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the purple bathrobe school of writing
Jun. 3rd, 2006 02:17 pmPerth is [expletive of choice] freezing. Thursday morning I was wearing the leather jacket inside. At least this weather is a useful test – the jacket will indeed be warm enough for Canberra next week if I pile enough polar fleece garments on under it.
I should note also that I am an Aurealis Awards judge on the sf panel so if anyone knows of some story or book in that category by an Australian deserving of consideration, please let me know about it. I will have room in my baggage to carry entries home from Conflux for myself - and my fellow WA-based judge![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
girliejones who is not going to Conflux - if any author wants to pass it on to me there or otherwise I am quite happy to read things online.
My PLR and ELR money has come in; the only things for which I ever thank the Australian government :-) For the uninitiated, these are payments to writers for their books which go into the public library system (the Public Lending Right) and in the educational system (the Educational Lending Right). Since both mine are for kids/teenagers, I get to double dip. During the rest of the year it may be baked beans and cheese on toast but this month I actually have some money around. Better than last year, when there was so little work in my regular court-transcribing day job that I had to eat the PLR and ELR, in a manner of speaking.
So this time I decided to get a decent haircut before going to Canberra for the Conflux sf convention, rather than my usual factory-line “snip, snip…NEXT!” Also some jeans fit to wear in public, since Henry or Jonas got to what had previously been my “good pair.” I usually know better than to wear anything I wish to preserve within gnashing distance of my precious little fuzzy rat beasties but I’d forgotten and somebody took his chance. What else? Some socks and a purple bathrobe since this house [weatherboard] is much colder than the flat. Target’s bathrobes come in rather dismaying shades of pink, purple, blue and green but they are about half the price of the upmarket snazzy white ones and aschaosmanor wisely remarked, a white one doesn't last long. Be it noted, tho, if I ever sell another book, I intend to buy such a snazzy white robe.
I also got a book but this isn’t such an unusual event. The next one of Alexander McCall Smith’s Ladies Detective Agency: The Full Cupboard of Life. Finding these in shops can be a bit of detective work in itself. I have variously found them listed under M for McCall Smith and S for Smith and in the categories of crime/mystery, general fiction, romance (?) or literary fiction depending on the whim of the person who stocked the shelves in that shop. I would definitely recommend these books for anyone who hasn’t met them before. They feature the only female-run private detective agency in Botswana and their only failing is that they’re too short! They are full of a carefully understated humour that can take a while to sink in, such as one description of Mma Ramotswe’s musings about a possible political party which people suffering from constipation might form. It wouldn’t work, of course. Such a party would constantly try to pass legislation and it would fail.
That’s about all the news except I’m now on holiday and started off festivities by taking Ash and Nat, the Berkshire rats, to the vet as both were wheezing. They’ve both got scrips of an antibiotic paste which rats will take freely once. After that you have to resort to various cunning trickery to sneak the paste into their food – or otherwise you just grab hold and stuff it down their gobs, as any caring pet-owner eventually does.
Salutations
I should note also that I am an Aurealis Awards judge on the sf panel so if anyone knows of some story or book in that category by an Australian deserving of consideration, please let me know about it. I will have room in my baggage to carry entries home from Conflux for myself - and my fellow WA-based judge
girliejones who is not going to Conflux - if any author wants to pass it on to me there or otherwise I am quite happy to read things online.My PLR and ELR money has come in; the only things for which I ever thank the Australian government :-) For the uninitiated, these are payments to writers for their books which go into the public library system (the Public Lending Right) and in the educational system (the Educational Lending Right). Since both mine are for kids/teenagers, I get to double dip. During the rest of the year it may be baked beans and cheese on toast but this month I actually have some money around. Better than last year, when there was so little work in my regular court-transcribing day job that I had to eat the PLR and ELR, in a manner of speaking.
So this time I decided to get a decent haircut before going to Canberra for the Conflux sf convention, rather than my usual factory-line “snip, snip…NEXT!” Also some jeans fit to wear in public, since Henry or Jonas got to what had previously been my “good pair.” I usually know better than to wear anything I wish to preserve within gnashing distance of my precious little fuzzy rat beasties but I’d forgotten and somebody took his chance. What else? Some socks and a purple bathrobe since this house [weatherboard] is much colder than the flat. Target’s bathrobes come in rather dismaying shades of pink, purple, blue and green but they are about half the price of the upmarket snazzy white ones and as
chaosmanor wisely remarked, a white one doesn't last long. Be it noted, tho, if I ever sell another book, I intend to buy such a snazzy white robe.I also got a book but this isn’t such an unusual event. The next one of Alexander McCall Smith’s Ladies Detective Agency: The Full Cupboard of Life. Finding these in shops can be a bit of detective work in itself. I have variously found them listed under M for McCall Smith and S for Smith and in the categories of crime/mystery, general fiction, romance (?) or literary fiction depending on the whim of the person who stocked the shelves in that shop. I would definitely recommend these books for anyone who hasn’t met them before. They feature the only female-run private detective agency in Botswana and their only failing is that they’re too short! They are full of a carefully understated humour that can take a while to sink in, such as one description of Mma Ramotswe’s musings about a possible political party which people suffering from constipation might form. It wouldn’t work, of course. Such a party would constantly try to pass legislation and it would fail.
That’s about all the news except I’m now on holiday and started off festivities by taking Ash and Nat, the Berkshire rats, to the vet as both were wheezing. They’ve both got scrips of an antibiotic paste which rats will take freely once. After that you have to resort to various cunning trickery to sneak the paste into their food – or otherwise you just grab hold and stuff it down their gobs, as any caring pet-owner eventually does.
Salutations
