Quick Update

It’s Wednesday evening and the dayjob is done for the week. I’m now girding myself for the next few days, which will be best described as a tsunami of words. My plans for the evening involve reading the last fifty pages of Un Lun Dun, writing a bunch of things that need to be finished before tonight is over, then putting what little energy remains into sketching notes on the short novella I conceptualized on the way to work this morning.

Tomorrow…well. Tomorrow I gird myself for the Queensland Writer’s Center’s Rabbit Hole event, where a bunch of us gather and attempt to write 30,000 words over three days. In theory I’ll be aiming to get the final five Flotsam stories done over those three days, if only so I can free myself up for other writing for the rest of the year. This will require plans and scene maps and perhaps some notes on what needs to happen where, if only because my current plan stopped being useful about three or four months back.

It’s a busy week, all things considered. I suspect I will not blog again until the rabbit hole is done.

So, in the spirit of a fly-by kind of update:

• This was my second week at the new dayjob, and it’s awesome. I’d forgotten what doing a job I really, really liked was like.
• I now get to commute to work via train, which means there’s time to read and scribble notes. I keep reading books really fast because of this. It’s spooky.
• Fortunately, I now work above a bookstore, and inside a library. I utterly adore this combination.
• I suspect I’ll have to track down the internet policy of the new day job at some point. I’m pretty sure they’ll have one and all, but it’s an interesting enough job that I feel inclined to talk about it online once I know what is and isn’t acceptable.
• I am, however, really really looking forward to getting a paycheque. There’s been one of those spooky gaps where one job stops paying and you wait for the new job to start; being prepared for it doesn’t stop you from looking at the downward spiral of your bank balance and sweating.
• Basset hounds running; you will need no other website, ever.
• Speaking of the QWC, they’ve launched their Writer’s Surgery program for members, and there’s a bunch of talented people on tap to help aspiring writers get where they’re going. I’m onboard to help the short-fiction spec fic types, as is the indefatigable Angela Slatter (who is, quite simply, one of those people who really should be listened too when she offers you writing/career advice, and her guidance is a steal at the price they’re asking).