COLLAPSES IN A SOGGY HEAP

It's done. All 10, 975 words of Manuscript Found Upon the Body of a Hanged Soldier, finished, prettied up, and sent to the groovy Angela Challis for the Fading Twilight anthology.

Werethylacaleo Carnifex. It may not roll of the tongue, but it's bloody to fun to write about :)

Next goal: Nouvelle Hollande in the hands of agents by the end of September. I've got my beta reader feedback (thanks guys!), and a few changes need to be made, but I've got no other writing projects planned for the upcoming month, so I should stroll it in.

Good God, could a routine be re-establishing itself?

Y'ALL COME ON DOWN, Y'HEAR?

Friday September 9th, 6.30pm, at Fantastic Planet bookstore: froodmaster author-you-should-have-read-by-now Stephen Dedman launches his new collection Never Seen By Waking Eyes.

Everyone who knows us, knows what I think of Stephen. Which is why I was honoured beyond measure when he asked me to say a few words at the launch. The trick will be choosing which superlative to begin with.

Although I could always resort to the traditional "Your Honour...." :)

AULD LANG SINE CURVE

Nothing happens on a Tuesday.

Seanie rang.

I haven't seen Seanie since I flew to Sydney for his wedding in 2003. I've known him a lot longer than that. 16 years in fact: my oldest, longest, best friend. Living rebuttal to anyone who thinks I can't keep a friend once I make one :)

He was in town: along with wife Terri, and kids Jessie and Ellie, he'd driven from Sydney to Boyup Brook in a 1984 Ford Laser. (This car is so damn tough it could take on Nazis!) It'd taken 11 days, all up, and the move they'd planned hadn't worked out, so they were in town for a night on the way to the train station for the trip back to Sydney. Would we be in if they dropped round? Would we?

I hadn't realised how much I'd missed the boy. It's been seven years since he moved to the other side of the country. Apart from Luscious, I don't think there's anyone alive who understands me as easily as he does. We have the world's most disturbing synchronicity going, like, eerie, man. Met on the first lecture of the first day of the first year of Uni, and it's been separated-at-birth stuff ever since. Same TEE scores (down to the decimal place), wives of the same former religion, babies born at the same time, houses moved on the same day in different cities...... there's a long list, and it gets weirder each time we talk.

I wish they'd stayed. I wish we knew someone with a furnished house for rent. I wish Lyn could get to know them better than their first meeting last night, when she just fell in love with the whole family. We sat on the couch, like we did a million times in our younger days, and talked, and talked, and bantered and told stories, and it was all so easy and funny and natural like it really isn't with anyone but Luscious.

I've missed him. And until we can do it once more, I'll miss him again.

Song of the moment: Last Train To Clarkesville The Monkees