I’m a sucker for domestic art. I don’t do it very often – and I am entirely comfortable with time saving alternatives – but I love an opportunity to do something creative for my kids, given a comfortable timeframe, a practical plan, and a little breathing space.

The most common demonstrations of my domestic art skills in this house are costuming, and the provision of birthday cakes. Nothing fancy – sure, I once produced a hand-sewn Cleopatra costume for an Asterix party which was worn for all of 3 minutes, but I’m just as likely to run out to the shop to find a lion mask at a moment’s notice (give me a month and ebay, and I can dress you as ANYTHING, my darling, but a week’s notice? Aargh!). I’ve even been known to dress my kids up for occasions other than costume parties – like, for instance, my book launches.

This year, we knew with at least six months notice that Raeli wanted a Doctor Who party, and that she wanted to go as a lady Silurian, and my Mum was totally okay with making that costume, as long as it was confirmed as wanted 2 months before the party. 2 months before the party, Raeli changed her mind, and wanted to be River Song instead. We called the party ‘aliens and earthlings’ so as not to alienate the non Doctor Who watchers who were invited, and sort of forgot about the costume.

Meanwhile, I had a plan for Jem’s costume for the same party, which would be a TARDIS dress. Having seen all the gorgeous ones out there, I plotted to remix a plain denim dress, got the makings, and got very excited when I learned about the advances that have been made in T-Shirt Transfer technology.

Somehow, with less than a fortnight to go, we had not organised Raeli’s costume. Her more recent plans to be young Melody Pond ran aground when we checked that episode, and the kid was basically wearing a dress and a cardigan, which can not be made to look like a proper costume. Alarm bells rang. She was sent off with a stack of Doctor Who magazines to figure out what she wanted to look like.

She came back with bright, starry eyes, and the request for an astronaut costume.

Well, why the hell NOT? Of course, with a month’s notice, I could have just bought her a fabulous astronaut’s costume on eBay, claimed it was a birthday present, and washed my hands of it. But with less than two weeks to go…

The family pulled together. I shopped frantically on the hottest day of the summer so far, discovering that no toyshop in Hobart had ever considered that a kid might want to dress as an astronaut. I found a cheap, white police helmet with a visor in one shop, white gloves in another, a baggy white top at Big W, and hoped for the best.

My mother, op shopping queen, vanished mysteriously one afternoon and returned with oversized white trousers, a white belt, and a white skivvy. My honey refitted the helmet with a spare, larger visor he had begging, printed out NASA stickers, and made a few designs. My mother returned two days later with a strap-on box arrangement to make Raeli’s baggy whites look like a proper space suit.

MAGIC HAPPENED.

Meanwhile, that dress I had organised for Jem? Didn’t happen, and didn’t happen. I made the transfers, but faced with learning a new skill, I piked daily, until of course it was the night before the party. Technology got the better of me, I handed the iron to my honey (he’s a physicist, I’m sure it was better he do that one) and left the frock in his hands, while I… frosted a chocolate TARDIS.

Because, yes, for this party I was costuming (with my support team of wonders and miracles) AND baking Doctor Who themed cakes. Two of them.

There were no further cake disasters this morning, though I was so nervous that I revealed the cake to Raeli before sticking candles in and transporting it. She was delighted, luckily, and nothing horrible happened en route.

We dressed the girls up (I admitted at this point that I hadn’t tried Jemima’s dress on beforehand – oops! Luckily it fit) and took plenty of pics before we left for the party, because of course you never get a chance at the place itself.

We went to Kids Bizzz (yes, really 3 z’s) because it’s two minutes from our place, and we didn’t have energy for a big home-based party this year. I felt exhausted anyway by the time we arrived! It was lovely not to have to do anything, though, but pour drinks for the kids, co-ordinate the present opening, and pull out a cake at the end. Both girls had a ball – and Jem ran riot on the climbing equipment!

Over coffees, sharing costuming nightmare stories with our friends (whose son chose to be a Cyberman at 24 hours notice and oh boy did they rise to the challenge – even his sneakers were spray painted silver!), the theory was advanced that I had chosen to do the crazy costuming and elaborate cake baking because if I didn’t feel just a bit frazzled and challenged at the party, I might feel like… well, like I hadn’t done enough.

Heh, well it’s a THEORY. I certainly had no problem justifying buying Raeli a Wonder Woman costume last year when I knew we were saving money on a home-based party… but I also sure as hell would have bought her an astronaut suit if she’d given me notice. And then we wouldn’t have had the fun!

And, stressing over frosting dramas aside, it was fun. I wouldn’t do it if it wasn’t fun. Oh, Raeli would have parties and costumes and cakes, sure, but the only time I tend to go the extra mile is when I’m inspired. When she had a fairy party, I bought plastic dolls and stuck them on a cake (which looked awesome, by the way!) and last year I did plenty of internet ordering. Also a valid choice.

But once Raeli’s requests dovetail with my own geeky interests, then… well, the occasion is worth not only rising to, but surpassing! Also, and here’s the gender thing, in a world where girls Raeli’s age (now SEVEN) are expected to like princesses and fairies and pretty much nothing else, when your daughter says she wants to dress up like an astronaut… well. Awesomeness like that is to be encouraged. Princesses and fairies can be awesome too, but they’re easy. When a nearly-seven-year-old moves beyond the mainstream to gaze into space, it’s something you want to encourage!

Jemima, I might add, indicated no particular interest in dressing as the TARDIS, but she was pleased enough when I told her she was, and happily showed off her dress to everyone at the party. It was a far more practical costume than Raeli’s, which of course was on her for a total of 5 minutes before she chucked off the hard bits and went to play.

Thank you, Gallifrey cosplayers, for showing me how it can be done!

I do love playing with domestic arts and crafts. The best thing about doing something extra special for birthdays is that it’s out of the ordinary, and you don’t have to feel obliged to repeat such glorious experiments. Believe it or not, this was the relaxed birthday year, when I was deliberately keeping things simple because we’re going away on holiday next week!

No idea what we’re in for next year, but I can promise you one thing – Raeli is already planning it, in that devious little head of hers. Birthdays require a LOT of planning, after all… and it’s only 12 months to the next one!

And the good thing about Domestic Art is – well, Raeli doesn’t care that I used packet cake mixes instead of baking from scratch, and Jem doesn’t care that her TARDIS dress started out as a second hand denim frock, and the knockabout astronaut costume that me, my honey and my Mum put together is as beloved and appreciated as one bought on ebay with a month’s notice would have been. And really, to be honest, if I’d put my foot down originally and said no costumes, they would have been happy enough on the day to put on ordinary play clothes, as long as they got to jump on the bouncy castle and slide on the slides, and so on.

But when you have small children, days and weeks and summer holidays and years just slip through your fingers like water. I don’t feel the need for my kids to grow up with memories of an epic childhood, but it feels good to occasionally put some Art into their lives, to balance out the days that I let them do nothing but watch TV in their pyjamas. If nothing else, it makes great photos to add to the annual albums we give out at Christmas…

Plus, Jem has a TARDIS frock now. Perfect for any occasion!

A home-made Adipose from Glammer to Raeli

And home-made cybermats!

I could say that we didn’t give Jemima the pirate hat because of Amy Pond… but it would be a lie.

Shortbread daleks! All now eaten.

And… well, yes. A fraction of the Doctor Whoness that invaded our household this year, as every member of the family received something along those lines. Things. Somethings. Many things.

This is not all the things.

I regret nothing.

After stocking up on loot from the shop (an activity book and pirate craft project for Raeli, a pirate slinky for Jem, a book about female crewed ships for me) we were taken upstairs to view the sekrit stuff, namely the archive and private library, plus the many staff. I have to say this is the first time I have used writer credentials to get behind the red velvet curtain of anywhere! The girls were well behaved for a good 10-15 minutes as Liz showed me some of their digitised images and shared some gems about the history of the Derwent river. I already have extra Nancy ideas bubbling away, and plan to go back for more visits when not encumbered with two children with a patience time limit (well, the toddler, anyway. Raeli was a jewel the whole time, and charmingly fascinated with the place).

I’m almost at the end of the draft of the first Nancy novel, and while I’m very pleased with the writing and most importantly the scene-by-scene structure, it’s not ready yet. Now that I know which time periods are going to be relevant to the story, I need to do a lot more research on what Hobart was like in those specific times, and figure out for myself what Nancy and Sylvie Napoleon were doing during those specific years.

But there’s the other thing I need to do as well, which sadly no amount of historical books and visits to museums are going to help me with (unless of course they do). I need to find my words.

Language is one of those elements of fantasy worldbuilding that I rarely hear anyone talk about, but it’s hugely important to me. Names have a power to them, and I can’t get started writing until I know what my main characters are called – I’m still dealing with the emotional fallout of having to change a name in Fury, thanks to not realising until one particular scene that I had four characters whose names all began with the letter ‘N’ – but it’s not just the names which help to form the story in my head.

Margo Lanagan once called me the ‘queen of nouns,’ which is one of my favourite quotes ever about my writing. I replied I think that she totally had to become the most famous of all our writing group because she writes the more inspired cover blurbs, and she replied to that by winning a bunch World Fantasy Awards and becoming super famous. What a show off.

But it’s true that when it comes to fantasy, it’s the nouns that pull it all together for me. Words have a power, and I love finding exactly the right ones to convey a world of significance in a single moment. I also look out for this in other works, the use of alien/fantasy words used carefully in context so you understand exactly what they mean, the use of created swear words, and my very favourite, the redefinition of a known word to mean something new and wondrous.

With Mocklore, glimmer and glint took on a very specific meaning, to the point that I can’t read anyone else using the phrase ‘a glint in the eye’ without feeling sympathetic explodey stabbing pains. There are probably others, though those books are a galaxy far far away – I know that I worked to redefine what the word ‘outback’ meant, in Mocklore, in a Delta Void short story, and then there was Daggar with his Profithood and Profitscoundrel ways…

With the Creature Court trilogy, I made a lot of choices to do with words. There were the words that defined my magic system and the otherworld my characters inhabited: animor, courtesi, sentinels, creature court. I don’t remember why I chose to erase the word ‘night’ from that world and replace it with the Latin ‘nox,’ but it worked I think to show the importance of the night, because the absence of the word shone out like a beacon. Also, I find, in fiction generally and in fantasy in particular, there are some words that are used so often they cease to make any resonance or sense. It was pretty clear that ‘night’ was going to be one of those words.

(the catch, of course, was how many times night is used as a compound with other words, which meant I had to decide what to do with nightgowns, midnight and nightmares.)

Likewise, while I love a good Duchess, I wanted my daylight folk to have a language of aristocracy that was almost but not quite familiar. I was throwing around hints of other languages to try to de-Anglicise my work, simply because so many very English terms are used incredibly commonly in fantasy. (not that there’s anything wrong with them as words – but I like to keep myself interested with new things) So Ashiol’s family are all about Duchessas, Ducomtes, Baronilles, and the like.

While ‘princessa’ is a term known to the daylight people, there are no ‘kings.’ King is a term reserved for the nox, and for the Creature Court. One of the choices I made was that, as culturally this was a role only men held, there was no female equivalent. So when Velody defies tradition to reach that rank, she’s not a queen, she’s a damn king. There’s no denying that ‘queen’ and ‘king’ have different weights to them in our culture – why else would the man who marries a queen not be allowed to be named ‘king’ because then he would obviously out rank her? So I thoroughly de-gendered ‘king’ and very much enjoyed doing so.

The other gender choice I made was to write the whole trilogy without using the world ‘girl.’ I do use woman, as there are times when referring to women generally without an age reference is necessary, but the people of Aufleur themselves used ‘dame’ and ‘demoiselle’ as titles and descriptions for women. And maybe there isn’t much difference between saying ‘demoiselle’ (meaning young unmarried woman) and saying ‘girl’ but it felt good, damn it, to erase that particular word and its cultural baggage from three books in the universe.

Thank goodness for search/replace functions, that’s all I can say.

Having been playing in the Aufleur-Tierce-Bazeppe sandpit for so long, jumping back into Nancy’s world was a bit of a shock to the system, not least because I don’t have my words yet. I talked a little while back about not having my magic system nailed down. Mostly what I meant by that is that I don’t have the words yet to convey what magic in that universe is like.

I still don’t. It’s rare for me to be this far along with a book and not have the words – but for once, the story is unfolding first. If I’d got horribly stuck, I would have gone away with a dictionary and thesaurus and nutted the whole thing out, but somehow, so far, I’ve got away with it. It’s a tricky business. I am now a bit more firmly attached to the magic system, and I know there are two kinds of magic in this world – that which humans are allowed to use, and that which comes from the gods. I know it all ties in to the Pandora myth, though I’m not sure how. I want to use ‘curse’ quite liberally, though I also want to be careful not to use it in the same way that, for instance, Holly Black does.

And of course I need to pore over “Siren Beat,” the original novelette, for clues as to how the world works. Sometimes my subconscious is good like that.

The tricky part for me is that while the story is set in modern Tasmania, and is predominantly about magic and magical creatures from European myth, it’s also set in a world in which all the myths, basically, are true, and being slap bang in the particular ocean we are means Asian influences as well, and acknowledging the existence of monsters and magical wonders from as many pantheons and story cycles as possible.

Which makes it hard, of course, to settle on a vocabulary which encompasses all of those influences. [Love and Romanpunk's "Agrippinaverse" was so much easier by comparison, by only using Roman mythology & Greek by way of Roman, I had a vocab ready made for me - Latin all the way, baby!] I copped out on it in Siren Beat with the use of ‘guardian,’ and I’m still a little angry at saddling myself with that, one of the most generic fantasy labels of all time. But then part of me is wanting to use ‘witch,’ too, and that’s even worse. Also, there are enchantresses knocking at the story door, wanting to come in. Damn it all.

As soon as the battle is over and the draft is done, I’m rolling up my sleeves and hunting down every single bloody one of the words I need to make the story AWESOME, rather than merely finished. I will conquer Nancy Napoleon’s vocabulary if it’s the last thing I do.

Then of course, once the magical part is nailed down, I need to use my rusty research skills to find the vocab so that my scenes dipping back into particular historical periods feels real. That’s the good thing about fantasy – having used vocabulary to convey completely made up times and places, I’m well trained in introducing readers to new worlds. Now I have to do it with time periods too, which means actually locating real words, rather than letting my linguistic imagination take over. I’ve been having great fun picking up Victorian Australian slang, and need to do the same with some 1930′s lingo.

The other day, over a conversation on Twitter with Tania Walker about the way Tasmanians (especially older Tasmanians) use the extremely retro ‘cobber’ sometimes instead of ‘mate,’ it occurred to me that this word, which has huge resonance with me because it reminds me of my Poppy, who died when I was ten years old, was perfect for Nancy Napoleon. How better to demonstrate that she’s a tough talking thug who’s been living in the same city for over a century than to have her casually use a term like ‘cobber’ which is traditionally masculine, and belongs very much to another age?

One of my recent purchases was a book of Gothic Australian fiction. I often find that reading fiction that was written in a particular era is a great way to pick up on linguistic gems that the history books simply don’t mention. There’s a reason I went through my Evelyn-Waugh-and-Nancy-Mitford phase back when the Creature Court was unfolding in my head!

Also, possibly, when I’m applying all the exciting new vocabulary to my second draft, I will have to do something about the fact that Nancy Napoleon says ‘fuck’ in every second sentence. But that’s a problem for another day.

Jem turns two today! Sadly she has come down with a horrible virus and is not feeling very festive.

Luckily, to cheer her up, she has a sister and some new friends.

Also, cake.

In other news, it is raining. Grim, vengeful rain. How else would you expect rain that holds off all day and then starts while I am EN ROUTE to pick up my daughter for school, with the baby in the back seat, so I don’t even get a head’s up that maybe today was not the day to put the baby in soft slippers? In other news, Jem has grown so much now that her feet entirely stick out of the stroller, and the plastic rain cover for said stroller. All of these facts are related.

Deb Biancotti is interviewed by Alisa at Galactic Chat!

Fabulous roundtable about (global) Women in World SF – every comment is packed with intelligent, thoughtful ideas. I am delighted such a thing exists in the world. Some important questions are asked, like – why is it so easy for urban fantasy to be excluded from any discussion on spec fic? And why is it that crime readers are so much more open to female authors than SF readers?

The roundtable was in response to this original post by Joyce Chng about women outside the English speaking world are doubly marginalised in the science fiction field.

Maureen Johnson takes on the writer of that Wall Street Journal article (podcast), on the topic of whether YA fiction is getting too dark for teenagers to be allowed to read – fabulous radio and it’s cool to see how articulate Maureen is in person. It’s irritating that the final word goes to a caller who is obviously just out to plug his own book and hasn’t actually been listening to much that has been said in the conversation, and I was disappointed Maureen didn’t get to comment on what he said, but for the most part I think her point of view came across clearly and the conversation was absolutely one worth having.

This post by Tricia Sullivan is getting a little long in the tooth now, but I think it’s absolutely worth checking out if you haven’t already. To put it and the conversation it responds to into context, it’s also worth reading these two posts by Cheryl Morgan: Here We Go, and Further Thoughts. There is some intelligent, interesting conversation in the comments of all three of these posts.

I’m still chewing over my thoughts on the upcoming DC reboot, and this is one of the best posts I’ve seen exploring some of the problematic aspects of regressing storylines, particularly when it comes to female and minority characters.

There’s also a Kickstarter project to raise money for Womanthology, a project involving veteran and newbie female comics creators.

There was a very silly article in the Guardian about how romance novels are bad for women and lead to sexual health problems. Smart Bitches, Trashy Books did a masterful takedown of the article, including the vital point that the books used for the survey referenced in the article are in fact very old and in no way representative of the current romance genre. Nicole Murphy also responded with something of a love letter to the romance genre.

Nicole also hosted a series of guest posts on the topic of Dreams and Fulfillment over the last week – you can find my contribution here.

Okay, does anyone else think this movie looks completely awesome? Steampunk Musketeers for the Win!

Jem’s speech, which had been lagging behind her climbing, hugging and animal impressionistic skills, has recently been coming on in leaps and bounds. She has two two-word phrases now, ‘more toast’ and ‘Doctorrrrooo’ (generally while pointing at any pictures of well dressed Englishmen). We have also discovered that ‘jam’ and ‘yum’ are indistinguishable terms. Her favourite so far is quince jelly.

The cutest thing in the universe may very well be when I ask whether the girls want cereal or toast for breakfast, Raeli says ‘both!’ and Jem echoes, ‘bofe!’ These are the things which do not last, and need to be pinned down in memory.

Also this week I have inhaled the entirety of Downton Abbey, thanks to the encouragement of @zeft as well as the rest of the internet.

It’s a simply glorious costume drama, like several years of Upstairs Downstairs distilled into seven incredibly plot-rich stories. I love the complex characters (very few out and out villains, though many of them are villains to a selected handful), the focus on domestic drama and social detail, and the gorgeous frocks. Also, Mary’s eyebrows, which are a character in their own right.

I do love the younger characters, especially the trio of daughters. but it took many of them several episodes to grow on me. It’s the older characters who really sing in this show, with lovely crunchy roles like Mr Bates the damaged valet with a secret past, and the war of queens between the Dowager Countess Violet (Maggie Smith) and the intelligent, infering Mrs Isobel Crawley (Penelope Wilton). Oh, and the butler. Truly the best of butlers!

I came away from it wanting to write and/or read an Edwardian house drama with magic. For now I am holding off cravings by listening to an audio drama of The Forsyte Saga, my favourite historical family saga of all time. I still love it, but can’t help feeling it would be much improved by a magic system, and possibly some manticores.

Reading-wise I have been making my way through How The Dead See, the new Pufferfish novel by David Owen. I’ve always loved this Tasmanian police procedural series, partly because of the use of so many familiar details and setting, but mostly because of the protagonist, cranky old fat DI Franz Heineken (called Pufferfish by his colleagues but never to his face except by the woman he loves). I have a deep if select love for cranky, witty, macho detective stories, with added food porn. Considering that the last Puff book was published 14 years ago, what I found most interesting about this one were the modern touches, and the details about how policework and indeed crime has changed over the years. Plus of course I was hoping to get my brain into more of a noiry crimey place for more effective Nancy Napoleon writing. Which worked just fine until I OD’d on costume drama. If Nancy ends up in a crinoline, blame @zeft!

In feminist SF news (there always has to be a bit!) Kirstyn McDermott located an online copy of “When It Changed,” the short story we’ll be reading and discussing for our next Joanna Russ special episode of Galactic Suburbia, along with The Female Man and How To Suppress Women’s Writing. It’s a fantastic story, and well worth either a read or re-read. Check it out! (and hooray for the SciFi.Com archive)

It’s Friday! I wrote 5000 words this week! Smug, cheerful and almost caught up with the week’s tasks. To make up for being so disgustingly pleased with myself, I present Friday links!

Via my Mum, who tries regularly to catch me out by knowing something on the internet before I do, and almost always crashes and burns, an interview with a new young Doctor Who writer, Tom McRae, who is not only contributing to the most mysterious episode of the next half of this season, but also is staging an interactive Doctor Who play for little ones. Who believe in Santa.

Jeff VanderMeer presents Women of the Supernatural: A Tartarus Press Sampler, which looks gorgeous, and features a story by Australia’s own Angela Slatter. Kudos to Angela, it’s not every day you share a TOC with Edith Wharton.

I think we were a little dismissive of the Pottermore announcement last night on Galactic Suburbia (and Twitter, and and and). Some other perspectives: Hoyden About Town report on some of what is being offered on the new site, while The Guardian explores some of the marketing genius behind the announcement, and the site itself. I think it’s pretty disingenuous to suggest, as several journalists and bloggers have, that this is something that other writers will in any way be able to replicate, but I also think that anything which takes the wind out of Amazon’s sails (heh, sales) as far as ebooks are concerned is fighting the good fight.

(my main thought on all this is… so, those bestseller lists that everyone’s relying on to promote their ebooks, they’re about to take a bit of a beating, aren’t they? Suddenly that 99c price point can’t be looking too hot…)

Speaking of ebooks, I was inspired by Sarah Rettger to download Babs: A Sub-Deb by Mary Roberts Rinehart from Project Gutenberg. As Rettger suggests, this is great fluffy YA fiction, with a very appealing voice, which happens to have been written in the 1920′s. I’ve inhaled a good chunk of the book already, despite the rather annoying quirk of including all of the protagonists spelling mistakes.

Jo Walton on how different people approach the process of reading for pleasure.

Ben Peek takes down rape apologist Scott Adams for his stupid, offensive Pegs and Holes post, with that elegant balance of outrage and cynicism that Peek does so well.

Three female scientists at the top of their field are interviewed about the challenges in their lives, whether they have the same chances as men to build successful careers, balancing work and family, and the advice they would give to the women who come after them. I think the best thing about this article is the focus on three women in similar positions rather than a single woman to represent her whole field, as they provide a wider perspective and often disagree with each other. Because all women aren’t the same – shock!

Penni Russon writes about the choices (and non-choices) about having or not having (wanting, or not wanting) children, in a beautiful post. I always love to read Penni’s posts about motherhood, because the way she looks at the world has such a gorgeous balance of pragmatism and romanticism.

In closing, Jem and I watched this on Sesame Street this morning, and at the risk of over-exposing you to the adorableness that is Neil Patrick Harris, I had to share The Fairy Shoe Person:

On Tuesday night, the ever wonderful and community-minded Hobart Bookshop hosted a launch for me and The Shattered City, Book Two of the Creature Court. As a delicious bonus, Love and Romanpunk was also available for sale. I had been a little uncertain about whether to launch this book – considering each volume of the trilogy are coming out so close together, I had fretted a bit about whether I was over egging the pudding, or expecting too much of my family and friends. But I was talked into it pretty easily, and as I said recently to someone else – you have to celebrate the wins. After several years of no book to launch, I absolutely need to mark the successes while they are happening.

Also, as it turns out, my family & friends have been developing a bit of a taste for book launches. Bonus attendee points to Isabel, who since the last launch has bobbed her hair, acquired a pink flapper dress, and on the day itself scored herself a cloche hat as an early mother’s day present. Now that’s commitment!

The reliable and mighty-voiced Dirk Flinthart drove for three hours to launch my book, and I was startled to realise afterwards that he had never done so before (the launching thing, not the driving thing) – what with Craig Wellington last year, it looks like I have a habit of giving people their launcher debut! Dirk gave a lovely speech, showing how long we have known each other (TEN YEARS) and how familiar he is with the development of my work, as well as his utter faith in where I’m going next. It was exactly what you’d want from such a speech, and considering that the majority of people in the bookshop knew me, it was nice to have something so personal.

There was wine and book chat, and general loveliness. I am terribly grateful for my rent-a-crowd, who can comfortably fill a bookshop, but are also willing to buy books – not only the pile of The Shattered City, but the pile of Love and Romanpunk was beautifully eroded, and I got to sign many, many books. Thanks to Mel A for giving me a head’s up reminder beforehand that I was going to have to think of new clever things to write in the books! Being witty on cue is terribly stressful.

Then of course there was what has become a family tradition – the dressing up of the children! After several experiments, Jem proved to be less than keen on a costume, so I put her in a jungle t-shirt and a tutu. Raeli meanwhile had known for ages what she wanted to be: having dressed up as a mermaid for Seacastle and a black cat for Power and Majesty, she had her heart set on a lion costume. Unfortunately, what with one thing and another. I ended up having to source the costume on the day itself, and was faced with very limited choices. Luckily she is a creative little thing and was happy to think outside the box for her lion-y look.

I was also excited that there were a few (only a few, admittedly!) people there who I didn’t even know personally! Who also bought books! Bless their little cotton socks. There was even a committed future reader from the US who contacted the bookshop to order Power and Majesty and The Shattered City ahead of time, so I could sign them for him! With so much love & support, it’s no wonder that I’ve been feeling terribly inspired to get on with writing the new book this week…

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!

Last week I discovered to my disappointment that we had missed the fortnight of cool school holiday activities they had been running, so as consolation to Raeli, we took Jem along to Rock N Rhyme, which is much the same as it was when Raeli was little. She was delighted to recognise many songs from Play School, and enjoyed clapping or singing along with her baby sister. Jem was mostly well behaved, though she did blow raspberries entirely through one of the stories.

I often use the library for research, pulling up non fiction titles by the half dozen, often for books I only dip into, and would never need again. I have also raided their great YA, manga and murder mystery sections. I’m always a little surprised (though I shouldn’t be!) at how up to date they are – my current obsession with Doctor Who audio plays has found several there, to supplement my buying from Big Finish. I don’t feel guilty about listening to the ones I get from the library – they’re obviously buying the CDs regularly, which is yay for supporting audio play producers. I listened to my first Charley & C’Rizz and Ace & Hex plays through the local library, which means it is directly responsible for several hundred dollars making their way from my account to the pockets of the Big Finish crew. Totally worth it.

Oh and I just discovered that we now can download audio books and ebooks directly from the State Library website. Eeeee. When Kaia told me she got ebooks from her library in Sweden, it sounded like heaven and the future rolled into one.

Raeli has her own school library now, so this recent visit was the first we had made together in ages, and certainly the first since Jem was able to walk (and run, and hide, the minx). Usually when I go these days it’s on the rare occasions that I am able to leave the kids at home and escape somewhere with my laptop for a couple of hours. Nice flat tables. Nice mostly quiet atmosphere. Nice earbuds. Bliss.

Our local library is always full of people. The computer banks are probably a big reason for that – anyone who says the internet has rendered libraries redundant is speaking from a position of extreme privilege. Not everyone can afford the high prices Australians are charged for the internet, or for a decent computer. Jobseekers, teenagers and the elderly all congregate around the online centre that is attached to our library. But there are many other people too – young parents by the bucketload (okay, the kids and the books are by the bucketload) because where else can you go that’s free and undercover, to entertain your children and get yourself out of the house?

Where I live, in Kingston Tasmania, we have lots of suburb and lots of shop and due to an extreme mismanagement of urban planning, no parks or playground areas that are in any way central. This was a particularly big deal when Raeli was little and I didn’t drive. Now I can whisk her and Jem off to one of the further-out parks, but back then the library was one of the main places I took Raeli because I could get there by foot.

Also, you don’t get sunburnt in a library. Just saying.

There are lots of reasons why I regularly fall out of the habit of using my library. I don’t like to be pressured when I read, and sometimes that 3 week limit just tick-tick-ticks away at my subconscious. It’s understandable – I often buy books only to have them “cook” on my to read shelf for months or years. Books with a use-by-date stress me out. Then there’s the severe embarrassment of having to go to the counter and admit that the toothmarks in that brand new board book actually belong to your child.

Then there’s the fact that my eldest daughter discovered Barbie movies through the local library. Barbie movies. It’s not all sunshine and free books. Sometimes kids develop their own reading habits in these places. Anarchy, I tell you. Anarchy!

But that seductive wench of a library always lures me back, with its convenient position, and the catalogue that is somewhere for my fingers to travel to when I’m in a MUST-ACQUIRE-BOOKS phase but Fishpond & Book Depository have already had too much money off me that month.

We recently went down to visit my Mum in the arty village of Cygnet, for lunch and shopping. She dropped in to her local library, which was closed when we first went past, because it’s so small that only one person staffs it a time, and they had gone to lunch. But when we got in it was warm and inviting, and while her library doesn’t have the same bells and whistles like ours, it had a kiddie table that Raeli was immediately drawn to, and my Mum is also able to order any book from the State Library catalogue and have it delivered almost to her doorstep.

Libraries, in short, are awesome. (did I mention that mine is still displaying a poster of Power and Majesty, seven months after I gave it to them?) When I haven’t been for a while, I forget how awesome they are. But if anyone tried to take mine away, I would be devastated, and angry, and I would fight tooth and nail to keep it. Via the Guardian (which is where I nabbed these great poster images), I’ve been following the stories about various closures and protests, and how the very idea of the library is changing from something that is council/government funded and provides an actual career path for people, to something that is run by volunteers. It’s sad, and it’s scary, and I hope it’s something that never happens here.

But just in case it does, it doesn’t hurt to remind yourself that if you have a library nearby, there are plenty of resources you could probably use, and using those resources is important. It’s not just something you have to do in the weeks when you’re a bit broke and don’t feel like hitting up Amazon. Libraries are necessary, and if we don’t use them, we could lose them forever.

What’s your local library like?