Anthony Eaton's Blog: Musings from an Outer-Spiral-Arm , page 19

Move over Gorgon Gas... here's a bigger Chinese trade deal

The Girl In The Cave has just been released in Chinese! I discovered this when two copies of the Chinese edition arrived in the mail today. This actually proved to be the perfect end to a very surreal day, which included (among other things) me keeping a sick parrot in a box in my office for several hours. But that's beside the point.
The funny thing is, TGITC is the only book of mine not to have done all that well here in Australia (It's still on its first print run, six years after it was origi

Spring has sprung, the grass is Riz...

There's a scene in Douglas Adam's The Long Dark Tea Time of the Soul where his character, Dirk Gently, is too scared to open his fridge, as it's been six months since he last did so, and he's afraid of what might have grown inside. In the end, he just dumps the fridge and buys a new one.
Unfortunately for me, you can't just dump a backyard, and so today, metaphorically speaking, I opened the fridge...
And, trust me - not fun!
I'll explain.
Since Toby came along, it's funny, but a few of the things I

Melbourne Writers Festival, Day 3:

I'm sitting in the greenroom at the MWF. Outside the rain is falling so heavily that it's difficult to make out the other side of Flinders Street. The State Emergency Service was on the news just before I walked down here, pleading for commuters to leave work early and get out before the front came through. They're forecasting 120kph+ winds to hit the city at around about 6.00pm. Plus hail. Plus possible snow down to 500 meters
There's a mass exodus happening out there at the moment.
I have a pane

The Fastest Nine Months Ever...

Toby is nine months old today. 
Scary.
Effectively, he's now been outside for as long as he was inside. So to speak. And the truly frightening part is that, for me at least, the nine months inside seemed to take forever, whereas the nine months since have just vanished.
So, here then are the Ten Things I've Learned in the Last Nine Months:
1. Sleep. Treasure it. It's a valuable commodity.2. Likewise time: I can't believe how much of it I used to waste. On selfish stuff. Like, you know, reading...3.

Melbourne Writers Festival...

Hi everyone...
So, I'm sitting in a cafe in Federation square, making good use of the free wireless, on my second coffee of the morning, and trying desperately to convince myself that I'm actually *not* nervous about my first Melbourne Writer's Festival schools session in a couple of hours. No, I'm really not. I mean, I'm just talking about writing. How hard can that be?
The fact that my session is sold out is also not doing much to calm my nerves...
I had a lovely time yesterday, doing a seminar s

A Very Good Day Indeed...

*Apologies for the lack of graphics and hyperlinks in this one: I'm working on a strange computer with reticent internet, while in a horribly sleep-deprived state....*
So...
It's been a good day today. Now I can finally talk about it, too.
Why so good?
Well, today was the announcement of the CBCA Book of the Year Award, and I'm thrilled that Into White Silence picked up an honour book award in the Older Reader's category. The winner was my mate Shaun Tan, for his very funny and thought-provoking Tal

Feeling All Inky...

So this morning, the Centre for Youth Literature, who run the awesome Inside-a-dog website, announced the longlist for their annual 'Inky' awards and guess what?

I'm on it! (Well, technically Into White Silence is on it, but still...)

Yay!

This is a real buzz. Mainly because there are soooo many other awesome books on the longlist and it's just cool to see my book in such good company. Of the others, I've read Broken Glass, Exposure, The Two Pearls of Wisdom and Where the streets had a Name, and th

Festival Time!

Next week I'm off to the Melbourne Writer's Festival. This looks like it's going to be a fantastic week, and if you're in Melbourne, please come and see me. It'll be my first time away from Toby and Min in eight and a half months, so I'm bound to be lonely and in need of friends :)

On the bright side, though, I'm involved in some great sessions, with some *awesome* people:

This Sunday, the 23rd, I'm part of a Professional Development Masterclass on the ins and outs of writing Young Adult Fiction a

We're soft, we really are...

So, on sunday afternoon, we had to go out and buy a baby gate. You know, one of those aluminum things that bolt on to the wall, make it impossible for a toddler to escape, and require four hands and three feet for an adult to open.
Anyway, while looking at the gates in question, we put Toby down on the floor of the baby shop, and he made a beeline for this... thing.
I'm not sure how to describe it. It's kinda like a table. With lights. And levers. And music. And attached toys that squeek and rattl

This is my life, at the moment...

Editing. At the same time the best and worst aspect of getting a book published. This one's particularly painful, owing to the fact that it's a first draft and, therefore, horribly written. I'm cringing on a page-by-page basis as I work through this one, knowing that I've actually let people read this poorly written crap.

And, unusually for me, it's taking me ages. Today, for example, I've been working since about 9.30, and only done 10 pages. (Admittedly I've had a couple of interruptions for st