I’m taking Bowie’s advice, putting on my red shoes, and dancing the blues. In fact, the red shoes are already in place, and I’m ready for my long weekend to begin in 9 hours or so. Catch you all Monday.
Journal
Where I post about the things that happened in my life. Sometimes they’re diary entries, sometimes works of non-fiction, sometime just random photographs.
Scattershot
BAKE-OFF UPDATE
So, an update on the QWC Bake-Off and my quest to win the hat of awesome.
The Good News: We’ve hit our $1000 target, which means that should I win the Hat of Awesome, you’ll definitely be getting HIGHLY EMBARRASSING video of me dancing to a song selected by the most generous of the supporters who chipped and vote for my Sri Lankan Love Cake in the bake-off. Currently that honour is held by my friend Craig, who was last reported using phrases like “Beyonce” and “Single Ladies” and “If you like, you should have put a ring on it.”
I am, it must be said, a little nervous about what might happen next.
Of course, all this OUTRIGHT HUMILIATION only occurs if I win the bake-off, and I’m currently only $70 ahead of the gratuitous stunt-baking of my workmate’s Cherbumple. Given the pace that donations have been coming in, I could be in second place by the end of the day.
There’s ten days to go and anything could happen, which is why I demand nothing short of FLAWLESS VICTORY before I hand over the tattered shreds of my dignity and get my groove on while wearing a silly hat.
NEXT BIG THING
There’s an awesome piece of web-meme going around writer’s blogs dubbed The Next Big thing meme. Every writer involved answers some questions about their current project and pings another five writers to be involved, thus creating a massive chain of emerging writers talking about their work. It’s very cool. You can see some of my favourite emerging writers answering said questions on their websites.
That said, I’m a bear of very little brain at the moment (ditto time), and I tend to find answering questions about my work time-consuming. Especially these days, when I don’t really have a project du jour so much as a stretch where I get whatever I can get done in this here free half-hour, and the interview is kinda…book focused.
If you’re thinking about tagging me to take part, be aware that my standard response will be thanks for thinking of me, but I’m not really up for it right now followed by HOURS AND HOURS OF SELF-RECRIMINATION for not having a book to work on. I’m not a fan of that, ’cause I’m kinda happy working on short-stories for the moment. They fit into the empty spaces in my life. Also, my day job? Kinda cool.
If you’re interested in seeing some interview responses from writers who are actually working on books, I recommend the following list:
Also, as a bonus, writers who haven’t filled out their interviews yet, but I’m pretty sure will be included soon:
AVAST, CAPTAIN, THERE BE FREE TIME AHEAD
This is my final week as a full-time employee of QWC for the foreseeable future. Next week I’m taking some time-off due in attempt to recover from the large number of weekends I’ve been working of late (four in a row, including GenreCon), and starting in December I go back to four-days a week at the day-job. I also took a whole bunch of annual leave in December, most of which I plan on spending locked away in the house, refusing to interact with the human race.
It’s possible I’ll write some stuff. Or watch a fucking ass-load of wrestling on DVD. Or read some goddamn books. One of the three. I’ve never really had a holiday that was, like, a holiday rather than a desperate scramble to pay the bills while I wasn’t earning money at a sessional teaching job. I’m kinda curious to see what it’s like and how long it takes the empty days to drive me crazy.
What it’s like to be me at the moment
8:02 in the morning and I’ve snuck into work early to get some writing done. This has become a particularly well-worn part of my routine of late – so much so that I’ve come into work early on days when I wasn’t planning on writing, simply ’cause my morning habit is largely this: wake up, noodle around on the smart phone for a couple of minutes, shower, breakfast, drive to work, buy a cup of coffee, write 500 words. Most days, that 500 words is fiction. Today, its blogging stuff, ’cause I’m prepping for November when I run a genre writer’s convention in Parramatta.
I seem very calm on the surface, but underneath I’m thrashing around like a shark that smells blood. Or I’m kidding myself about how calm I seem, ’cause the crazy is very close to the surface these days, and it doesn’t take much to let it out.
I know this feeling. I’ve felt it a couple of times before, the month before a big event, and yet I forget it’s coming. It’s a heady mix of so-much- shit-to-do and what-if-it-all-goes-fucking-wrong, and everything feels urgent, regardless of how important it actually is. Getting program done? URGENT. Cooking dinner? URGENT. Washing your hands after using the bathroom? URGENT. Groceries? URGENT. Re-arranging all your furniture at two o’clock in the morning? URGENT. Clipping a hangnail? OMG, SO FUCKING URGENT.
Mostly it means I nod and get done what I can get done, and try not to fret about the rest (lots of this stuff is in my head, after all, except for the things that aren’t). It also means I dread my work email, ’cause my work email is full of things that I need to get done RIGHT NOW RIGHT NOW RIGHT NOW.
And three weeks from now, at about this time, the convention will be done and I’ll be slouching towards a flight back to Queensland, eyeing the day-star with suspicion and wondering why everyone seemed to be having a good time when everything went so wrong. This is the nature of running events – you’re too close to things, you see nothing but flaws, and you assume everything has gone worse than it has.
Then, somewhere along the line, the Stockholm Syndrome kicks in, and you agree to do it again ’cause it seems like a good idea. I mean, those people you met? All those crazy, wonderful, talented people you ran the convention for? They’re actually kind of awesome and it’s nice to run an event that brings them all together.
I’m posting this here ’cause, really, posting is OMG URGENT at the moment, just like everything else.
Also ’cause, next year, I’m going to look back on this blog for patterns I need to be aware of, and this seems like one of those things. Three weeks out there will be crazy. Serious, serious crazy. It’s just part of the process.