singing of myself

So, wow, it's been a while, hey? I'm not even sure who's still around on these platforms (posting to Dreamwidth and Livejournal both) but if you're not following me on Twitter or Tumblr here are the big ticket items:

1. I had a baby. She's pretty much adorable, and she's even getting ok at sleeping now, so life is starting to settle down.


2. Around the same time, I scored an agent for my novel. (It was a hilariously hectic week - I passed my driving test, went into labour and received my first offer of representation all in the same 24 hours.) Finally I can stop feeling like a fraud when I put "writer" in the occupation box on forms.

Pursuant to the second point: the novel in question is a rebadged, expanded, and built-upon version of The Notorious Sorcerer's Penultimate Work. I basically took a fic that was 110% self-indulgent fantasy chicanery and crammed in a whole lot more stuff that I love egregiously, like girls having flashy swordfights on rooftops, and self-possessed society ladies organising crime like they organise garden parties (except with less tea). I had a ball writing it, and I'm beyond delighted that my agent also loves it outrageously. Here's hoping we find a publisher who feels similarly!

But on that note, I need to take down the original fic, just to clear the field. I've been sending out notes about this too - so you might get one of those if you commented on the fic - but LJ's messaging only lets me send about five a day, so that's taking ages (and AO3 has no messaging yet, ugh). The point is: if you want to save the fic, you should do that before the end of the month, when I'll be taking it off AO3 and locking it down on LJ.

Originally posted on Dreamwidth

So here's an interesting sidenote to start with: My work internet blocks absolutely no websites or web apps except LiveJournal. Baffling as this lone exception is, it's also tremendously annoying, since the only time I have to journal and comment-respond is in five-minute gaps between work things, and then I can't respond to LJ comments. I have been going, "Oh, well, I'll get them when I'm at home, then!" but at-home computer time is writing or games (in the midst of a Wesnoth revival pending the release of Neverwinter) and I always forget. I don't want to turn off LJ commenting, because I love hearing from you guys however and whenever, but bear this in mind.

Back to point!

Encountered today: 8 Reasons Authors Don't Complete Their Manuscripts.

More than a few of these hit me where I live - and especially there were a couple to which I nodded sagely: I would not have finished Boralos if I had not overcome them. Others I find myself wrestling with right now.

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Originally posted on Dreamwidth

We moved into our house ("to the country", Mr Dee calls it, mostly because there is now grass instead of road and pavement, the sound of lawnmowers on the weekend, actual pets; ignoring the fact that we are still in zone 1) nearly two years ago now. When we first sat down with the designers to start planning the house, some two years before that, the first thing they asked me was, "What's the one thing you want? Why are you building this house?"

I said, "Because we've had to stop buying books because there's no room. I want bookshelves. I want a whole room of bookshelves."

(They looked at me like I was a really strange person. I get that a lot.)

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The next problem? Bookends. I cannot believe how difficult they are to find, and suddenly we need ten of the damn things...

Originally posted on Dreamwidth

One of the most marvellous things about travelling - to my mind - is finding out the details of how life is lived differently in other places by other people. I find the really little things absolutely fascinating. How chairs are arranged at outdoor cafes in Europe. That in America the standard electronic account is cheque, not savings. The ridiculous way Russians queue (...they basically don't, to my English-derived sensibilities).

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Originally posted on Dreamwidth

Here's a thing about writing fantasy (or speculative fiction of any kind, really): it relies upon a contract between you and the reader that you will build a world different from the one they know, and if they follow you there, you will tell them a really interesting story.

The differences can be anywhere from slight and subtle to comprehensive and entire, and the reader doesn't really know until you tell her. In a way, therefore, the opening chapters of speculative fiction don't just have to do all the stuff that a 'normal' book does - establish characters and the hook of the story - but also rough out the parameters of the universe, give some idea of the general changes made. (After all, if you're muddling along happily in a world where apparently the only difference is that the Church of England never happened, and then all of a sudden in chapter 45 - wham - goblins, you're going to be ticked off, because that changes the assumptions you've been making for all the preceding pages. Or at least, I would be, if that were sprung on me.)

There are a couple of interesting repercussions of this. ( Collapse )

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You have to be careful. The contract cuts both ways, and before you know it you end up with giant bunnies. ;)

Originally posted on Dreamwidth

I have a problem, of the quintessentially "...and?" variety that is sometimes (slightly problematically) defined as "first-world".

My preferred coffee-and-morning-munchy shop gives you a little chocolate meringue with your fix. This is delicious, and clearly not my problem, except inasmuch as it's one tiny bite and you're left going, "...more?" (There was a chap in there the other day asking for "no chocolate on top" and they said, "do you mean chocolate dust, or the meringue?" and he said, "oh no no no, I want ten of those things," and I mentally toasted him with my coffee cup and said, "Amen, brother.")

My preferred coffee-and-morning-munchy shop has changed the style of their takeaway coffee cup lids. This is my problem.

This is a problem because previously, the lid had a sort of raised rim all the way around the outside edge that - in its own sort of problematic way - allowed spillage to collect in a sort of puddle, but at least prevented it (all) splashing all over my wrist.

This is a problem because that raised rim also provided a place for the little chocolate meringue to nestle as I eyed it with covetous anticipation all the way back to the office. It had a wall to hide behind. It doesn't any longer.

This is a problem because it's been really windy - downright gusty, some days - in Melbourne recently.

And so there I was, standing in the middle of the street pouting like a toddler because the wind had just blown my chocolate meringue off the top of my now-flat coffee lid.

My life. So hard.

But still. I want, like, ten of those things. :(

Originally posted on Dreamwidth

My summer musical itinerary is currently looking something like this:

(Warm-up)
11th October - Husky* at the Corner Hotel
12th October - Regurgitator plays Unit and Tu-Plang at the HiFi Bar
RADIOVEMBER
9th November - Radiohead in Brisbane
17th November - Radiohead in Melbourne
(Intermission)
6th December - Spiritualised at the HiFi
7th December - Primal Scream at the Palace
(You may have January off to drink beer and bitch about the heat before...)
GIT YORE FESTIVAL AWN
15th February - Godspeed You! Black Emperor
16th/17th February - All Tomorrow's Parties
3rd March - Soundwave

* So I hear these guys signed with Sub Pop and are now available in the US and places. That means you should get into them because they make splendid noise with all the musicality (including delicious harmonies) of folk and a hefty helping of prog complexity.

What am I missing? Well, we don't have Harvest tickets, despite really enjoying the vibe of the festival last year, because it's irresponsibly in the middle of Radiovember. We were really hoping for Sigur Ros sideshows, but they're only playing Perth and Adelaide on the side (presumably because they're doing a whole second showing of the festival in Melbourne) and anyway we probably would've been in the wrong city at the time. Bummer. (We also declined to Big Day Out this year because there wasn't anyone we HAD to see, just lots of "and while we're there those guys are great" bands. I remain on the lookout for YYYs sideshows.)

Is this all getting a bit out of hand? HELL NO. Bring it on, musical universe! I can totally take more.

(One day I should perhaps talk about how I say, "Oh, I'm taking two weeks off in November," and my workmates say, "Oh, lovely, where are you going?" and I say, "To see Radiohead. Multiple times." And then I do these ones - \m/ \m/ - and they look perplexed and change the subject. But that's pretty much the story right there.)

Originally posted on Dreamwidth

I have this very vivid memory from my childhood, probably somewhere around the age of 10-12, or thereabouts, of my mother and I getting ready to go out. It was a Queensland summer day, so pretty damn sweltering, and Mum lamented that she was going to have to put on pantyhose in this.

"Why?" I asked. She paused, and the obvious answer was, Because that's what one does. I hurried on with, "I mean, who's going to care if you do or not?"

It was obviously not something she'd thought about before. You wore pantyhose because that was part of being properly dressed - just like she also made up her face (not with foundation, but eyeshadow and lippie, always).

In the end, that day, she still wore pantyhose, but I like to think of that as the thin end of the wedge, and increasingly, as the years passed, she didn't bother more and more.


Years later, I would comment in passing to my maternal grandmother that I held the opinion that I come from an unflinching tradition of no-nonsense women who don't care for society's expectations.

"Oh," she said. "Really? Do you think so? I've... well, I've always just wanted to be normal. Doesn't everyone?"

It was a highly disorienting moment. Stories in the family of my grandmother include the way she used to quell badly behaved Sunday School boys with one look. I grew up visiting a house full of golf trophies where half of them were hers, and the photograph of my young and trim grandparents on the dresser showed both of them heading down the beach to surf. My sense of Grandma had always been that she held her own, that she was a strong lady, that she couldn't be having with nonsense.


I have always considered irrational societal expectations, norms, "just-becauses" to be nonsense with which I could not be having. And while I do still believe I come from a strong and original line of women, I'm just honestly not entirely sure where that came from.

Originally posted on Dreamwidth

1. Did the Minotaur run last night, which I try to do every couple of months so I can paw over their "new releases" shelves and find shiny things to add to my GoodReads to-read queue (which often leads to me pestering my libraries to buy them, but I figure that's good for everyone, right?). There were a few interesting candidates last night, but I think the stand out winner is this guy Jay Kristoff, who it turns out is pretty much hilarious and moreover whose book Stormdancer looks so splendid I was excited about reading it even before the author described it like this.
   
   
2. While in Minotaur, I got to overhear a phone call that started with, "Hi, your darlek has finally arrived," and that just makes me happy.
   
   
3. Over the weekend, while spending some wonderfully indulgent and entertaining time with calico and her splendid hubby, we discovered that Holgate have made a new beer called the Gruit Expectations. It is a beer without hops.
   
   I'll say that again: It's a beer without hops.
   
   I appreciate that I'm maybe the only beer lover in the world who hears that and has a cloud-parting-choirs-of-angels moment, but seriously, for someone who has a hair trigger on her over-hopped sadface, this was a very exciting thing. And the beer itself is delish, all light and spicy and dangerously 6%. I love it in a way that's profoundly unnatural for me and anything paler than an amber; it's on tap at Deja Vu in the Melbourne CBD and I've already tried to go there to have some twice since the weekend, and the place isn't even open on Mondays.

Originally posted on Dreamwidth

There's a thing oft-lambasted in stories where a sudden storm springs up (often "magical") and forces some plot point. The really lambasted bit is when the storm suddenly blows over and there's sunshine and birds singing.

Since Melbourne just did that, I'm not going to nitpick this when I see it happen in future. From fine sunny weather, to hailing thunderstorm, back to fine sunny weather again in forty-five minutes. I think that's a new record, even for this lunatic city.

Now where's my plot point?

Originally posted on Dreamwidth