2/29/2008

Gauntlet II sitrep

Alas. It's quarter to nine on the last night of the Gauntlet II challenge. I have not met it. For one of the very few times in my life, I have not made a deadline. It's somewhat demoralizing. However, I did manage to write 47,000 words on Mud and Glass, which is a lot for two months, really. So I console myself that I wasn't just goofing around. I also really did accomplish one of the Gauntlet II goals (revising The Associates). And I did make a start on the third goal (writing the young-adult play). The goal was useful in prodding me to get Mud and Glass almost as good as finished. So that's okay. I guess. I still feel bad, though, because I hate hate hate missing deadlines. I'm the Deadline Queen! How could I miss a deadline?

I must expiate my sins by completing the goals as soon as possible. Then, if no-one beats me to it, I will propose another Gauntlet challenge.

Unless the situation changes significantly, no further sitreps will be issued for this event.

2/27/2008

The writers have signed their contract.

In celebration thereof, I have made two updates to this blog:
  1. I have ceremonially removed the "Colbert Fans Support the Writers" graphic and link from the sidebar.
  2. I am offering you this unbelievable photo that my friend Phil Campbell took when he was only about 30 meters away. From the elephant, that is. What a cool vacation he was on! (The photo looks so fantastic with the colors of this blog layout, I think I'll ask him if I can post it permanently in the sidebar.)

2/26/2008

Monster Love

Found this on my friend Rob Hood's blog. Awwwwwww!

2/25/2008

Theology

I don't know if Houston is going to link to this on his blog or not, but I couldn't help myself: this is some of the most remarkable theology I've ever heard. I can't embed the clip because "embedding has been disabled by request," but really, invest three and a half minutes to watch the clip. (No, really. It's funny, see. Have I steered you wrong yet?)

2/24/2008

*Sniffle*

Laura's outback boot-repair businessToday I bade farewell to my favoritest ever pair of footwear: my beloved trail shoes, which I purchased nine years ago on a trip to the States. I hadn't put nearly enough miles on them — partly because forever would not have been too long to wear these trail shoes, and partly because I don't go hiking as much as I want to (for a variety of reasons).

Here is a photo (taken by Steve Cliffe on today's four-hour* hike around Mount Kembla Ring Track) of me, aided by my friend Alanna, trying (in vain) to tape my trail shoes up. By the end of the walk they were nothing but tape, and the soles still ended up completely detaching from both shoes.

Sigh. Sic transit gloria mundi. Or caligarum.

On the plus side, the weather was phenomenally wonderful, about the best we've had in months. And I did the hike in the company of many SES friends and my daughter Margaret. And I didn't get any leeches on me at ALL!! (I did find one that I flicked off my moribund boot in time to keep it — the leech, not the boot — from fastening onto my flesh.)

*There may be those among you who have done the Mount Kembla Ring Track, and may even now be squawking, "Four hours? It doesn't take four hours to do Kembla Ring Track!" You hike it your way, I'll hike it my way.

2/23/2008

This kid absolutely knocks me out.

Do you know all the words to "Hey Jude"? This little kid from Korea does.

2/21/2008

Writing Demons, begone! And, trying Facebook.

I've spent a fair bit of the past couple of days doing the best thing I know of to banish the Writing Demons (the exterminators had a four-month waiting list, so I decided to take matters into my own hands): sendouts. Stories, a flash piece, a short play, to various markets. At the moment I have a dozen pieces out (including my first book, The Associates). The more pieces I send out, the more sullen the Writing Demons become. They only actually fall silent (temporarily, alas!) when I get something accepted. But I'm more than content when they just keep their voices down.

In other news, I've signed up for Facebook. Personally, I'm pretty sure social-networking sites are a false god — how, precisely, do they add value over Google, email, and email groups? — but I'm giving Facebook a shot so that I can at least know what I'm talking about when I excoriate it (or not, depending on whether it does provide added value). So far I've friended (new-verb alert! new-verb alert!) a few people, although I'm not trawling all over the place to find more. I'm happy to have found an old high-school friend (and there weren't that many; I tended to have few, but deep, friendships), and a few colleagues whom it is now easier to reach and keep up with. And I found out about (and consequently entered) a short-play competition that I may not have heard about otherwise. So far, so good. Life-changing? Hardly. A mild convenience at best. So far. If you think Facebook and its ilk are the best thing since chopstick rests shaped like little sumo wrestlers, you're welcome to state your case in the comments!

2/20/2008

Aaa!

It's significantly past midnight, and the Writing Demons are in the next room playing poker for my soul. Every now and again one of them will look over here through the haze of cigar smoke, chuckle evilly, and return to the game. My family is asleep, and does not know of their presence. But they take no trouble to hide from me. No, no! In fact, they make very sure I know they're there.

They like nighttimes. They know my fatigue gives them strength. They loom and leer with more cartoon-like extravagance each passing hour.

Shh! I just heard one of them say, "I'll see your five heartless rejections and raise you —" there is a dramatic pause — "one completed manuscript that took months and years to write and never even gets an agent." They all gasp at the audacity.

I'll be checking the Yellow Pages™ in the morning: Exterminators — Demons, Writing.

2/19/2008

Yay!

I'm very happy indeed that the blog Why We Write will continue even though the writers' strike is over. But reading these fabulous essays week after week demands that I ask why I write. And I don't have an answer. Is that a good thing, or a bad thing?

Why, indeed, do I write? Presumably because I think I have something to say. Because I've gotten praise for my writing from people I look up to. Because it's something I do, if not with ease, at least with a feeling that this is natural and right for me to do. Because I want to give people the fun, the opportunity to think, the refuge from a lonely childhood, the inspiration to an adventurous life, that reading gave me.

I'm hoping those are reasons enough, and that I have the skill to sustain them.

2/17/2008

Why, yes — yes, it has been a tad wet here this summer.

By all accounts we are in the midst of a La Niña event. In practical terms, from the point of view of people living on the east coast of Australia, that means it's been raining. And raining. And raining. And raining. And raining.

Here is the appalling proof that the weather is definitely worse than usual this year:
This mushroom was observed INSIDE OUR HOUSE this morning. Yes. People joke about mushrooms growing from their carpets or whatever in persisently damp weather. I can assure you it is not so funny when it is really happening.

The person who is my mother's child recoils in horror and shame. The person who is a writer says, "Hm. Is there a story idea here?"

2/16/2008

Dreaming Again — pre-order it now!

The second in Jack Dann's anthologies of Australian speculative fiction, Dreaming Again, is now available for pre-order from Amazon.

Why should you pre-order it? First, if you're Australian, it shows you want to support Australian writing. Second, if you love science fiction and fantasy, it shows you want to support and enjoy new, as well as established, talent (bunches of my Clarion buddies — students and tutors alike — got a spot in the anthology; I'm so proud *snif*). But most importantly, if you love the thrill of discovery and the smug feeling of being in on something good before everyone else is (and who doesn't feel that way at least sometimes? I was the first person I knew to wear a fleece jacket, and I still feel smug about it, twenty years later), this book will give you serious cred. Your buddies' jaws will drop in admiration at your coolness and prescience. You will be Alpha Geek, Über Geek, Geek of the Week.

Buy! Read (once it's released)!

And perhaps, like me, vow to make it into the next one....

2/15/2008

Amazing what you find when you're researching.

One of the things I like best about being a writer is the truly astounding things you stumble on while you're researching something for your current work-in-progress. Like this, for instance. No, go and see. It defies description.

2/14/2008

Supermarket adventures with Houston

Here is Houston's recounting of today's supermarket adventure. Happy new year, everyone!

And, because it's also the feast day of Sts. Cyril and Methodius (aka St. Valentine's Day), here's a link I found on Cat Sparks's blog. Keep clicking through the pages; each one is better than the last (for the most part). Will most likely make you laugh out loud, so if you're at work, you've been warned.

2/13/2008

It's a big day for justice, actually.

The writers' strike in the U.S. is over. The contract isn't signed yet, but the writers are back to work. They stuck it out, and suffered quite a bit, in order to fight for justice — not just for writers, but for all creatives who must work with corporations to get their work out there. And those who, like me, are not in that position, but may someday benefit from what they've done.

Hey, Writers Guild of America writers: this writer appreciates your dedication and endurance, and cheers for your success.

Sorry Day (an outsider's thoughts)

I'm watching the coverage of the remarkable Sorry Day speeches. It truly is a landmark day in Australian history. (For those not familiar with the issue, the Aboriginal people of Australia have been saying for years — decades, even — that political and cultural relationships between Aborigines and non-Aborigines cannot progress without an admission of the horrors that Aborigines have suffered during the years since Europeans arrived. And, indeed, the stories are many and truly horrific; I won't recount any here, but they're easy enough to find, sadly. But today the new Labor government has formally apologized for this history of damage and indifference.)

The speeches are all inspiring, touching, painful. I have no doubt that they are a necessary part of what's got to happen here. But I'm missing hearing one thing that I believe is essential:

"First people of Australia, we came here only yesterday, in comparison to your tens of thousands of years in this land. But we have grown to love it, too. We, too, take our identity, our livelihoods, and our culture from this land. We, too, are learning to understand, value, and work with it. We, like you, want to be in and of this land. Can we do that together?"

Yes, it's important to acknowledge what "we" did. But what's still there is the absolute assumption — so absolute that it isn't even mentioned — that European Australians are here, they're not leaving, they rule, get used to it. Why not a little humility there? Speaking as someone who has come here myself and learned to love Australia (except for the shopping carts, I'll never love them, oh, and the flies), I think the only way forward is to work from a position of collaboration, not hierarchy. But even the most moving of speeches from the politicians are still based on "we're here, we're not leaving, it's our country." That worries me.

I don't vote here. I'm not a citizen. But I volunteer, I pay taxes, I'm contributing to a society in which I see many, many good things, admirable things. I'm just hoping this upsurge of national courage doesn't end with just saying "sorry."

2/12/2008

Ah, well.

Sometimes when I write into the night, magic things happen. And sometimes...they, um, don't.

Still, there remains a chance I will finish this manuscript within Gauntlet II time constraints (that is, by midnight, February 29). And at the end of it, I have another completed novel manuscript — at least a first draft thereof — and that's not a small thing. Especially considering that the first one took me about fifteen years (maybe longer, I don't quite remember) to write, and the second one only...um...three and a half months so far. That's a pretty good increase in speed. Perhaps not in quality, not yet, but that's what drafts are for, they tell me.

You always knew it was really like this.



When you have a few minutes, watch this video. (Here's the link, if you want to read the comments/discussion/etc.) Very imaginative, very cute. (Try to ignore the ad shoehorned abruptly into the middle of the story, phooey. I guess the animators had to cover costs somehow.)

2/10/2008

A short work in bush-poetry form

On New South Wales's sodden coast,
A writer typed and tapped.
She'd had an unproductive day
And all the words were crap.

She tried to think of something good,
Or funny, or profound.
She tried to write of wonders new
To flummox and astound.

But every sentence she assayed
Turned instantly to sludge.
And so she wrote a little poem
To give her brain a nudge.

She sat and waited hopefully,
Her fingers poised to write.
Alas! Her efforts came to nought
And so she said good-night.

For more on bush poetry as a form, see this how-to page by highly respected bush poet Ellis Campbell. You can also find out more at the Central Goldfields Bush Poets site.

2/07/2008

I LOVE this guy's work!

I don't know who he is. I don't know why he does what he does. But I LOVE the work:

http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=102584

Note: the site takes FOREVER to load, because the graphics are huge. But it's too much fun not to go have a look.

EDIT: I fixed the typo in the live link above. Sorry, y'all.

2/05/2008

This is so wrong in so many ways.

From Cellular-News:
Finland's Road Administration has started locking its isolated roadside toilets - and unlocking them via SMS. In response to incidents of arson and thefts, the transport authority came up with the novel solution which increased security, without reducing access for the public....The toilets have been secured, and a sign outside explains that the user just sends the word "open" (in Finnish) to a short code and the door will be unlocked remotely. The company managing the service will keep a short term record of all users phone numbers, simply so that if the toilet is then damaged by criminals, they can be traced by the police.

So, um, now people can be tracked based on where they gotta take a leak. What's next? DNA testing of poop? Microchipping people with live transmitters so that nobody ever has to wonder who's where? The government of New South Wales microchipped my horse without, it appears, needing to either ask or even notify me (although that wasn't a transmitter, I'm making that part up), so there's even a precedent, sort of.

Dark days....

2/04/2008

Rain like this makes SES volunteers very nervous indeed.

It's been raining fairly steadily for what seems like weeks now. The ground is utterly, utterly sodden. Any additional water is just going to skate over the top and rush toward the ocean. The last time I remember it raining this persistently was 1998, and it culminated in a massive, I mean massive, bucketing deluge that wiped out significant portions of Wollongong (see this account by my fellow SES volunteer Steve Cliffe). I wasn't an SES volunteer then, but I am now, and I also spent four years working at SES State Headquarters, where I learned to be so edgy at the onset of heavy rain that I'm still feeling the effects (it always involved days, even weeks of 16-hour shifts and relentless stress and worry and exhaustion — I'm not sorry I had that adventure but I'm glad that part of it's over).

The rain is due to continue for at least the rest of the week. All the cricketers in Houston's cricket club are increasingly glum. It's unwise to ride my horse in the mud, due to his vulnerable foot (which tends to sprain or strain or whatever it does if he happens to slip in just the wrong way). Everything in the house feels (and smells) clammy. The sound of rain on the skylight is like radio static that I can't turn off. And, even though I'm not at State, I'm still an SES volunteer, and there may still be work for me to do if Wollongong gets pasted by another storm like 1998.

It's late. I should try to get some sleep. While I can.

2/03/2008

More coolness.

I'm not sure whether this is just the best way in the world to spend too much money, or the worst:

http://deputy-dog.com/2008/01/23/10-stunning-ultra-geeky-home-cinemas/

(Thanks to my friend Cathy for the link.)

2/02/2008

Okay, cool. Cool.

Evoke — a project that's part of Illuminating York in 2007. It shows different patterns based on the sounds that people make (shrieks, whoops, growls, shouts). I absolutely go nuts for good interactive art. (The best example I've ever seen is Cloud Gate in Chicago.)

I love writing stories and novels, but I really love writing scripts, because they're, at their essense, collaborative: with the actors, the director, the techies, the front-of-house staff, and the audience. In real time. Love it.

2/01/2008

WAFFLES!!

Tonight, in celebration of Margaret's homecoming from her school camp*, I made waffles with honey pecan sauce and whipped cream. YES, that was dinner, sue me. My POINT is that they were delicious, and that we continue to make good use of the waffle iron that our friends Carolyne and Paul (they of the cookie-cutter beneficence at Christmas) gave us a while back. I'm so full of delicious waffle-and-syrup-and-whipped-cream that I actually feel a tad uncomfortable. But it's a price I'm willing to pay.

*The first three days at her school were spent at this camp, where they got to know their new classmates and teachers, particularly since the kids come from grade schools spread across several hours' distance in three directions — the fourth direction being the ocean, which is not a conducive home environment for non-cetacean mammals; to be fair, very few cetaceans have shown up for the entrance exams for this school, so it works both ways. Maybe they have their own selective high schools.

A busy month ahead.

Good Lord, it's February already. My dance card includes:
  • Finishing the Gauntlet II challenge (this involves writing about 40,000 words to finish Mud and Glass as well as writing a 10-minute play for a competition I want to enter).
  • Keeping up with my training-coordination duties at my SES Unit.
  • Keeping up with my karate training and other fitness goals.
  • Normal household chores.
  • Supporting Margaret as she starts at her new, very demanding school.
  • Helping to plan a Shakespeare's Birthday event with the Illawarra Performance Writers' Group.
  • Making sure my horse is okay, and maybe even going for a ride once in a while.
  • Updating a web site for a friend.
  • Continuing to send out stories and track their fates.
  • Probably a dozen or more major demands that will crop up as the month progresses.
At least it's Leap Year -- 24 whole hours more than is usual for a February to accomplish my February goals!

We finished January with a bang — not only were there severe thunderstorms in the area (no, I did not go out on the truck to clear debris and tarp roofs, actually), but we had a very nice dinner with some very nice friends who are in Sydney for a lamentably few days. We ate at Redoak Boutique Beer Cafe, where the beer is always interesting (if not, perhaps, always successful, but then that's the way of many adventures) and the food is unbelievably good. You should go there.