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.

I suspect girliejones would find this mildly unbelievable given her own deadline situation, but I’ve been struggling to focus on editing work this past while. I got to the end of a large batch of copyedits and so on, and then I just sort of went south. I know there’s work to do – I need to get some contracts out to people, focus on a couple projects which need nudging along, and I have to do a lot of reading. I just don’t feel…motivated. I’m drifting. Still, the girls are out at a birthday party today so my plan is to record the podcast this morning, then do the contracts and other paperwork that’s sitting around and then get on to Locus editing. When that’s done, I might ponder proposals I think.

I’ve also, again, been pondering World Fantasy. If anything I feel less like going than ever. I still won’t decide until WorldCon, but the cost balanced against the number of stopovers etc really doesn’t inspire me to do it. I would normally have spent some time in Oakland with Charles but, while I know I’m welcome and have friends there, it’s just not the same. I used to arrive and just collapse. Charles and I would sit around and talk for days and not do much else.  That’s not an option any longer so I do need to ponder. Anyhow, podcasting next….

The weekend before last Ian Nichols and I met up to discuss Legends of Australian Fantasy, editing, science fiction, and the upcoming Hugo Awards. The article ran in The West Australian this morning and I’m grateful to Ian (if a little embarrassed, to be honest) for making me seem at least semi-literate.

I love Planet Books, but I also am coming to pretty much adore bookdepository.co.uk, which is the cheapest book outlet I know.  I was over at Planet on Sunday and bought a copy of Lou Ander’s Masked. I have a PDF of it somewhere, but I really can’t be bothered reading that and (a) I really wanted to support Lou and (b) I really wanted to read Ian McDonald’s story in the book.  So, nice new book sitting on the couch beside me as I type for the win!

I also stopped at the post office this afternoon and there were packages from bookdepository.co.uk. Since I stopped reviewing in 2002 the number of ARCs etc I receive has dropped and dropped to the point where, even for the year’s best, I pretty much have to buy a book if I want to read it (which is understandable I guess, if a bit disappointing). Still, today brought my copies of Gwyneth Jones’ essay collection, Imagination/Space, and Eleanor Arnason’s Mammoths of the Great Plains. Jones has become one of my very favorite critics in the field, and picking up this book from Aqueduct seemed a great way to both get some wonderful reading and support a terrific press. Arnason, on the other hand, is one of the genuinely undervalued writers in our field, so I’m eager to catch up on this novella (which Gardner just said great things about).  So, post office for the win too!

What else? Well, this morning I listened to my first episode of Grant Watson’s Bad Film Diaries podcast. I’d meant to listen to it before, but then I’d always meant to get to the convention panels he was doing and somehow never had because I was in the bar drinking with friends, so it really was time I stopped and listened. It was a terrific decision. In the podcast I downloaded  Grant discusses Alien 3 and is just incredibly interesting and informed. I’m hooked and am not exaggerating when I say that if the rest of the series matches up to this he’s got my vote for the Hugo next year, definitely. One of the best genre podcasts going.

Eldest child is screaming and shouting, youngest child is upset because we may have to decide to stop her reading the book she’s reading, we may need to change travel plans, there’s a crack in the kitchen wall (not new, not big or serious, but *maybe* a little bigger), and everything is stress and misery. I want to run away from home today.