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Well…
that last post sounds cheery, doesn’t it? Things aren’t quite that bad – it’s just they look that way at almost 1am when you’ve been doing taxes for too long. Saw the accountant today, which sucked a little, but not a lot, and what more can you hope for . I’m still waiting for the proofing to show, but I’ve got some time off coming up, so I guess that’s what I’m going to be doing. I do need to catch up on some reading and other work though, which I had planned to do on my time off (hmmmm). Hopefully that’ll work.

There is one thing I want to rave about though. I was lucky enough to just read Scott Westerfeld’s second Midnighters book, and it’s damn fine. Westerfeld definitely has the touch when it comes to YA fantasy, the idea’s cool, the characters are good and you basically get sucked in. I’ll write about it properly soon, but if you haven’t you should check out the first book, Midnighters 1: The Secret Hour.

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Crazy times (as always)…

I am the worst planner in the world and the second worst business organiser in the world, and every now and again the world decides to remind me of this. With the help of Marianne and Jeremy, I’ve just seen 200,000 words of proofreading on the “Best Novellas” out the front door. Joy. Then I got email telling me that another 400,000 words of proofs should be coming in this week for the Locus book. Yay! And I just confronted the long delayed taxes, which look like I will owe the tax man enough money to be a bit uncomfortable. Yay. I now dream of quiet days when nothing happens and hardly anyone even speaks to me. A dream underpinned by the quiet mantra “Must get organised, must get organised”.

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It may be a little garish, but…

…it’s mine! The nice folks at the SFBC just sent me an advance peak at the cover for Best Short Novels: 2004. Look in shock and awe! Delight in seeing somethingf get the holy cr*p blown out of it. Wonder at how much space opera is in the book. I kinda like it!

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The week that was…

So, I can’t say that the week that just finished up was a good one. Not ‘someone near and dear to you dying’ bad or ‘the house burned down’ bad, but not good. Got my ass kicked but good at work, which was not pleasant and haunts me a little. I wonder if the ramifications of it are completely known to me yet, and I wonder if I can make it all good. It’s something I need to do, but I wonder if I handled it well, and if I have the resources to fix the situation.

Like anyone in a breadwinner role, I stress about making sure money comes in, so it’s a big deal. I can’t even say that my employer is wrong – I deserve most of what’s happening – but that doesn’t make it any better. On that note, actually, I should repeat here that no emails of any kind should be sent to my work email address (ends in wa.gov.au) and no packages should be sent to the c/WorkSafe street address. I also can’t receive phone calls or faxes, and I can’t receive email submissions of manuscripts that are too long to read on screen.

On top of the work situation, I’ve just received 570pp of proofreading from the Science Fiction Book Club, been told that I need to provide the IRS with additional paperwork, and realised that I need to get paperwork to the ATO by month’s end. Sweet. I don’t know if I’d mind all of this so much if a) I could get a little distance from the work thing and just relax and b) if the amount of afterhours work was just balancing a little. I’m also feeling very guilty about the amount of reading I’ve not done yet for the 2004 year’s bests. I have a pile of anthologies and magazines to read, and that I need to read, but I just haven’t gotten to them yet. Instead, I get stressed, worried and watch stupid TV to try to avoid the situation. I need to take control of the situation, but I just haven’t been able to get myself to do so. Soon, maybe.

…unavoidable stuff from jonathan strahan…