adamhenderson

Urrggh. It's hidjus hot here today, even with the a/c it's just too awful to write. So I'm waiting for night time and the temperature to drop so I can get back to the rewrite on Reluctant Mage. It's coming along okay, if I do say so myself. And as I wait I'm entertaining myself with Legend of the Seeker, the tv fantasy series based on Terry Goodkind's epic fantasy series. It's ... fun. I might witter more on that at a later date. Also? I've got a guest blog post up at Grasping for the Wind. Many thanks to John for the invite. If you're interested in reading it, please go ahead and make sure to read everyone else's thoughts too! Stay cool! Or warm, if it's cold where you are ... You can read my guest post here.

jasonfischer posted about author bios today. I've decided to craft a new one. I do this every now and again and editors never like them so they never get published. Editors are wise. I, however, am not, so here is my new bio, for your delectation. It has the merit of being true. I stopped when it started to get too long. If you want more, just say.

Gillian Polack was born a few miles away from the Harold Holt Memorial Swimming Pool*. She was supposed to be a boy, and her parents weren't prepared for yet another girl (actually, they weren't sure they wanted a large family at all, but things happen). They needed a name, pronto, and had used up all their favourite names already. Her middle name was simple: a relative had just died and the name could be handed on. The first name was impossible. The only publication with names that was handy was the graduation list for the Faculty of Medicine for Melbourne University for 1961. Somewhere, a Melbourne doctor called 'Gillian' has a namesake. One hopes that the old superstition (the one that led to her great-grandmother's name being handed on to Gillian after her death) of the soul transferring with the name did not happen, because if it did, then Melbourne gained its first zombie doctor in 1961.

Gillian grew up very quickly, then stopped growing to let everyone else catch up. Alas, others weren't as courteous and she went from one of the tallest in the class in Form One to being one of the shortest two years later. She remained the sprint champion for the year throughout, however. Possibly the fattest sprinter on record, but still won the pretty blue ribbons. Since she turned fifteen, she has only used her powers for good – mainly to catch busses.

Her first publication was at age 14. She wrote a letter to the local Council, using her best green biro. The local newspaper was really short on news that week and printed it. It was about roundabouts. The green ink didn't show up well, but that picture – of her holding the letter – was also her first press photograph.

Her only other claim to fame as a youngster was when she appeared on Romper Room. She mostly remembers being wheeled around the studio in an oversized cart that was painted her favourite (gaudy) colours. She also remembers her sisters being very upset that she was on Romper Room. Why she was on Romper Room is still a mystery, especially as her sisters are the photogenic ones.



*for non-Australians, Harold Holt was a prime minister who died by drowning. The name wasn't attached to the swimming pool till after his death, of course, but it's a good Melbourne landmark and much more precise than, say, the name of a hospital.

Subtitle: why you sometimes need someone else to tell you why something isn't working.

Second Subtitle: why you should DAMN WELL LISTEN when you ask someone this question and they reply in all honesty, even if you don't like the answer.

You know those stories. You've finished them, the plot is complete, but something in your subconscious is whispering not quite right at you. You might even have submitted them, and even, as in the case of one of my stories, have gotten some good 'interesting but not quite' feedback from editors.

Yeah, duh. That niggling feeling keeps eating at you.

So I showed these two recalcitrant stories to Terry asking for his opinion on why they weren't working. That was an interesting exercise. He really liked one story, and didn't like the other. He was talking about the story he liked, and I kept saying yeah, but it's such a cliche, and that's why I can't sell it, and he gave me a good idea to make the beginning less standard. Kinda creepy, actually.

The second story he thought was too slow and didn't have enough tension. He was much more negative about that one. The thing is, though, I knew it wasn't working, but I'd just run out of ideas as to why. That's why I asked him. And this is why it really pays to show a story to someone else, and that needs to be someone who is going to look at your plot in depth. When such a person says that your character is boring, or there are scenes that don't go anywhere, or that the ending doesn't amount to anything, for crying out loud, don't go and defend the way you've written the story, because you already knew that approach isn't effective. Sometimes you need to turn a story upside down to make it work.

So - well - here comes the machete!

If you would like to help us promote the Natcon50 Project, then why not add a cute little display ad to your blog? Like this:

 

 Simply copy and paste this into your sidebar:
<a href="http://natcon50.wordpress.com"><img src="http://natcon50.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/natcon50_ad.png" alt="Natcon50_ad" /></a>

When I first discovered short SF, I gobbled up the writer biographies as a tasty treat, a little peek into the life of the person who crafted the story I'd just enjoyed/was about to enjoy. Typically written in the third person, I honestly believed that these were constructed by the editor of the magazine/book/website. Perhaps some independent third party was responsible for stepping up and praising these individuals, much like a formal character reference. Sometimes it actually added to my enjoyment of a tale, knowing that Author A was a "former police officer/lumberjack/air traffic controller, has fifty cats, is a luminary in the field of hamster fiction and considered to be one of the up and coming writers in generalist rodent fiction. People have spoken of him/her in hushed reverent tones, and it's rumoured that if you wish upon the moon, Author A will come unblock your toilet."

Wow, Author A must rock if someone else is saying this about him/her! I was once such an innocent soul.

Then I began to publish my own short fiction, and realised these bios were mostly written by the authors themselves.

( Read more... ).

A bit of seasonal cheer, from Tom Lehrer:



And for those who don't celebrate, something very curious to read (make sure you click on all those 'Show post anyway' links).

Hrmm damn, LJ version didn't work, but you can find the form at the website under the Aust Spec Fic Blog Carnival menu. This is a form which will feed into a google spreadsheet. On, say, probably the 12th of each month or so, I'll email the latest updates for the spreadsheet to the host. Thanks to Alisa for the idea!

I felt scattered all day and like it got away from me. I did get a lot of random things done, but not in any real order nor because of any logic or reason.

What I was supposed to do tonight:
- work,
- finish off some finances
- tidy up some spreadsheets

What I wanted to do:
- work on the hexagon project

What I did do:
- read 3 Sprawl submissions,
- came up with a tag line for TPP that made me laugh so hard the dog kept looking in my face to check I was not losing my grip
- shopped for fat quarters, bought my first jelly roll (no idea what to do with those)

Mrrphph.

Okay, yeah. For the first time in my forty-odd years, I've been suffering hay fever. Bastard grass pollen: sinuses full of wet concrete, itchy eyes. Bastard bastard bastard.

But those shiny new all-day antihistamines have been keeping me going nicely. I've been dropping one every night before bed, and sleeping reasonably well as a result. And that's all I ask. I can hack a bit of snot by day, but I really do need to breathe easily to sleep.

For some reason, though, the last couple days it hasn't gone so well. I couldn't work out why.

At least, I couldn't until this morning, when I woke up with a sore throat and a cough too. Y'see, all three of my offspring have had varying degrees of cold, cough, sniffles for nearly a week. And apparently, my number has finally come up. The Ubiquitous Hay-Fever Snot masked it, though, and it wasn't until the illness escalated that I figured out something was wrong.

Bloody typical it should happen on a day when the temperature spiked up at 29C. That's not unbearable by any means, but it's not goddam comfortable, and I always feel shittier when I've got a head cold and it's hot outside. Pfah. Vile micro-organisms! Abandon my nasal passages or face the wrath of the Flinthart immune system!

In other news: the last of the medical students goes home tomorrow. We didn't actually see nearly as much of her as we'd like in her two weeks, but that's how it goes. I'll be driving her to the airport at 0700 or so tomorrow, which will give me a day in Launceston with the Mau-Mau to get some Christmas shopping done.

It's the last day of school for the year tomorrow, too. Yay! One more set of obligations scratched off there.

Meanwhile, the raspberries are coming in, and the first of the black berries are ripening. I picked two litres of raspberries yesterday, and another two litres today, and about a litre of blackberries today to match the half-litre yesterday. Mmmmm.

It was good, though. Gave me an excuse to rev up the cooking tonight -- smoke-grilled vegetable salad with sea-salt, pepper, and balsamic vinegar; smoky grilled salmon with home-grown dill and lemon... and for dessert, a raspberry medley. That included fresh raspberries, raspberry sorbet, and raspberry pandowdy topped with fresh whipped cream.

Of course, I had a couple nice beers with it, and promptly felt like shit... fuck I hate head colds.

Originally published at tansyrr.com. You can comment here or there.

1. It’s been a huge month in Australian speculative fiction – the carnival is over here.

2. I really tried to buy Raeli a Barbie for her Christmas pile. I went into Big W and everything. But they just annoyed me. All of them. From the glam retro Barbies to the mermaids. Even the merchandise tie ins for the Barbie Musketeer movie was annoying, and I didn’t spot any swords! Just fairy tale frocks. I moved on to Polly Pocket and was tempted, but apart from one cool set involving umbrellas, every single piece of Polly Pocket scenery involved beauty treatments or shopping. Bah. She can settle for the Musketeer movie and a yoyo. And, you know, lots of other stuff. Including a slide. She so has nothing to complain about. (coolest and weirdest thing on her Santa list – a net to catch things with. Do they still sell butterfly nets, or is that non-PC?)

3. Hot today. Stinking, sweltering, hot hot hot. The kind that feels like an oven door opening when you step out your front door. I picked up Raeli from her final day of kindergarten (omg she is a PREP student next year) and took her and Inigo back to  godiyeva’s house to make use of her magic-cold-air machine and drink iced tea.

4. Needless to say, no baking of gingerbread daleks happened. Hopefully tomorrow.

5. My review of Rampant has excited a bit of interest, and inspired this fascinating blog post by Diana Peterfreund (the author) herself: You see, boy heroes in fantasy get elderly wizard-types who are conveniently killed by the enemy. Girl heroes get sardonic older-but-sexy types who want to sleep with them. She also talks about how people’s expectations of character types can affect the reading of the book. So true.

6. Postal strikes tomorrow, across Australia. Bloody hell. I knew I should have finished my needs-to-be-posted list today. I’d like to tender my official apology to my agent, and my cousin in England.

7. The government has finally relaxed the security regulations and are allowing knitting needles on planes again! No, this isn’t a frivolous news story. Have you ever seen a nervous knitter? They need their needles, damn it.

Possibly some other things happen today. I’ll try to summon up something intelligent to say about the “clean feed” beyond “I’m against it,” when I am less hot, scratchy and sunburnt. So, you know, April.

Nominations for the 2009 Chronos Awards are now open. The Chronos Awards recognise Victorian writers and fans, with the awards to be presented at Continuum 6: Future Tense. Full details of categories and how to nominate can be found here and/or here. Anyone can nominate, you don't have to be a Victorian writer or fan yourself to do so.

I'm eligible for nomination as follows:-

Best Short Fiction

Recruitment (Malpractice anthology, Stygian Publications, 2009)
Ill Conceived (The Black Garden anthology, Corpulent Insanity Press, 2009)
Phantasy Moste Grotesk (limited edition standalone chapbook, Corpulent Insanity Press, 2009)
Dirty Paper Wings (Borderlands #11, Borderlands Publications Inc, 2009)
The Emancipated Dance (Midnight Echo #2, AHWA, 2009)
Jesse's Gift (Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine #40, ASIM Publishing Co-Op, 2009)
The Knotting (Leaves of Blood anthology, Altair Australia Books, 2009)
Celebrity Skin (Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine #42, 2009)
The Bearded Ones (Festive Fear anthology, Tasmaniac Publications, 2009)

Best Fan Writer

For my reviews on the Specusphere, of which I've had twenty or so published this year - here's one of my reviews from the current issue

There's also a category for Best Achievement, and I'm unclear as to what exactly qualifies for that one...I wonder if the Clive Barker chat I organised and ran for the AHWA counts? Probably not. But it was cool, huh?

If you haven't read any of my above works and would like to (and of course, you shouldn't nominate anything you haven't actually read!), contact me.

Good luck, fellow Victorian writers and fans!

Today's one of those days when lots of minor ailments make me all-over-acheing. As a result, I haven't achieved much. I compare my not-much from today with my not-much from an equivalently ick day twelve months ago and I'm laughing.

My last class for the year was lovely. Lots of word games and chocolate and laughter. My students stayed on for a barbecue, but I brought my sore self home. On the way, I did all but one message. I have milk for the next few days and lots of parcels went into the post. Bookplates, too. If you discover a second batch from me (I was being careful) then just hang onto them till next year, when there should be more books to stick them in.

When i got home, I winged muchly to myself and forgot to make two phonecalls. I also read a bit. I'm 35% of the way through the latest Wheel of Time book. I can't do the academic stuff when I'm like this, but I can read fiction, since my eyes were fine.

I also did some housework. Not much, but enough so I am not totally in a mess tomorrow. Tomorrow is going to be hotter than today, they say, so some of my symptoms won't go for a little. I want to give you a list, but that would be cruel and unnecessary torture.

Valerie Parv gave me a copy of her book-to-be-launched tmorrow. I honestly don't think I'll be getting to the launch, with the heat and the aches, which is a pity, because there are people I want to meet. Anyhow, I'm enjoying the book.

Even just looking at pictures of these things gives me the willies [shudders]

Icebergs
I seriously have an unwarranted fear of icebergs. The tops are quite cool, white little islands bobbing through the sea. No, quite specifically, my pun-not-intended chills come from the underneaths of ice-bergs.



That enormous, dark cold mass, that just goes deeper and deeper into the murk, far beneath sight, down where the pressure would instantly crush you. Just so big, so secret and hidden. Something that keeps most of itself secret has got to be sinister, and planning to do you in somehow. A great brooding menace, gliding through the water with dark intent.

Seriously. I'm scared of fucking ice. I must have down an ice-berg or two's worth of slushie in my time. Nature itself is surely seeking vengeance.

Krakens

For much the same reason, something enormous, lurking in the far depths, wary of the sun - until it's ship smashing time.



Almost as scary are the actual goddamn-real-and-freaky giant squids. These things have been measured at THIRTEEN METRES LONG. GGnurrrghle. That's like being eaten by a tentacley bus. With big bug-eyes. From deep in the dark water, where you thrash around like a puppy and these things glide along like swift, implacable killers.



Again, I will down salt-n-pepper squid with the best of em. It's eat or be eaten - but seriously, this thing looks like the head of Cthulhu.

Australia will celebrate its 50th Natcon – more officially known as the Australian National Science Fiction Convention – at Easter 2011. First held in Sydney in 1952 as an event run by fans for fans, today it attracts hundreds of fans, writers, editors, booksellers, publishers, movie-makers and other science fiction and fantasy enthusiasts from around the country and even overseas.

The Natcon50 committee is pleased to announce the publication of a commemorative book to celebrate this milestone. But we need your help to compile Natcon’s history. We want photos, stories, programs – whatever you’ve got.

You can share your Natcon mementos with us in whatever way is most convenient. If you have a Flickr account, upload photos and scanned images (or find stuff you’ve already uploaded) then tag them with “Natcon50″ to add them to the pool. Or you can email us at natcon50@gmail.com, or contact us through our Facebook page.

Keep up to date with The Natcon 50 Project at our website or via Twitter (@Natcon50)

Morning all,

Last night I posted a new Reality Bit(e)s article on the Physics behind reentry on the 'A Writer Goes On A Journey' website. For those interested you can find the article here.

On the fiction front abygael and I have been trying to continue our NaNo projects, but I have found things far too busy to make the paltry 5,000 word per week target that we've set. Aaarghhh.

That's all for now, I've got to knuckle down and get some of this stuff under control.

Starting to just want it to be Xmas already. I'm watching the Oprah Special of the White House cause that's all my brain can do. Which is a pain cause I wanted to work tonight.

That said, I'm still really behind or rather, still have a lot to do before the 23rd. Today I finished reading the current draft of Robot War Espresso and sent feedback. That gives me a little bit of wriggle room before Cold Cases comes back to work on Sprawl, Glitter Rose and Shiny 6. I'm back on the editing train because I've almost doubled the number of books I'm doing in '10 and '09's schedule was tough going as it was. I've got a list of all the works that are waiting for me to progress and so the cycle will keep turning till things get done. I hope. And I'm hoping to do it in half the time as this year's took. Ahem. Writers have deadlines, I have deadlines, it's deadlines central here.

I'm still kidding myself that I can finish budgeting, finances and records by the 23rd.

I bought my first geekboy gift ever and that arrived in the mail yesterday. It arrived beautifully wrapped but I had a bit of a peek and think it is pretty swish. But I've been ordering a few things on the internet lately and these parcels have been slowly making their way into my letter box/po box. It's such fun to get a neat parcel at the end of a long and dreary day. I am remembering now why I got so addicted to internet shopping a couple of years ago. I must slow down on that one, even if I am finding some really lovely fat quarters I need to buy.

My set top box is a bust for my TV it seems. The TV is pretty old - must be from about 2004? Looks like it'll need to be upgraded.

Originally published at tansyrr.com. You can comment here or there.

Parents of young children don’t get days off.  It sounds trite and obvious, but not until you become a parent of small children do you understand the stark, relentless reality of what ‘no days off’ means.  It means no weekends, no sick leave, no mental health days, no impulse activities, no dropping everything at a moment’s notice.  You’re on 24 hour shifts every day and there’s no paid overtime.  The younger the children are, the harder it is to find people who can actually replace you, even temporarily, which means every bit of time you have free of your children is hard-won, or intensely negotiated.

Writers don’t get days off, either. Few people who work for an employer understand that the self-employed value their time differently.  They have to, because there is no automatic system to denote ‘work time,’ ‘play-time,’ ‘rest-time.’  A writer, particularly a writer under deadline, can be working at any time, even if they appear to be staring into space.  They can be working in the middle of the night, when they wake up and can’t get back to sleep.  Every piece of media they consume has an element of ‘work thought’ attached to it.  Most intense is the power of ‘I should be writing.’

Because there is no true way to measure true progress of a book (wordcount is commonly used but imperfect, as one day’s 500 words might take half an hour and another day’s might involve working under great tension for 6-8 hours) other than a vague movement from ‘unfinished’ to ‘finished,’ the working writer lives with a great deal of uncertainty.  How much is enough to get the job done?  The guilt can set in at any time.

I’ve been well trained by this guilt over the years, between writing to deadling and the life of the postgrad student.  And yes, there were years when ‘I should be writing my novel’ and ‘I should be writing my thesis’ overlapped each other.  Stressful, stressful times. Mind you, I currently have a school-age daughter, a baby daughter, a small business run from home and two novel deadlines for 2010, so it’s hard to imagine a time when I had a trickier Guilt-Work balance than I do right now.

The benefit of being a writer is that you can do it anywhere.  The downside is that you can do it anywhere, and thus there is the internal pressure that you should.  We tell ourselves things like ‘ah I can get plenty of work done on the weekend,’ forgetting that the weekend is not designed for work, and it is in many ways a socially subversive thing to do – carving work time out on days that everyone else denotes as ‘holiday/social/relaxing time’ is harder than you think it will be.  My particular weakness is that gap between Christmas/New Years – I always think that will be a great, productive writing time and every single time I am surprised that it is not.

( Read the rest of this entry » )

I don't mean to write posts every other minute, but a link to the December Australian Spec Fic Blog Carnival hit my inbox and I thought you might like to see it.

Canberra people: is anyone free on Saturday night? There's a double Flynn feature at the NFSA and I dearly want to go and would rather not go alone. It's Lilacs in the Spring and Montana and starts at 7 pm. Tickets are $10 full price. We can have tea and coffee at my place afterwards, if you want.

We might need to phone ahead or book ahead - I'd need to check up on that. It's an old fashioned cinema, with red plush seats and wooden floor for the centre aisle, so we'd being seeing the movies in the same sort of cinema they were shown in when they were first released. I've always wanted to roll Jaffas down that aisle!



Note: There are shorts or something beforehand and ticket-buying, so it's really a 6.30 pm start. No advance booking needed.

My late grandmother's recipe, in her own words. By request. Let your eyes glaze and glide gently over this entry if you've seen the recipe before or if it offends your sensitivities.

Christmas Pudding (Medium Rich)

1 lb suet
¾ lb fine breadcrumbs
¾ lb brown sugar
¼ lb flour
1 lb sultanas
1 lb currants
¼ lb mixed peel
½ teaspoon mixed spice
a good pinch salt
1 lemon
4 eggs
½ pt beer or milk
½ gill brandy

Prepare all the ingredients. Sieve flour & mix with crumbs & finely chopped suet. Add fruit & chopped peel & grated rind of lemon & sugar. Mix in the beaten eggs, beer or milk. Stir well. Cover a clean & put away until next day. Add the brandy, turn into greased basins & cover with the greased paper & pudding cloths. Boil for 8 to 10 hrs. Remove the paper & cloths, let puddings cool & recover with fresh paper & dry cloths. Store in a cook, dry place. Boil for a further 2 hrs before serving.


Rum Cream for Plum Pudding
Whip cream and when nearly whipped add rum very slowly until sufficiently flavoured.

PS Please save your protests (last time I blogged this recipe I got into lots of trouble for suet, milk and for daring to suggest they belong in the same recipe). It's not kosher. It wasn't kosher when she wrote it down fifty years ago. The English side of the family probably mixed meat and milk before it came to Australia in the 1850s and only stopped (in patches) when more frum spouses made protest. My mother was one of those who never made this pudding, since she kept to the food laws far more rigorously than her mother-in-law. This is part of the gaudy tapestry that is Jewish food.

PPS If my 4 year-old neighbour feels he must knock on my door one more time in the next minute, I could be tempted to do something drastic. Four knocks ago, his mother said, tiredly "It's only us" but didn't drag him away. Two knocks ago it was "Alastair, no!" One more knock and I'm officially tired of answering the door (yet I must, in case it's something important). Cold water, perhaps?