Sunday, August 29, 2004

ONCE MORE WITH FEELING, FOR CHESHIRE'S BENEFIT...

"Vitamin E cream?"

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SPLANKY!

Had a good time at Splanky's birthday party last night, although wan't brave enough to lower my body into the spa: too much me, not enough water. It was great to catch up with people we don't see half enough of, like M-Squared, PRK, & Tori, as well as our usual Sunday night funsters, and even the shy and retiring nocturnal Martin & Isobel came out, much to my delight. Lots of fun sitting round talking the night away and bagging the team rhythmic gymnastics on the TV (What a farce: leaderball set to music...)

And it looks like Sunday night's movie next week (week off this week) may be Clash Of The Titans. It's Harry Hamlicious!
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Friday, August 27, 2004

PROOF POSITIVE!

Can we all take notice of my godly superpower, and finally put to rest any arguments on the subject? :)





What kind of God are you?
Name
DOB
Favourite Color
You earthly time was spent Supplanting kingdoms, punishing tyrants and levelling the empires of the wicked with the breath of your nostrils
Your throne is fashioned from thorns and human femurs, surrounded by writhing, howling servants, with a footstool of souls on the sizzling shores of the Lake of Fire
You wear Golden, breathtaking robes, girded in the middle with silver chains
Your Godly superpower is The knowledge of and answer to all questions
This fun quiz by pelagicboreas - Taken 11194 Times.

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BEEN A WHILE

Time flies when you're typing: been a week since I updated my novel progress. So very quickly, a blow by blow stats update:

Friday 20th

A surprise visit from Lyn & Erin for lunch today, which was wonderful. We sat round having a picnic on the floor, and then the girls kept me company for a while as I worked.

Novel Total for day: 2899
Word Total for day: 3426
Novel words at KSP: 13073
KSP Cumulative Total: 17 523
Novel Cumulative Total: 23 171
Sunday
Tank Girl for bad movie night tonight! I have such a deep love for this movie. Lori Petty is so cute: what happened? And that Malcolm McDowell stamp of cheesy goodness remains as fresh as ever. Finally, Luscious understands why I shout "Mutant Kangaroo" every time Ice T makes a Law & Order SVU appearance.
Oh, and if you'd come you'd understand why "Vitamin E cream?" is the funniest line in television history...


Monday 23rd

Finished a short story today and started 2 more. Getting a lot of short story work done in between large swodges of novel! Passed 15 000 novel words at KSP and 25 000 overall.

Novel Total for day: 2457
Word Total for Day: 3735
Novel words at KSP: 15 530
KSP Cumulative Total: 21 258
Novel Cumulative Total: 25 628

Tuesday 24th

Busy writing day. Head down, bum up. Nothing of importance to note.

Novel Total for Day: 2266
Word Total for Day: 4040
Novel Words at KSP: 17 796
KSP Cumulative Total: 25 298
Novel Cumulative Total: 27 894

Wednesday 25th

Attended the Karibu Writing Group, which has to be held in the coolest environs I've ever encountered: inside the old court building in the centre of Midland. It was a lovely session- the ladies of the group had little experience of SF and so the visit was a 2 hour Q&A session in which I got to explain why Star Wars and Star Trek were bad SF, the differences between SF, Fantasy, Horror, and all the in-betweens, and about a hundred other questions. I also read out my story A Stone To Mark My Passage, which drew a round of applause. Consider MY ego rubbed :)

I even passed 20 000 novel words at KSP, and 30 000 in total.

Novel Total for Day: 2493
Word Total for Day: 2850
Novel Words at KSP: 20 289
KSP Cumulative Total: 28 148
Novel Cumulative Total: 30 378

And in the evening we met and booked our marriage celebrant, a lovely lady by the name of Dorothy Harrison who is the aunt to Western Australian SF uberguy Grant Stone. Talk about keeping it in the extended family! :)

Thursday 26th

Writing groups ahoy today: attended the Word-Thirst as usual, then also made appearances at the Youth Writing Group and the Thursday Night Group, meaning that it was almost 10pm when I left, a 14 hour work day! Je suis un exhausted little fat writer man by the time I got home. However, despite the time spent consorting, got a lot of work done on the novel, and managed to start another short story, as well as having the joy of Lyn's company for most of the afternoon. Being with Luscious just makes things better. It's not anything tangible, I just feel happier, lighter, when she's with me.

Novel Total for Day: 3027
Word Total for Day: 3714
Novel Words at KSP: 23 316
KSP Cumulative Total: 31 862
Novel Cumulative Total: 33 405

AND NOW FOR SOMETHING THAT MAKES ALL THE ABOVE UTTERLY IRRELEVANT AND INSIGNIFICANT...

I felt Connor moving for the first time last night. I'm still grinning.
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Thursday, August 19, 2004

RESIDENCY DAY FOUR

A full day today. Apart from my daily target of 2000 words, I also had appointments with 2 of the writing groups I'm contracted to visit: the Word-Thirst group I attend each Thursday and the Under 13s group the kids attend. While I'd be there normally, that still meant 3 1/2 less hours in which to reach my target.

On the bright side, Luscious stayed with me for a couple of hours after Word Thirst, for lunch and to do some study for her Uni course before she had to pick the kids up from school. Call me a silly old co-dependent if you will (I can hear you from here...) but Lyn's presence gives me such energy and spirit that just being near her helps lift me if I'm flagging. We don't have to talk much (in fact, she even had a short nap today) but just knowing she was there was enough to energise me, and I cranked out my word count with time to spare. I even reached a couple of significant milestones: the 20 000th word of the novel (see) and the 10 000th word of the novel written since the residency started (old) So-

Today's stats:

Words on novel: 2421
Totoal words for the day: 2698
Words on novel while at KSP: 10 174
Cumulative total (all works) at KSP: 14 097
Total novel length: 20 272
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Wednesday, August 18, 2004

RESIDENCY DAY THREE

The first official visit of my residency today, with the Writefree Women's group. The group has been meeting for almost 9 years, and puts out an anthology every year: you can't fault them for effort! Spent an enjoyable 90 minutes in the company of this group of largely middle-aged and elderly ladies, before heading back to my room and trying to thrash out my daily dose of 2000 words.

It was tough work today: with an hour to go before I left for home I still only had slightly less than 1500 words down, and had reached a bit of an impasse. The chapter wasn't heading where I wanted it to go, and a key meeting I had scheduled between Napoleone and a major character didn't look like it wanted to happen. Luckily I've built up some confidence in the last two days, so I let the story have its head, managed to build in some necessary backstory and set up my meeting for tomorrow's writing session, and ended up with just over 2500 words written. I was so much ahead of time that I was able to sit down for 20 minutes and pop another 215 words onto my third short story of the residency (as yet unnamed), and left a rather relieved and happy writer fellow. I've gained a belief in my ability to tackle this work, something I was still lacking as I stepped through the door on Monday morning. Problems don't seem insurmountable, and I think I'll be far ahead of my plans by the time I depart.

Yon daily stats:

Words on Novel: 2535
Total words for day: 2750
Words on novel while at KSP: 7753
Cumulative total (all works) at KSP: 11 399
Total novel length: 17 851
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Tuesday, August 17, 2004

RESIDENCY DAY TWO

Another good day for writers! Well, me, anyway. Another 2700 + words on Nouvelle Hollande, plus I finished Blake The God, another 700 words bringing it to just over 2500. Emboldened by this miracle of actually-getting-off-my-assness, I wrote an entire 800 word flash story with the intention of sending it to KSP SF pal Shane Jirayia Cummings' new Shadowed Realms ezine, and doodled a 300 word start to a brand new short story while watching the Olympic swimming heats this afternoon.

I've now completed 5100 words on the novel in 2 days, 1100 better than my 2000 word a day target, have the next chapter and a half outlined to keep me going for the next day or two, and am ploughing words into short stories to boot. I'm a rather pleased little writer fellow.

Yon Daily stats:

Words on Novel: 2768
Words for Day: 4382
Words on Novel while at KSP: 5218
KSP words total: 8649
Total Novel Length: 15 307
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Monday, August 16, 2004

SO MUCH WORSE THAN YOU THOUGHT IT COULD BE

Well, the movie night went off all right. Had visitations from Chesh, Calli, and the newly-returned Splanky, who brought her sick ferret to the accompaniment of much excitement from the boys and a solid 24 hours of asthma from Luscious. Splanky also brought a chocolate mousse that I'm still having to stop Lyn from licking off the inside of the bin 24 hours later...

Hell Comes To Frogtown is not only worse than I remember, it is worse than any movie has a right to be. Despite much giggling at Sandahl Bergman's outfits, everyone else's outfits, the make-up, the special effects, the plot, the fact that it would have been better as a bad porno, pretty much everything else and so on, it was still unanimously decided that I'm not allowed to pick the movies for a while. I did point out that I had mentioned it was a BAD movie night, but as Calli responded, I hadn't pointed out that nobody was allowed to complain... Quote of the evening belongs to Aiden. In response to a comment regarding when the movie would please be over, he said "This movie was over before it began". Chesh had his copy of the new Chances DVD with him, and the fact that we couldn't wait to view an episode after the movie finished and the boys went to bed should let you know how bad we're talking here.

Anyway, next week it's Tank Girl and another episode. 6pm, our place, bring a dish for a pot luck :)

RESIDENCY DAY ONE

Arrived at the KSP at 9am and got straight into it. By lunchtime had banged out 2450 words of Nouvelle Hollande. As I'm aiming for 2000 words a day, was a pretty happy little fat man over lunch. With the Olympics playing silently off to the side of my room (yay, Australian woman can cycle and swim faster than other women, but we're all crap at volleyball...) decided to unwind a bit after lunch by working on a story I'd started yesterday at the KSP SF group called Blake The God (Anybody who's met the B-boy knows: he's petite. So in the story he is worshipped by a bunch of teeeeensy tiny little aliens. Trust me, it works on paper, okay?). And I added another 1800 words on that before home time, for a grand total of 4267 words on the day! Not a bad total, to be sure. Almost KA Bedford like :) The day finished with Luscious, Erin and I attending a cheese and bikkies soiree at 5.30 to officially welcome me, and now Erin's in bed and an exhausted Triff and her exhausted Batt are going to follow her example.

Night all.

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Friday, August 13, 2004

BAD MOVIES!!!!!

Huzzah: having some friends over for a bad movie night on Sunday, and have managed to secure a copy of Hell Comes To Frogtown to go with my own copy of They Live. It's a Rowdy Roddy Piper Movie Festival!

You have to love my local alternative video store Planet Video: only they, when faced with someone saying "I'm after this cheesy piece of Z-grade crap from the late 80s starring a second string wrestler that potentially nobody in the entire country has seen and only I am likely to remember" can reply "Yeah, we have two copies."

GOOD DAY

Today has been a good day on the personal front. Nothing worth reporting to the eager masses, really, but just a good day. Lyn's made some important stands in her personal life, and we've done some things together that have helped us feel like our life is moving forward, so there are some positive vibes in Triffbatt House at the moment. Smiles all round. We've even organised an appointment with a marriage celebrant.
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Monday, August 09, 2004

FINISHED!

Sat down this afternoon, motivated by the Luscious One writing an entire story since last night, and put pen to paper on the long-cat-vaccuumed Father Muerte & The Flesh. Just finished the bloody thing not 5 minutes ago, at a grand total first-draft length of 5029 words, 2979 of which I've ploughed through today.

Damn, I feel like I might be an actual writer again.
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GEE THAT ELLEN DATLOW'S A LOVELY LADY

Received word yesterday the my story A Stone To Mark My Passing from the CSFG anthology Encounters has made Ellen Datlow's Recommended Reading list for 2003. This is the second year in a row Ms Datlow has noticed a stoy of mine- last year she accorded the same favour to Father Muerte & The Theft.

You could get to like a person who keeps doing such things :)

KSP AWARDS

Luscious, Erin and I attended the annual KSP SF Awards ceremony yesterday, as I'd been shortlisted. Didn't win, but you can never complain if you come in behind this year's winner Carol Ryles. Carol's a very talented writer, with a number of publications to her name, and I'm very happy for her: she is a deserving winner.

WORD-THIRST 2 FOR SALE

The Word Thirst 2 anthology was launched yestrday at KSP, before the SF Awards, and we had a packed house attend the combination champagne breakfast and readings. Lyn and I both read and Luscious seemed to be the hit of the occasion, spending her time alternating between baby talk and having people telling her how wonderful they thought her story was. We have some copies of the anthology at Triffbat House, so if you want to own the first time Luscious and I have seen print together (in fiction, anyway) drop us a line: they're a measly $9 each and all proceeds go to enabling the Word Thirst Writing Group fund issue 3 later in the year.

ONE WEEK TO GO

This time next week I'll be up at the KSP on the first day of my residency, hard at work churning words out on the novel. Can't wait!
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Monday, August 02, 2004

4th JANUARY 1913 - 28th JULY 2004

Just returned from my Grandfather's funeral. We weren't overly close, especially not these last few years as he got much older and frailer, and my adult life left me with little time to travel and see him, but it's still a sad occasion when a family member passes. Besides, he taught me the only card trick I've ever learnt.

As a final gift to his family, Granddad paid for us all to go into Kwinana after the service and have lunch at his local cafe. Which was lovely, but I think the tone is set for your funeral when those attending know they'll finish up eating at a place called "Mr Food".

I've had the 'Mr Plough' song from that episode of the Simpsons stuck in my head since the funeral ended...

SO COOL, SO DAMN COOL

Readers of this humble blog will be aware how much of a fan I am of pal KA Bedford. Pop over to his blog and bask in the warm glow of his new novel's cover. So very cooooolllll.........
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