ON THE SUBJECT OF REAL LIFE……

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Writing remains dead. Teaching eats everything; I spend most of my spare time creating resources, marking, or just plain dealing with the steepness of the learning curve that comes from being out of a game for twenty-five years. There’s a writing group in town: Luscious and I went to it a few times, but haven’t been in something like 9 months. We’re talking about going back, just to get in touch with the joy of words. Watch this space. Or, if you care about the outcome, maybe don’t…

Weight loss has tapered off in a major way. See above for the reasons why. I’m still under 100kgs, which is a good thing, and trying to fit workouts into the gaps. Call it maintenance rather than loss, perhaps. I have still lost centimetres, which is positive, and my chest has gained half a centimetre of muscle where there was once only fat. It’s a long haul. I’m still hauling.

The Lego remains in the cupboard. Time, community, opportunity to display are all lacking. But Luscious and I have just swapped offices because reasons, and mine now has a Great Big Giant Table ™, so possiblymaybeperhaps I’ll have a chance to get it all out and noodle around with some pieces just for fun. We’ll see.

Life decisions have been decisioned. We like it here. There are opportunities for us. We’ll be staying for at least another three years.

Have I missed anything?

TEACHING DON’T MEAN NUTHIN’ IF YOU AIN’T MELTING HEADS

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So, yeah, my life may have come to a screaming halt, but I’m slowly getting to grips with this teaching gig, and no matter how hard a day gets, it still doesn’t chew on my soul the way The Job That Soured ended up doing. Plus, of course, my style of teaching English doooooeeeessss tend to involve a whole lot of sneaking in other lessons around the side……

Some days, of course, just like writing, you do something so beautiful that you wish you could bottle it. Yesterday was one of those days.

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AN AWARD NOMINATION, AND A SMALL SLICE OF HISTORY

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First things first: The House of Jack’s Girls, a pleasant little thing published by Pseudopod back in October, has been nominated for the Australasian Horror Writers Association’s Australian Shadows Award. I’m up against a fair roster of talent, but it’s been a while since I’ve received even a nomination, so it’s nice to be listed.

shadows

Luckily for you, because Pseudopod is all internettily and stuff, you can both read it and listen to the svelte-larynxed Chloe Yates read it to you right here. Be warned: it’s a horror story, and it’s very much MA15+.

To add to the general joy and all-round bonhomie, Antipodean SF reaches 250 issues this month. The legendary Ion Newcombe has been toiling away for 21 years, consistently providing a voice for new writers and releasing wave after wave of quality flash fiction every damn month– he’s way overdue for all the major career awards in Australian SF, but what do I know?

To celebrate, issue 250 is a massive (relatively speaking) tome, with over 50 stories from some of the most familiar names in the Australian SF scene and the usual healthy dose of rising talent. I’ve got a story in amongst it all, along with many writers you’ll actually want to read.

Check it out.

NOT A RETURN. PROBABLY. POSSIBLY. NOT YET.

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Not a WIP. Just some words that came along while Luscious was sleeping. I still don’t know if I can be bothered climbing onto the carousel again. No promises.

 

Antimony Lavage was quiet, and pale, and very well brought up.

She knew how to be polite, and respectful, and share, and care, and always, always be a perfect young lady around visitors. She knew how to wash her face, and brush her teeth, and tie her long, white hair in her prettiest black ribbon, and dress herself in her best black crinoline and black satin dress and black gloves and black bonnet. She knew how to make polite chitchat, and be seen and not heard, and amuse, and smile, and converse, and perform, and obey. She knew how to observe, and record, and dream, and make solemn promises, and in all things forever work to overcome the very real disadvantage of being no more or less than a six year old girl.

So when she determined to commit murder, Antimony Lavage knew exactly why, and how, and to what end.

SURVIVED, ALIVE, AND ALL THAT JIVE

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So, it’s over. Tropical Cyclone Veronica became Very Strong Wind Veronica, and finally, Was That It? Veronica. Port Hedland was battered to within an inch of improvement, Wickham and Roeburne received a bloody good wash, and Karratha lost a few trees and spread an awful lot of leaves about to be the mulch of the future.

As to us, we evacuated from our house because we were advised that our house was likely to be flooded, and spent three nights camped out on air beds on the floor of our local indoor basketball courts, surrounded by as much food as we could cram into two eskies, a veritable fort of water bottles, and the hacking coughs and sneezes of 60 or so other people who received the same advice… only to return home and find that up the half a dozen of our emergency sandbags had become partially moist.

I make light, of course. This is the blog of a bitter and broken curmudgeon. News sites start to the left.

But, we’re okay, the house survived, we’re all back at work and school and regular service is resumed. So, on that note, I shall resume my position of rough radio silence for at least a few more weeks while I go back to trying to resolve my future as a writer, artist, failure, empty vessel, and hermit-best-treated-as-a-sort-of-roundabout.

Thanks to all who got in touch to make sure we are okay. See you all soon. Ish. Probably. Maybe. Probably.

CYCLONE VERONICA: THIS IS SERIOUS, MUM.

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Breaking silence just to update you on our current state of Real Life ™.

As many of you know, we located to Karratha, in the North of our State, at the beginning of last year. Right now, that puts us in the path of Cyclone Veronica, a category 4 cyclone off the coast that is expected to reach category 5 by the weekend, when it is expected to cross the coast somewhere within 350 kilometres of my side of the bed.

By tea-time Sunday, we are likely to be gifted with winds in excess of 125km/hr, potentially reaching to over 165km/hr. According to the Bureau of Meteorology, we’re also highly likely to receive rainfall in excess of 150mm within a 24 hour period, resulting in major flooding and a very dangerous storm tide.

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