I’m gonna, honest. You guys must thing the world is ending down here in sunny Perth. Well, it ain’t. We’re all healthy at Merton Way, we got not bills we can’t pay, and all of the stresses and strains are temporary. It IS busy (I always say that) and I probably am stupidly overcommitted (which means I’m not enjoying things as much, but all is basically fine. Especially if you get your story in by the deadline…

Hmm.  Thursday.  Not sure about Thursday at all, fellow campers.  This one started at my not-favorite cafe being nagged by my beloved 71-year-old mother over home maintenance issues and ended with an unexpected bloody tax bill. Along the way there was my least favorite day job work task, a less than joyful friend correspondence, and issues of international copyright.  All of this lead to your humble correspondent adopting a less than sunny demeanour and being generally poor company all round.

Now, I know that I should cope with such things in a mature and calm manner. I do. The thing is, though, I don’t feel terribly mature about then.  I felt stressed, anxious and on edge.  Still, I am now carefully applying a veneer of maturity using a very nice glass of Chardonnay, a few moments of calm, and a copy of Rod Stewart’s Every Picture Tells a Story. This will work.

How are things otherwise? Well, I read a manuscript that has sat unpublished for a quarter century today over a reheated pasta bake lunch and found it good. I bought, or am in the process of buying, a bunch of stories. I had some very nice authors confirm they were still paddling in the right direction, and were going to send stories.  Frankly, the rest was ok.

So, you ask, is there a solution to your woes, for you have sounded less than joyful of late?  The answer is yes, there is, and it won’t require an enormous funds injection.  The solution is to dump unloved jobs that I don’t have to do, get fit and healthy, and spend more time with the ones I love. I also need some real down time. For example, I realized the other day that I’ve been reviews editor for a particular fair journal since early 2002. That means I haven’t had a single month since when I wasn’t working at some level.  My all new goal for 2010 is to arrange one full month when I’m doing nothing: no anthologies, no required reading, no review – just time on the metaphorical beach unwinding and not thinking. That will get me back to where I need to be.

And tomorrow? Well, let me tell you, dead reader, tomorrow I shall contact a certain Australian air carrier and attempt once again to renegotiate my flights to the US.  Why, you ask? Well, it’s like this. When I booked my flights to the US my priority was to make the journey as comfortable as possible. A few days here, a few days there, and so on. Now, on reflection, what I realise is that I’m most eager to increase the number of  days I spend on the Locus back deck with CHARLES.  He is very dear to me and our time is running out.  A few extra sunny summer evenings, sipping wine, watching the sun set and feeling the Oakland air slowly turn cool as the squirrels chatter in the nearby trees suddenly seems incredibly precious to me.  If the cost is not too steep, I shall spend my time there instead, I think.  It would be a fine thing to do.

Worked from home today. Connected to the day job network and did some various things, mostly having to do with stuff that won’t make much sense to anyone not using the particular piece of proprietary content management software that we do, but it kept me busy.

I re-heated some of last night’s pasta bake for lunch (yum), and did some much needed administrivia on divers projects. Still much to do, but a little bit has been done so we continue in the right direction.

And now the girls are out at a playdate, and I’m home reading on what has become a cold, darkening wintry afternoon. I’m half way through Leviathan and loving it. I can tell how much because I find myself not wanting to read some of the bad stuff. It’s a captivating joy ride. I wish I had all three volumes now, but I can tell you this much: this one’s special.

I don’t usually post lots of links or stuff here, largely because I sort of look at stuff online, go ‘uh huh’, and move on to what I have to do during my day. But a couple things did show up online that I thought were worth pointing to.

First, as everyone has noticed, Gollancz has signed Alastair Reynolds to a ten book deal for lots and lots of $$s. This genuinely delights me. I first met Al in San Jose when he was being interviewed by Locus.  I’d not long been appointed reviews editor of that journal, and had covered all of his books for the mag.  I’ve loved his work, and we’ve kept in touch since, sharing our love for the music of Springsteen and Mark E’s Eels., and he’s also written some wonderful stories for me (and will be again soon).  I can’t wait to see what the new deal will being, and am excited to get a chance to see his next one, Terminal World.

Second, venerable critic John Clute discusses Jay Lake’s novel Green over at Sci Fi Wire.  Clute is always an interesting critic and he has some typically sharp things to say about Lake’s novel (which has a beautiful opening).  I see Jay’s working on the sequel now, and look forward to talking to him about when we meet up for breakfast in Canada later this year.

Third, my very favorite poster on Tor.com, Jo Walton, discusses my very, very favorite Ian Banks novel, The Crow Road.  As Jo rightly points out, it starts with one of the greatest first lines ever (“It was the day my grandmother exploded.”) and only gets better from there.

Well, the girls are at grandma’s and Marianne’s off at BC, so I’m down in Mt Lawley at a cafe trying to work. Of course, this never works. The area is drenched in distractions, and the power on the laptop is unreliable. I’m hoping it’ll hold out for another half hour, but we’ll see. I have worked productively in cafes, but not often, so we’ll see.