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.  

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.

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.

I Would So Go To A Convention In Frontierland

Around the traps, assorted speculative fiction folk are starting to make plans for heading off to Conflux 9 - the 52nd National Science Fiction Convention, but would they, I wonder, be so keen to hit the road if it were being held in Aryan City rather than Canberra? Would you want to set foot in a town called Aryan City? On the other hand, I'd be quite excited about loading up the car and driving to Frontierland.

What has brought this on this apparent nonsense? Well, yesterday, on the way home, I read a version of this article, about the suggestions sent 100 years ago to the Federal Department for Home Affairs in the lead-up to Canberra's naming in the olden days of 1913.

So how about actually living in a place with over-the-Aussie-top and mighty cringe-worthy names like Kangaemu or Eucalypta or Boomerang City? Or ever so twee Harmony or Paradise?

Then there are the truly original but what-were-they-drinking-when-they-pulled-these-out-of-a-hat-and-stuck-them-together suggestions like Wheatwoolgold and, my favourite, Sydmeladperbriso (try saying that quickly), though I want to know why the heck Sydney gets to be the first part of that name! Unfair, Sydney-centric favouritism as per usual right from the very start!

I really must track down the entire list. I can see from the cut out featured in the article that there's even an Atlantis. How would that have gone down at international meetings, I wonder, no pun intended - the Hon. Representative for Atlantis, Australia. Would our politicians have had to wear special robes covered in symbols and mysterious looking space-wizard hats? If you come from Atlantis, you're almost obliged to be theatrical.

However, I do find the suggestion Australia extremely boring. Australia, the capital of Australia? What a waste of breath. Who was the drongo who came up with that one, I wonder.

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.

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.

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...

Yay, homegirl

Good news over at Locus online: the World Fantasy Awards 2011 winners. And just look who won the Special Award, Non-Professional - our very own Alisa Krasnostein, for Twelfth Planet Press. Congratulations!

So now we Aussie Spec Fic folk have not only 'Our Shaun', but 'Our Alisa' as well making waves out there on the international scene.

George who?

These days, ever since HBO had the good sense to bring Game of Thrones to the general public (it's even appearing on the sides of Melbourne trams at the moment), when I casually mention that I met George R.R. Martin at WorldCon last year, I garner impressed gasps rather than glazed looks.

But George has been around for ages - you can read about his previous forays into the wilds of televisionland and encounters with TPTB here

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.

This and that

So the weekend passed quickly and pleasantly with me doing a bit of this (cleaning, washing, more raking of leaves) and a spot of that (tea and chats at Apple Annie's, sauntering about the Farmers' Market, patting cats, and writing SF&F stories that will thrill and amaze the world.) I also did some reading and finished 'Following the Drum' by Annabel Venning about the lives of army wives and daughters past and present. If you're ever feeling sorry for yourself and think you're having a bad day, dip into this tome. The hellish conditions men, women, children and animals have suffered during battles and sieges throughout the ages utterly defy belief. I won't spoil anyone's Sunday evening by going into details.

Anyway, it's dark outside now and the rain is pounding down, perfect weather for turning on the heater and checking whether there are any stories fit for the regular Sunday evening submission session. Otherwise, I'm eyeing the inbox for responses to stories that have been out and about long enough to make me tentatively hopeful, and gearing up for Continuum 7, which starts on Friday.

And if chickens are your thing and you were wondering, the vagabond chook is still with us. She's taken to hanging out on the roof and teasing the cats from there.

Easter roundup

The Aussie specfic blogosphere is awash with reports of how great Swancon/Natcon was. There are accounts of book buying, booze-ups and award parties, tales of meeting interesting GOHs, booze-upping and attending informative panels, and fond remembrances of booze-ups, scintillating fellow booze-uppers and booze-ups.

Me, I'll round up the Easter break by reporting that the interloping chook is still making free with my backyard, though she's sleeping under the stars in a tree tonight.

Homebody

Usually, come a longer break like Easter, I'd be off trail riding through some mountainous national forest somewhere, but public holidays are a busy time my sister's booming business, so that's no longer a holiday option.

Alas, I'm not in Perth at Swancon Thirty Six Natcon Fifty, the Australian Science Fiction and Fantasy Convention either. One day, perhaps, I'll be able to justify the cost of travelling westwards across this great continent of ours for informative panels, booze ups and writerly chats, but not yet.To console myself, I've just downloaded a membership form for Continuum 7 , Melbourne's very own speculative fiction and pop culture convention, which will be held June 10-13. I can use my weekly train ticket to get to that venue. Muuuuch cheaper.

In the meantime, I am not at all miserable, for I have a great big delicious block of time for reading, patting cats, eating hot cross buns, catching up with people, and writing in my jammies. I'm looking forward to pulling out a couple of bigger projects, aka novels, that really don't get the attention they deserve during the chopped up days of a normal working week. I'll try to get them back on track and out into the world sometime over the next couple of months.

Gangs of Melbourne

Oh no, I have to head off soon and do battle with the hordes that have taken over our state capital.

It’s a battlefield. They’re everywhere, disrupting society! They’re taking up countless seats on the country trains, surging onto the city trams in great numbers, hanging around hotel lobbies, roaming the streets in rowdy gangs and shouting cheery greetings at rival gangs, filling these public spaces not only with their physical bodies, but with their incessant chatter about arcane topics and friends and what those friends are up to and cruising the Internet and reading blogs and sourcing stuff.

Yes, the (mostly) ladies of the Australasian Quilt Convention at the Royal Exhibition Building are loose on the streets of Melbourne!

Scifi Spring

One more sleep to go :-)