I can't believe it's taken me so long* to find this blog.

I should have guessed that such a blog existed, and that it would be so cool: the Clarion Blog. I'm not sure how they decide who posts on it, but I've been excited by and full of admiration for each post I've read.

Here's an example from Mishell Baker, who, because she agrees with me, is obviously wonderful:

All that said, it’s important not to mentally label this sort of activity [writers' groups] as “networking.” If you attend a convention or introduce yourself to another writer with the idea that you’re forging an Important Business Relationship, you’re not only taking the joy out of it, but probably coming off as self-serving. So don’t “network.” Just go to conventions and readings and other writerly social activities with open eyes and ears. When you feel a connection to someone – and you will – just run with it. Don’t worry about what it does or doesn’t mean for your career. Follow your instincts, be personable and interested in what others have to say, and before you know it you’ll look around and realize you’ve created your own writers’ group.

Yeah, I absolutely hate hate hate the word "networking." I want to hang out with people because I like them and/or admire them and/or want to accomplish something magnificent with them. I do not want to hang out with someone because I think it will be "useful." Bleah, what a desolate, soul-damaging way to think.

Writer buddies, you are not "networking." You are friends, mentors, colleagues. You are special. You are cool.

*Update: turns out it hasn't taken me long at all: the blog only began on May 1, 2010. I feel better now.

Eduard Khil, my hero

I absolutely love Eduard Khil, the Trololo guy. If you've never watched the video of him singing the Trololo song (or one of its thousands of mashups and imitations), (a) you're not as geeky as you think you are, and (b) you can watch it here.

Why do I love him so? Is it because of his singing voice (which is, and I am not being sarcastic, terrific, despite his utter lack of grasping the concept of lip-synching)? Is it out of nostalgia for the unbelievable crap the Soviet Union passed off onto its powerless citizens as entertainment? (I travelled a bit in the Soviet Union about 10 years after the Trololo video was recorded, and you would not believe what was foisted onto the people of a once toweringly great artistic culture.) Is it because the song is infectious and lots of fun to sing for oneself?

All these things, and yet something more.

Have a look at the video below, of Khil on a talk show in Russia after the video took off on YouTube. "It's not parodies," says Khil, who has just watched a dozen people taking the piss out of him and his work. "It's love of people. Look how good is the state of all of them. They are full of feeling. I don't think that's a parody. Maybe a little.... But it is benevolent parody. And the rest is just kind people of different nations. They love like us, they educate people like us."

ISN'T HE ABSOLUTELY THE BEST? "Just kind people of different nations." "Look how good is the state of all of them." In other words, how can it be bad that they are having so much fun? And he is clearly thrilled as well as deeply amused to have given them cause for so much joy. (Make sure you watch to the end, where he reprises his international-sensation hit Trololo.)

Miscellaneous updates and snippets

• In November, the University of California at Berkeley will, in accordance with the author's wishes, start bringing out Mark Twain's autobiography! The hundred-year delay was, indeed, at the stipulation of the author, whose multi-volume autobiography apparently contains quite a heaping helping of screed and vitriol. I'm sure that — seeing as it's Mark Twain and all — it will be exceedingly well-written screed and vitriol, and well worth the reading.


• A bunch of guys have lived their dream by crossing a five-mile-wide lake in a jumping castle/moon bounce/bouncy castle. There's video; go look! No commentary from me is necessary.


• Today I taught the last of my four sessions for this go-round of my "Writing Speculative Fiction" workshop for young writers. I'm always sad when I finish a workshop. If any of my little writing chickadees are reading this, thank you very much for everything!!! Tomorrow night I finish the equivalent one for the adults, which will also make me sad. But WEA Illawarra is planning to offer it again, starting the last Tuesday in July and running for four weeks — as soon as they post the Terms 3-4 course list, all my Wollongong peeps are encouraged to sign up!


• My friend and fellow writer Richard Harland has embarked on his epic tour of the US and the UK to promote his fabulous book Worldshaker. If you love YA science fiction, YA fiction in general, steampunk, and/or cool writers, check out his itinerary and see if you can make it to one of his events. Incidentally, he's FABULOUS at reading his own stuff — a model for us all.


• The day is drawing nigh when we shall all converge upon Melbourne for the World Science Fiction Convention for 2010. I hope I will see bunches of you there!

There. That should keep us all for a day or two.

The next Young Writer story up at Outlandish Voices the podcast!

In this edition, hot off the virtual press, Outlandish Voices brings you the second in its occasional series of stories by young Wollongong-area writers. Theresa Nguyen, the author of “The Machine of Babel,” is, like our first young writer, a student at Smith’s Hill High School in Wollongong. In this deft science-fiction story, Theresa has had the courage to stare straight into the face of every writer’s secret fear.

Find it at Outlandish Voices the podcast. Hope you enjoy it! (And don't forget to join the Facebook group!)

And that's how it really happened!

(Thanks, Houston, for the link!)

Proud-mom moment

I crave your indulgence for but a brief time as I tell you that my brilliantly talented child Margaret has just won a writing competition in the Wollongong City Gallery's Just Imagine program. For each age group there was a choice of a few artworks they looked at and then wrote a story based on what the artwork triggered for them. A winner and a few highly-commendeds were chosen from amongst the stories written for each artwork. Margaret wrote based on a Brett Whitely work, Still Life with Shell. I'm not sure if they're going to post the winning stories, but I happen to agree with the judges that she wrote a very fine little piece.

Thank you. Normal programming will now resume.

I am so needing to write a superhero story after this.

I've never written a superhero story per se, but after watching this clip, which combines superhero with Bollywood, I think I just have to. I just have to.



(Thanks to my friend Poonam for pointing me to the link!)

An interesting sale indeed!

I sent a few poems off to The Story Bag (cool idea: they will print bags and coffee cups and stuff for shops and cafes; on one side is a nice ad for the client's business, and on the other side is a poem or story), and hey, they've accepted two of them! What happens now is that my poems go into their catalogue, from which clients choose the poems and stories they want for the obverse (or reverse) of their bags or cups. If a client chooses one of mine, I get a bit of dosh! And every time another client chooses one of my poems, more dosh! Go, my poems, fly away, and return bearing me much money! Or some money. That would be good too.

In other news, look what I found on boingboing: somebody built this hugely elaborate Baggins hobbit hole! (There's a link off this page to the how-she-did-it page.) I can't find a contact address to ask permission to snurch one of the photos, so I'm just going to risk it, on the theory that the artist/craftsperson herself probably would be cool with having even more people know about and admire her remarkable work. So here is the snurched photo:


Now go look at the rest of them yourself!

I really, really love teaching.

Tonight I taught the first session of my speculative-fiction-writing workshop, this time for adult learners through the really quite terrific WEA. It's always a challenge when teaching beginners, particularly adult beginners, to remember that you are NOT patronizing them when you go slow and give information in small pieces. When someone is truly a beginner, those small pieces seem a lot larger than they do to you, now that you've been writing, and thinking about writing, and learning about writing, and thinking about learning about writing, and writing some more, for several years now. To them, it's a new country, and they don't even know which edge of the map they're starting from. I reckon my job is not so much to "teach them to write," whatever that means, but to give them things to think about that can help them channel all that fabulous writing juju in one direction, one that will mean they end up in a few weeks' time with a story they'll like and some skills to apply to the next story.

I gotta tell you, though, there's not much that beats the feeling of saying something to a class and watching them suddenly take up their pens and write it down in a rush of "Aha!" I have to control myself when that happens lest I giggle with joy.

Oh, while I have you: next time you're in Adelaide (or, for those of you who live there, like, tomorrow or equivalent — they're open Friday through Sunday and public holidays), make sure you stop by the Adelaide Hills Market (web site here, and blog here). My friend Tyce is well on his way to making this the go-to spot for anyone interested in food, wine, and plain old joie de vivre.