Champagne and Socks

I faired better today than yesterday, I was determined to do so. Actually, I had a bad day at work, suffering eye strain for the second day in a row. That’s really weird for me because I’m used to long hours in front of a computer. A at work told me it’s the GIS software, which I have been using a fair amount this week. She thinks it refreshes a lot and flashes and told me she can only do a couple of hours a day on it. I might try and do none tomorrow, unless I finish the piece of work I am writing and need maps for.

So it felt quite bad – what do you do when you can’t use your eyes in a desk job? I did manage to catch the Outer Alliance Podcast 11 today which is 2 hours long and well worthy of the time. Kirstyn McDermott and Ian Mond from the Writer and the Critic guest on the show and they read Horn and Bleed as Ian’s suggested books. I would have listened anyway because I always love their conversations about books. They both have an awesome rapport with Julia Rios, the host. And the whole episode is absorbing and engaging stuff.

I came home and decided finding 30 was a good thing to do in this instance. I started the Couch to 5k all the way back at the beginning. Excitedly, it wasn’t remotely as foul as it was the first time round. I haven’t been running since a month before Swancon and C has been teasing me that I can’t keep “runner” in my bio if I’m not actually running. I’m glad I am not as unfit now as I was when I first started. Perhaps the “couch” in Couch to 5k doesn’t mean “lying on the couch for the last 8 years”? I realised that I could actually run in the backyard – it’s a pretty decent size, being on a corner block, and a 1 minute run was about a 1.5 lap. I’m not comfortable being out and about exercising in my suburb alone at dusk/dark. It also meant I could exercise the puppy off the leash. And that went how you’d expect. He got bored about 10 mins in and kept getting distracted by weeds n things and then he’d race of to meet me at the next turn. Now I just need him to provide cups of water and I’ve realised my Olympic dream. By the end, he gave up and just lay down and watched me. Still, I appreciated the support.

Just as I finished and came inside, the food delivery truck arrived. They were actually 30 minutes before the window but I was home and it was good to get it all sorted. C ordered me the food yesterday from Sydney. And he must be missing us because Pups got a toy and I got some treats. My crumpets for dinner got exchanged for smoked salmon on a turkish bread roll. I intended to have either one of the Magnums he sent or the second dessert from the pack I bought yesterday but the weirdest thing happened. I wasn’t in the mood for dessert. I KNOW!

Funny thing about this running thing. I’ve had a slight epiphany in that, if my problem (or one of them) is that I comfort eat, then, what if I just found something else that was comforting? I don’t think I’ve ever really looked at it that way before. Mostly I’ve tried to deny that I needed comfort which doesn’t really help. But I’m looking at it more that not exercising is the self- punishment rather than the exercise being the punishment for other things. Which turns the experience on its head and could be why this time I finally got my endorphin rush. The act of exercising became an act of self love. And then dinner became about refuelling and I didn’t really need any other food for the evening, junk or otherwise.

I got my fruit and veggie box. So tomorrow night I shall make me up a good soup. Or maybe I’ll leave it to Sunday night and portion them out for lunches during the week. I also got lots of apples which I shall bake for desserts as per before.

What else? I did a little more of the sorting of games. We’re up to PC games. And then I backfilled some of the space vacated by games with text books which I have scavenged from across the house. This has freed up space in the bookcases in my TV area. And tomorrow night I hope to fill those with some of my books and see if I can actually get to the original point in all of this – housing all my books which are currently on the floor in the study and double packed into the two new bookcases in there.

I also did a load of dishes and a load of laundry. Hopefully this will all set me up in good stead for the weekend. Especially since I have other errands to run.

I finally sucked up my courage and made the TPP announcement today which I have been pussyfooting around with since Swancon.

And I watched an episode of Doctor Who.

Not bad for a day, I guess? More tomorrow.

Cross posted from the Twelfth Planet Press blog:

Twelfth Planet Press is looking to develop a new line of dynamic, original genre novels. Twelfth Planet Press novels will push boundaries to question, inspire, engage and challenge. We are specifically looking to acquire material outside that which is typically considered by mainstream publishers.

We are looking for science fiction, fantasy, horror and crime. We will consider borderline literary, new weird, steampunk, space opera, hard science fiction, soft science fiction, urban fantasy, cyberpunk, military science fiction, young adult, paranormal romance and everything in between.

It’s the trilogy that put dystopia into YA and not only kicked Harry Potter and Twilight off the bestseller charts, but also shot them between the eyes with a crossbow. While they were stung by wasps.

Tansy and Alisa are spoiling the hell out of The Hunger Games, Catching Fire and Mockingjay, by Suzanne Collins. Listener beware, the first rule about the Spoilerific Book Club is… WE SPOIL STUFF.

Please only listen to the podcast if you have read the books in question, plan never to read the books in question, or really truly don’t mind spoilers. Also, towards the end, we get pretty spoilery about Harry Potter too. It’s relevant! Mostly.

You can find the podcast on iTunes, by direct download or stream it on the site.

Day 3 not so much. I did state up front that I have most of my energy on a Monday. Hump day hit hard this evening. I popped past the shops to get a few things – $100 I pretty much only had those few things, I swear (laundry powder, shampoo, inedible things mostly). C meanwhile ordered me a food delivery for tomorrow. I will have so many crumpets I won’t be able to eat them fast enough.

After the shopping expedition, I sat down when I got home. And that was that. Barrelled over by a wave of tiredness that has not passed. Early to bed for me. I wanted to knit and watch Doctor Who but I’m too tired for the knitting. The puppy has already hit the sack.
What did I achieve today?

• final proof changes to story 1 of Bad Power
• supplies acquired
• listened to a bunch of podcasts
• ran my TPP plans past a few peeps, some things look like being green lit
• delegated at TPP
• posted book orders
• submitted my interview questions for Ripping Reads - interview up here

Hoping this was only a minor set back and I’m back on the wagon tomorrow.

Can Ann Arbor Sustain a New Breed of Downtown Bookstore?

9/11 Books Released into a Sea of Others

Interview with Jo Fletcher – her new imprint Jo Fletcher books is with Quercus

How Publishers and Authors Can Use Sound Cloud

Blooming Brilliant Children’s Poetry Collections

Ebooks’ Popularity is Rewriting the Sales Figures

Cambridge University Press’ Stephen Bourne Given Chinese Award

(Very quickly cause I’m running late)

• Finally cleared all remaining dishes in the kitchen and swabbed down the benches. Hurrah! Then I cooked dinner and messed it all up
• Spot cleaned the floors
• Did one load of laundry
• Took out the rubbish
• Finished editing short story for Bad Power
• Sorted, checked for disc (or hunted around for disc) and filed in alphabetical order all games for Wii and Xbox. Now these two and PlayStation 2 are done.
• Schlepped out the karaoke equipment for Waicon to be given to someone today. This made space in the study and cleared out the cupboard in the study
• Sorted by ESTA for WFC
• Parcelled up some orders for TPP to post today

Felt like more at the time! Still, I think not bad for a Tuesday night. And I have started to get shelf space cleared around the house. Next stop will be sorting out books into groups for putting away.

More on the Dymocks D Publishing arm :

• Dymocks reinvents book retailing says CEO

Most people are just keen to tell their story, a lot want a book in print for themselves, either as an e-book or a book. If it’s published, it could get greater distribution. This is not vanity publishing. This is publishing that is author pushed, not publisher pulled.

• Dymocks adds web-based publishing to its book selling role

D Publishing will be an opportunity for all budding Australian authors to see their works in published form and available for purchase online, while a selection of titles may also be available in Dymocks stores across Australia

Ellen Datlow challenges writers to create real characters – A Complaint About Sex and Ageism in Fiction

The Cultural Implications of our Book Choices

US Postal Service Struggles to Stay Solvent and Relevant

Cory Doctorow – Why Should Anyone Care?

The 3-Step Hierarchy for Social Media Contagiousness

5 Social Media Metrics Your Should Be Measuring

Strange Horizons Donation Fund Drive aiming for $8000

From Scroll to Screen

Mass Market Paperbacks Sales in Decline

Sony Schedules UK E-book Store Opening

Well, technically yesterday was Day 1 but since I was out the whole day – that post to follow – and didn’t get home til midnight, I’m kinda not counting it.

It’s a little bit early for me but I’m calling it a day. And I’m calling it a productive day. I woke up with a frozen neck – first night I didn’t take muscle relaxant or pain meds. Grrr. I got some progress made on frustrating and hard day job task finally. And some sorting and filing and what not, that’s always nice. I also:

• edited half of a very long short story
• read half of the October Asimov’s and found a 5 (is that my first for the year? Maybe my second)
• got my inbox down to 25 emails
• sort of finally admitted what my next TPP project is and what it will entail (more likely after WFC on that)
• did two loads of dishes
• fought a war with the fruit bowl – ew! soupy old fruit
• tackled most of the gross puppy grossness
• cleared the dining table almost fully
• did two loads of laundry
• started tackling the clean clothes mountain on the spare bed
• pulled out almost all of C’s games and checked maybe a quarter for disc and then filed those alphabetically by platform
• began merging our TV series and boxed sets and hunting down all of mine from all over the house. I don’t have quite enough storage for all of these and I still will need to find space for the movies. But it’s starting to look tidy.

And now I think that might be enough for Day 1 and I’m going to watch an episode of Doctor Who, knit some of my shawl. Maybe finish off some of Bad Power and I wish I could say I’m going to write that other blog post but I’m quite tired. (Forgot I only had 5 hours sleep last night)  I usually have the most energy I will have in the week on a Monday and I wanted to get some runs on the board job wise so that I could get momentum for later in the week when I have less energy. If I can already see progress, I’m more likely to feel inspired to continue. Will see how I go.

In letting go of beating myself up about not reading fast enough, not knitting/sewing on one project til it’s finished before picking up something else to do etc I’m beginning to view my life with new eyes and its almost like I’m doing it differently. Even though I’ve changed nothing. I’ve realised that, if you have a lot of interests, or a lot you have to get done, it just takes you longer to do it. If I only get to knit on my shawl once this week, but I also knit on a pair of socks, cut out fabric for a quilt project, read books, watched episodes of a TV show and recorded podcasts. so what if none of those things got finished this week? They are all elements of expressing my creativity, and they will all get done. Eventually. It’s quite freeing to let go of the guilt of time. And one of the things that helped was paying attention to writers – writers write when they can. And sometimes that’s for a daily quota, and sometimes it’s on their day off from work, or the one day in the week their kids aren’t home. Doesn’t change the fact that all of them are writers and will (hopefully) turn in finished work at some point.

So. I’ve been ignoring tomorrow for as long as I physically could. It’s kind of the beginning of my journey as sea widow. C is off to complete a course over east and I shall be home, in R’ham by myself. An hour away from most of my friends, my family, my favourite haunts and cafes and stuff. But. I lived alone for what was it? 4 years? I’ll be fine. Even if this is the first time we’re gonna be apart for this long since the beginning of the year. And, you know, I’m an independent and very busy woman! I’ll be fine. I said that already.

Anyway, I decided what I would do was set myself a bunch of things I wanted to get done whilst C is away – maybe things that would be time consuming and immersive (and that would be neglectful to spend hours alone doing when C is here) and that would create more mess before resulting in order. I have a bunch of Twelfth Planet Press goals but also a bunch of household organisational tasks. I think if I have some time and space to organise and tidy up from my move in, then there will be places for things by the time C gets home and we can run maintenance from there. Well, that’s the plan.

And the first step in that plan was to fit in a trip to Ikea (amongst a bunch of other errands we had to run today including a tuxedo fitting and wedding present shopping and breakfast at Tiger Tiger, did I mention lately how much I love my guy?) to buy yet more bookshelves and storage. And C scheduled in a Hot Ikea Furniture Assembly Date Night to put it all together for me before he left and for me to fill whilst he is away. Well, I didn’t manage to commit to a TV unit for my main area. Gah! Such a troublesome thing. I want something not imposing but with lots of storage. But we did buy two bookshelf units. After C hunted high and low in the warehouse bit for a black Billy unit which were NOT were their assignation said they should be. And we put them together tonight.

This top one is in this bizarre nook in the bedroom (the crap to the right is C’s crap that used to sit where my bookcase now is). And I’m in trouble because as you can see, I already filled it. Well it’s my to read bookcase! Which yes, is stressful to have in the bedroom but I can’t see it from my bed and it is also filled with books I actually think I want to read. Though I have since discovered another small bookcase of to read queue. And I have also done the panic of – but this is a whole bookcase of books that will need to be shelved once I’ve read them!! C pointed out that I needed to read them first and we all know about that caper.

This black one is the second bookcase and after getting in trouble for filling the first, I have left it empty, as you can see. It’s the fourth Billy bookcase that C has assembled and he has now passed Billy Bookcase Assembly Cert 1. However, the spot I eyed off that I knew it would definitely fit into is C’s gaming room. And once it was there, it became appealing to him for his games. And I think I was confronted with my first moment of “us” v “me” – if I fill this bookcase with his games (currently kinda spread all across the house), I can have all the bookshelf and other spaces they currently take up. And the question is, did I lose shelf space by trading a whole bookcase?? But as C pointed out, it’s our house now and my objective is for the whole house to be tidy not just for my stuff to be tidy. It’s sneaky but I’ll pay it. I think. And in so doing, I shall nab his current stackable shelf things for my DVDs in my TV area (yes, we are those people, and we fit perfectly together because of this) and see how that goes.

So. Once he’s gone tomorrow and I have been and come back from a wedding, I shall compile my (prioritised) task list for the ten days ahead. I’m not allowed to overload it and be disappointed in myself when he comes back. Maybe I’ll have bonus round tasks instead.

Aliette de Bodard – On the Prevalence of US Tropes in Storytelling

New York City’s spots for book lovers

Curiosity Quills Interviews Jane Friedman Some interesting thoughts on the online and self publishing movement. Though complete ignorance of small press.

The Trans Atlantic Fan Fund (TAFF) is looking for candidates for 2012 Eastbound TAFF trip – winners go to Eastercon 2012.

Amazon’s Big Tablet to miss the holiday - although the Super Kindle is go!

Bloomsbury acquires Absolute Press

USA Today’s Big Books for Fall

Dark Horse’s Trailer for Buffy Season 9 and Angel and Faith –  August 2011

Ingram launches Global Connect –

a new program that will allow publishers in any country to print and distribute titles in countries where Ingram has its own operations as well as in countries of one of its partners.

Advertising in Ebooks – Heresy or Genius? As a publisher, I can see the financial side of it but … if advertisers can truly see how much attention and time we interact with their ads, won’t they know how much we actually ignore them? Could *that* be the end to ads?

College students buy the ebooks

Girl Genius on removing themselves from next years Hugo ballot consideration

Why Are So Many Literary Writers Shifting into Genre?

Dymocks to add a publishing arm to their business model

National Short Story Week – guest editor Tania Hershman, Short Story Addict (mentions a few names including our friend Rob Shearman!)

The Guardian First Book Long List

Margo Lanagan on what sparked her story The Goosle

Drive by of Jodi Cleghorn – this year’s winner of the Kris Hembry Encouragement Award

The 100 Most Sought After Out of Print Books – number 50 is a big deal knitting one (that I’d kinda thought I’d look for myself) I count 17 or thereabouts by women but notably the top 2 are women.

Is it OK to run an Illegal Library from My Locker at School? - is that a couple of books by Garth Nix on that list?

A brief public service message from N K Jemisin – I’ll summarise. Diversity means actual diversity and not just asking the same person over and again to tick off that representative box on your list. Go actually research who is out there and then go look for them. That’s half the fun.

The bacterium responsible for the Black Death was once a mild stomach bug – not an actual publishing link but come on! Holy freaking Batman!

TIME’s All Time 100 Best Novels

The Ned Kelly Winners for this year.

I can’t believe it’s Friday already. This week has been one of those weeks where work has been full on and then I’ve followed the day of deadlines to a night of working hard or getting home late to only get an hour or two in before bed and all of a sudden it’s freaking Friday. And September.

I don’t have anything interesting to report. I think I recorded about nine billion podcasts this week and wrote and edited and all kinds of being on the grind stuff. This weekend is very jam packed too and then C is off to the east and I will be without him I have plans though for that period of time, which I will reveal and track when he has gone.

Meanwhile, tonight I was catching up on some knitting during Galactic Suburbia (in that I unpicked the same row over and over during the 2 hours we recorded. Sigh) and I remembered that I hadn’t posted about my current projects for a while. My goal for knitting whilst on the field trip was to knit myself a pair of socks. I knew we would be doing a lot of driving so I knew at least that time would be available but I forgot how much people faff about (doing what, I do not know. I am actually very speedy and streamlined when not at home).

So … I managed to get this much done whilst I was away. I’d knit the first cuff previously. I got the heel turned before we had left the Perth metro area and cast off the toe before I think we left to come back home at the end of the three days.

I quite liked knitting socks in the car and I’m thinking I might have a project like this on the go for grabbing when we hop in the car, since for us most of our Perth stuff means a two hour commute. And when I say, “have a project like this on the go” I mean, *cough* progressively work through the various sock project I currently have on the needles. Maybe.

I’m a bit excited about these because I bought about three balls of self striping yarn way back when that was all the rage, like 6 or 7 years ago and I only ever got round to knitting myself one of these pairs. It’s a mix of fibres with a bit of nylon through it so, can go in the wash like a normal pair of socks and wears quite well.

The Shawl. I decided in the end to unravel the project I had. I just did not like what it was looking like. And then I cast it back on in this yarn – Latte by Sophie’s Toes. I’ve knit the shawl basically and am now working on the lace border which you can glimpse at the top. I added a repeat to each side of the centre because I knit it up first off with the recommended stitches but thought it was too narrow. So this shawl in the end has been quite a trial to get to the end of. I hope it ends up being pretty.