I’ve been having trouble joining my friends in their enthusiasm and excitement about Swancon this year. Not because I’m not looking forward to it – it’s a CON, and I always have an awesome time. The reason my feelings are so mixed is because I am completely fixated on the fact that I have to say goodbye to my girls for four days. And um. Haven’t *entirely* managed to wean my 19 month old yet. So basically whenever I think about Swancon, I think GUILT GUILT GUILT GUILTY GUILT.

We experimented last night with my honey comforting the baby in the night, offering her a drink of water and a cuddle that was not boobie-related. She was unimpressed.

So, you know. GUILT GUILT GUILT GUILT.

Worldcon was wonderful in many ways, but hard, and there was just as much guilt from all the small goodbyes than there will be this time from one big one. I know in my heart that as soon as I’m on the plane and away, I will be able to enjoy the freakish luxury of four days in which the only person I have to look after in myself.

(secretly, I’m looking forward to the 5 hour plane trip – so many hours on my OWN to listen to stories and read books without someone jumping on me or needing a drink of water. Possibly *I* will be the one receiving drinks of water from someone else. UNTOLD LUXURY)

But then I think about the fact that my girls may well be having the annual Easter Egg hunt at Glammer’s house without me and I crumple, just a little…

I haven’t paid much attention to what is actually happening at Swancon – a bunch of my friends are going to be there and I’ll get to talk non-stop about books, science fiction, publishing, and podcasting. Not on panels or anything – I have no idea what my programme will look like – but to a crowd of my favourite people. Really, I just heard ‘con’ and I was there – plus I get to share a room with Alex, and we’ll be working hard to kidnap Alisa from her duties as chair from time to time, just so we get a chance to hang out with her too. Did I mention that I still haven’t *met* Amanda or Cranky Nick or Chris in person yet? Virtual will become reality!

But it’s probably time I looked at what the convention has to offer.

Swancon 36 – Natcon 50!

*swish, fancy hotel with actual room for all the stuff a convention needs
*Guests of Honour Sean Williams, Justina Robson, Ellen Datlow, Sarah Xu and many more invited guests.
*Writerstream – a whole stream of programming on Saturday 23 April, devoted to writers trying to break into the industry, with workshops/presentations as well as panels and discussions.
*Romancing the West – a SECOND stream of programming for writers, this time with a focus on romance, paranormals, etc.
*Edustream – on the Friday, a series of professional development workshops and panels with a focus on the uses of SF in schools for teachers and librarians as well as those with an interest in YA.
*Future Imperfect Art Show, various Awards ceremonies, everything else you expect from a Natcon

Okay. Now I’m getting a teeny bit excited. ROLL ON EASTER.

I’d got the days mixed up, as often happens when you’re in a country half a day ahead of your football team, and didn’t realise until I got up this morning that the game was on right now. I could only really keep half an eye on it as I got the girls ready for their day.

It didn’t really matter. It’s Barca, after all – the best we could hope for was not humiliating ourselves, and getting out of the Champions League nice and early so we could concentrate on that other trophy, the one that maybe, MAYBE this year, we might have a chance at.

I found a feed briefly and saw a rather dull ten minutes of the game before it crapped out on me, so I didn’t bother. Twitter kept me informed. Like when they got their first goal…

(more…)

I’ve been watching with a sickening feeling the fight to keep Britain’s libraries intact as the conservative government hacks and slashes their funding. It’s just awful. And maybe ours in Australia aren’t under current threat, but who’s to say that next time the Liberals get in we won’t be in the same situation?

Libraries are so important, and those of us lucky enough to live in countries that have a thriving library system need to remember that.

Tasmania has a fantastic crop of state libraries, all linked by computer so you can order a book from their wider catalogue and have it sent to your local library. I use this service a lot, as I don’t have the leisure to browse shelves with two children – I discovered last week that my now-walking-with-confidence toddler Jem is a right library rampager, and was shocked to be overwhelmed with the memory of chasing Raeli around the same aisles, something I had completely forgotten.

So yes, I order books or CDs I want, and pick them up when they come in.

Both my girls love the local library. It was one of my regular haunts with Raeli when she was tiny – we often went to the Rock n Rhyme baby sessions together, and she had her own library card from the time she was six weeks old. Okay yes, I often take my own stuff out on her fee-free card, I’m only human!

(more…)

Raeli had her birthday a few days ago! We’ve had what feels like a whole week of birthday/holiday activities, culminating in the Big Superhero Party which felt like a crazed, sugary blur at the time, but people seemed to enjoy. Raeli informed me that it was even better than last year, largely because of the pinata (which from our POV was a dismal failure redeemed only by the fact that no one was actually hurt during the whole excruciating procedure). At the end, there were lollies, so no complaints from the kids.

Apart from the change in theme, from fairies to superheroes, I had planned to run the party the same as last year: simple food involving opening packets, I don’t make anything myself except the cake and fairy bread, sausages on the barbie for kids & parents alike, my Mum madly running the games (everyone needs a Glammer come birthday season) and no fuss. Naturally it got far more complicated than that, not least because, well, do we remember how last year I had a little 5 month old baby? THIS YEAR she’s a running, jumping, bouncing, psyched up little dynamo, and it took the 15 or so adults at the party to keep track of her. I’m not used to a feisty baby. Raeli was energetic but not one for hurling herself off furniture. Jem topped off the party by eating everything. Seriously. All the things. Once the big kids had abandoned the picnic cloths and gone to play games, she plonked herself down and ate more than her own body weight in chips, cheezels, biscuits, watermelon and… oh, I don’t even know. Hear that? That’s the kind of mother I am. I have no idea what she ate. I just know that she looked really, really smug about it.

(more…)

Gah, I haven’t been blogging for days because really, it’s hard to think of anything remotely relevant to say. I’m just nursing my Dry Feet Guilt as I watch the news reports coming in from Queensland. It’s scary, scary stuff, far too close to home, happening to people and a city that I’m very attached to.

If you don’t already know about it, here’s a link to the Premier’s appeal for flood relief – Tasmanians may be interested in the Rotary Appeal, as our state government has pledged to match donations dollar for dollar up to $250,000.

Meanwhile, it’s raining in Hobart too, and Tas has its own flood warnings here and there. I’ve been shut up in the house with my two girls for a week, because Raeli was nursing an unexpected sunburn (damned UV getting through the clouds) and then because of the rain, rain, rain. Raeli is delighted at spotting snails from the window, but miserable at not being able to play on the trampoline. We have our moments of wanting to kill each other, but they pass.

Normally I’m completely delighted by rain, but considering what’s on the news, it’s hard to enjoy it right now. At least the birthday party we’re going to this weekend is a pool party!

That’s all pretty depressing, isn’t it? Mostly I’ve been twiddling my thumbs a bit because I was expecting to be editing this week, and it’s been postponed. I’m not bored, nor lacking in things that need to be done (please, no suggestions), but I’m in limbo, knowing that as soon as the manuscript arrives back, I’m going to have to throw myself into a sudden high gear to get it done. Which means that I need to spend this time conserving my energy – doing holiday activities with the girls, catching up on house cleaning, and preparing myself so that I can cope when the work hits.

Today was a good day because we had a visit from  godiyeva and two of her three hordelings. The children played surprisingly quietly in the living room for a few hours while we chatted, did jobs (I was sewing, she was writing party invitations) and caught up with each other. Possibly there was tea and cake. Later, I braved the supermarket. It’s the first day that I’ve actually managed to get Raeli fully dressed (that sunburn did a number on her) and keep her that way all day.

Tomorrow my planned highlights, with Jem in daycare (it’s sooooo weird having the baby in daycare on days when I don’t have a writing deadline), are to visit the post office and to clean house more.

No complaints here! With everything going on in other parts of the country, I am immensely grateful for my quiet, utterly mundane housewifely week.

It’s the last day of my honey’s holidays, which means the last day of having a second parent at home to help with the girls. I’m on my own for the rest of the school holidays! (apart from, you know, grandparently help, baby daycare, and weekends)

I’ve been slugging away at my page proofs, which are due back on the 10th – not quite as bad as some of my writerly peeps who have Jan 4th deadlines! I feel for you, my darlings. One of those secrets about the publishing industry you probably wouldn’t think about unless you are on the inside is that editors clear their desks before Christmas by sending edits and proofs to writers, which means if you’re working under contract, you’re probably working over the holidays!

Still, ‘under contract’ is totally not old yet, so no complaining here

I just finished reading the January issue of Locus as a digital epub on the family iPad – it’s brilliant! After years of sadly reading 1-2 month old news and updates in the magazine, it feels a lot more current. It took us (which is to say, my honey) some squiggling around to figure out the best ways to download, transfer and set up the file, but now we have it sorted and it’s SO NICE to read.

I’ve been subscribing to Locus for years now, even with the postal time delay, (much of the news like books sold was stuff I wouldn’t read anywhere else anyway) and with the proliferation of news blogs and the like, there really is nothing to match it for explaining the industry we work in. Only recently, I psyched myself up to turf out a decade or so of the magazines, to clear out space, and have been trying to throw them out as I read them, but it’s a wrench each time.

I’m really impressed that the Locus crew were smart enough to offer the digital download free to international print subscribers – as well as getting our news earlier (and can if we choose save the more substantial articles and reviews to read later when the print version arrives) it’s a fantastic way to audition the format, and make the choice as to whether we go fully digital when the subscription is due.

Subscribing to Locus is a pretty major expense for those outside the US – it’s something I try to do when I get in a big writing cheque, so I don’t notice it (often subscribing for two years in those instances) – and I’ve tried to quit it in the past only to resubscribe in a panic. I’m sure there are plenty of Australians who have balked at the expense – however worthy a magazine it is (and it really is), it’s a major investment and international postage is only getting more and more expensive…

I am a little askance at subscribers only getting a month (later 2 weeks) to download the issue, as I would have thought one of the benefits of being a subscriber would be getting a chance to re-download past issues that you ‘own’ – if you accidentally delete it, or need it for a different platform, for instance. I think letting past issues disappear is a bit of a holdover from print publication – one of the things I love about buying audios directly from Big Finish rather than getting a slightly cheaper price somewhere like Book Depository is that I often get the digital version too, on an electronic bookshelf, and can get hold of it again.

But, hey, that’s a minor niggle compared to the glory that is Digital Locus – I may have to wrestle with my own nostalgia about tiny print and red bordered covers, but this might finally be the thing which weans me off the paper subscription. I suspect quite a few Aussies will be following me, and many more might take the plunge now that postage is out of the equation.

So this loosely was my plan for 2010, presented with comments:

1. Finish Cabaret of Monsters (book 2) and Saturnalia (book 3) and submit them on deadline.
They’re now called Shattered City and Reign of Beasts, and the deadlines ended up being extended a time or two, but done and done.
2. Complete a first draft of one other novel
This I didn’t manage, thanks to more editing and a lot less writing time than I was hoping for.
3. Decide on what project I want to work on after Creature Court and put a proposal together.
I haven’t finished the proposal for my publishers yet, but I wrote early chapters and a synopsis for Fury when I applied for my grants, WHICH I GOT.
4. Get Raeli through her first year of full time school. To this end, institute earlier tea & earlier bedtime for Raeli (starting the bedtime process at 8pm results in a good night going to sleep at 9pm, it’s not good enough)
This worked out really well. While part of me thinks it’s a bad idea to dumb down Raeli’s food and getting into the habit of a kids meal and an adult meal… yeah. I can’t have a family meal on the table by 6pm, but I can manage a nursery tea. Also it’s nice to not be fighting with Raeli about food. She eats vegetables, even if only under certain circumstances, and she even went through a few adventurous phases with her food this year. It’s summer so we’ve let the bedtime blow out again but come school time, I’ll be going back to this habit.
5. Get Jem into her own room and reorganise study at other end of house.
Done marvellously. What I wasn’t expecting was that instead of a study I would build myself a library! Complete with queen sized bed… I love that I got the best of both worlds, a spare room for guests and a room that is MINE where my books live. Sure, I don’t have a desk, but this is me, let’s face it, a desk would just be somewhere to pile up papers and all kinds of crap. Not having a desk forces me to file things occasionally. I’ve finally got my armchair, and I continue to work from my laptop on the dining table. I may need a small desk in the library eventually but for right now, I’m happy, and get an extra thrill of happiness whenever I refer to my Library Bed. Which currently is covered with page proofs for Shattered City…
6. Complete two quilts (you know who you are)
I really have to be more specific! The first must have been the Felix Rupert Bear quilt, which I was being discreet about because I was keeping it secret from Isabel. I had to check back for the second which was of course Kaia’s Comfort Fruit quilt, for her 30th birthday.
7. Launch Power and Majesty in June, and do my best to contribute to & support the publicity for the book.
Done! With publicity you always feel like you should have done more, but I think I managed my time effectively. Time to start gearing up for Book 2…
8. Aussiecon in September!
Done! It wasn’t easy taking the family to the convention, but my honey worked hard to free up as much time as possible for me to do my convention thing, and I loved getting to hang out with friends and sharing both my worlds. Also, live Boxcutters!
9. Launch Cabaret of Monsters in December (subject to publishing dates staying the same) and do my best to contribute to & support the publicity for the book.
Heh well the publishing dates didn’t stay the same, so this one can be rolled over to 2011.
10. Read 120 books throughout 2010.
Hooray, I scraped under the wire with this one! Separate reading overview to follow.

EDIT: A couple of projects/challenges I forgot about: to podcast Siren Beat, and to read all of Joanna Russ’s published books.
Heh well I completely didn’t podcast Siren Beat, but I did start the CreatureCourtCast to read some sample chapters of Power and Majesty, and should do something similar with Book 2. And I didn’t get to all of the Russ, but I read quite a few of them and consider myself a hell of a lot more educated in the ways of Joanna Russ than at this time last year. So I’ll count that as a win.

Of course the most interesting thing about looking back is what I didn’t expect or prepare for: like winning the WSFA small press award for Siren Beat, and getting to vicariously enjoy Alisa’s voyage to Washington and beyond. Also, when the year turned, I had no idea that we were going to start Galactic Suburbia this year, a podcast that has given me great pleasure and joy. I didn’t know that Raeli being at school would lead to a whole new social group for me, or that my biggest regret of the year was not the lack of working time, but not volunteering enough at Raeli’s school. It’s also been lovely seeing so many of my friends succeeding with their work, getting new books out into the world, more rungs on the publishing journey. In particular, seeing Trent finally get his debut novel out there after so many years of hard work towards that goal, and seeing Rowena get another series out there after a hiatus almost as long as my own, filled me with pride and gladness.

It’s been a year of hard work, rewarding feedback, loving friends and family. I really have very little to complain about. Here’s hoping 2011 is a good one, for all of us!

It’s getting pretty Christmassy around here.  Raeli and I had a mammoth shortbread baking session yesterday, producing not only shortbread daleks but also cats, bunnies, high heeled shoes and other ephemera.  Sadly the sheep, cows and rockets didn’t work out as I had hoped as it turns out those fancy cookie cutters I bought are crappy, and you can’t get the dough out of them without breaking it.

I have a jar of dried fruit marinating in rather a lot of brandy, ready to be turned into a cake this week.  Should I worry that most recipes say to soak the fruit in rum or brandy overnight?  My jar has been going since November!

My other baking plans for the season are icecream centric – I want to make a frozen pudding bombe and some moulded icecream “mince tarts.”  Ironically with all my icecreamy plans, the weather this week has been cooler than we’re used to in December.  Good baking weather, not so good for melting icecream.  Still, not complaining over here!

(more…)

My new phone has a camera in it! I know, most people are way ahead of me on this technology, but I’m excited by it, especially as the only camera we own that I’ve ever known how to use has broken recently. So hooray, lots of pictures!

Kathryn Lomer at Fuller’s Bookshop last Sunday, launching Three Things About Daisy Blue, the final book in the A&U Girlfriend series by Kate Gordon. You all know how much I have loved this series – while it’s sad to see it end I was delighted to be able to attend the launch of the last one, which happens to have been written by a friend of mine!

Here’s Kate herself, describing what sounds like a great fun teen book set in Bali. She read a scene about a girl eating a durian and throwing up on a boy’s shoes which had us all squirming! I look forward to reading this one.

Jem’s new trick, feeding the Glammer! She loves sitting at the big girl table, but loves feeding her food to grown ups even more.

(more…)

Heh I need to quickly sum up the rest of the con before I forget it all! I do rather feel like I’m repeating myself, as I have done summy up podcasts with Galactic Suburbia covering some of the same material. But here we go:

Sunday was Father’s Day! No sleep in or cooked breakfast for my sweetie, though. He did receive a school-made card from Daughter #1 and a gift card for the apps store from me (very appropriate as the iPad had become our complete lifeline over the trip, as entertainment, internet connectivity and a social networking tool. I want my owwwwwn.

My one panel for the day was one I had been super excited about – The Case for the Female Doctor. Not only did I get to sit next to Paul Cornell, but the really cool thing was that all of the panellists except the moderator were completely in love with the idea of a female Doctor, and thus the discussion moved quickly belong ‘should we’ to ‘how should we’. Discussion points ranged through the age of the Doctor, whether a female Doctor would *have* to be older to convey confidence and dignity, or conversely *have* to be younger to count as ‘now’ and ‘sexy’ from the production POV. We also discussed the readiness of fans and the media to accept a female Doctor, and the different ways in which gender might affect the show. I was particularly delighted that almost all of the arguments about things that might change were met with a heartfelt ‘yes, wouldn’t that be great’! Mostly by me, admittedly

So yes, it was a great panel and completely buzzy to be part of it. I’ve been meaning to send Grant Watson a heartfelt THANK YOU by email for putting me on it, but what the hell, better to do it on public. Being on a Doctor Who panel at a convention is one of those things I have always wanted to do in my life, and this far exceeded any expectations. Grant did some fantastic work with devising programme items, many of which had great female-centric or feminist themes, and I think it’s worth a particular shout out because in my experience, often the media items are the ones most likely to end up with all male panels, or unimaginative takes on the material. Not so this year!

From a ‘mama writer at the con’ point of view, it’s worth noting that I had Raeli sitting up front with me, right in front of the table. Paul Cornell managed to frighten her by suggesting that she touch the inflatable daleks who visited us, to prove they weren’t real, but she had come to terms with them by the end of it and announced that they really were just like the bananas. Mostly I kept her busy with sweets from the table while she worked in her activity book (anonymous sketch artist who presented the panellists each with a caricature from the panel – thank you for including Raeli in this! it’s adorable!). At one point she whispered that she wanted to ask a question and I am ashamed to say I wouldn’t let her – afterwards I checked what she would have said and her question was “why are you talking about a female doctor?” which to be fair wouldn’t have added much to the conversation.

I told her why we were discussing it and asked her if she thought the Doctor could be a woman and her response was “hee hee, that’s silly.” Good thing I didn’t let her contribute!!!

(more…)