I guess I’ve done this enough that it’s a tradition – rather than elaborate or ambitious goals, I’m going to set out a wishlist for the year, mostly things I expect to happen, am looking forward to, or would really like to make happen.

In no particular order.

1. Page proofs and copy edits to be done for Shattered City and Reign of Beasts

2. Write a first draft of Fury, before ROR in September.

3. Send in proposal for Fury to my agent to sell before it’s finished.

4. Volunteer regularly at Raeli’s schol

5. Launch Shattered City in April and do my best to contribute to & support the publicity for the book.

6. Swancon in April!

7. My quartet of stories from Twelfth Planet Press – publishing date is to be announced but I am hoping for this year, and will do my best to contribute to & support the publicity for the book.

8. ROR in September!

9. Launch Reign of Beasts in October (subject to publishing dates staying the same) and do my best to contribute to & support the publicity for the book.

10. Double the number of Galactic Suburbia podcasts we have out there.

11. Make regular time for craft projects and quilting, because it makes me happy.

12. Read for enjoyment and perspective on the field rather than playing a numbers game this year. But having said that…

13. I want to get started on the Read Agatha Christie In Order project! Kathryn, are you still up for joining me? I had a sack of the things delivered from a friend’s collection…

14. Write something that surprises me.

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!

I have been meaning to check all week on what date I actually started this blog because I had some idea that it was a year or so – and hooray, it was in fact a year today! I’m terribly comfy over here at WordPress, though I am also happy to have a foot in LJ and to continue having great conversations in the comments.

This is my 440th post since I moved to the new blog, which is… okay, that’s a LOT, isn’t it? You’d think considering how much time I spend on Twitter, I’d be posting less than once a day.

By this time next year I should have two more novels on the shelves, and have finished the first Nancy Napoleon novel, FURY (I just like writing it in capitals). My girls will be 6 3/4 and 2, respectively. And, quite possibly, I’ll have written another 440 posts…

Here are my Top 20 posts from Year One of Stitching Words:

October – Ten Roman Festivals That Are Weirder Than Halloween
November – Myths of Nanowrimo
Women are Small, Men are Universal
Writing Doesn’t Have to Be Your Job… unless it does
December – Why I Read Women
Lone Princesses and Girly Books
January – Writing While the House is Messy
February – Other People’s Sons and the Gendered Shopping Experience
March – My Top Ten Super-Solo-Unsequelled-Standalone Fantasy Novels
Ruining Young Men’s Lives
April – Because Trilogies Are Awesome
On Reading Bad Books
May – My First Favourite Female Fantasy Heroes
A Question of Canon-Building
June - You Should Read This Right Now, I’ll Wait
July – Blyton Lite Easy Meals ™
On Court Fantasy
10 Greatest TV Characters of All Time
August – How to Read Big Fat Fantasy
September – Relentless Adaptations and Seamonsters and Vampires and a Latte Please

Angela Slatter includes me in her drive-by interview series.

New Power and Majesty reviews at ASiF and Fangtastic Fiction.

The recently relaunched Galaxy Bookshop blog asks me some crunchy questions about books and hosts a guest post from me about the writing of Power and Majesty.

I also wrote a post for the Voyager blog, about how I created the place names for my fantasy city.

One last reminder about the Tansy podcast goodness for this month: I read “Fleshy” for TISF, Tehani Wessely reads my story “Relentless Adaptations” from the upcoming suburban fantasy anthology “Sprawl,” and I chat with Alisa and Alex about boots and many many et ceteras over at Galactic Suburbia Episode 12.

I’m having trouble thinking of anything to write that isn’t about Doctor Who and Arsenal. Bear with me!

My first week of writing-free March has been relaxing enough. I’m getting used to the new routine of Raeli being at school, and Jem having 2 afternoons a week in daycare. I’ve been socialising perhaps more than I usually would on weekdays – and managing to get some housework done, too. Today I cracked (well technically my HIMYM season 3 disk 3 cracked, hence the sudden burst of needing to get DVDs off the floor) and organised our video and DVD shelves, throwing out stacks of old recorded-off-tv tapes, piles of junk paper and other detritus.

Ahhh it feels good. Tidy shelves.

I’m going to have to attack my study soon – it’s just got worse and worse in recent months, there isn’t even any floor space left! It needs to be a nursery, which means I have to completely empty it.

There’s also a certain book, long-neglected, calling to me. Bluuuuueberry. Yes, that’s right, my leisure month includes some book-editing. Recreational book-editing!

I have bought insanely expensive sports shoes this week (I was momentarily dizzied by the fact that someone was tying my shoelaces rather than the other way around and didn’t ask the price before I got to the register) and have been sticking to my resolution to be more active. Soccer with Raeli, getting the Wii reactivated (I do love me some Wii tennis) and yesterday I went for a walk in the evening, listening to CoolShite on the Tube and not slowed down by either a 5 year old daughter or a baby in a pram. It’s a good start!

I don’t have free time by any stretch of the imagination, but it’s nice to be able to go day to day with a slightly less frantic To Do list, and not having to be creative on top of all the other things I have to do. Like, for instance, spooning mush into the baby three times a day.

My reading has slipped again, though. So many books, so little time. I’m determined to read a bunch of urban fantasy because people have been coming to me for advice on the genre and I am woefully underread in it. Also, Last Short Story has been sorely neglected. Read read read!

There’s always the danger, as ever, that I will react to “holiday time” by madly overbooking myself, and having unreasonable expectations about what I can get done when, quite frankly, there are days when getting the washing up done is a major achievement. Last time I announced I had some spare time, I had a baby a week before scheduled.

Let’s not do that again, huh?

I don’t do resolutions in the traditional sense. I’m a big fan of small achievable goals, and they never sound all that impressive when you lay them out. Managing to achieve so many of last year’s ‘wishlist’ though makes me keen to do it again.

This then, speaking from the very biased position of 2 January, is a list of things I expect or want to have happen in 2010. I think it’s going to be a pretty good year.

1. Finish Cabaret of Monsters (book 2) and Saturnalia (book 3) and submit them on deadline.
2. Complete a first draft of one other novel
3. Decide on what project I want to work on after Creature Court and put a proposal together.
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)
5. Get Jem into her own room and reorganise study at other end of house.
6. Complete two quilts (you know who you are)
7. Launch Power and Majesty in June, and do my best to contribute to & support the publicity for the book.
8. Aussiecon in September!
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.
10. Read 120 books throughout 2010.

EDIT: A couple of projects/challenges I forgot about: to podcast Siren Beat, and to read all of Joanna Russ’s published books.

I end this decade richer for two children, one doctorate, several novels both published and unpublished, and many friends. I had quite a few stoppings and startings in putting this post together, largely because I kept forgetting parts, thinking of new things to add, or realising I had put things in the wrong years. I’m sure I have forgotten many more things, but if I don’t post it now it will be another week. Feel free to remind/correct me of extra details/events in the comments!

2000 – The first year of my doctoral studies. Wrote a new version of ‘Cafe Girl’ (later Cafe la Femme) with an Arts Tasmania grant. Went to Swancon for the first time, and discovered while there that my publisher didn’t like the 3rd Mocklore book. Spent a large part of this trip coming up with a proposal for an alternative 3rd book, but too little too late.

2001 – This was my year of short stories, in which I submitted over 100 pieces through the year, teaching myself to write in different genres, and resting the novel part of my brain. It was also the first ROR in Montville – I brought a YA novel (Green – something, I forget) I had written in a hurry to be part of the gang. Margo brought along the ms of Black Juice and we totally told her that she would get a World Fantasy Award for “Singing My Sister Down.” Thanks to a uni scholarship,  aifin and I went overseas together for the first time, spending a month in Rome, passing through Paris and spending Christmas in London.

2002 – Our trip concluded with visits to Nottingham, York and Surrey, as we spend time with my cousin Marianne and her family. ASIM launched at Convergence in Melbourne, along with AustrAlien Absurdities (which Chuck McKenzie and I had been working on for the past two years) and Agog. This con is generally heralded as the one where the post-Worldcon energy started producing actual stuff. I met Tehani and several ASIMites for the first time. (Ben? Was this the first time we met for reals?) I wrote the 3rd Mocklore novel for the sake of completion, knowing it wouldn’t find a publisher.

2003 – Became Chair & co–convenor of Thylacon 2005 and worked on that for the next two years. Attended my second Swancon, much more fun than the first because I knew many more people. ROR at Varuna, with Trent added to the mix – I brought Drak Magic (Mocklore #3) to be workshopped. Edited issue #9 of ASIM.

2004 – Pregnant with ‘Button’. Went to Conflux (with a condensed ROR beforehand), and to Brisbane to teach at EnVision for a week. Worked on Power and Majesty (book 1 of the Creature Court) until putting it on pause to complete thesis before my supervisor left the uni and my baby was born. Didn’t get back to novel for some time. Thesis was not finished in time either. Failed driving test for the first time. We started our Thursday night tradition with C.  godiyeva and her family moved back to Tasmania. The ABC repeated old Doctor Who throughout the year, making me happy that the music my baby would hear most often in the womb was the theme music.
(more…)

I hit another wall today (possibly I have enough walls to construct a whole cottage now). My first attempts at leaving the house to write in public with Melander erupted into continual chaos and I think we were both relieved when we closed our laptops and accepted that keeping our children from killing each other and chatting about motherhood was going to be the best we could achieve that morning.

(Writing at Kidz Biz the adventure playground – good idea in theory, but not with child-friendship dramas, their constant need to be fed or cuddled better, and far too many people I know turning up there.)

Also I started to get that weird spacey ‘I didn’t have enough sleep last night’ feeling round about lunchtime. I counted up the hours I got to sleep last night and figured out a) last night was better than usual and b) maybe the problem is not enough sleep last WEEK?

Nap attempted this afternoon. Nap failed.

C is coming over soon, in the hopes of inspiration. I plan to drill my words out then and peer pressure her into doing the same. No talking. Have talked too much today!

My honey is lying on the bed reading Jeff VanderMeer’s Booklife and occasionally emerging to ask pertinent questions about my career like ‘you got paid for your last two contracts, right?’ It’s nice that he’s interested.

Raeli meanwhile is soaking up robot pop culture – the Iron Giant, followed by an Astro Boy marathon. She spent the morning interacting with other kids so I’m perfectly happy for her to veg out all afternoon – though she is drawing while she watches TV, heh. I used to do that. I was multi-skilling as a toddler.

Gah, baby is waking up (rocks chair, sends her back to sleep)

The irrepressible Dirk Flinthart (he always needs a descriptor when I mention him, don’t ask me why) has reviewed Siren Beat/Roadkill up at CoolShite on the Tube, one of my favourite podcasting sites which also has lots of print reviews.

It’s a great review – Dirk has been reading my work for a long time and vice versa, and he really gets me:

Anyone familiar with Roberts will recognize some of her favourite tropes: pretty clothes, prettier men, and the Right Shoes For The Occasion. And why not? It’s a story set in and around nightclubs, drawing on a classical myth of lethal sexuality and fatal attraction. Roberts’ enjoyment of the material serves only to strengthen the characterisation and give an all-important human dimension to the otherwise inexplicable and unhuman Guardians and their ilk. As for the rest of the tale — the bad guys are more than sufficiently bad. The good guys are bad enough to be interesting and sympathetic, but good enough for us to cheer for them. There’s plenty of action, a dose or two of hot, sweaty sex, a fillip of something like romance, and a good time to be had by all.

He also has some great things to say about the publisher who brought Siren Beat/Roadkill into being:

Twelfth Planet Press is taking risks here — risks which big, well-heeled publishers have long since stopped taking. With stories of this quality as a result, we need to move fast to show that big goddam fat-assed fantasy trilogies about princes on horseback, or brainless tales about pretty glittery vegan vampires are not the mainstay of modern fantastic fiction.

Oh and speaking of my publisher, Girlie Jones AKA Alisa Krasnostein has put up an essay over at Last Short Story discussing Sara Genge, and the intriguing question of whether it’s still science fiction if a character gets her period…

I’m also excited to see a reviewer giving some attention to Roadkill! Any story that can fill Mr Flinthart with “a bleak, shuddersome dread” is worth taking a look at, believe me. It’s worth going over there to read the whole review, and check out what else CoolShite is loving this week.

In other news I bit the bullet and went to the optometrist today – first time in five years (gulp) and first time EVER with someone who is not my childhood optometrist. I do think that the suckiest thing about getting older is how all your reliable heath professionals go and retire on you, leaving you to find new ones. This one was very nice and female, and I picked out a new pair of frames with the minimum of trauma, which is awesome – my past experiences with choosing glasses frames have been about as hideous as my experiences buying shoes. I’ve decided I will wait to pick them up before doing my author photos for La Voyager, thereby bestowing my new face upon the world. Sadly I think my new haircut will have worn off by next week, but you can’t have everything.

Too many posts today (can you tell I am at down and dirty end of edits?) but  girliejones tagged me, and thus I must.

A. List seven habits/quirks/facts about yourself.
B. Tag seven people to do the same.
C. Do not tag the person who tagged you or say that you tag “whoever wants to do it”.

1. I love sports movies, fiercely and without repentance. This used to be a much more interesting/unusual/quirkier quirk before I discovered that I do in fact also love sport. Well, soccer. Well, Arsenal. But in any case, I love sports movies even if they do not feature soccer or Arsenal, so I think it still counts.

2. I braid my hair every night before I go to bed. I have been assured it is quirky. Having spent a large chunk of my life with waist-length hair I maintain it is sensible. Even though I currently have just-past-shoulder length hair.

3. The first thing I do when I get home is kick my shoes off. Even before I take the baby off, if she is in her pouch. Shoes = gone.

4. The banner on my new website features a picture of me dressed as a pineapple. Seriously. It is of course, very small.

5. Yes, my mother dressed me as a pineapple. At the time she was also responsible for a troupe of kiddie dancers re-enacting the classic Sesame Street song ‘ladybug’s picnic.’ I think the pineapple had something to do with ‘Aga Doo’ – yes, I did take dance classes in the 80′s.

6. I have spent the entire year procrastinating about calling the local dance studio to arrange ballet classes for Raeli, even though she desperately wants them and has not given up her bizarre desire to don a pink sparkly tutu. BALLET. I have now decided to suck it up and be a supportive mother, even though the thought of it makes me feel vaguely queasy. (body image issues! pink pink pink! little girls and deportment! All this and she might still be too young to get on a soccer team next year!)

7. I really should be working right now.

I will tag the following people, though I maintain that tagging is a barbaric exercise of guilt-inducing proportions and the following people should be completely free to ignore me as the wench I am (possibly I am mostly using this to see what hideous things WordPress does to LJ user html):

 aifin,  jumbled_words,  godiyeva,  looneymoth,  waqem007,  zeft.

[Edit, that is fascinating, they just vanished in WordPress but appeared in LJ. Oooo.]
[Also apparently it is not possible to edit wordpress without also editing LJ ... possibly this is of interest only to me. Okay, going to work for reals now.]