Plum Job

So, I'm back after multiple failures. Firstly, I was clobbered by my Christmas cold. It seemed to be getting better at one point, then returned with a vengeance. Alas, not much writing got done during my holidays, but I did prod a couple of dormant stories back into life. I napped a lot, watched movies, ate ice cream, and sat a lot in the backyard on the swing with Gus (the other cats were too busy doing their own thing) just enjoying the weather and wrestling with a few story ideas. This blahness only started to turn a couple of days ago, so I stayed home from the Arvo Job today just to make sure I didn't push myself into a relapse.  Secondly, I had internet problems. No connection for daaaaaays and daaaaaays. It was awful, but I survived :)  Now, thanks to my older little brother's emergency dash across the countryside, things have been fixed and upgraded and I'm speedier than I've even been before.

In the category of country produce news, I beat the birds to the plums in the front yard this year. I made sure to be quick after last year's catastrophic non-jam making happening. This is just half of my so far plucked haul - the rest is on the floor - and there's just as much fruit still on the tree that isn't quite ripe yet. Hopefully I'll manage to nab the rest too, but even with what I've got, there'll be plenty of plum jam for the year. Now I just need to get a truck load of sugar. And clean jars. And cut up the fruit and...

 In even further country produce news, in case you were wondering, the Chook today presented her eleventh egg. One more, and she'll hit a respectable dozen. So there you have it - I'm practically self-sufficient when it comes to plum jam and eggs.

What I Got for Christmas...

...was a whopping great cold.

Thank you, public transport, and all those caring, sharing, unmannerly individuals who apparently never learnt to cover their mouths whilst coughing up their lungs. I just knew they were out to get me.

This lurgy was sneaking up on me those last days at the Arvo Job, slowed me down the first few days of my holidays but thankfully behaved itself for our family Xmas celebrations, then felled me on the Thursday.

Ah well, the worst of the coughing seems to be over. And books have been read rather rapidly, lots of movies have been watched, pots of tea have been drunk, and copious amounts of ice cream have been consumed, so it's not all bad.

Still, I had plans, other plans, big plans, do-worthy plans, admirable plans...

Tomorrow. It's another day, they say. We'll see.

Egg the Second

I thought it was a one-off event. Something of a miracle, really. I wasn't expecting a repeat performance. But today, 22 sleeps after the initial surprise, as I was going about my business, I spied this ovoid beauty from, presumably, the Chook nestling in one of the cats' cuddly sleeping thingies. It's beginning to feel a lot like Easter rather than ye olde Yule tyme.

Otherwise, I've been busy relaxing, looking for new writing markets (I found a few anthos that peaked my interest) and tidying up the work board over my desk, jotting down ideas, reading, and, of course, lovingly preparing the annual Danish Xmas food for Wednesday. It's best not to rush these things.

Energy Diversion

Today was a public holiday (Melbourne Cup Day), so I diverted the energy I would usually dole out on commuting to the city and expend on doing my bit at the Arvo Job into catching up on sadly neglected cleaning chores that often feel like a bridge too far during a normal work week. The place was starting to feel way too cobwebby and dusty for my peace of mind.

All the big rugs were washed and hung to dry out in the wonderful, warm, jasmine-scented Spring air, and tomorrow I plan to wash the floorboards before returning said rugs to their rightful places. Covers and cat bedding and assorted throws are likewise enjoying a night out under the stars and wafting in the freshening breezes. I also weeded - the back garden is mostly presentable now except for one damned black spot that I will out, out next for 'tis time to do't - and, continuing my Great and Borderline Obsessive Destacking Quest, I got rid of as many old cardboard boxes from the back shed as my recycle bin could hold. I'm already scoping out my next stack (once all the old cardboard boxes are gone). I think it'll be those printed copies of the different drafts of the first two books of my way-too-massive SF saga. Hard to part with, but they fill a lot of space, and my Great but Neglected Work is all safely stowed on multiple hard drives anyway.

I also baked and did a lot of reading.

All of this may seem like dreary stuff to post about, but I'm excited, because I can feel it's part of my old cycle of tidying up my physical environment after a period of relative blahness and so-so writing in readiness for a creative surge above and beyond my usual daily output. Things are bubbling.

And I did write today as well, in between my Herculean tasks. I ripped apart one of my darlings that just isn't being snapped up despite kind comments, and ruthlessly edited it. I'm determined that it SHALL be sold! The process was, satisfactorily, a lot like destacking :)

Now for some baked goodies and visual entertainment.

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.

Hooray for Easterwood!

So that's Easter over and done with - back to the Arvo Job tomorrow. In between running around (while I still can), writing (got much done today and yesterday, though I do keep painting myself into a corner with the dragon story. It's the prophecies, you see - they're a bugger to work with, especially if you're actually wanting to mess with the whole idea of prophecies) and reading Jeanette Winterson's The Daylight Gate, I caught up with a few movies I've been wanting to see for a while or just randomly picked because they looked like fun, watching them either here at home, or on Good Friday along with hot cross buns loaded with melting butter at my brother's home cinema in his Victorian-Viking-Steampunk (Vicvikpunk?) pile a few towns over.

The was The Master ( there are some people so damaged that not even cults can reel them in), Anonymous ( which I enjoyed, although if I were feeling sensitive about all the conspiracy theories surrounding poor Will S, I'd say some rather elitist people have a problem acknowledging that genius doesn't always have to spring from noble loins) and Robot and Frank (aaah, so bittersweet, and it had twists). Robot and Frank pushes all our we-desperately-want-to-love-our-automaton-pal buttons, and yet it does not cheat and make Robot anything but a robot.

In the foreign language department, there was the German post-apocalyptic (evil solar flares cruelly toast our poor planet) movie Hell (which means brightness in German, but very fittingly doubles as a place of eternal damnation in English.) This movie shows what you can do with hungry-looking actors, a burnt forest as a setting, filters on your camera lenses and just a handful of Euros. It's good but grim. Like with The Road, you wonder if you would have what it takes to bother slogging day after day through such misery and meanness. Finally, Luc Besson's The Extraordinary Adventures of Adele Blanc-Sec is a very Gallic and cartoonish 103 minutes of fun a la Raiders of the Lost Ark with a feisty, very French, Victorian-era heroine on a mission to save her sister no matter what it takes. There are cool, talking mummies, there's a pterodactyl, there's a guillotine scene - say no more.

It was a nice mix of movies. Aaah, holidays are good.

That Was That

Back to the Real World tomorrow, so I'd better start getting my head in the Arvo Job zone again. And think about getting to bed. Still, I'm wonderfully rested and it's been a good two weeks off. The first week involved a lot of socialising and some writing, and the second week involved less socialising and lot more writing. The upshot of this is that I have a shiny, new, spacey, potentially Hugo-winning ( hey, let's throw in a Ditmar too) SF story that I'm very pleased with weighing in at 8714 words (editing should bring it down to something more sellable)  and a lightweight fantasy with two demons and a gargoyle that'll sneak into the 3-4k category once it's polished. I almost finished a third (the ending is proving troublesome), and also tinkered with a few, half-done oldies, so all in all, not a bad effort.

And tomorrow, probably on the train, I'll start on a new story for an antho (not due for months yet) that I wasn't going to chase unless I got the beginning, middle and end of a story before attempting it, which happened today while I was washing the floors. I immediately downed tools and excitedly hurried into my office to jot down notes, then reluctantly returned to my way overdue chores. As much as I view cleaning as a necessary time-waster, strangely enough, I do often come up with ideas whilst wielding the paraphernalia of scrubbing. It's affirmation of the bored brain desperately seeking stimulation theory, I think. So yeah, this week's mission is to finish the first draft of a post-Singularity tale that as yet only exists in my head. Here's hoping that the nuts and bolts of it smoothly flow from my brain into my computer.

Ah holidays - so good for the soul.

They Burst My Bubble, But I Fixed It

I was in the zone, writing, writing, writing, and then a letter arrived from the hospital saying that I had to head off to the city for a scan tomorrow. Tomorrow! Since I knew that I'm not due back there until March, this was either Bad News or a load of hooey. I was guessing it was the latter because I figured (hoped) someone would have informed me if it was the former.

Anyway, this is not a good time of the year for dealing with hospitals - everyone who possibly can is on holidays (usually the competent people the hospital want to keep happy) and rosters are up the creek - but I bravely embarked upon the endeavour. I won't bore you with the details, but simply say it involved a lot of toing and froing between staff who either didn't have a clue or didn't give a flying fig. Finally, I left a message with my usual medicos and then sat around waiting for a response. When they did get back to me, I was informed that my hooey theory was entirely correct. Sherlock Holmes, eat your heart out.

When you get swallowed up by any sort of human system or institution, you really have to question what's going on. I worked in hospitals for over 12 years, and I can tell you that a passive patient can end up a dead patient. Anomalies left unchallenged can have big knock-on effects. Not because of evil intent or gross incompetence, but because some people are good at their jobs, but many are not, and others simply don't care. If you're a people-watcher, hospitals are both fascinating with their life-and-death dramas involving people of great dedication, smartness and superhuman efficiency, but also terrifying in that you can end up on dysfunctional wards where the either staff can't leave their personal lives at the door on the way in and the patient is viewed as the least important and most annoying part of the daily routine, or the place is a war zone full of bickering workers. Good material for soap operas, not so good if you're the one flat on your back in bed with tubes coming out of all your orifices. Neglect, passivity, fear of authority, back-stabbing teams, laziness, incompetence, miscommunication, all the usual interpersonal relationship problems that you get in any badly managed office also apply to badly run hospitals, but unfortunately their mistakes involve flesh and blood humans and can result in unnecessary funerals. So if you end up in hospital, question, question, question. Be a nuisance and live.

Ah well, it's done now. I can get back into my writing head space and keep on holidaying tomorrow. Yay! I did get to look over and  submit another 3 stories whilst waiting for my callbacks, so the morning hasn't been a complete waste. Now I'll hit the keyboard for a few hours of catchups. Big SF story, here I come.

My New Day Job (I Wish)

I worked hard at my writing all day, with the requisite breaks to make sure I don't get RSI or a bad back, had my dinner, am now updating my blog, and plan to go for a long evening stroll once I'm finished. By the time I get back from my walk, because I've done my full quota of writing for the day, and then some, there'll still be plenty of time for me to read, or visit or phone folk, or watch TV, or take a ride if I had a pony close at hand out in the backyard, or even join a sports club and kick goals if I so felt inclined.

So this is what it would be like to just have one job?

Every day.

Wow.

Real Is As Real Does

I worked well today - another 6 hours of writing interspersed with lots of pottering around organising work boards, sending off submissions and such stuff. I feel quite cut off from the outside and cocooned in the multiple realities of the stories I'm working on, which is a wonderful wonderful extravagance. Time to nut out those particularly knotty problems! In between writing bouts, I sat on my Xmas swing in its cosy little bower to get some fresh air and dazedly watched the cats chase butterflies or falling leaves or each other as I lined up my next sentences and pondered new ideas, and more than once I thought Yes, I could live like this, I really could!

Yeah, me and a million other dreamers.

Tomorrow, however, I will be ruthlessly forced to re-enter the Real World beyond my keyboard, beyond my writing room, beyond my front door, and be made to mingle with flesh and blood folk who want to talk about subjects other than how my stories are going (the selfish bastards), marched into a darkened cinema, then cruelly coerced into immersing myself in the Tolkienesque universe of The Hobbit for many hours. Afterwards, no doubt, I'll be subjected to lengthy discourses on dragons, Bagginses, Dwarves, Orcs, Wizards and Elves.

Ooooh no, how will I bear so much rough and tumble reality?

Princess Palooza

So I'm back, in more ways than one, after a series of shopping sprees, cooking sprees, eating sprees, laughing sprees, unwrapping sprees, aaahing sprees, recovering sprees, reading sprees, spreeing sprees. Consider Christmas 2012 done and dusted!

 After limbering up my writing brain by spending most of of yesterday, when I wasn't napping and digesting the last remnants of my rich Danish Christmas, on reading my new Connie Willis book (my cats give the best presents!) I hit the keyboard today and got in 4 hours of solid work and a few more of tinkering. I spent the first couple of hours on a zombie story, even though I was seriously put off the antho in question that I've hitherto been so excited about when I discovered a recent addition to the guidelines specifying that the editor wasn't accepting any more stories set after a certain historical date. That smacks of my pet hate, the 'until filled' anthology. I pity the poor souls who were happily planning to polish over Xmas the great works they'd laboured long and hard on, and now can't submit them because they'd committed to the "wrong" era. As I've mentioned, I had two ideas for the antho, and had to angstily choose which one to focus on. The one I was really tempted to go with, but guessed I wouldn't have enough time to do properly, would now have been deemed ineligible. Thank goodness I went with the shorter one set further back in history, otherwise I'd be RANTING and GRRRRing and THROWING FURNITURE now instead of just grumbling about the injustice of it all.

I then spent the rest of my writing day scouting around for, looking over and editing/rewriting princess stories for an upcoming anthology that accepts multiple submissions. I love editors who accept multiple subs. That way, if I have more than one story that fits the theme, I don't have to agonise over which one might be the best fit. I was surprised to discover I actually have four stories that tick the key criteria, which are, loosely,  'must feature a princess, and be dark, twisty, sinister, Gothic etc, or combinations thereof'.

So no, they're not looking for passive gals who live happily ever after, thank goodness, because none of my princesses are that psychologically flaccid, or that fortunate. Only one of these four stories is out at the moment, so I'll have to wait for it to be rejected before it can join the other three, which I'll send off tomorrow. Or possibly the one already out singing for its supper will be accepted. And so will one of the others. All of these stories have garnered good comments and/or been shortlisted for publication, but never quite made it into print. Maybe one of them will score this time. Maybe I'll end up with a slew of princess stories (well, two) hitting the market at the same time, and people will roll their eyes and mutter about my limited range :) Hah! I should be so lucky.

Anyway, the upshot of this princesserly prattle is that it looks like these holidays will be reasonably productive and full of positive writerly doings.

The Underlying Politics of Free Chocolates

The world didn't end again, but my work year at the Arvo Job did, so now I'm looking at two weeks off with a brain that's rarin' to go and a body that has mostly ceased its grumblings. Happy days! I have two stories I'm determined to finish, and two more that I have to start from scratch but which I'm hoping will be reasonably coherent by the time I have to start stuffing Rover into my train bag again.

Ah, trains. They' re such a big part of my life. I headed for the city before the crack of dawn to get my Arvo Jobbing finalised by midday, but as recompense, there were free Christmas chocolates for we frazzled early bird commuters at the train station today, and many jolly, seasonal asides over the loudspeakers. The effect that free chocolate at 5.45 in the morning had on people was amazing. Smiles all around and instant good will.

Country towns do love their train stations, and ours is a bustling hub of meeting and greeting and networking with its little cafe and magazine stand (I usually pick up the latest New Scientist there). There's a shelf of books made available to travellers by the local library, and the staff are wonderfully friendly and efficient, and dole out much local news as well as sympathy for weary travellers. As said, they give away free chocolate! It's not easy being a long distance commuter, especially for those poor souls who travel each day on the packed, early trains (I love my 11am train - it's so much more relaxed and writing friendly), and people are often stressed and grumpy, so I think it's a credit to the staff and service that they keep the place humming along, happy and human.

I'm mostly mentioning this because there are horrible rumours circulating about the government having secret talks to try and palm off the long haul, country services to the mega-multiple-stuff-up-and-cheapskatey-let's-just-stick-in-machines-that-don't-work-wherever-we-can-and-then-hire-roving-gangs-of-meanies-to-police-the-network management mentality that currently runs the metro trains.

They definitely do not hand out free chocolates.

I shall have to keep an eye on this rumour. I might have to write some letters and wave a banner or two. If need be, perhaps I'll channel the Perils of Pauline and tie myself to the tracks in protest. Because that's what you do when condescending politicians in faraway realms make free and easy with the everyday lives of their citizens.

Things Fizzle Apart

Not blogging much because I'm busy with the usual Xmasy and Arvo Jobby rushy stuff at this time of the year along with my last hospital visits and medical doings for 2012 etc, plus my life is so full of brow-smacking woe at the moment that it's better to maintain a dignified silence than bore folk with too much sookiness.

The plan is to get to my Xmas break. Then, not only will I do a lot of deep breathing, but I will do some deep thinking about Life. And Stuff. In between all the writing, that is, and trying to size up the character of the new baby year toddling towards us.

Getting my Groove Back

Yesterday was Melbourne Cup Day, a holiday here in Australia, and today was my regular midweek day off for resting up, so I've just had two whole days off to invest in coaxing my writing mojo back into active duty. I'm not sure what kind of a day the punters had down at the races yesterday weatherwise, but up here, the grey skies, pouring rain, and thunder and lightning were perfect for staying indoors and getting work done.

It didn't go too badly either. I searched up a few more markets for 2013 and put them up on my work board, and wrote down long lists of the different themed issues that various publications have coming up next year and matched some up with already finished stories or partial stories I have on the boil. I also edited and subbed another three stories, so I now have 13 of my little lovelies being scrutinised out there in the wide world, tried to figure out what might be wrong with a few stories that I've parked to one side until I can decide whether or not I should stick to my guns or start fiddling with them, and spent some time sitting at my desk staring at the titles of upcoming anthologies and just letting my brain float on thought breezes to see if it could come up with any useable ideas (it presented me with two interesting historical scenarios, but without any characters or plot, and one tickle of a suggestion that feels like a good 'un but which I need to prod some more.)

Also, I wrote. Not for quite as many hours as I had hoped to accomplish, but a respectable number nonetheless, so I'm giving myself a pat on the head and a gold star for effort.

I also received good news about a story that I particularly adore but which is, as one editor said, and I have to agree, structurally challenging - it has cleared the first hurdle a.k.a the slushpile, and has been passed on the head honchos for consideration. The readers all wrote very nice things about it, which made me happy, but I've been here too many times to get excited yet. I started the year with a few pro sale possibilities that then fell through, so from now on, it ain't a sale until it's a sale. I think I'll adopt the catchphrase 'Show me the acceptance!' Still, nice words about one's work are always welcome.

 And tomorrow morning, I plan to load up Rover with stories and get back into the habit of writing on the train as I head to and from the Arvo Job. There are many hours of tinkering that I can scrape together there, and it does make the trip seem a lot shorter.

Painful Admission

It’s a public holiday here in Australia, and I’ve spent this cold and rainy day at home writing about dragons, submitting a story about a future apocalyptic rubbishworld, sending off query letters about old, maybe-lost-in-cyberspace submissions, rereading stories that are in the drawn-out limbo of possible acceptance (if only I could take them back, tweak them and make them even better!) and trying to second-guess whether they’ll make it, checking for new markets, resting up and reading.

It all sounds very productive, but I’m afraid my motives have not been artistically pure. I’ve been snuggling up in my speculative-fiction cocoon to escape the Real World, for tomorrow I’m off to hospital so surgeons can rummage around amongst my internals, and do a few tests and procedures. Not fun, but if it gets rid of the pain that’s been slowing me down both writing and life-wise this year (the number of bad days has been steadily increasing), it’ll be worth all the botheration. Unfortunately, it’ll probably put a crimp in my scheduled spec-fic workshop this weekend. Fortunately, I have some light duty back-up plans in place.

Anyway, it’s time to be stoic (aaaaaaaaaargh), so I’ll have a spot of dinner (must cram food down while I’m allowed - I'll be eying the fridge door for a midnight snack, I reckon), and then I’m off to the local end-of-the-month literary knees-up for some more writerly distractions. I’d better stay away from the wine though. *sigh*

Yielding to the Necessity of the Many Point Ones

Right, I'm back, full of cheesecake, chatter and chai. Now my keyboard beckons, and I must accept the stark fact that my workshop story will not finish itself. As pointed out in the links that can be linked via this morning's post, many masters of the dark art of writing have touched upon this arcane truth:

Robert A. Heinlein
1. You must write.
Jack Dann
1. You must begin. Every day you must write, no matter what.
Neil Gaiman
1. Write.

So, I must accept the inevitable. It seems there's no shortcut, no deal I can cut with the Devil or an in-the-know trick around this often quoted but often difficult to act upon "secret":

"The art of writing is the art of applying the seat of the pants to the seat of the chair."
Mary Heaton Vorse

For, alas:

"The easiest thing to do on earth is not write."
William Goldman

Thumbing My Nose At Point Eleven

Steve Cameron has a great guest post about advice on advice, as in writing advice as opposed to financial or lifestyle or fashion advice, which is especially useful for beginning and emerging writers, over at David McDonalds' blog.

I followed the links and especially liked this one, all of which is a roundabout way of confessing that, despite it being a lovely, quiet, overcast morning absolutely perfect for writing, there's a pot of tea and a friendly chat waiting for me at a café up the road. Henry Miller will just have to wear it. I'm not sure this rebellion counts as Orwell's point six, but sometimes ya gotta do what ya wanna do rather than what ya shood do.

The Easter Chicken

I've just realised that since the Chicken Who Came To Stay moved in last Easter, she's been part of our predominantly feline family for almost a year now. This forceful, feathered character very quickly went from lurking about on the periphery to moving right on in and making demands for food from me and respect from the cats. And it's not as if she's fearless with all cats. She always skedaddles for the big tabby who drops by once a day to sniff (not inhale) from the catnip pot. She's just supremely confident that she can handle my tribe. Which she can and does. Which says something, possibly unflattering to feline sensibilities, about Cooper and the girls.

I've tried to name our fowlish gatecrasher a few times, but she is so very much her own chicken that none of my quaint/cute/learned/pop culture appellations have stuck, so unless she learns to communicate her true identity to me, I think it's safe to say that this stroppy little nutcase of a bantam will henceforth and forever simply remain the Chook.

Ready for Easter

It's been a blah week full of blah happenings with a lot more blah of the most blahey sort to come - I'm soooooo up for four days off.

A friend at the Arvo Job brought this box set to work thus making it extremely easy for me for me to finally watch Forbrydelsen (which is actually The Crime in Danish, but the show is always called The Killing in English). Ok, so I'm five years behind the rest of the world in joining the Sofie Gråbøl as Detective Inspector Sarah Lund fan club, but better late than never.

Also, I bought Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins, and almost ended up paying many $$$$ for it when the book selling girl and I disagreed on how much change I was owed (I wanted $31 back, but she thought $1 was enough), so it's back to Hunger Games land.

There are people to visit. There are out and about things to do. There are films lined up and hot cross buns ready for a movie marathon.

And always, calling me, calling me, calling me, there is the writing.

Horse poop

Aaah, there's nothing quite like the first rejection of a brand new year. My SF-pony story was nicely turned down (strong story but didn't quite fit with their vision for the anthology) Drats! What the heck am I going to do with it now? This reminds me why I last year made a vow to not start new stories from scratch specifically for obscure anthologies, unless of course they peak my interest, like the steampunk/wuxia anthology, or pose a fun challenge, like the SF-pony anthology...

In other news de merde, the holidays are definitely over now, so it was back to the Arvo Job today. At about 16.00, I seriously started missing my Xmas swing and this: