The Coode Street podcast invite on special guest Ursula Le Guin to discuss the good, the bad and the “oh no she didn’t” contained within the pages of Margaret Atwood’s recent collection of essays about science fiction In Other Worlds: SF and the Human Imagination (2011). It’s especially interesting because Le Guin not only considers herself a friend of Atwood, but is often a subject in the essays themselves – but she pulls no punches when it comes to casting a critical eye over the book – and, with equal sharpness, the fans who have contributed to Atwood’s often misguided image of what SF readers are like. If there was a literary canon of SF-themed podcasts, this one would have to be pretty high on the list.

I also very much enjoyed the latest, 12th episode of The Outer Alliance podcast – these have been going from strength to strength with some wonderful interviews (and I’m not just saying that because they namecheck Galactic Suburbia!) and the latest one has host Julia Rios discussing all manner of gleeful and squeeful things with Lynne M Thomas – Hugo-award winning co-editor of Chicks Dig Time Lords, co-editor also of Whedonistas and the upcoming Chicks Dig Comics, incoming editor of Apex Magazine, podcaster of the SF Squeecast, archivist extraordinaire, etc. Oh yes, and she’s my fellow Tiptree juror this year too! Getting a chance to eavesdrop on the conversation between these two bouncy, enthusiastic and smart women was a great pleasure today, and they cover all kinds of issues, from behind the scenes podcasting gossip to third wave feminism, and how talking about shoes can be a subversive act.

I checked on a new discovery, the Anomaly podcast this week, with mixed results. I had been linked to their special two part Women of Sci-Fi, Fantasy and Fandom episode, and found that inspiring and illuminating in some places, and deeply irritating in others. I liked that it was a group of women discussing their interests in SF, fandom, etc. and tackling questions like who writes strong female authors best, and whether ‘slave Leia’ costumes are problematic or empowering.

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I found this article about what a (mostly) feminist society that actually exists in the world today really inspiring. I have no idea how to get there from here but oh, I do hope Australia can be Iceland when it grows up! Their social attitudes to female politicians, childcare and the work/life balance make me ridiculously happy.

Meanwhile Bitch Magazine is doing a new blog series which looks at the portrayal of pregnancy, childbirth and early childhood/parenthood in TVland. I have Strong Opinions on this topic, so looking forward to reading what they have to say.

Tehani posted this link about which comic book superheroines deserve their own movies. Which is all very well, but let’s face it, Hollywood has badly let down the female superhero (and not the other way around). I can’t help thinking their stories would be better served by taking visuals out of the equation and going straight to the novel.

So if anyone wants to hire me to write a Huntress novel, I’m available! Or Wonder Woman, come to that…

Gail Simone tweeted this article which looks at two different kinds of representation of race in current DC Comics, comparing the Static Shock approach (he just happens to be black, yanno) with the Firestom approach (actual discussion of racial issues in the text). It’s a thoughtful piece, and I think demonstrates that both approaches have value, and it’s important to have both kinds of representation of race in stories – if all stories with characters of colour were about race, or all stories with characters of colour were NOT about race, we would have a real problem.

I do love it when people point out that these things are not either/or!

Jo Anderton, whose debut novel Debris (Angry Robot) I loved when she sent it to me for blurbage (it’s about magical architects! and magical garbage collectors! And it has technology mixed in with magic, plus a professional heroine who is flawed and cranky and acquires a TEAM, and has sex without it having to be her true love!) has done an interview over at Rowena’s blog.

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For a while there, I lost the ability to watch Doctor Who with my daughter.

When Raeli was tiny, Doctor Who was as familiar to her as the Wiggles. I often joked that the music she had heard most often in the womb was the classic theme tune – because when I was pregnant, the ABC were still on their ‘repeat all the classic eps in proper order’ kick. She was born early in 2005, a date forever associated (for some of us) with the launch of New Who.

When she was 2-3, Raeli adored Doctor Who, as did her friend Inigo, a year older – they were familiar enough with the show that when his mum and I discussed how to break it to the kids that Greg was leaving the Wiggles, the Doctor’s tendency to regenerate seemed like the easiest metaphor to grab! Our Christmas tradition was making gingerbread or shortbread daleks.

But while Inigo and his brothers stayed true to their Doctor Who obsession (if sometimes only peeking at it behind fingers) Raeli pulled away from it as she got older, as she found it quite scary and had developed a deep horror of Daleks as well as many other monsters. I couldn’t even show her The Sarah Jane Adventures because even her fear of Daleks was nothing to the shrieking meltdowns we had to deal with if she even caught sight of a picture of a Sontaran (AKA “the Humpty Dumpty men!”). K9 had worked for a while, but it was a pale imitation of the real thing, and she only remembered the show when I pushed it on her, though she and the boys did enjoy drawing multiple versions of K9.

By the time the Matt Smith era came along, Raeli was steadfast in her commitment to quite liking Doctor Who as long as she never ever EVER had to watch it. The only episode of the whole season she watched live was The Hungry Earth, because she was staying at Glammer’s house and anything Glammer likes is automatically awesome. It had scared her enough, however, that she absolutely refused to watch part 2, though she did ask me quietly for a summary as to how it ended. I seem to recall that in true parental cop-out style my version went something like “and then it all ended happily and they said goodbye and nothing bad at all happened, especially to Rory.”

That was when she was five.

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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.

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I appeared on the Aqueduct Press blog this week, summing up some of my favourite things about 2010 – TV, podcasts, books, etc. Normally I leave my summing up of the year for New Year’s Eve (always a chance I might squeeze in one more awesome book!) so it was kind of warm and refreshing to get it over with now. I am a huge fangirl of Aqueduct Press, so was very excited to be included in this year’s list of awesome people participating in the “pleasures of reading, viewing, etc.” series of blogs.

I turned in a project today that on the surface looked small and dainty but in actuality turned out to be a mammoth effort, starting back in September right after Worldcon, and occupying a large part of my brain ever since then. I’m delighted with the results – and very proud of it. Possibly it’s the most ME I’ve ever written. In any case, I should be able to announce more about it in due course – but the important thing right now is that it’s DONE. That means the last deadline for 2010 has been met, and I can get on with cleaning the house for Christmas, and facing the impending school holidays with valiant readiness.

My next deadline is 10 Jan for the proofs of Book 2, and the copy edits for Book 3 should be arriving at the same time, which means I will be working through most of Raeli’s school holidays, though hopefully it’s the kind of work that can be done in large sections during sleepover visits, trips to the movies and other activities with people other than me. There are plans afoot.

Daniel Simpson has done a gorgeous review of Galactic Suburbia over at ASiF. It’s a lovely if surreal thing to read – most of the feedback we get is from people we know pretty well, so it’s rather odd to have what we do reflected back at us by someone who isn’t in intimate acquaintance. Also, he seems to like us a lot, which does not hurt at all!

Rowena gives Power and Majesty a shout out over on the King Rolen’s Kin blog. I know exactly what she means about the frustration of using strong stylistic visual images to inspire your writing, and then realising it doesn’t actually come across all that clearly in the text. Something I realised retrospectively about the Creature Court books is that other people didn’t see the 1920′s culture and fashions quite as clearly as I did when I was writing them! Not that these things should be allowed to get in the way of the story, but… sigh. Why don’t they illustrate adult novels?

Speaking of shout outs, I also got one over at the Writer & the Critic podcast, now in its SECOND episode. I am very excited that they are going to review one of the books I recommended to them, even if I can’t quite remember what it is I recommended. I’m sure they were AWESOME. Also I very much enjoyed listening to their contrasting reviews of Feed, both of which brought up a lot of issues about the book that I hadn’t remotely noticed. I’m glad I posted my review before I listened!

I caught a preview for the Doctor Who Christmas Carol on ABC TV this week – so exciting! Funny too – I like the way it totally looks like a proper BBC costume drama right up to the point where the Doctor arrives, covered in soot. I am just bouncing about getting the Christmas special on real TV here in Australia on Boxing Day – it’s going to be PROPER CHRISTMAS AT LAST.

Now I am collapsing in a heap after the 5 day marathon that was making Raeli write Christmas cards for her entire class. And birthday party invitations. Also, we have haircuts. There has been much organisation happening.

Phew. School play tomorrow. Hooray!

So, last year I wrote about the icky feeling of lying to my intelligent child about the Santa myth. Well… the reindeer is well and truly out of the bag, thanks to the blabbing of young Dr Oscar, age 5.

“Oscar says Santa doesn’t bring the presents, it’s your parents,” she said, eyes welling in the back of the car as we drove home from a merry evening with friends (these questions ALWAYS come up from the back of the car). “Is it true?”

Caught on the back foot, I tried to weasel out of an immediate answer by trying to gauge whether she actually wanted an answer to that question, but when she said “I want the truth” in a solemn little voice, I crumbled and confessed all. She was sad and confused and it was HORRIBLE. I ended up trying to explain the history of Christmas over the next hour, tying myself in knots over the whole thing.

I’m still not sure how she’s taking it. She veers from excitement and delight at being in on the grand conspiracy, to being glum and dispirited. She did perk up a bit when she discovered we were responsible for the Monsters v. Aliens DVD (though she didn’t remember the Beauty and the Beast one that actually took effort to supply out of season, the wench).

Before going to bed last night, she firmly wrote a note to Santa. She seems to shift between accepting that it’s just me and her Daddy, and still believing in Santa. It’s like it takes time for the layers to peel away… today, at her insistence, we went to sit on the knee of a shopping mall Santa (which she had requested earlier, after a friend reported the experience – we’ve never done that with her before). If anyone’s looking for a good Santa in the Hobart region, by the way, I can recommend the one in Centrepoint – he was very respectable looking, the elves are well organised, and the photo only costs $10. After checking out a mum’s and bub’s forum I found out that some can cost as much as $25! There wasn’t even a queue.

Raeli and I spent time Christmas shopping, and she seems to have gotten over the whole experience. I’m not sure I have. I felt awful, every uneasiness about the Santa Lie that I’d ever felt just exploding, all at once. I don’t think I can bear to go through that again with Jemima.

Maybe I’ll just have Raeli tell her.

Santa's WHAT??? OMG, so who bought us the trampoline?

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So that was November, then…

I was pleased that I managed to make the month so productive, despite the urge to collapse in a heap in the wake of finally, finally, finally finishing the draft of book 3 (which it appears is most likely to be titled Reign of Beasts). Thanks to my List of Doom, I kept writing, putting together a draft of a publishing proposal for Fury to be polished up in the New Year, I started editing Blueberry again, which is going to be my summer project, I read books which had been archived on my shelves far too long, and I sewed – bookmarks for a friend’s commission, finishing the top of a baby quilt, and the beginnings of a new crazy quilt.

And you know, in the midst of all that I pushed through my copy edits for The Shattered City (Book 2), and prepared for & taught a one day course on writing fantasy novels.

One of the items on my list was to write a short story. Originally I had another plan for that, but then Alisa went and rejected two stories from a project we were doing together, which left me having to start from scratch! (In a good way. I am hugely excited now about what I’m doing, and she was totally right to kick those stories to the curb. Good enough is totally not good enough.) One of those stories is now done thanks to the List of Doom, and I have to write the other as soon as I can. I’m in a weird in-between-professional-deadlines space right now, where I don’t know where the next deadline is coming from. I will receive proofs for Book 2 and structural edits for Book 3 at SOME point, and everything will have to be dropped to do them, but I don’t know when. All the more reason to polish off my other necessary jobs ASAP, especially as I only have another fortnight or so before the school holidays hit, and there’s no such thing as a truly productive work day until late February.

But in any case, I did my not-Nano November, and while I never got up the high energy equivalent to writing 50K (as it turned out, writing about 5-6000 words as part of smaller projects was my limit) I managed to complete 34/35 items, and that last one was a crazy quilt square that I could have polished off at the last day if I’d dropped everything to do it, but I couldn’t quite bring myself to prioritise that way.

Once I get this last story done, which I have been plotting and replotting in my head so it’s just about ready to burn up the page, I am officially free of commitments, and I would love to have a little of that freedom before I get publisher deadlines again – one thing I have learned this year is that you can’t use ALL the time you have until the end of a deadline, as other things are always turning up to compete, usually in the last two weeks. I’ve always been one to start slowly and build up momentum to rip through the work at a high pace in those last couple of weeks, and so the stop-start-stop-start work pace this year has thrown me for a loop more than once.

I honestly thought I would never get to the end of Book 3. I seemed to be constantly one month from getting it done, and every time I had to stop and start again, I lost momentum and had to “waste” time scrabbling around and getting my zone back, only to be interrupted with a new urgent task as soon as I got up a decent head of steam.

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It’s been oddly productive around here, for a Saturday. Usually Saturdays are a mad haze of parenting, unrealistic expectations about work goals, a bit of hasty housework and occasionally managing to snatch a chapter or two of reading by flinging the children at my honey and locking myself in the library. Usually there’s guilt, either for not spending enough time with the girls, or for getting cranky with the girls after spending too MUCH time with them, or for not getting anything done, or for the house looking like a circus threw up on it.

But today I manage to hang out with the girls all morning (including a cranky teething baby), threw together a delicious lunch for me & my honey (leftover potato & cauliflower soup goes VERY WELL with added chorizo & bacon, served with hot cheesy muffins), put out some laundry, finished reading my 100th book for the year (a Joanna Russ, which seems appropriate), did a last minute podcast with Jonathan Strahan, got to the two-thirds mark of my copy edits, and played outside with the kids. I got to see Jem on a bike for the first time!

All this, and my honey is cooking dinner. Awesome!

Elsewhere in the world, Mary Robinette Kowal talks about how amateur writers should be given the same respect as hobbyists in other fields. I still can’t get over that Shades of Milk and Honey is a Nano novel! I had been meaning to lend it to  godiyeva already, but once I learned that, I practically forced it upon her, for inspiration.

John Scalzi puts his weight behind Nano being awesome rather than a waste of everyone’s time – I particularly enjoyed the comments on that one!

Ekaterina Sedia makes a great post about what you can say when men who don’t feel they’re sufficiently benefiting from the patriarchy derail a feminist conversation to talk about themselves.

Finally, some Bujoldy goodness. On Tor.com the very learned and well-read Jo Walton analyses the appeal of Aral Vorkosigan (lotsa spoilers) while on i09, Charlie Jane Anders asks whether Bujold writes “hard” science fiction, leading to many tangled comments as everyone tries to define what hard SF is. Sigh. At some point I am going to write my hard SF post. I think my philosophy comes down to “if Bujold isn’t it, and one of the best examples of it, then I don’t understand what it’s for.” Possibly I shouldn’t write that post.

So I wrote the end of the last of the short stories I needed to write last night, and while it still needs some work, I’m pretty much done with that commitment – my plan was to enjoy one blissful day of baby cuddling and domestic catch up before I plunge into finishing that pesky third novel once and for all.

Ha, guess what happened? Yep, one sick child home from school.

In practice it hasn’t been too bad – I have reformatted a story, sorted some doll business and parcels, and otherwise am catching up on my reading, sewing and Xena watching when one child isn’t threatening to throw up and the other isn’t randomly screaming or clinging to my leg.

Then there’s the pipecleaners.

We’ve had an ongoing niggle with the school about notices – Raeli’s teachers seem to prefer the method of waving a small pile of notices around vaguely and *not* insisting that each child take one and put it in their bag. Five and six year olds. Uh huh. Which basically means that those parents who spend any amount of time in the playground chatting to each other are constantly finding out about things that we missed! You know, important things like notes to participate in school photos, or preparation for free dress days.

Last week, i discovered thanks to the parental gossip network that a flyer had gone out, detailing a particular “boat” that they wanted us to help our child construct for this week. When I asked the teacher about it on Friday, she had no flyers left and promised to have one there for Monday (which meant, as the boats were required this week, that we wouldn’t have the weekend to build the dratted thing).

With Raeli home sick today I was fretting a bit about that flyer, as we were running out of days when boat-construction was remotely practical. My honey, being the Best of Dads, volunteered to go to the school this morning and fetch the flyer. He ended up having to go to the office and photocopy it himself!

Not just a paper boat, as it turns out. It’s an elaborate sail-car which requires all kinds of crafty ingredients. Bendy straws, beads, toothpicks, pipe-cleaners… I have all of it except the last item, and my one attempt to leave the house was stalled by that promising-to-throw-up child again. Gah.

Pipe-cleaners. Really. This is my life, where the difference between a calm day and a stressed day is the lack of two freaking pipe-cleaners.

What I want to know is, how do families with two working-outside-the-house parents possibly cope with the weight of expectation that comes from primary schools? if it’s not baking cakes and constructing articulated vehicles it’s attending assemblies, sports days, fundraisers, meetings and that’s before we get to formal parent help – something I constantly feel guilty about not volunteering for.

Bah. What is a blog for if not whinging? Everyone cross fingers with me that my tykelet will be fresh as a daisy tomorrow, so my first daycare afternoon of the week can be spent as it should be – finishing a novel!

We have been back to real life for some days, though not really real life, because my honey was still off work, and we’ve returned in the middle of the school holidays, so basically we’ve all been in our pyjamas since Wednesday night.

I have short stories to write, many of them, and the only time I have to do it in is during Raeli’s school holiday, because that is non-novel time. Only a fool would try to write a novel during school holidays.

Do you see the fault in my short-story-writing plan?

I negotiated a chunk of writing time the other day and indeed managed to draft an entire short story in my 2 hours at the library, but while it is most excellent it is entirely not one of the short stories I was supposed to be writing. Also it was really quite short. Surely I have not forgotten how to write short stories!

Then there’s the reading. Immediately after Worldcon, my usually-teetering pile of books had turned into an exceptionally high teetering tower of books I DESPERATELY WANT TO READ RIGHT NOW. And at the same time I want to read nothing but books set in Ancient Rome this month. These two reading plans do not schedule.

My brain has kicked into domesticity gear, while all this is going on. It is planning decadent slow cooked meals involving pork chops and apples, and deciding that I really need to have a few new cakes in my repertoire, the kind you just whip up when the vicar comes to call, and did we remember all that quilting I have been building up towards, and promised myself I could do when I got home from Melbourne?

WTF, brain?

But wait, there’s more. If I was truly a good mother, I would have something better and more awesome planned for my daughter to do this holiday other than playing Angry Birds constantly on the iPad (we do it together, okay, it’s a shared mother-daughter activity!) and watching ABC2. (omg the lack of ABC2 in the Melbourne apartments almost killed us! Sweet sweet digital television, how we missed you)

Eh, she saw penguins this holiday. What more does she expect?