2009 November » Deborah Kalin

i don't wonder why i wonder what he thought it would get us

Nov 302009

First: I cannot resist this kitten.

Second: I appear to have acquired a Google Wave account. Um…what do I do with it?¹

Third: how many of you are on GoodReads and how many are you are on LibraryThing? Or some other type of service of which I am ignorant? I ask because I have found a couple of copies of Shadow Queen which have been hiding in a box since the move, but it is clearly time they stopped skulking and started earning their keep by being out in the world and being pretty, damnit. Just because their author is shy and retiring does not mean they are allowed to follow suit! So, I am contemplating the best way to distribute them into the wild, and I have been thinking that a GoodReads promotion might reach more people than blog readers.² Thoughts? Suggestions? Totally unrelated comments?

Finally (for now): Lately a lot of people I know have been making comments about feeling guilty for reading my book without paying for a copy. So I've gone and added it as a FAQ. Short version: don't kick yourself. The point of a story is to be read, and there's more than one way to pay an author.

The username, for those who are interested in these things, is my name all run together. I know you're clever enough to work that out. (Are we supposed to protect google wave addresses from harvesting the same way we protect email addresses? Am I showing my ignorance here?) [↩]
Who, let's face it, are ALL OF YOU very good children who have already read the book, right? [↩]

didn't love the boy too much you just loved the boy too well

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Nov 292009

A strange and wondrous thing happened yesterday morning: my apartment block has finally limped into the 1990's.

That's right: I now have honest-to-god TV reception.¹

And once I'd dutifully tuned all the channels, it took me all of TEN SECONDS to discover that there was absolutely nothing on but strident and condescending advertising.

Man, I have not missed that bombardment of sitcom-studded advertising one bit.²

Not, you know, the digital channels. They're beyond the reach of my doddering old TV set. It's not just my apartment building that struggles with embracing the future, it seems. [↩]
Bet I fall back into the habit of having it on in the background anyway. [↩]

i can't not notice this stuff

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Nov 282009

Here's a malapropism that made me chortle all day yesterday:

"…in other words, the [object] is [a thing], as succinct from [that other thing]"¹

Succinct? SUCCINCT?

OH, MR ATTORNEY. YOU MEAN DISTINCT.

Now, I'll grant you, there's a passing aural resemblance on account of that -inct suffix business, but I don't care to admit that as a valid excuse for gettin' it wrong. Not when we can safely assume that the author of the sentence in question passed not only primary and secondary education levels but also some (usually respected) form of tertiary education. Surely, somewhere along the way, he learnt the difference between a word that means clearly distinguishable and another that means concise?²

Boring technical terms have been changed to lovely, bland, non-identifying labels for the sake of, you know, keeping my job. [↩]
And after writing the above, it occurs to me that the attorney, after all that schooling, probably has dreadful handwriting or is Far Too Busy and Important to waste time writing and typing his own letters, so he probably has them transcribed via dictation and a legal secretary. But you know what? I'm not cutting that secretary any slack either. Secretary at least passed high school, secretary should know better. And the attorney should proof-read his correspondence. [↩]

me, a pen, and your books

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Nov 262009

Yup, it's a signing opportunity:

When: Tuesday 22 December 2009 @ 10:30am
Where: Angus & Robertson @ Westfield Kotara, Newcastle

I'll be available for at least a good hour¹, so if you have a copy of Shadow Queen or Postscripts #18 you'd like me to scrawl on, then stop by and entertain me.

There may also be a signing in Brisbane, since I'm going to be up that way over the Christmas period, and another down in Melbourne in the new-ish year — I'll let you all know more just as soon as I know it.

it may be two; I can't actually remember offhand how long I promised them — I'm organised that way! [↩]

for i know not what i do

journal 2 Responses »

Nov 232009

Today's grocery bill: $33¹
Today's alcohol bill: $60

Now, granted, it was a most half-hearted grocery shop, and will not last me an entire week (and follows on the heels of a rather more thorough stock-up type effort last week), and the alcohol will last longer than a week, but still…I can't help but feel that my calorific priorities are not shown to best advantage this week.

But you know, I can live with that.

At least $5 of which went towards the purchase of a corkscrew, which will come as no surprise to those who follow my Twitter stream [↩]

never said thank you, never said please

journal 9 Responses »

Nov 202009

Today I realised — entirely out of nowhere — that I can't remember my student number any more.

I don't know why this surprised me. It has been an entire decade since I graduated from uni,¹ after all, and it's not like I've needed to know said number even once since then. But that number marked everything to do with my days for so long, I quoted it so often, I scrawled it on papers and assignments and theses, that it felt like it was part of my DNA.

And now I don't even remember when I forgot it.

(I wonder what the memory cells dedicated to remembering my student number have now been put to use remembering in its place?)

actually, this month marks the decade – hey, lookit that [↩]

step one you say we need to talk

away come away, journal 2 Responses »

Nov 172009

Today's word I didn't know before is unasinous, which is not appearing in any online dictionaries for me, but apparently (according to my local newspaper) means "equally stupid".

I like this word. I plan to use it at the first available opportunity, preferably one that also involves the chance to get a nice, scornful twist in my lip as I do so. I may even throw in a disdainful sniff. We'll have to see how it plays.

Serendipitously, this word rather aptly describes every possible direction I can currently think of for the faerie novel. I suspect this feeling is caused in no small part by the suspicion that every single word I have written over the past three days is nothing but backstory, and painfully dull expositiony backstory that has no fate except to be cut at that.

I tell you, the dreaded middle-novel-blahs is lasting a long time on this one.

Clearly, it's time for something (or someone?) to explode.

it is just possible i was, er, not sober…?

asides, journal 6 Responses »

Nov 122009

Courtesy of a recent dental visit, and Melbourne's current baking climate (and my non-possession of an airconditioner or windows that open), I'm afraid my brain has melted. Or at least, something is dribbling out my ears. Could be some other body organ that has liquefied and risen to the top, I suppose.

So, in lieu of content, I present to you text messages I have sent:¹

i shall regret nothing! we shall fight them on the beaches!
there is no cheese! moar wine will solve this existential crisis!
Can only conclude that I have developed super powers. AT LAST!
Nope, you cannot distract me with your ludicrous theories of visualisation. Clearly I am god. Bwa-ha-ha!
I find you safe passage through the marshes!
Oops. Trivialities, the downfall of so many a tyrant in training.
I found chibi!

(Be very glad I do not have your mobile number. (Except, you know, those of you whose numbers I do have.))

entirely devoid of context, because they're more fun that way [↩]

but i kill plants!

ficlets, journal 2 Responses »

Nov 092009

Good writing day on Saturday, dreadful one yesterday. So it goes. (Here's hoping this afternoon's words are a little less stubborn.)

I blame IKEA.

I have not been inside an IKEA store since, well, I'm not sure I've ever been inside one. If I have, it was many, many years ago. And by that I mean at least one decade, if not two. Which, given my memory archives are labelled "Today," and "ALLLLLLL other times" (and both drawers are equally empty) I'm sure you'll agree may as well count as never.

I have been in the Helsinki airport, during my increasingly bemused exploration of which I recall wondering if the plane hadn't perhaps made an unscheduled landing in an IKEA store instead of the airport it promised me, but that's another story.

Although that other story also features the same complete inability to find an exit. At one point, I genuinely considered sending a text to my fellow Melbournites: in IKEA. Doors suddenly all fake! Cannot even find door I entered by! Real exit an urban myth! Beset by sentient furniture or delusions, can't tell which. Send search & rescue, stat!

And the people! So many arguments about the choice of bookshelves and bathroom cabinets! My favourite was the woman berating her mother: "We're here to get rid of stuff, Mum! Not clutter the house up more!" Oh! And the woman berating a poor salesboy after learning that the furniture did not come pre-assembled. "What? It's ALL flatpack? Even the rollers have to be put on by hand? But that's ridiculous!"

I mean, seriously. Where has she been living this past, what, forty years? Even I know IKEA's selling point is THE JOYS OF FLATPACK!

In an experience I suspect is common to many first-time and even veteran shoppers of this behemoth of a store, I managed to acquire exactly none of the items I wanted, and a handful of items I…didn't know I wanted. Including a peace lily. Of COURSE I wanted a peace lily, right?

before you ask, no, it's not really more fun from the inside

journal 4 Responses »

Nov 062009

Last weekend, a friend gave me a 3D card in the shape of a bird.

Have you ever seen one of these? I hadn't. Folded one way, it's a flat, stylized head and wings motif, with space for some writing. But unfolding it opens up the web of paper that forms the bird's body.

I hung it on an empty curtain hook in my living room, so it could see the sky. Because birds like the sky, after all.

itsabird

And every day since then, at least once a day, I catch a glimpse of it out of the corner of my eye — usually moving in a stray draft — and without fail the following train of thoughts run through my head:

Fark! What's that?

Did something just scuttle behind the curtain?

No, wait, there it is, the brazen bastard of a bug is setting up shop on the curtain hook. Damn, and I don't have any bug spray.

Hang on, that's too big to be a bug — oh fark, don't tell me an actual mammal has got into the flat…Oh.

Wait.

It's the paper bird.

I remember now.

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