Champagne and Socks

Serendipity is the strangest thing. Yesterday I was having this long talk with Ben about combating negativity and personal attacks – reconciling the hateful things people say about you or to you with how you see yourself. Today, I’m sitting here watching an interview that Oprah did with Sheryl Sandberg which aired on Jan 21st but I’ve been putting off watching. She’s talking about her book Lean In, which I vaguely recall got some negative press when it was published but I forget what.

Anyway, they’re talking about the bullshit labels/pressure people put on women – eg  “having it all” and “work life balance”. Noone ever really asks successful men how they manage to have it all or balance work and life (they have wives for that, right?). And work life balance is a privilege that not everyone gets to contemplate anyhow.

Then they get on to the “imposter syndrome” and I start nodding my head. And realising how much this ties into yesterday’s conversation. Sandberg says that whilst some men do suffer from it, more women than men do. And when you ask a woman and a man about their success, a man more often than not will own his success, that it’s from what *he did*, from what he knows and his skills. Whereas a woman will “attribute her success to luck, help from other people and working hard, and not from her own skills. And even if you’re confident enough to own your own success, the world will attribute her success to luck and working hard and not from her own skills.” And then she says, “we do it to ourselves and the world does it *to* us.”

Wow. I have to sit with that for a while. But just Yes. What an interesting discussion to come past me just when I was thinking these things through only yesterday. So many passing snide remarks in my direction over time- it’s my friends who all voted for me, I sucked my way onto that list (I’m very tired now), editing collections is so much easier than anthologies cause they are all the one writer’s work (and I guess I just put the staple on the pages and hand it in with my name on it?), who is she? I’ve never heard of her, I don’t understand why these female run small presses are doing so well. And on and on.

It’s interesting to deconstruct. Isn’t it very telling to assume that working well with others or working hard are the parts of success that hold no value? Imagine having all the skills in the world but never actually applying them. Or not applying them consistently or with perseverance. Imagine having all the skills in the world but being a totally foul person who makes teamwork intolerable. Actually, I don’t have to imagine these two examples at all.

The Olympics are over for another 4/2 years and I must confess to having watched a lot more of it than I thought I would. I was working on an arts grant during the first week of them and pulled a good few late nights (working til 2am and then getting up for the baby’s next feed, that is *awesome* I must say, but it showed me that I *can* get clear, lucid and creative thought when I need to, phew!)

This was the first Olympics that I was home and about enough to actually participate in what used to be called the Knitting Olympics and is now called the Ravellenics. I didn’t sign up for anything official though. I just challenged myself to knit to finish as much as I could in the set time. Since I hadn’t been knitting at all, anything would be an achievement. But I hoped to start and finish a pair of socks, which would be my first pair knit in my knitting challenge for the year. I cast on during the opening ceremony, knit far into the night before going to bed and waking up in the morning to hate the pattern I’d picked. And so it goes! I had to unpick and start over! I also tried knitting two socks together for the first time.

And so, how did I do? Behold the knitting I completed over the fortnight:

That would be: 1 hotwater bottle cover (in my November yarn from KnitCrate, I opted not to go with the boot warmers pattern that they came with), 1 cloche hat (my January yarn from KnitCrate – Zen Yarns Garden – and just needing a button to finish) and a pair of socks in Watermelon by Claudia Handpainted.

And! I cast on and knit to the heels on these:

Mediumweight Socks That Rock by Blue Moon Fibre Arts in a Mill End. These are socks pair number 2 for 2014 and are a gift …

One of my favourite TV shows is Dragons Den. A panel of multi-millionaire entrepreneurs (or businesses in marketing, branding and so on) sit in judgment as they get pitched business ideas, mostly for inventions. Some contestants have done prototypes and small-scale production runs. All are looking for cash investment and mentoring in marketing, branding and taking a start up to a fully fledged viable business. My favourite bit is when one of the Dragons decides there is a good idea that they think they could make fly and then they offer X cash to buy in to the company for Y percentage partnership. Almost without fail, the person will reject the offer of lots of money because the deal is for more than 50% ownership of the company.

Their thinking being that an idea is worth equal or more than its execution. Or that having an awesome idea is enough alone to make it successful. The Dragons usually smile serenely. To them, it’s easy come, easy go. They know that an idea is not enough. That there are more ideas in the world than can be developed. The negotiation also tells them a lot about what that partnership might be like. Are they going to be overly possessive and territorial? Are they going to be open to mentorship? Are they going to step aside to let others with experience handle things like packaging, branding, marketing, promotion and access to delivery channels? Where will they decide the line is between “mine” and “ours”?

I think a lot about this show as I watch the narratives about the evolving models of publishing. Publishing is (as always) in a state of flux, in a reinvention of sorts. Small press models don’t look anything like they did when I started my press back in 2007. And it’s not a risk to say it will look markedly different in five years time. I’m very passionate about speculative fiction and about writers. As a small press, we sit very decidedly outside mainstream/big publishing and our role is very distinct. We try to offer the best and fairest deals we can when we acquire manuscripts and we try to offer a value addition of personal care and interest beyond the publication date. I like to think there is a very clear narrative that runs through the books I acquire that embody the ethos, direction, and yes, branding, of Twelfth Planet Press. I’m gradually building an argument, a response, a discussion point and when I read submissions, I’m looking for pieces that will expand, broaden, deepen or emphasise that narrative.

Of course, the other aspect that I look for at acquisitions is whether I think a work is likely, or has the potential, to sell to break even, or, you know, one day, make profit. I’m running a business after all. So far, I’m still waiting for the long tail to kick in and kick back most of my investment dollars. The thing about the old skool publishing model is that it works across all the titles bought in a year – some you win (make profit), some you lose (make losses) and across the board you cross your fingers and hope you come out ahead. This approach is what enables publishers to invest in books they know won’t ever earn out or end up in the black but that they believe should exist.

It’s a different model to self publishing. And like self publishing, it works for some cases, and not others. But I saw a t-shirt the other day that said “What part of 70% royalties do you not understand?” and it took me back a bit. Sure, there is an element out there with a pretty strong hate on for publishers but it strikes me as a bit naive or deliberately simplistic. It comes back to the Dragons Den and the idea that the only person who works to create a book is the writer. And that the only costs are paying said writer. Or that the writing might be the most expensive/only part of creating a book.

I’ve run the maths of going to digital only publishing to play with the business model. I’ve also tried to look at offering our ebooks at that $0.99 or $1.99 price point. I really hope we don’t see this flux in the business model end up with books only costing 99 cents. It’s such a huge undervaluation of what it costs to produce the product. To think that you deserve 70% royalties means you think that the cover artist, the book designer, the layout, the editors, the proofers, the marketers and promoters, the promotion material including launch events, and overheads like electricity, software, website management, bank charges, fees for online sales transactions and so many other costs, as well as publisher reputation and branding should somehow be covered by that 30%. That’s one helluva turnover of book sales. It also suggests that all those people take almost no role in the success of your book. I mean, as we all know, no book of excellent quality has ever been overlooked or failed to succeed, since cream always rises to the top, all on its own.

Which is not to say that 70% isn’t a great deal. I don’t have anything against self publishing. It’s the obvious choice in some situations. But when considering all those choices, that 70% really needs to be viewed honestly – what costs will also need to be covered by that? Editing costs? Proofing? Ebook conversion? Buying a cover? Spending time learning layout and publicity? Advertising and promotion? How much time will be required to be invested in product awareness? There are outdated aspects of the publishing business model. And the changes we are currently experiencing will force that hand. But the changes that will happen, and need to, will happen within the realm of economics and viability.

On Saturday we had reason to look for somewhere to camp for a while. The baby and I were hanging out in the CBD whilst C was off doing things for about 2 hours. I had in mind a couple of cafes I wanted to hang out in but most of them were closed. Looks like the Milligan end of Hay St is for work hours and not so much a Saturday at lunchtime.

We ended up at the Dome cafe right on the corner of Milligan and Hay St. Dome is an old faithful. It’s not my favourite cup of coffee but it’s fine. The menu feels like it could really use a freshen up. But again, it’s fine. The best bit I guess is there is lots of space to sit for a while and noone really seems to mind.

The aisles are wide and there enough room to maneuver. The staff were affable and very attentive to the baby. However, once you’ve ordered, you really have no interaction with the staff again. Someone brings out your order but must be trained not to catch your eye. I noticed tables being cleared but not once did I see one wiped over. In fact, my table was gross (I sat there because it had a lot of room for the baby and the chair was comfy) and needed a wipe over that never had an opportunity to happen and I worked off my lap rather than the table.

The baby was a bit grizzly in the first hour but the place was reasonably empty and didn’t seem to bother anyone. She slept for the second hour and again, wasn’t really bothered by anyone. Wide aisles meant people could move past her without issue. And I really dug the jazz music.

Pros:

• Comfy seats
• Generous cups of coffee
• I like the music
• Comfortable working space
• Airconditioned

Cons

• Ordinary service – good luck getting offered a second cup of coffee, I had to go up to the counter pushing pram in one hand, holding my laptop, wallet and phone in the other to order myself a second cup.
• I’m bored of the menu
• C said his lunch was not made with love. his serving of squid rings did look awfully meagre and his side salad was simply lettuce (my Mediterranean roasted vegetable wrap was fine; was hot and seemed fresh)

I actually managed to get a lot of work done – it might have only been 20 to 40 minutes or so due to the baby not really settling but it was pretty focussed. I was left alone and the space was comfy, reasonably quiet, airconned on a warm day. I liked the funky music for getting in the mood for working. I would probably work in a Dome again and this one was a good Saturday in the city option.

In which 2014 is officially a thing.

I just really enjoyed listening to the Skiffy and Fanty Show (Shaun and Julia) talk with Marianne de Pierres and Tansy Roberts about Australian speculative fiction.

Small press gets a really thorough recommendation and they say lovely things about Twelfth Planet Press. Also some really great reading lists for Australian fiction and authors, big press and small.

Well worth a listen – here! Or just check out the Show Notes.

The World SF Tour are also raising money to go to Worldcon.

I’ve been working on writing this blog post for over a week now. But as it turns out, the process of pulling what I wanted to say together, and doing a few other things, ended up bringing me a few understandings that have changed what I wanted to write entirely.

You see, it was worrying me how much I could relate to and understand how people end up on the show Hoarders. On an episode recently, there was a sweet old lady whose house wasn’t dirty or gross but it was jam packing in with plastic boxes stacked to the ceiling filled with perfectly good craft things – books, tools, materials and so on. The probably was that everything was perfectly usable and not able to be thrown out. One of the doctors on the show said that a problem with hoarders in general was the intent, things there were going to get to or do, at some point. So of course, this woman had a problem with cleaning out her house – how could you thrown that stuff out? And in doing so, it would have involved admitted and coming to peace with the fact that she couldn’t possibly *do* all those things she intended to. David Allen describes that emotion as grief – at letting yourself and your commitments to yourself down. He also says that in taking audit and then keeping track of all your projects and commitments, you will suddenly discover the word “No”.

So all of this has had me thinking a lot about my sock yarn stash. It is this major brick wall of both guilt and of scheduled future time. If I’m actually going to knit it all. That means I’ve already decided a whole lot (and I mean a *whole lot*) of crafting I am going to do. At some point in time. And that kinda actually takes some of the fun out of it. It also means I can’t justify buying more yarn when I have so much [1]. The problem though is that your tastes gradually change over time and what you liked 5 or 10 years ago may no longer be your thing. And horrifyingly, I think I have been stashing some of this stuff that long now.

And I’m *still* buying yarn! Despite deciding I need to reduce my stash, I bought this pile in the latest Black Friday sales (of yarn I have be lusting after for years – Lorna Laces in Bittersweet, Claudia Handpainted in Watermelon, Handmaiden sea silk, ooh and a madeleintosh which I’ve only ever heard about never seen and in TPP colour!)

And I signed up for a bimonthly (every other month) subscription to KnitCrate. Here are the yarns in the January stash (Blue Sky Alpaca and Zen Yarn Gardens. Also, miniskeins which I have crocheted up already, see top picture).

I decided that I would spend this year knitting up as many pairs of socks as possible. Just to see how many I could knit. And I’ve got a couple of subprojects relating to that to work on over the year. And to that end, I thought I would cast on during the Opening Ceremony (ala the Ravellenics – the old knitters tradition of picking something ambitious in a tight timeframe and going above and beyond as the Olympic spirit to get it done by the Closing Ceremony. It’s a knitting thing). To that, I needed to figure out the first project and then wind up the skeins into balls to get going.

Easy, right? Wellllll …. I *thought*  I had attachment issues relating to my skein collection. That handpainted yarn looks so gorgeous as skeins that I couldn’t bear to ball it up for use. And that that was my problem with this whole stashing thing. Yeah, I think not so much. I mean, I do enjoy admitting the whole colour play thing but, yarn cakes are also very nice. And so is actually working with the yarn – watching the colour work into a textile.

The first projects selection (shocked how little impact this made on my stash but you gotta start somewhere.

I went to take before and after shots of some yarn skeins into cakes viz:

 And I discovered a horrible truth! The true reason most of my stash is in skeins is not because I love to admire it in such form, it’s because a long time a go, I cut corners on getting all the tools and I skimped on getting a Swift – this is the thing that you hook the skein onto so it doesn’t get tied into knots as you wind it it into the ball on the ball winder (see photo above). I think I thought I could wing it without this device and have never put it together that I hate winding up the balls because it always takes ages and I spend a lot of time undoing the knots. I really have no idea why I can’t commit to a new hobby or interest and buy all the required tools. I really don’t know why I insist on doing it half-arsed and get annoyed and never really execute things properly. I was worried all this time I was a yarn collector and not a knitter. Turns out I just forgot why I was procrastinating.

So I bought a swift online, which is still coming, and in the meanwhile, I wound these two balls up by hand to cast on during the Opening Ceremony. I’m having a go knitting two socks at the same time:

And, confession, after lusting after this yarn colourway for literally years, and then admiring it for months in skein form, knitting it up, it doesn’t really look how I thought it would. And I’m a little disappointed. It’s Claudia Handpainted in Watermelon. I thought the striping would be a bit different, more solid.

And in all this process, I had a second revelation. All this time, like seriously, for 15 years or something, I thought I could only monogamously craft – that I could either knit or quilt and would do so obsessively, but that I couldn’t do both at once and that I certainly couldn’t bounce back and forward between them. I thought I could either do one for like 6 months and then switch out. As in, that is how it’s always been. But in all this faffing around with the knitting, I’ve been quietly also progressing my most current quilting project. And the reason for that is because all the pieces have been cut and the blocks I’m working on all have the next pieces pinned in place. So it’s just a matter of picking the next piece off the pile and sewing it. There is no thinking needed about it at all. Which is the GTD philosophy in action – do all your thinking in one go and figure out the next action so that you can just crank the widgets in the moment.

And so my revelation – the reason I usually switch from one craft to the other is that I get stuck on a project and don’t know how to move forward (or I have to unpick whatever it was I had just done) and it all feels too hard so I go and pick up the other craft. And that craft has all these exciting next actions ready to go and away I plunge until I hit a wall there. None of it had anything to do with being in one head space or the other. It just was a matter of never leaving anything without knowing what the next action for progressing it should be.

I feel really weird with all these breakthroughs. Must be time to lie down. Or buy more yarn.

[1] Which is also not necessarily a bad thing given I’m a student again but there are so many yarns out there yet to try and somehow I got stuck at Blue Moon Fibre Arts![2]
[2] Also not necessarily a bad thing.

This cafe visit was purely leisure as I met up with my sister for lunch last week. It was a very hot day and the baby and I had had an *interesting*, shall we say, morning.

Cantina, on Beautfort St, is a lil’ bit fancy and I’m never really sure about it. It’s a bit pricey but the coffee is really good. The service is very attentive and obliging but you can’t alter anything on the menu, which was problematic for me when pregnant as their only vegetarian dishes weren’t pregnancy friendly.

Pros:

• Good coffee
• Excellent table service
• Very clean toilets
• Nice range of seating options including booths (good for allowing the baby to spread out) and out of the way tables with ramp for access.
• My pram was technically in the way of traffic but noone really minded
• We sat for quite a while and the staff were happy to offer more coffee and refills of free water
• The food is good – I ordered the gnocchi which I both ordered at the cafe I reviewed last week and the last time I was at this cafe. I like gnocchi. Also, vegetarian.

Cons:

• No Wifi.
• It’s pricey
• The coffee is served in itty bitty cups. It felt like 3 mouthfuls of flat white. Delicious but not really enough for if you want to sit over a cup of coffee. Also … expensive for what you get.
• We sat outside on the warm day which was warm

Overall, the coffee is very good and the service makes the visit enjoyable. It’s a nice spot to catch up with friends, I’m a semi regular there. But I don’t think it will be on our working space list.

It’s funny how synchronicity works. How you only suddenly notice that different aspects of your life keep throwing up the same lesson to you and that you know, you could acknowledge it now or acknowledge it later but either way, it seems to be the lesson you’re learning right now.

For me, this year, I feel like “organise” is it. When a baby comes along, I think you start to drown without organisation. In the beginning I was all winging it and stuff but the only real way I’m finding I’m able to feel less overwhelmed and get some air is to be organised. The only way I can get out the door remotely close to the planned time in the morning is if I’ve packed the baby bag the night before. And it only takes a couple of times of having to soothe a screaming-the-house-down upset baby whilst the bottles are in the steriliser and then in the freezer to cool down enough before you clue up to the fact that you should be ahead of the game. Now, no matter what happens, I’m making up at least 12 hours worth of bottles before I go to bed. I’ve even leapt out of bed at close to 1am when I realised I didn’t have enough bottles as back up and stayed up boiling kettles and prepping. Because, then, no matter how much hits the wall in the day ahead of you, at least you have bottles. And there have been a day or two when we’ve gone through what I thought would be 12 hours worth of bottles before lunch. I didn’t realise what people meant when they said you need to organise with a baby. I didn’t really get that it meant you have to organise everything else around the baby, not the actual baby herself.

I started the February round of the 12WBT today. And one of the things Michelle really drums into your head is the need to be organised to get this done. The very first round we did (ooh was that 2012 now??) we were organised and it really worked out. And then I found in subsequent rounds, if I hadn’t really worked out how things would go at the beginning of the week, well, it didn’t really happen. Because when all hell breaks loose, you drop the things you haven’t really thought through properly. Thinking just complicates things when you’re in put out the fire mode. This time, I actually sat down and planned out this week  – when we might need to cook things days ahead, when exactly (as in what timeslot) I would do which workouts (she gives you what you will do for the day ahead of time) and I thought through properly what I actually need to do, with mini milestones, towards reaching my goals. I’d like to be running 5km by the end of this gig. That means I need to be running say 2.5 km by the end of 6 weeks etc. We get the shopping lists on a Thursday so you have all the ingredients you need at the beginning of the week. And that really makes such a difference. Today, I was rushing with lots of things on and a very unsettled baby. It would have been easy to eat something less than optimum if I didn’t already have most of it preassembled (thanks to C) in the fridge. Grabbing the healthy option then became as fast as any other.

David Allen really emphasises the need to be organised in GTD, obviously. And one of the elements of the weekly review – the look ahead at the week to come – is becoming more and more glaringly obvious how important that is. Michelle Bridges calls it red flag days, where you know you will have issues either with following your nutrition plan (say you have a lunch or dinner out or your day is filled with appointments that makes getting your exercise in difficult). Allen talks about how you put something near the front door so you don’t forget to leave the house with it as an example of looking for things before they show up and blow up. I’m not always good at getting to this part of the weekly review but damn it’s annoying when I haven’t and hugely gratifying when I have, and have put in place the things I need to have done so things don’t blow up. The other day, we calmly walked out of the house at 8.30, within 5 minutes of deciding to leave because I’d done all the preparation the night before. Because I knew that would be hard for me to do so I did all the hard work ahead of time. Allen calls it the “ick factor” when you do things not because they are good for you – like brushing your teeth – but because you can’t stand the ick. After it not bothering me for ever so long, I now can’t stand leaving the kitchen with mess. I don’t like going to bed without clean benches. It just icks me now, in a way it didn’t before. I wonder what other new habits I might pick up inadvertently due to ick.

I in no way have this “organised” thing sorted. But I’m hyperaware of how it is arising across aspects of my life and how much of a difference it makes when I am organised vs when I am not. I think somehow by the end of this year, I might see myself as a much more organised person than I do now. The thing I don’t yet understand though is how you don’t require more time somewhere in the equation to be able to both do the things you need to do today as well as spend time today preparing things ahead of time for tomorrow. Or, put another way, what was I doing with this time before? It upsets me to think that I might have been doing nothing with it. Or worse, that it might be a bit like how if you put all your things away as soon as you finish using them, you never have to put time aside in the future to tidy up. And you don’t really notice the time you took to say put your shoes back in their spot. I think most likely it all takes the same amount of finite (your whole life allotment) time but one version allows you to live it a lot more stressfree. I think I’m just in the adjustment phase towards that constant state of being. I hope.

This week we tried out Circa on Beautfort St, Mt Lawley (opposite the Astor Theatre, where Diva used to be).

I was a little wary about it because it’s a long and narrow shop and has a bunch of steps into and then through to the back of it. And I wasn’t sure it would have enough room for the pram. But I have to say, access (for a pram) was not really a problem – I did need help getting it up the stairs in but there was enough space to park it next to our booth for a good chunk of the day. Also, the staff were very helpful and understanding and I didn’t feel made to feel bad about leaving the pram there.

Pros:

• Very comfy booths with large tables to work at. I never got uncomfortable sitting and the table took two electronic devices, a whole heap of baby things, big plates with food and a couple of cups of coffee.
• Love the decor of dark wood panelling and also the very pretty bar behind the counter. Very swank.
• The food was outstanding – I had panfried ricotta gnocchi on a pea puree.
• The coffee was good too.
• The service was brilliant – helpful, consistent etc.
• And chocolate mousse ( see above). We tasted the dessert As is well known, the one thing that really improves chocolate mousse is of course, chocolate mousse. This is a chocolate mousse layered on a chocolate sponge and topped with chocolate and then a caramel cream. And then a dollop of chocolate mousse on chocolate biscotti. A++

Cons:

• No Wifi. In theory that should have meant it was a great work space and that would probably be true if I was by myself.
• No parent room facilities and nothing really that could be repurposed in the Ladies room (let us never speak of how I tried to get around this. I think the baby has forgotten.)

Overall, delicious, well priced food, great service, very pleasant place to hang.

I’m the sort of person who likes new things to “settle in” when I get them. I dunno why but I can’t just use up something I just got – I like to admire the yarn skein before it gets knit up, or admire the candles before I burn them etc. The trouble with that though is there’s no clear timeframe on when the settling in is up and the enjoying is on. Luckily for me, I married someone with no such philosophy. C is the kind of person who eats all the goodies out of his Xmas stocking between breakfast and lunch on Xmas day. He has no desire to save nice things for another day.

This, then, is the only reason that we have already broken out the teas from the January Monstrositea and tasted tea number 3. (I should note that I discovered a segment of ginger included in the canister for the peppermint tea and thus the hint that the teas are to be enjoyed now, when fresh and not later when the honeymoon is over.)

I’d baked a cake. I know! I can’t believe it either. I’d just whipped one up for no reason at all. I used to be that kind of person, maybe I’m her again. Anyhow, this was Wednesday night, with Blue Jasmine to watch on the TV:

I enjoyed both the movie and the tea! The tea we had was from Lupicia – a green tea with strawberries and vanilla. It was a subtle, gentle tea, perfect for midweek relaxing and accompanying my chocolate cake. The cake was light and fluffy, not too sweet. I would probably add more milk next time as it was a bit dry. I used The Road to Loving my Thermomix chocolate cake recipe and substituted lactose free chocolate milk for milk since I had one and not the other.