I’m sitting on my patio at my sister’s patio table, which we are housesitting (erm….tablesitting?) till she returns from her sojourn to Melbourne. She left for three years a couple weeks ago, so it’ll be here a while.  It’s been a bright, sunny winter’s day, but the sun is going down and it’s slowly turning colder. The Bureau says it’s about sixteen degrees centigrade.

I’m sitting out here, drinking beer and goofing off on the internet while Jessica (aged 10) sits beside me and doesn’t write in her diary. I think she wants to write in it, but she struggles with her writing and with getting her ideas down.  She still loves the idea of it, though.  Marianne and Sophie (aged almost-9) are both off on a walk with some of Sophie’s friends, so it’s quiet here.

I’m drinking beer because all of the preparations for Aussiecon 4 are weighing on me a little.  While I usually do these things solo, this time I’m taking a whole caravanserai of family to the big event.  This is a good thing, but I’m sufficiently immature that I feel responsible for everyone’s good time.  What are we going to do? How far from everything is the venue? And so on and so on.

I’m also, I confess, in something of a down-cycle confidence-wise. Today has for me been driven by self-doubt, worry that the publishing cycle may finally be ready to pass me by and so on.  The evidence for this, the driving motivators are sleight, and I’m sure the people around me would be surprised that I see it that way. I think everyone else thinks I think I’m more successful than I think I am, which is probably way too circuitous a construction. Still, I’ve always tried to let the work speak for itself (perhaps not the most 21st C sort of thought).

Where are things at and how do I feel about them? Well, Life on Mars, Engineering Infinity and Godlike Machines are all in and done (for variations of ‘done’). I think they’re all good books. Strong stories from good writers.  I’m not sure which the world will love the most, but they all have strengths.  I’m currently tussling with Under My Hat and Eclipse Four, and on the cusp with both the year’s best and a couple other things.  I’m probably most confident about ‘Hat’ and most worried about the year’s best, but they’ll all come out in the end.

So why the crisis of confidence? No real reason. I think I need to spin some ideas, see some people and just move through the conversation that is the field in flux. Maybe, for all of it’s accompanying issues, I really need the upcoming con. Flush the cylinders a bit, get back on track. We’ll see.