Champagne and Socks

Turns out I have a lot to say under this post’s subject heading. I’ve been working on part 1 for a few days now and I think the problem is too many competing thoughts. So here’s part 2 first, instead.

I guess in some ways I feel very much against the clock at the moment. Some things, you just can’t apply for extensions on – tenders, grant applications and babies. I have a lot I want to get done before the baby comes. A lot of things I want to get sorted or just dealt with so that I don’t need to deal with them afterwards. Right now, I have time, and mostly good headspace. Later, maybe not so much.

And in the process of working through stuff and how to set systems up to cope when I have more on my plate I’ve been able to come much more ruthless and decisive. I spose it’s a momentum you develop and the hard bit about saying no or culling things from your life is the starting. Once you’re used to be able to say no, once no isn’t so terrible anymore, once you experience the freedom that no brings, it’s a lot less scary and a lot easier to say.

I’ve been weeding my book collection. The truth is, it’s not really a well thought out collection anyhow. It’s a bunch of gonnas, maybes, one days and shoulds. When you move that clutter out the way though, it’s left with OOh! and Hey! and I really have been meaning to! I’m weeding my shelves a couple of books at a time. Sometimes I have to think about it for a few days – if I like that writer’s whole body of work except this one book, do I have to keep that book? Turns out, I’m not a library and I am under no obligation to have a complete archive – I’m only ever going to lend a book like that with, “I personally thought this one was shit, but hey…” I’m slowly pruning it to bookshelves where every book on them means something positive or uplifting (in experience/memory) to me. And I’m removing books that I feel I need to have because someone else will be impressed by my owning it. Or books I have there for guilt reasons – gifted to me, or struggling to enjoy or feel I should have to read or maybe if I try reading in a couple of years time I’ll make it past the first 40 pages.

I don’t really have much time for leisure reading. It’s not like that fact is going to substantially change in say the next five years. Any book I have in my TBR queue is taking the place of a book that’s yet to be published that I might want to read. Or will become a feeling of guilt when I do buy that 2015 book and I haven’t read the TBR pile yet. Cause I have books still sitting in my TBR from more than 5 (10 and even 15) years ago now.

I’ve started trialling turning off backlit electronic devices before bed and reading paper books in an attempt to combat some of my insomnia/trouble getting to sleep. It’s helping. But I’m also discovering that a lot of books I have in my TBR are not fun/enjoyable to read. If that hour before bed is my only time in the day for complete relaxation reading and might be the only time for the foreseeable future, why should that hour be a struggle, or be me forcing myself to push on with a book because I feel guilty about not reading it or feeling I should read it or because I bought it therefore must read it? I’ve stopped reading a lot of books in the last three weeks and culled them – mostly pulp crime or chic lit – because those books should be easy, page turners, and if they’re not, why am I reading them? Being able to start making that decision that if I’m not enjoying a book after 40 pages, it’s wasting the time I have for enjoyable reading, is helping me work through a bigger issue.

What do I think will be so different in 5 years time in terms of enjoying this book more than I am now? I often put a book down that I’m not getting into with the thinking that maybe in a different mood, or a different place in my life, I might enjoy the book more. I can’t really think of one example that that’s actually ever been true or happened.

I saw a great pic on Facebook the other day that said “If you don’t enjoy reading, you’re doing it wrong” – you know how sometimes some random placard just hits a chord with you? I’ve been thinking a lot about how some people like to say that if you haven’t read X you’re not entitled to an opinion about Y genre or you can’t consider yourself a “real” fan or you’re not as worthy of participating in discussions, you haven’t “earned” your cred. I came to SF in my own way and in my own time and on my own terms. But for a large portion of the last decade or so I’ve been feeling obliged/guilty/required to get certain books read. So that I can consider myself a proper legitimate person entitled to an opinion. The thing is, I find a lot of those books boring. And I felt bad about that. I felt inadequate. Like, maybe I didn’t really enjoy the genre if I didn’t enjoy X or Y. Or didn’t get why other people did.

And that made me stop enjoying reading. It’s given me a reading block for the last 5 to 7 years. Certainly for novels. It makes the culture consumed section of Galactic Suburbia hard, a struggle, and sometimes embarrassing for me.

Then I started culling books I wasn’t enjoying. I started looking at each book I was picking up to read from my TBR at night and asking myself if, given I have a limited number of books I can read over the rest of my lifetime, did I really want this book to be one of them? It’s amazing how, with that perspective, it’s easy to ditch a book you’re not enjoying. Especially when you read slowly and carefully. Especially when the choice is between forcing yourself to read something you don’t like versus zipping through something you’re really engrossed in. Ahhh … being engrossed in a world and a story. Wasn’t that the point of this whole hobby in the first place?

And then I came across this a week or so ago:

It sums up exactly where my head is at right now. I don’t need anyone else’s approval to sanction my fan activity as legitimate. I don’t need to sit anyone else’s test or read their curriculum to get a pass. I don’t need to like what other people like in order to prove my worth. I’m me. And I like what I like, because *I* like it. Because my experience is unique and personal. And my interests, and what interests me, are mine. And lots and lots of the books that I’m “supposed to like” are books that I probably will never be able to relate to no matter how many times I try and no matter how many decades I try to read them in. Luckily for me, the genre I love is diverse and broad and has lots of different niches and books within it. And there *are* lots of books that *I do* enjoy reading. And forcing myself to read books I don’t to win some other person’s approval or permission is a complete waste of *my* time. And in fact, was working to make me kinda hate my so defined genre.

Who cares if person over there thinks I don’t get to have an opinion? Last time I checked, no one has been awarded the policing-the-genre badge. What if I have my own opinions anyway? It’s kinda been working out ok for me so far. And … this is supposed to *fun* after all, right? Right? Deciding who gets to have an opinion and who doesn’t, based on your own contrived approved list of books, is just another subtle act of excluding people. And I finished highschool a looooooong time ago now.

Ah… the freedom! I don’t need your approval. I don’t need your permission. I don’t need you to like me.

It’s AWESOME!

I completely underestimated this whole zero inbox thing. I was promised great things but I admit I was a bit skeptical. I’d been slowly chipping away at my inbox for months. You know you have a number of emails pending that you get comfortable with, that you feel like you are in reasonable control of it all. It used to be 100 for me. And then I managed to get it down to 50. Lately it’s been between 20 and 40. But this last week, I’d been hovering at around 8. I was listening to one of the David Allen CDs yesterday and he said something about coaching an exec who had got theirs down to 5 and was getting ready to leave for the day. David encouraged him to go all the way to “see what it would feel like”. And as I stared at my final 5 emails late yesterday, I thought, “hey, let’s just see what it feels like.”

And what did it feel like? I’d been feeling bad all day that I hadn’t really done “enough” work for the day. I’d been doing small tasks and more backlog type things. And then at about 6pm, after I reached zero inbox, I suddenly found myself at my desk, typing solidly for a full hour, working on my PhD Candidacy application (it’s the first step you need to do as a phd student and basically outlines in 10 pages your thesis), I wrote 2700 words into what had previously been a blank, named document. I outlined the basic methodology and objectives, some of the background, some issues that I think need investigating to nail other bits down, even referred to material I’d been reading as part of my lit review. I wrote 7 pages. They aren’t great. But it’s a 10 page document. It’s too big a project for a PhD. Which is a great start – I have a lot of material to pare down. Lots of opened loops to go off and investigate to nail this down. I have a way forward. In one hour. I haven’t felt so clear headed in a very long time. Didn’t even know I could still think that clearly.

It was amazing.

That’s the promise of this whole management system – that by setting it up and maintaining it properly, you free your head from the day to day minutia, from thinking the same thoughts more than once, from being stressed about things you need to remember or need to do and you can move on to being creative. This was the first glimpse of this for me. And I’m addicted!

So I’ve been absent from the blog. Mostly because I don’t feel like I have much to post about or that I have too much to post about. I noticed yesterday I’ve become that person – you know the one who spends all day, every day, alone and so when the chance arises to talk, the words just keep pouring out. I’ve become way chattier than I used to be. Small talk. And things. Cause it’s just me, and the puppy, for most of my waking hours.

I also didn’t know how many posts you’d read on how awful I felt. I figured maybe like two? At my last visit, I guess nearly a month ago now, my midwife said I’d start to feel better at about the 22 week mark. *22*!!! Talk about constantly moving the fucking goal posts. If I’d known at 8 weeks that it would be another 14 weeks til I felt less than terrible all the time … well. Let’s not go there. And to be fair, at 8 weeks along, I knew it was possible I might not feel better at all til delivery, but I couldn’t really think too hard about that. In any case, thank goodness I’ve had a pretty good run this last fortnight. I’ve had a couple of less than awesome days but that’s a huge improvement from where I was at. I’m up and running enough now to have started beating myself up about being so unproductive for the last 4 months (cause that’s how I roll).

So. An update. In terms of the baby, I had the just less than 20 week anatomy scan and got to see all the organs and limbs and whatnot. The baby still does not stay still for a minute, and definitely not for 3D scans. I’ve got one brief profile, of which my mother is most pleased with the nose we’ve got. So that’s good We (husband and I) know the gender but we’re keeping it a secret. We sort of have a name picked out but I want to wait til we meet this new person to check the name fits (I should probably have a short list in case …). The baby is ticking all the good boxes, and that’s fabulous. It’s in the 80th percentile, which is generally where I like to sit, in all things marked on a bell curve

I meant to take a selfie this week to show my bump which appears to be larger than expected for someone 23 weeks along. People keep asking me if I’m having twins. I am not. I’ve put on weight, at the lower end of the range and all on my belly. It’s funny (it’s not really) how bad I’d been feeling about myself for putting on the weight – the midwife I’d been seeing had made me agree not to put on any weight this pregnancy. It was totally impossible not to eat and to not eat carbs and also manage my morning sickness. I don’t have any hunger at all, really. I think in the last 20 weeks, I could tell you the three times I’ve actually been hungry (two were in the last fortnight). Most of the time I go from not even thinking about food directly to nauseous if I forget to eat too long. I don’t really have any cravings as far as I can tell. And smells don’t really seem to bother me. Last visit to the doctor, I had a different midwife who was appalled at the idea of not putting on any weight. She told me not to be so hard on myself. And to just do what I need to do. I’ve switched days so I can see her for the rest of my pregnancy, except for the next appointment which I made previously and for which I am now dreading, on account of … weight gain.

But the whole not having the pregnancy experience that everyone was quick to tell me about – the smells, the food cravings etc etc has really helped me put into perspective a lot of this stuff. My experience is mine. People are individuals and we work to a kind of bell curve where on the whole shared experiences, averaged out, will be similar. But they aren’t the same. And what works for you might not work for me. And what happens to you, has no real bearing on what happens to me. I’m hoping this realisation will stay with me as we enter the next phase after this one and get exposed to “drive by parenting” as Tansy calls it. It’s useful to hear how other people coped and their stories. But it’s important to keep them in perspective.

At about the 22 week mark I did start to feel better – I still have to manage the sickness stuff but I started to have more energy. More will to live. I might have even worn lipstick a couple of times. Around that time, Tansy and I were chatting pre Galactic Suburbia recording, and she said to me that I needed to learn how to hack myself. I’d mentioned that on Wednesdays I found that because I *had* to leave the house at the crack of dawn and spend an hour/hour and a half out of the house, I was getting a lot of work done by going to a local coffee shop. I take my laptop, a couple of files of reading that I need to do, and sit and drink a fake coffee, eat a muffin and just work. I was finding it was my most productive hour of the week – reading 20k words and actually editing and getting feedback to writers and progressing things. Hence her suggestion to figure out how to hack myself.

I’m not sure if it was because I had more energy that week, or the experiment I tried which was setting myself 1 task/errand to run each day that required me to leave the house. Not the most efficient way to run errands, spreading them out across the week, but it meant I had to get dressed, leave the house, drive, speak to someone, deal with money and then come home again. And that process seemed to jumpstart my brain out of sluggish lazy Sunday morning and into sharp, clear focussed, capable of thinking brain. I came home every day last week, walked straight into my study and worked at my desk (for the first time) for 6 or 7 hours straight. A miracle. This week, I haven’t left the house as much but the routine of last week has meant that I tend to just go straight into the study and stay there.

The other thing I did last week was admit to myself that I was just floating. Sometimes the hardest part of fixing a problem is admitting and defining it. I was coasting in life, in TPP, in my studies. I had no plan. I had no goals. I had no milestones to work to. I had no way to measure if I made good use of a day or not. Sure, I have a baby sitting at the 80th percentile to show for this year, but it doesn’t feel like I’ve done much about that other than hold on for dear life and survive it. I realised that I needed to do a huge planning session, a big think about how to figure out how to know what “not floating” meant. And that that would take more than five minutes. So I drew myself up a short term set of 10 goals for last week, each with about 5 small achievable tasks. I wrote them out and stuck them up on the wall and I pulled out my Red Tick pen. The one that marks off SUCCESS. And I set about doing those tasks.

And in between working on those tasks, I hauled myself back to the beginning of David Allen’s Getting Things Done and I started working through that. I’ve been sitting through one webinar from his website as the start of every day. (I might have a GTD Connect account too.) And now, I’ve moved on to working through a series of CDs we have which is his 2 day workshop (I bought them for C for his birthday a couple of years ago – he’s never listened to them, turned out he wanted the templates and things that came with the CDs). I’m starting from the bottom up. I’m working through every aspect of my life to get myself into a working system that enables me to get things done. This includes having a set in tray for all my physical shit that comes in – bills, letters, receipts, tasks – and keeping it at zero. Working with zero inbox on a daily basis. Clearing all my email backlog (currently I have two years worth of backlog to clear out). Filing everything. Having a system to keep track of all my projects in progress, every idea or thing I need to chase up. And having my house exactly the way I want it – clear space, clutter free, no backlog, no rooms with junk in it, no cupboards you can’t open, no crap you don’t need. No things in my life, physical or electronic or mental, that need to be dealt with but niggling at me cause I’m not.

It’s only week 2. But I’m doing not too badly at zero inbox – I’m at about 8 emails by the end of the day. I’ve got a plan and a system with slowly working through backlog – electronic, email, paper and life. And I’m sorting actions on all that “stuff”. And I’m starting to think about what it might be like to live a life with no backlog, no “oh I have tos” lying around. I used to be scared of that kind of thing. Like, what would I do? But I think the good news is, you never don’t have new things, new opportunities coming in. With no backlog, no mental baggage, no unnecessary stress, you don’t have to be slowed down in acting. That could be cool.

And we do have this new person joining our household in less than 4 months. I’ve started clearing out their room. I’m making progress on that actually. Making space in my physical and my personal life. It’s a very definite deadline I’m working to. I’d like to have all my backlog cleared so that I can make it all work. For the first time this year, I’m starting to feel like that might actually happen.

Several exciting things have happened about the offices (I mean house) this week.

First up, Kaaron Warren became the first Aussie ever to win a Shirley Jackson Award. This weekend she won for Best Novella with “Sky” from her collection Through Splintered Walls. The Shirley Jackson Awards recognize work that is innovative, disturbing and excellent. And I’ve long aspired for the work we publish at Twelfth Planet Press to be considered of this calibre.

“Sky” also won the Ditmar Award, the Australian Shadows Award and the Aurealis Award, becoming the first story to win all three. It’s such an astounding effort and I’m so proud that I had the opportunity to work with Kaaron on this collection.

Yesterday, we released this fabulously, deliciously inviting, scrumptious book trailer for A Trifle Dead which was made for us by Film students at Curtin University as part of their term work. It was a lot of fun seeing this come together and hearing about the progress and I think they really nailed the book in their interpretation. (We’re doing the ebook for $5.95 this week only to celebrate the release).

And finally, this week, all three of us at Galactic Suburbia got Mind Melded over at SF Signal on our favourite genre road trips of all time. I chose Star Trek Voyager cause I just started an entire series rewatch and I still love everything about a TV show with a female captain

Over the weekend, the silent producer published our latest episode.

In which we ask the all-important question, what do David Bowie, Tolkien, Judith Merril, H.R. Giger and Joanna Russ have in common? Also harassment in SF, and the many shades of awesome that was Captain Janeway of Star Trek: Voyager

SF Hall of Fame includes some familiar names.