process. I remembered the sweat and time and tears and effort I put into each of them, recalled the sadness of their initial rejections, and relived the joy I felt when I finally sold them. Okay, perhaps I'm being a little melodramatic, but you get the gist of it :)

Then I submitted another SF story for a publication that has cut back on its reading periods and is now only accepting submissions for the first week of each quarter. You have to be quick, you have to be organised these days - I'd jotted a note in my diary to make sure I caught this window, and held certain story for a month so it could have a shot at this market. Most publications are inundated with stories, and often hang up their 'closed to submissions' shingles for months on end, and even the ones with regular reading periods often beg off for six months or so while they catch up.

Anyway, I also wrote a bit, so I feel I've accomplished useful writerly things this fine Sunday. All in all, 'twas a good day - peaceful, productive, and full of potential.

Take Me Out To The Red

Over at The Mary Sue, they're reporting a shades-of-Firefly SF series in development which is evocatively titled Red. It's described as:

a neo-Western drama about the first human settlement on Mars and life on this new frontier, centering on the relationships between the town’s female sheriff, a doctor and a criminal.

Mars. Colonisation. Space cowboys and cowgirls. Maybe a shootout at the Mt Olympus O.K. Corral. Count me in, at least for the first few episodes, then we'll see if it's got that vibe we crave. And if it stirs up interest in heading outwards for those high frontiers, if it makes space exploration look sexy and colonisation exciting, that can only be a good thing for humankind in general, even if it is a tad misleading. Go ask any pioneer who trudged across a desert.

I hope the Mars rovers put in a guest appearance :)

I miss the Firefly episodes that never were :(

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.
   

Building A Better, Stronger And Maybe A Smidge Faster Story

It rained today, so I wrote and subbed two stories and read. It was pretty much a perfect writerly day.

And I solved a problem. I was almost going to give on the whole writing a cyborg story idea, and not just because the competition to nab one of the few slots left for unsolicited works for that particular anthology will be fierce. It's called a challenge! But the deadline was too close and nothing was working for me. So I gave up, only to discover the deadline had been extended by a month. Hope returned. Maybe it could still happen. I tinkered, but to no avail. Then today my brain kicked into high gear and noisily shifted pieces around like the changing sets in Inception. I realised that if I merged the background for my first unsuccessful cyborg story attempt with parts of the plot for my second unsuccessful cyborg story attempt, maybe I had the glimmer of a goer. A third ingredient then presented itself as I was settling carryover characters into their new environment, and now I have a story that excites me. If nothing else, I like to finish what I start, and if I eventually end up with a cyborg story under my belt, no doubt I will feel sooo accomplished. :)

I still haven't written a zombie story though. Maybe one day I'll come up with trail blazing tale about putrid corpses that appeals to me. The BBC series In the Flesh proves that the walking dead still have a lot of life left in them as vehicles for entertaining and meaningful storytelling, and that there's always another fresh, if somewhat whiffy in this case, angle to even the most weary and worn out tropes waiting to be discovered by intrepid writers.

Angels And Gunships

So there was an election over the weekend here in Australia, and this time I was kindly allowed to vote when I turned up at the polling station (as opposed to last time when... oh, let's not go into it. After much mucking around, my vote ended up being deemed invalid. And the Electoral Commission had the gall to send me a $50 fine afterwards!)

Anyway, this time the local proceedings were enlivened by some dedicated soul with much time and passion on their hands who had handwritten lots and lots of signs (they were very neat, clean, large, white cardboard signs, so a certain monetary investment had gone into them as well)  and hung them all around the inner town. The walls across from the polling station were plastered with them too. Unfortunately, I was having a quick walk and vote before dinner so I was travelling light, otherwise I would have snapped a few photos. The signs all said the same thing:

Voting for the Liberals is like voting for the gunships in Avatar.

Whatever your voting persuasion, you have to admit that this concerned citizen had a clear message they wanted to convey and effectively communicated it - as long as the passing readers were sufficiently up on their pop culture, were SF fans or blockbuster movie-goers or the like. It's a vivid image, rather brutal, and one that speaks of much dread and disappointment.

I just hope that person is wrong.

A little more of politicians of all leanings and stripes listening to their better angels and rationally engaging in an informed democracy for the good of the whole country, and a lot fewer automatic gunship attacks on anything that moves or looks different or disagrees with one would be greatly appreciated.

Vale, Frederik Pohl

We hoped he'd go on forever, but Frederik Pohl has just passed away at the age of 93.

As someone who regularly popped across to read his posts at The Way the Future Blogs and marvel at the way he was still participating in political issues and not holding back on what he thought, I'll miss his insights, and great example. Aging, he showed us, does not necessarily mean a diminishing of one's passion for social justice or a brain that slows down (he was onto the fracking debate recently, and was definitely not in favour of it). Whenever one of the acknowledged SF Greats died, his was the blog to head for because he would tell immensely entertaining tales about that person from the good old days. Who will now do the same for him? I'll miss his posts. 



With his seminal books, which include The Space Merchants, Man Plus, Jem, Gateway and the other Heechee novels, and all his many, many short stories, the legacy he leaves spans the universe. Thank you, Fred.

Frederik George Pohl, Jr

November 26. 1919 - September 2, 2013

Wait! Did Someone Say 'Tiara'?

Well, technically, schmechnically it's a diadem that signifies a great victory, but it goes on your head and it sparkles...

Apparently - and excuse me for being a bit late to the ball - the Campbell Award comes with head jewellery and a crowning. I did not know that. I usually check out the winners of the various Hugo awards, but have obviously time and time again missed out on this interesting detail.

http://scalzi.com/whatever/004417.html

http://seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com/209603.html?nojs=1

There's no chance whatsoever of me ever getting such a glorious trinket, but count me excited by the news, and officially covetous. The Hugos just got a whole lot more glamorous and fun for me, even though, again apparently, this presenting of a tiara has been going on for many years. I really should pay more attention .

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.

Legend of the Luminous Last Lines

There was a book sale in town today. I almost bought The Shrinking Man by Richard Matheson but opted for a couple of more modern tomes instead. Coming home tonight and finding out that the great man himself  had just passed away, I wished I had bought it.

Silly me. Tomorrow I'll go back and remedy my mistake. In the shop, leafing through it, I read again that almost last, tragic but full of wonderment, bittersweet-with-a-touch-of-hope line, which always gets me:

"If nature existed on endless levels, so also might intelligence."

Then there's the kicker of a very last line, but I won't spoil it for those who haven't yet dipped into this classic yet.  

He did last lines well. I cannot even begin to guess how many times I read I Am Legend. I loved the entire book (let's politely ignore the movies for now), but I mostly reread it just to relive over and over the full impact of that final prison scene and the very last, now very famous words which, when I first read them as a teenager, completely blew me away:

 ...a new superstition entering the unassailable fortress of forever. I am legend.

 Some writers fudge endings. Not Richard Matheson. Just as you (if you hadn't read his work before) with the last page turned, might have been winding down, he slammed an image or an idea or a possibility right into your brain, and there it stayed put, sending your thoughts skittering off into multiple, deep, dark, moving and twisty philosophical places. All that, and frightening and touching and entertaining too! I loved his books. I loved his Twilight Zone episodes. And who wasn't scared out of their wits by every passing truck for at least a month after watching the movie Duel?

Thank you, Richard, for all those great stories.

Richard Matheson

1926-2013

R.I.P.

Supanova, Sci-Fi and Supasoup

It's been a busy weekend. I'll admit up front that no writing whatsoever got done. Yesterday it was off to Supanova for the day. The crowds were huge, as usual, and the stalls overflowing with every geekish thing your heart could possibly desire (Dalek keyring/plush toy/t-shirt/alarm clock anyone?  Darth Vader keyring/plush toy/t-shirt/alarm clock anyone? Enterprise pizza cutter? A knitted Jayne hat? Or perhaps a blow-up Baloonicorn for the lounge room?) With The Hoff as a guest star, there was plenty of KITT action (little and big boys never seem to tire of standing around staring at glossy, black cars with blinky lights), and with Alec Baldwin*** on the premises there were Serenity lovers a' plenty. Throw Barbara Eden into the mix, you're practically guaranteed lots of pink-clad Jeannies running around, crossing their arms and blinking.

It was very crowded, but fun. The place was chock full of monsters, super heroes, steampunk aviators, manga characters, and medieval warriors buckled into big, furry coats. And most scarily, Weeping Angels walked amongst us (don't blink!).

 Outdoors, the Australian Quidditch Association put on a game for our viewing pleasure, and afterwards, they had a recruitment drive for new players. It looked like they were having a ball, and for a few seconds, I considered signing up, but unfortunately for them, I'm seriously leaning towards joining the local roller derby team to realise my Whip It fantasy, so I'll have to give Quidditch a miss for now ;)

Today it was time for some more sci-fi with a quick pop into town for the movie Oblivion, and then lots of running around here at home getting ready for my upcoming medical crap. What a time waster. It's all the bother of preparing for holidays (find and wash presentable jammies and socks, organise cleaning, bills, house minding etc) but without the prospect of lazing about on the golden sands of a tropical island to compensate for the hassle. Ah well. I'm doing a lot of cooking so as to make life easier on my return. My freezer is now full of a particularly potent super-soup which is guaranteed to hasten my healing and make me feel warm and glowy. It's just like chicken soup, but with lentils.

***D'oh. Amendment. Serious cred malfunction. Too much recent viewing of 30 Rock + late night blogging + not checking = wrong Baldwin. Adam Baldwin, of course. My embarrassed apologies. At least I got the other brother who also starts with an 'A'.

Readings and Writings

I'm just back from listening to readings by local YA authors Kirsten Krauth and Ellie Marney, as well as Simone Howell spruiking her latest novel, the very funny(at least from the chapters we heard)  Girl Defective,  at the local writers' centre. It was good to spend time in the company of other scribes, even if most of them are hard core litfic types who pause, try to politely hide their embarrassment (and sometimes terror?) and then awkwardly flounder for something suitably nice to say if one happens to mention that one writes *gasp* science fiction with the occasional side trip into horror and fantasy. That's all right. They're good people. They're just not comfortable with some forms of writing.

In fact last year, I was playing with the idea of using the centre's resources to put out feelers to find out whether there there were any local writers interested in setting up a purely SF&F writing group, but then I was felled by illness, so I put it off until this year. However, since this year looks to be something of a repeat of last year, maybe I'll give it a shot in 2014. It'd be nice to have a band of like-minded people to just chat with at these get-togethers, and not feel that one has to constantly defend a whole genre.

I almost didn't go at all because, in between the obligatory Wednesday reading and napping sessions, I was writing up a wonderful storm here at home. My brain has gone into overdrive these past two weeks, possibly because of the recent, inspiring sales of unusual tales that I wasn't sure would ever see print, possibly because it's anticipating the fast-approaching hospital crap on my horizon and wants to get in as much work as it can before pain-killers kick in and switch off my creative synapses again. Whatever. Go for it, brain, I say, and by golly it's obliging me. So I almost finished a hopefully hilarious story today (it just needs a short linking scene, which shouldn't cause any real writerly angst) that stalled about six months ago when I couldn't for the life of me figure out an earnest but silly central quest for my two characters. Today the solution was as obvious as the keyboard beneath my fingers, and as easy as eating ice cream to write. Sometimes you just have to let stuff sit until it's ready to co-operate.

Getting Into The Spirit Of Things

This is turning out to be quite a week. I've just sold another SF story, namely The Stars Their Hesitation, which stars Spirit, as in the plucky, little Martian rover that could, and other assorted space probes, to Bards and Sages Quarterly.

 I've always felt a bit sad about the probes hurtling through space all alone, and the rovers switched off and left on their lonesome on the windswept plains of the Red Planet after doing such a sterling job for us, and, well, this story is partly my way of thanking them all for their efforts and making things right, and partly about other things...

It'll be out in October.

Ponies Rule!

Yay! It looks like my SF pony story has found a good, loving , wholesome home. I'm so glad. I like this story a lot, but suspected it might be a hard sell, what with there being ponies in it and its voice being a bit unusual, but it looks like the right editor has come along at the right time, and Bob's your uncle. So it goes in this game.

More details when it's all professionally acceptable to announce the buyer.

Yay!

Good for a Larf

As I've mentioned before, here in Ozland, my non-Anglo name can occasionally cause me grief of the minor and often amusing sort as I go about my daily life. Part of my problem-solving duties at the Arvo Job require phone time and leaving messages, which I do very clearly, even spelling out my name as a matter of habit because it seems to help people come to grips with the goshy, darn foreignness of it, and yet people constantly call back hesitantly asking for Kim, Mumble-Mumble, Heather or any other name they happen to have pulled out of a nearby hat.

Today, a colleague informed me with a laugh, someone asked for Glitter, and yes, they'd wanted to speak with me.

Glitter. I like it. Glitter Christensen. What an attention-grabbing nom de plume that would make. Perhaps Glitter Rose? Hmm, no that sounds familiar, and vaguely Twelfth Planety. Anyway, I'm thinking romance writing. Chick lit. Something more glamorous than science fiction, although that's a horribly biased utterance, for who's to say SF can't have high heels, shimmeriness and twinkle?

Glitter. Yep, I still like it.