Margaret's career — can't start too early.

Today Margaret and I went up to Sydney for the National Institute of Dramatic Art's Open Day. I had been a little surprised that they only have it once every two years, but once we got there and I saw how elaborate it all was, I was less so. We first stopped by a visitor-participation improvisation class for youth (which would be Margaret); I ended up leaving her there to take three more classes in a row (devising a scene, acting per se, and a second improv class) while I wandered around enjoying the atmosphere. I watched a stage-combat class, for example, that was rivetingly interesting: the teacher was actually giving the students principles (balance, body-part isolation, victim-controls-the-action, and a bunch more that I didn't write down but now wish I had), not just giving them a series of moves to mimic. Margaret and I (once she wearied of actually doing some acting) also spent about an hour and a half watching a dance rehearsal, and we were both mesmerized by the teacher's fanatical attention to detail. (That sort of obsession with detail is one of the things I really learned to value in my DC karate school.) Margaret was glad to know that it's part of professional practice at the highest level (and not just for actors, might I add), and a necessary personality attribute for anyone who wants to excel.

We looked at costumes, and set models, and workshops for props and scenery. We listened to roving Shakespearean actors. We chatted with a student or two. We sat in the library for a bit. I bought a bunch of plays at unbelievably low prices at the second-hand book stall.

Sadly, all the people currently in the year-long Playwrights' Studio program were out on a retreat somewhere, with none, nor their teachers, available to chat with me about the program. Sigh. Still, it's a reason to make a phone call or two and set up another trip up to Sydney.

Once Margaret and I were all Open Dayed out, we ate a very passable imitation of New York pizza at a little takeout called, appropriately, New York Slice. It's not the real deal (for one thing, as Margaret pointed out, we did not end up with orange grease dripping down our elbows), but it's far, far closer than we've found anywhere else in Australia. So that was nice.

Then we came home. Margaret is renewed in her career ambitions. I am eager to keep pursuing the playwriting, as theatre is just so much fun. We are both rather tired.

Scary. Scary.

Read this. And be scared. I am.

Commemorative blog post

May 2008 goes down in history as just about my most spectacularly unproductive month, writing-wise, in the last two years. Oh, sure, I edited (and sent) a full-length playscript and polished (and sent) a story and wrote a few thousand words on the current Big Project. But I was hoping for so much more. And it's way too late in the month to salvage things.

I must arise from my sloth and appalling unconcern, arise and take responsibility for my creative output (as it certainly shows no signs of taking responsibility for me). There is no such thing as writer's block, any more than there's such a thing as plumber's block or bus driver's block. Writing is my job, and I have no business being so moody about it.

I have been alerted to the fact...

...that Dreaming Again, an anthology in which stories by many of my good and insanely talented friends (and I mean that only in the most literal of ways) appear, is available for pre-order. You can also find it for pre-order on Amazon, but the shipping is cheaper within Australia.

Buy! Buy! (Even though one of my stories was rejected for said anthology, I'm not bitter. Not me.)

And, in the Whoniverse today....

I stumbled upon this article today: a very entertaining speculation on what Steven Moffat (chant with me: "We're not worthy, we're not worthy") might be doing with Who once he picks up the reins. One of the rumors is that Neil Gaiman will be writing for the show. Heresy alert: I'm not actually that big a fan of Gaiman. But I would be interested to see what he comes up with for the Doctor.

The rumormonger, Rich Johnston, also makes a nice point about how nitpickers completely miss the utter magnitude of what Russell T. Davies has done in regenerating the show. It's a good bit of writing. Go check it out!

I can't explain it.

But the cartoon at this link strikes me as deeply, deeply funny.

Of course, now it's a question of honor.

I very cavalierly decided to try my hand at making shortbread. Too cavalierly, alas. What resulted was two baking sheets of sweet, molten grease held together with a bit of flour. Not that there's anything wrong with that. It's just not shortbread, is all.

I will measure more carefully next time, and I will defeat the Shortbread Demons. (They are, I suspect, in league with the Writing Demons, because the activities of both result in the same thing: much less writing done.)

I'm taking a deep breath after being pissed off.

And I'm grooving to the Eurovision final. I don't care who wins, my now-and-forever favorite has got to be the Latvian pirates. Don't forget to read the lyrics, so you get every last drop of pirateness.

Okay, I'm pissed off.

My kid Margaret was riding my horse today, cooling him down after a good day's work. She didn't have her feet in the stirrups, because she was (quite reasonably) expecting a nice, quiet few laps of the arena at a lazy walk. Then the assholes in the exercise pen (round yard) next to the arena started cracking a whip at their own poor, confused horse, who had no idea what they wanted, so of course they kept cracking the whip.

My horse took off in a panic, which is very unlike him, so you know he must have been really, really scared. Margaret — still riding without stirrups, mind you — tried her best to stop him, but he's strong as a ox and really determined, and she's only twelve. As she pulled on the reins, he just got furious and frustrated as well as scared, and started bucking. She stuck on him for several agonizing seconds, still keeping her head and doing her best to stop him, before finally falling when she noticed a patch of soft sand where she could land safely. I checked that she was okay, then went to calm my horse down (thanks to anyone reading this who happened to participate in keeping him from heading for the hills).

Once things were back under control, Houston went to yell at the assholes. Then one of our friends went to yell at the assholes. Then Margaret and I went to yell at the assholes. They had apparently said to our friend, "Is it our fault if someone else's horse goes off?"

!!!

She enlightened them that everyone's safety is everyone's highest priority, so by the time Margaret and I got there, they had started to get a clue. "This is the kid who fell off because you were cracking that whip," I snarled as we approached. "This is the kid who has a head injury, an arm injury, and a hip injury because you were cracking the whip." They had a thousand reasons why it supposedly wasn't their fault, including that one of the ranch owners had told them to do it this way. "With other horses around?" I asked incredulously. "Yes," said one of them defensively. "And she was heaps louder than we were. I didn't think we were making any noise."

!!!

I later checked with the person who supposedly told them to do it that way — "Yeah, but when I showed them, there were no other horses around," she said. Defensively. (And either way, I can't really see that whatever they were doing could possibly have had any relationship at all to what this person would have showed them. All they were doing was stressing their horse out and scaring every other horse within range. And the range was considerable.)

"You may need to say things more clearly," I said to the person as calmly as I could, "because you really can't assume that it's going to occur to people like that to be careful about other horses."

Moreover, our friend went and talked to the other owners as well. So I think words will be said all around. I can only hope I never see the assholes again. But I probably will, because it's not that big a property. It's too much to hope that they will, out of humiliation, find somewhere else to torment their own and others' horses.

There is hope for the world.

The action heats up at about 0:40, but my FAVORITE bit is at 1:05, 1:10 or so. (There's nowt wrong with your computer, there's no sound in the clip. Sadly.)

Best Buy Dance Off

Yes, go see it.

Yes. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull — go see it. It gets all-thumbs-up from me. Margaret sat with some friends (there was a teachers' strike today so the place was full of kids), and I sat all by myself in the dark, eating popcorn and watching this movie and grinning like an idiot. Life is good.

Today is Sweet Potato Day at our place

The other day I was at the astounding Leisure Coast Fruit and Vegetables (a place so astounding they neither have nor need a web site), and I saw — and therefore bought — the World's Largest Sweet Potato. It was THREE KILOGRAMS (nearly seven pounds), this ONE sweet potato. Since it was within 100 grams or so of Margaret's birth weight (and about the same size I remember her being at the time), I had to have it.

I brought it home, explained to Margaret that it was essentially a baby-sized sweet potato, and showed how it fit against my shoulder pretty much exactly as she had. Margaret looked at me sideways. "We gonna eat that?"

Yes! The answer is yes! I have so far grated three cups of it up for sweet-potato muffins. (Note to those playing at home: I made a double batch, and added two grated apples as well; makes them heavier, but moister and tastier. I also added allspice and cloves to the cinnamon and nutmeg.) And I have cooked up several pounds of sweet-potato pieces, which will be mashed and added to chicken stock, coconut cream, various spices, and peanut butter to make my famous peanut-butter soup (recipe on request). And I still have the equivalent of about two normal-sized sweet potatoes left.

I haven't run out of ideas just yet, but I'm not in the mood to mess with pie crust (so a sweet-potato pie is out), and I can take or leave just plain mashed sweet potatoes. I may cook up the rest in chunks and freeze them, to make into a sweet potato, pepperoni, pecan, and honey casserole. Or maybe something else.

A big fangirl moment for me

Okay, this is good, y'all: the remarkable Steven Moffat, my WRITING IDOL, will be taking over Doctor Who for Season 5. I would pay significant amounts of money just to be in the same room as Steven Moffat for five minutes, and more money than that if he actually said anything during that five minutes. Imagine what I'd pay if I had the chance to ask him questions!

This probably isn't the first place you've heard this news; it's all over the geekier provinces of the Internet (and I also heard it from my friend Cathy, who is much better at keeping her ear to the ground about anything than I am, and also is a genius in the field of local (and national) political activism, which doesn't have a whole lot to do with Doctor Who, but is just one example of how cool she is).

No disrepect to you, Mr. Davies (because of course you're reading my blog). I think you've been an absolute hero for regenerating the series and making it a must-see. But...since you're moving on, could there be anyone better to take over? I...THINK...NOT!

Wow. Is all. Just — wow.

It's lengthy — a hefty seven minutes (which, these days, is an eternity). But it's so way cool. It may give you nightmares, it will definitely do your head in.


MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.

By the way...

...only 300 words today. Phooey. Still, I made that ginormous pot of chili, and read the Herald AND the Australian, and went to the gym. So today was not a day of complete idleness. Even though 300 words is pretty slack. Tomorrow may go better, as the papers will have already been read, the chili made, the workout worked out.

Big pot of chili — check!

I spent several hours today making a ginormous pot of chili. Lots of from-scratch ingredients (dried beans instead of canned, fresh chillis instead of chilli powder, whole spices ground by me moments before they are chucked into the pot — my spice grinder is one of my most treasured possessions).

Cooking stuff is good for you.

Whew! Whew, whew!

I can still write. I've actually written a few hundred words today. I thought I was broken.

Whew.

Pledge for tomorrow: at least 500 words. I'll let you know how close I get — or if I surpass it! (Frankly, I'd better — it's a pretty lame wordcount by any standards.)

Sigh....

Wouldn't this be nice?

Attribution: found on boingboing.net.

A glimmer of fame for me!

Tonight the fabulous Kammer Ensemble gave a concert at the University of Wollongong. It was enjoyable for many reasons, not least because one of the pieces they did was Houston's setting of one of my poems. I wish I could post a link to Kammer's web site, but I can't, because — incomprehensibly — they haven't got one. (What year is this?) They also played another piece of Houston's, as well as a few other Australian composers and Kurt Weill. If you're at all interested in 20th- and 21st-century chamber music, you can search on "Kammer Ensemble" Sydney to get a sampling of their upcoming gigs (you need to check out the various venues for the info, because, as I said, they have no web site of their own, an omission that seems to me to be catastrophic, although that may say more about me than about them).

I got positive comments on the poem, which is always nice.

Fandom

I'm comfortable with the idea of fandom. It's fun to be in the know, to be up on the jargon, the secret language of each particular fandom. It's fun to imagine oneself in the situations the characters are in, and to play around with new ones. It's human nature to admire the people who create make-believe so rich that it can accommodate even others' make-believe. Me, I'm (in my own, fairly mild way) a fan of several of these make-believe worlds: Star Trek was, of course, my first, which my mom let me stay up late to watch. (Now I let myself stay up late.) She also let me watch The Prisoner, even though I didn't start really understanding it (to the degree anyone ever does) until years later. I pretty much inhabited Narnia for several years of my childhood and early adolescence. I love the Cairo Jim books (crappy web site, great books).

Because I grew up in the US, I didn't really catch on to Doctor Who until the series was regenerated a few years ago, at which point I became an enthusiastic (though not, relatively speaking, hardcore) fan. My favorite episodes all seem to be written by Steven Moffat. He apparently writes lots of cool stuff that I can't (or don't know how to) get here in Australia without spending squillions. Mr. Moffat, if you're out there, thanks for the best Who episodes!

I'm hoping I can produce work that's rich and inventive enough to inspire a fandom. I used to think stage plays wouldn't do it, but after seeing Wicked, I changed my mind. Any work can inspire a fandom, if it's good enough. I'm not one of those snobs who sniffs at popular works that capture fandoms. I know that it's the power of a piece, not its technique per se, that attracts. And there are worse things to aspire to than writing with power.

Mother's Day

Margaret wrote me a fabulous poem, very long, very clever, with an extremely demanding rhyming scheme. And she did the desktop publishing on it, printed it out, and bound with red ribbon — it looks stunning. And she gave me a beautiful turquoise-silk table runner, which I'm not going to use as a table runner; instead, I'm going to keep it safe and use it as a wall hanging when I finally get a studio/office/cabin in the mountains to write in. And Houston got us a turntable so we could finally listen to some old favorites again. And Margaret and I went on a trail ride together. And we (only not the horses) played a family game of Scrabble (you'd THINK, wouldn't you, you'd THINK they'd have let me win on Mother's Day; maybe it's just as well we didn't invite the horses over to play, how embarrassing would that have been, to be beaten at Scrabble by a horse?). And we all (except for the horses) had a nice dinner at our favorite Thai restaurant. So now I'm full of words, full of music, full of food, weary, and very touched and happy that my family cares about me.

In other news, am I the only one who finds the name of this cafe vaguely disturbing?

Eggplant parmagiana: a successful adventure

Before tonight, I'd never made eggplant parmagiana. This is no longer the case. And I'm very, very full of food.

It's a bit cumbersome to make, and I think olive oil is a bit too distinctively flavored to be the sole frying medium (Houston saw a television chef recommend cutting it with vegetable oil to make it a bit less insistent, and perhaps I'll try that). However, it was definitely edible, and with a bit of practice I may bring my version of the dish to restaurant quality.

*Burp.*

New must-have accessory — and so practical, too!

I...I just don't know what to think about this. (Don't forget to check out the links along the left.)

The Sargasso Sea and me

I am becalmed, the rudder fouled with lank, slimy seaweed. The wet, green smell of it permeates everything, and I feel dull and sluggish.

In other words, I'm not being particularly productive, and there's not a lot of external pressure on me at the moment. "Oh, happy day," I should be crying. "Oh, happy day, time to focus and really crank out the words!" But no. One of my pathologies is that the less pressure there is, the less I produce.

I'm embarrassed to tell you all how it is I keep writing in times like this (for one must always, always keep writing). But I will, for you are my friends: I take a few minutes to daydream about what success will look like. I cast my favorite actors in my as-yet unwritten plays. I set up tables in my favorite bookstores for the signings. I imagine the laser-like intensity of a room full of teenage writers as I workshop their pieces with them. Sure, I write for the joy of writing. But (and I know it's unfashionable to admit this, but there you are) I also write to accomplish.

Apparently I'm considered to be unusually driven in my relentless push for accomplishment. But every writer who's achieved the things I want to achieve has been at least as relentless as I. And so I clear the rudder, reset the sails, put my hand to the tiller, and spend a moment daydreaming.

Wait — did I just feel the breeze pick up?

Plans for May

As far as I see it at the moment, May will be an edit-and-send month. April, due to Script Frenzy etc., was not a big sendout month, but I don't have too many big projects or deadlines (that I know of or remember!), so I can devote my time to editing The Death of Albatross and a few stories. I may try and write a half-hour radio play, just because there's a very, very lucrative competition and also because I've never written a radio play.

And then, of course, there is the stress of researching markets, fine-tuning the formatting, and hitting Send....