totally the big issues here, people

I have a love-hate relationship with chewing gum.

One of the guys at work always has these strange brands of gum, with highbrow flavours. He particularly favours minty orange, which I'll grant you is surprising at first, but delicious. And every now and then I steal some off him because, well, for example, lunch needs to be fought back against.

And every single time — every. single. time. — I arrive at the point where the delicious flavour has all but faded, and then past that point to where even the random interrmittent bursts of flavour are a thing of the past.

This is the point where you realise you are, indeed, chewing … GUM.

And you can't even get all righteously indignant and/or disappointed over it. Because it's in the name.

These chewing gum manufacturers and their nefarious honesty. It's diabolical.

16 August 2010 @ 16:38 | 4 Comments

what do you mean this isn't a photoblog?

now THIS is how you drive an ambulance: backwards. in a crocheted cardigan and corduroy pants. watch and learn, my friends, watch and learn.

Also, does it alarm anyone else that the ambulance looks more like a hearse with a red cross hastily pasted on? Like some kind of horror-story-esque vehicle that vivisects its patients en route to the "hospital"?

Well, that, or the Ghostbusters car.

18 July 2010 @ 9:15 | 5 Comments

real post coming, er, yeah. yanno.

I cannot TELL you how much I want one of these:

9 July 2010 @ 20:54 | 5 Comments

all the tiny moments of waste add up

So I'm having a little trouble with mustering up the organisational skills required to slot back into my normal routine.

Trams, being the junkies they are, require the regular feeding of metcards. Guess what I forgot to buy (and what you can't buy cheaply (or at all, if you don't have coins) on the tram itself)? Houses, once locked, require keys in order to be unlocked and yield up their comforts (said comforts being an empty pantry, but that's entirely beside the point). Guess what I left at work yesterday, and didn't realise until I was standing outside my front door? Corporate wear, in order to be classed as corporate, requires ironing. Guess what I couldn't be arsed doing any time since I landed?

The thing is, I know there's tasks I need to tackle — but whenever I think of them, I'm choosing not to bother. And I'm okay with that.

It can't last, of course. One day in and already I'm making time-wasting mistakes, when I'm time-poor. If I want to put in a productive day at the dayjob, achieve progress on the writing, and get in what (scant) exercise I can to combat the sedentary spread, without wasting more time than necessary on the daily commute, an organised routine is critical. But I'm beginning to see just how much organisation (and pre-planning, high-alert behaviour) my normal routine requires of me.

Sooner or later, I'm going to have to choose to tackle that routine again. Maybe now's my chance to see what I can streamline.

When I was just starting out at this writing gig1 I thought that the craft was the hardest thing to master. It's not. Don't get me wrong, I still don't understand how putting words in a row can be so challenging, but finding (and keeping) a routine that carves out time to write is sometimes equally as challenging. Life has this nasty habit of encroaching.

In the meantime, while I ponder how best to tweak my daily routine, I give you something I never noticed before yesterday. At the dayjob, we have a desk full of health-wise informational pamphlets, you know the type, all about walking your dog and knowing your blood sugar levels. Turns out there's a rather unfortunate placement of the Beyond Blue campaign poster directly above the anti-smoking campaign envelope:

Because you're not alone...but if you're determined to believe you are, we also have a handy envelope detailing the most efficient ways to end it all...?

  1. Heck, what am I talking about? I still consider myself to be just starting out. I always thought having a book published would help me feel more accomplished. Turns out, like every other writer who's gone before me thinking the same thing, I was wrong. I still feel just as raw and awkward as I ever did. [↩]

Down To The River (Bernard Fanning — Tea & Sympathy)

23 June 2010 @ 18:59 | 2 Comments

not sure what i was thinking — but i'm sure it was good

Okay, Internets!

I have to go away for just a little bit.

It's not you, it's me. Honest.

(Although while I'm away, by all means feel free to examine your constant, compulsive need to try and sell me things.)

Promise I'll come home all bouncy and refreshed and full of renewed appreciation for all things hot-shower and electronic-related. Perhaps in return you could think about that new world order Tessa requested? There has been alarmingly little raspberry jam of late.

26 May 2010 @ 21:22 | 8 Comments

apparently, being dead is kinda fun

In travel news, I appear to be enduring that pre-travel period which involves the haemorrhaging of money. I don't like this bit so much.

On the other hand, great advancements in travel preparations were made today, including taking delivery of my brand new camera. Which I don't know how to drive yet. But time and tide &c — just as I finished shoving the batteries and memory card into place, 2010's Zombie Shuffle staggered past.

They were moving pretty fast, for zombies, and there was an awful lot of them this year, and did I mention I don't know how to drive my new camera yet? But I thought I'd post up a couple (or, um, ten) of my favourite shots.

I love, love, love this photo. My favourite snaps of the day pretty much all centre around zombies who've let their guard down momentarily.

Such as this fellow. The happiest zombie of the day.

This one I love because there's a terrified civilian trapped in the midst of the brain-eating glee.

2 May 2010 @ 0:16 | 4 Comments

and they're all (well, mostly all) cousins

The proofs for Shadow Bound landed today. The fourteen-day forecast is therefore for sudden squalls of insanity, the occasional seagull impersonation, an inability to discuss any topic that does not immediately relate to (for example) the placement of commas, and a general air of abstraction and sleeplessness.

Although, the proof reader has won my undying love for the following comment in her cover letter:

This was a thoroughly absorbing read. Lots of urst (please cast Viggo Mortensen or Hugh Jackman as Dieter), tension and complexities.

Heh. Heheh. I think it was only a couple of months ago I finally figured out what URST stood for,1 and now apparently I've written a book with sufficient URST to make at least one person think of Viggo.

I can live with that.

This evening, along with getting started on the proofs, I also wrote up the dedication and acknowledgements. My next task, concurrent with the edits, is to whip up some kind of character/house/tribe glossary — which I think is no bad idea, given that no less than 40-odd character and house names are mentioned in the first 60 pages. And this is a novel with actually not that many characters!

It's all starting to take shape people. Book!

  1. I'm slow on the uptake. But I know there's at least one person who also doesn't know what it means, so just for you, Mum: UnResolved Sexual Tension. [↩]

7 April 2010 @ 22:04 | 7 Comments

methinks it is time to up the fitness levels

Yesterday I revised 1,300(ish) words on the short story, and stalked travel agents to obtain quotes for airfares, which means the travel plans, while not yet concrete, are progressing apace. I survived a trip with the world's most passive-aggressive tram driver, who shuts the tram doors while passengers are mid-way through them and drives into cars who dare to block his way. I also went and saw The Pixies live, and consequently will never hear anything ever again. (It was worth it.) On the way home from the gig, I got chatted up by a homeless boy who told me I should never ever steal, but sneaking in to watch movies without paying was perfectly fine.

Today I had exactly two tasks that had to be done: finding a pair of tennis shoes, and washing the car. Both achieved. I also — and I consider this a superhuman effort, considering it's Sunday — washed a week's worth of dishes.

And there's still time left to get some writing done.

Ergo, the weekend is officially a success, even if I haven't done the ironing and therefore have no presentable clothes for work tomorrow.

21 March 2010 @ 16:39 | 4 Comments

i am, yes, still listening to every decemberists song ever

Sshh, don't tell anyone, it's not definite or booked or anything so exciting as that, but … I did spend an awful lot of my day thinking about other continents. Specifically, me, kiting myself off to other continents. Where there are no phones. (Although I have just googled airfares and, oh, fark. Um…?)

I also have news of covers and illustrations and publications (not new ones — don't get too excited) sort of simmering away over here, but I'm not allowed to share any of them just yet. So frustrating!

So instead I will be whimsical, because I do so love being whimsical, and share with you a recent revelation/accusation. I have this friend who thinks I am the human equivalent of sodium thiopental (better known as sodium pentathol, or the truth drug). He doesn't subscribe to all my talk of mutant powers, because he's far too sensible for such things, but he's so convinced of my ability to learn the truth about and from people that he's even willing to admit it might be my mutant power.

And I don't know quite how it came about, but somewhere along the line one of us looked up the chemical formula for said sodium thiopental. And lookit!

could it be...? is it...? A GIRL?

If you use your imagination, you might just be able to see a girl with a sideswept fringe, a clip at each temple, and pigtails. (We are not quite so sure what's happening on the top of her head. Nor are we quite sure why on earth she is, er, on all fours. Moving right along!)

Who woulda thunk it? Maybe I do have some sort of mutant power after all. Although if that's the case I also have a questionable hairstyle and questionable, er, exercise habits.

17 March 2010 @ 16:13 | 2 Comments

but i guess they do that here, i dunno

The lovely Mek posted this yesterday, and I can't help but post it myself for those of you who read my journal but not hers, because I love me a bit of whimsy, and this sort of stuff makes me laugh out loud:

In other news, I appear to have started yet another novel. Yes, before finishing that short story which has glomped and bulled its way into novellette territory, and before finishing the faerie novel. And before so much as starting those seven or so novels lined up in the back of my brain, impatiently waiting their turn to be written. Er, oops? My only excuse is that enthusiasm is infectious. My plan is to finish the short story while writing this new novel, and then finish the faerie novel while writing this new novel. No plan survives first contact, of course, but we'll see how we go.

I'm keen to get more writing done this year, partly because after Shadow Bound I have nothing contracted and, you know, I'd really like that to change; and partly because my ability to pin words to the page seems to have slowed down frighteningly of late. I don't know if the words I am pinning down are better put together, and will therefore require less editing. Here's hoping, because that would mean the extra time I'm taking now will be recouped later and it might all even out. (That just sounds too neat to be true, though.)

Chinese Bones (The Decemberists — Live)

8 March 2010 @ 16:43 |
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