Tansy Rayner Roberts's Blog, page 154

Books with iiiii

My honey called me from work today to tell me he had bought my book again – in e-form, from the iBooks store.

"There are IBOOKS for sale in the IBOOKS store?" I repeated, very excited.

Because yes, having Power and Majesty as an e-book is super exciting, and not something I knew about in advance at all, but I'm almost as completely excited that after half a year sharing a house with an iPad, nearly a year owning an iPod Touch and about a month or so with my own iPhone (it's kind of adorable, but my honey didn't have a single Mac product when we first got together and now he practically hurls them into the household at superspeed) it was now, finally, possible to buy ebooks that didn't come from Project Gutenberg.

Not that I'm knocking Project Gutenberg, I love me some free old books, but sometimes you want more than just the first two Agatha Christies, you know?

So yes. Apple is finally getting the ebook thing happening in Australia. And Power and Majesty is RIGHT THERE on the front line. This is kinda squeeworthy! I am a little disappointed in the layout and design of the iBooks store – it's not nearly as tantalising and enticing as iTunes, and while the searchability is excellent, I like a bit more razzle dazzle when I'm browsing for purchases. But early days. I hope it will get shinier as more books and publishers get involved.

Apparently there are some scandals & grumbles about which publishers are In and which Not – I hope these get ironed out and would love to see some small press in there, EH ALISA? (Mustn't shout, the poor darling is sleeping off her long voyage)

If any of you out there like your data all tiny and portable, and you have an Apple related reading device, you can pick up a copy of P&M in the iBooks store for $14.99. And those of you who have read & enjoyed my book already, I would be very grateful if you considered rating or reviewing it over there. Sorry to say that I am almost certain this only applies to the Australia/NZ iBooks store. While I would love to see Power and Majesty available to everyone, it's still only for sale locally. Believe me, I will be screaming delightedly from the rooftops should this situation change, and the Creature Court go global.

I have no idea if my book is popping up in other formats or other e-book vendors. This one was a total surprise to me! I would be ever so grateful if any gentle readers who spots it somewhere would let me know.

Possibly, at some point, I can stop gazing at my own listing and look for some other books to buy in there. I already know that Trent Jamieson's Death Most Definite and Nicole Murphy's The Secret Ones are in there, and Kylie Chan's books, and a couple of Jonathan Strahan's anthologies. Does anyone know of other Aussie SF books in there that I could go and peek at?

PS: It occurs to me that I entirely failed to blog about, you know, finishing Book Three and emailing it off to the publisher. But I did that thing, back on October 31st. I spent this morning trying to nut out a 150 word blurb for it, to go into the 2011 catalogue because eeeeee two novels out next year. Which means MORE EBOOKS. Hooray!

The Future Is Archaeologists [Xena Rewatch 2.09-2.11]

2.9 A Solstice Carol

I've talked before about the weird juxtaposition of Christian mythology in with the ancient Greek stories in Xena. Peter M Ball also singled it out as one of the aspects of the Xenaverse that jars badly. This episode is the worst offender, and it is the closest I have come to skipping one in this rewatch. I was determined to find some redeeming feature, though I figured a naked fish fight was too much to hope for…

What I did find was an answer to why, perhaps, the more Christian/Biblical stories of these early seasons don't work. I think it's because they're just so BADLY WRITTEN. In particular, they tend towards sentimentality, as if they're so desperate not to offend that they end up being like one of those awful moralistic made-for-TV Christmas movies.

In this case, we actually have a Christmas story, something I think was only done this once, and thank Ares for that. Apart from the substitution of language so we get 'winter solstice' instead of Christmas and 'fates' instead of spirits, it's basically an amalgam of all those really bad 80's holiday movies and Dickensian cliches, complete with ragged, good-hearted orphans, a sad old toymaker, and a mean king who needs to be taught a lesson. Yes, really.

At the episode's lowest point, we have Santa Claus using a crossbow armed with candy canes, Gabrielle bell-ringing on the helmets of the naughty guards, an unhappy ex-wife forgiving her husband with very little reason to do so. Oh yes, and a gratuitous Mary & Joseph cameo.

We do get Xena playing dress up which is always fun, and Gabrielle trying to communicate with a troublesome but weirdly intelligent donkey, but none of these things make up for the sheer awfulness of the episode's saccharine message. Which is, you know, that it's REALLY important to have toys and nice things one day out of the year, and if your inhumanly high expectations for that day aren't met, you should probably just hurl yourself off a cliff. Or something about orphans.

2.10 The Xena Scrolls

This episode is another game-changer, which sets out exactly what kind of program Xena is. Which is to say, batshit crazy. It has to be the most expensive clip show of all time, featuring all new sets, costumes from a different historical era, vintage cars, and explosions.

The premise is simple, and yet awesome: it's the late 1930's, and Janice Covington (Renee O'Connor/Gab), an Indiana Jones style rogue archaeologist adventurer is searching for the legendary Xena Scrolls. Teaming up with bumbling and sweet linguist Mel (Lucy Lawless) and the worst French spy impersonator of all time Jacques S'Er (Ted Raimi/Joxer), Janice swashes, buckles and machine guns her way through a rollicking Temple of Doom style adventure, with occasional snippets from the legendary scrolls, hampered at times by mistranslations and unreliable narration.

In the climactic showdown, Ares turns up, demanding to be freed from his cavernous prison, and Mel is possessed by the spirit of Xena…

The thing about clip shows, a tradition which DVD box sets have pretty much forced into obsolescence, is that they enabled the show in question to define its own mythology. Sure, it was a cheap way to make an episode to fill out an over-long TV season, but it also gave them a chance to tell the audience which parts of the show were most important – which character arcs, which B plots, which themes, which snarky lines uttered by Alex P Keaton…

With the Xena Scrolls, the whole 'cheap' thing is thrown out with the bathwater, but it is very much an episode that works hard to define the mythology of the show. Indeed, from this season onwards you can point to several meta-episodes per year which do the same thing through a variety of techniques including flashback, self-referential comedy and in many cases, the use of Gabrielle's scrolls to commentate on the action.

This is the first of the 'futureverse' episodes – and far from being a one shot, the events of this Indiana Jones parody will cause ripples in the 'modern day' setting which remains surprisingly consistent in many Hercules and Xena episodes to come. The most constant element in those stories is Ares, and I always wondered if the show would end up honouring or contradicting these visions of the future.

While we have seen Ares being all seducy-face pretty much since he first turned up in the show, this is the first episode which explicitly tells us that he desires Xena, and that he sees their emnity as a love (or at least lust) story. Just as explicitly, we see her roll her eyes at him and refuse to dignify it with a response. Honestly, it's like kicking a puppy. A sexy, leather-clad, all-powerful puppy.

Speaking of sexy, both Lucy Lawless and Renee O'Connor are awesome in this episode, playing strongly against type – Renee as the butch, devil-may-care, whip-cracking Janice, and Lucy as the sweet, glamorous and soulful Mel. By the end, they are hesitantly agreeing to stick with their "friendship" and stay together.

You know, it shouldn't BE a revelation that Xena is actually one big subversive feminist queer-friendly narrative, but honestly. It's not like they were ever subtle about it.

2.11 Here She Comes, Miss Amphipolis

This is a beauty pageant story, which should be stupid, but somehow gets away with it. Xena gets to play dress up again – other actresses simply could not get away with saying 'don't hate me because I'm beautiful' with a straight face in the middle of a fight scene while wearing a blonde wig. Ultimately the whole thing turns into a story about how beauty pageants are done entirely for the benefit of men, the climax consisting each of the women bowing out of the competition for the sake of their dignity, choosing to seek what they need through different, less sensationalist means.

And then the prize is taken out by a drag queen. Who celebrates by putting on a tiara and snogging the hell out of Xena. Did I MENTION that Xena is one big subversive feminist queer-friendly narrative?

CHAKRAM STATISTICS:

Boys who want romance with Xena: 7

Boys Xena allows to romance her: 2

Xena dead boyfriends: 2

Gabrielle dead boyfriends: 2/7

"Adorable" children: 31

Babies: 4

Babies tossed humorously in the air during fight scenes: 6

Xena doppelgangers: 3

Xena sings at a funeral: 2

Xena dies: 1

Gabrielle dies: 1

Characters brought back from the dead (including ghosts and visits to the Underworld): 11

Ares loses his powers and goes all to pieces about it: 1

Xena or Gabrielle earns money: 1

Xena or Gabrielle spends money (or claims to have money to spend): 4

Out of the Pantheon: Morpheus, Ares, Hera, the Titans, Hades, Celesta, Charon, the Fates, Bacchus

The Celebrity Red Carpet of the Ancient World: Pandora, Prometheus, Hercules, Iolaus, Sisyphus, Helen of Troy, Paris, Deiphobus, Menelaus, Euripides, Homer, Autolycus, Meleager, Oracle of Delphi, David, Goliath, Orpheus

Previous Xena Rewatch Posts:

Warlord is a Lady Tonight

I Don't Work For Money

Amazon Wanna Take A Ride?

Go To Tartarus!

Swashbuckle and Shams

Death In A Chainmail Bikini

Full Moon It Must Be Xena

How Do You Mortals Get From Day to Day?

A Reader's Guide to Connie Willis

You know how brilliant it is when you love an author and then you get to see new people discover that author and it's so EXCITING?

Well, Connie Willis is one of those authors for me, and Alisa, one of my favourite people, just met Connie and then started reading her work this weekend and now wants to read everything she's ever written, which I can totally understand because that's how I felt the first time I heard Connie speak. (it was at Swancon where she read the first chapter of the then-unfinished ms of Passage)

So rather than just tweet recs at Alisa, I thought I'd post a beginner's guide here. Feel free to chime in with your own comments about the works, particularly the ones you disagree with me on, though try to keep reasonably spoiler-free if you can!

HOW TO CHOOSE YOUR NEXT CONNIE WILLIS

Fire Watch (1982, published as main act in a short story collection of the same title 1984)

Her first major work, the beginning of her love affair with the Blitz as a historical period, and the first story to feature the time travelling "historians" from Oxford. A great place to start!

won Hugo & Nebula

Lincoln's Dreams (1987)

This is my blind spot, the only Willis novel I haven't been able to enjoy. I've heard so many people refer to it as a classic book and a work of brilliance, though, that I'm loathe to dismiss it. Not sure if it's a me thing or a not being American thing, or what. I'd love to hear from you if you liked it, and why.

won John W. Campbell Memorial Award

Doomsday Book (1992)

A magnificent though emotionally gruelling tale of another Oxford historian, the first to travel back as far as the Middle Ages, despite everyone telling her it's a bad idea because of all that Black Death. And then, you know, she gets stuck in a village under siege by the Black Death. I usually tell people that this is one of the best novels I've ever read and one I never want to read again… but since Blackout/All Clear I've been wanting to go back to it, damn it all. It's amazingly intense, the kind of novel that needs an isolated weekend, a kilo of chocolate and a jumbo box of tissues, but it's also a brilliant exploration of time travel and history.

won Hugo, Nebula, Locus SF Novel

Impossible Things (1993)

One of my favourite short story collections ever, and one I regularly return to for re-reading. It includes many stories I adore, such as "Spice Pogrom" (Katherine Hepburn Cary Grant screwball comedy in space), "Jack" (another Blitz story with a paranormal twist), and "Even the Queen," (a story that predicted the technology to suspend or limit menstruation, and looks at the ways that this could affect womanhood and social attitudes – it's rather quaint now in retrospect but remains an important footnote in the history of women's science fiction).

Remake (1994)

While I have been tinkering with this post, Alisa read this one already! This short novel is a love letter to Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, and it's one I regularly think about because it revolves around a quite awful and yet horribly believable future of Hollywood in which there are no new films, just constant remakes of classics with digital renderings of different famous actors. (Want Avatar with Gene Kelly in the lead?) The main character is utterly demoralised by his job, deleting evidence of addictive substances from classic films (his attempts to turn Rick's Bar into a coffee shop are hilarious, as is his discovery that the Philadelphia Story makes no sense without the existence of alcohol). His life changes when he meets the only person in Hollywood who still believes that movies should be about something real…

Uncharted Territory (1994)

This is Connie Willis does hard science fiction and I love it greatly. It is of course all about people, but they are people doing their best to explore an alien planet, and being both challenged and bemused by all manner of genderfuckery.

Bellwether (1996)

Another brilliant and tightly thematic short novel, this one is about scientists and science funding and what's the point of funding science if all the best scientific ideas come to people when they're in the bath or on a bus? It's also about fads. Completely, crazily obsessively about the complex history fads. It's the kind of book that makes you look at the universe differently for… well, ever, but specifically for about six weeks afterwards.

To Say Nothing of the Dog (1998)

This book is so beloved that it's almost a cliche to love it best, and there are so many reasons to adore all the others but OMG this is the best book ever! That is, if you love Victoriana and 1930's murder mysteries and unadulterated adoration of so-English-it-hurts cultural history. Another book in the Oxford historian time travel series, this is the light hearted comedy of manners to make you feel better about the world after The Doomsday Book has ripped your heart out and left it bleeding on the floor. Verity and Ned are one of my favourite romantic couples ever, and their antics around church fairs and seances and the bishop's bath stump delight me from beginning to end. This is the book that sold me on Dorothy Sayers, and I have never looked back.

Won Hugo & Locus SF Novel

Miracle and Other Christmas Stories (1999)

This collection of stories that Connie regularly wrote for the Asimovs December issue is a mixed bag – some more sentimental than others – but is totally worth it for "Miracle," one of her screwball comedy riff stories (someday a canny publisher should put together a Willis anthology that combines Remake with a bunch of her other Hollywood/movie themed or inspired stories). This story is a love letter to Christmas movies, and to all the traditions that go along with those movies. It's also a 'give me a break' letter to It's A Wonderful Life, the main thesis being that it is an overrated Christmas movie and the omnipresence of it during the festive season is actually kind of sinister.

Passage (2001)

I wanted to read this book more than a year before it was published, when Connie Willis read the opening chapter at Swancon and blew me away. It's a compelling, soul-sucking narrative about a woman trying to run a study on what people actually SEE during a near death experience, and constantly being frustrated by a rival whose methods are ethically problematic and tend to warp the evidence ("So, did you see a white light? Did you walk towards it? Were all your favourite people who have passed on already waiting for you?") As with all Wills books, it builds a community so compelling and lovable that you don't want to leave. Which means of course that when the bad stuff happens, you feel it like a deep sucking wound in your stomach… I've cried buckets over books before and since but this book gave me possibly the most visceral memory of sobbing over a book that had broken my heart in the best possible way. I love it dearly, though I don't know if I can ever go back there for the reread. Also, this is the book that introduced me to the word "confabulation" which is an awesome thing and a surprisingly useful addition to the vocabulary.

won Locus SF novel

"Inside Job," (2005) "D.A." (2007) and "All Seated on the Ground" (2007) were all published as single titles but unlike Uncharted Territory, Bellwether and Remake none of them quite have that epic theme feel about them to warrant that kind of separate attention, or the status of short novels rather than long short stories. Once you're the kind of reader who wants to inhale everything Connie Willis writes, they're very enjoyable, but I wouldn't recommend them as the starting point. "All Seated On the Ground" needs to be retrospectively inserted into the Miracle and Other Christmas Stories anthology. Oh and yes, they did the job of whetting our appetite while we all sat around and waited for the next Connie Willis novel…



Blackout/All Clear (2010) is a masterpiece. I would absolutely recommend it to any reader, regardless of their Willis history, and in particular I think it's a great one to get for genre-agnostic parents at Christmas, or anyone who is into wartime British history. BUT it is hugely important to remember that this is one book in two volumes, and you shouldn't start one unless the other is nearby. A long gap between reading one and the other will kill the true experience of the book, the rhythms and the pacing of it. I also think that while it's a great book to hand to a new reader, for anyone who intends to become a Connie Willis completionist (yes you, Alisa) it should be left until last. There's a dizzying height about this book which makes so much more sense when you've followed the whole journey, and especially would be best read after The Doomsday Book, Fire Watch and To Say Nothing Of the Dog. The book will have a lot more power after having read those other books, as this is the one where she takes the world view lovingly constructed in the other Oxford historian books and blasts it into schrapnel. Having seen so much of Willis' love of and obsession with the Blitz danced around in other works, I can't help but be DELIGHTED for her that this brilliant book exists now, that she got to it, and that it's so very good.

When we nominate it for awards, guys, please remember to cite it as Blackout/All Clear rather than separating the volumes on shortlists. It's all about posterity.



HOW TO READ CONNIE WILLIS

I didn't realise this until I had gone through the post but I really think that, leaving aside the serialish nature of the Connie Willis historian books (Fire Watch, The Doomsday Book, To Say Nothing of the Dog, Blackout/All Clear, which can all be read in any order though I heartily recommend leaving B/AC until last) the best way to read Connie Willis is actually in chronological order. I wouldn't have thought that, and it's certainly not a definitive recommendation – you don't want to read The Doomsday Book or Passage if you're in a depressive frame of mind, and should wait to pick up To Say Nothing of the Dog until you're in a mood to be whimsical – but I do think that this is an author who has radically improved and matured over the decades, and that the progression from book to book is an interesting journey.

Also, if some nice publisher wanted to unite all of Connie's Hollywood and/or romance stories, that would be most excellent. I'd queue up for a copy.

Internet Passes Me A Cookie

Have been doing the Mama half of Mama Writering all day, with none of the writering. Jemima and I had a reasonably fun morning together as I slowly come to terms with her only having one nap, and that after lunch (sniff sniff to loss of previous productive minutes between 10:30 and 12) though she did rather make up for it by TAKING HER FIRST STEP UNAIDED. And then of course mocked me by failing to repeat the trick for the camera, so that nicely filled in some time. (she did it later to show Daddy but only when I wasn't looking)

Then it was the haze of sugar-dipped items and bouncy castles that is the school fair, dragging several children around for hours (including some borrowed from other people) and occasionally sitting down with tea and homemade cake because seriously, school fair cake is the best cake. I even did my stint of parent volunteering and made pancakes for 45 minutes! I'm pushing my comfort zone to the limit!

But then as I wended my weary way back to the car, with a bouncy sugared-up five year old dragging her heels because I wouldn't let her bounce on the bouncy castle again (not for four dollars!) I found that some arsehole had smashed my wing mirror to kingdom come. Either for kicks or because he couldn't be bothered to slow down on a road with cars parked on both sides. Bah. BAH. I love my car, and this is the second time it has happened to me in less than two years.

But then I came home and found this!

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The Copywrite list of top Aussie blogs has always been of interest to me – though I can't understand a word of his system. I'm just delighted to have scraped into the very very bottom of the list. I think this is a great resource and an interesting way to find out about different writing blogs – we do rather stay in our own corners, so it's cool to see many spec fic names mixed in with all those literary darlings. Hopefully it will lead to some new discoveries!

Anyway, after my VERY LONG DAY I am totally taking this cookie.

For Love of Hathor.

How have I been on the internet this long without discovering The Hathor Legacy?

Oh that old thing, you're all saying? We knew about that.

For those of you who, like me, have managed to miss this awesome site, it's a group blog which revolves around the portrayal of female characters in film, TV, books, games & assorted other media. It is also completely awesome. While there is a lot of reasonable critique about the getting it wrongness of female characters, the articles generally have a positive tone and in fact their mission statement is all about celebrating the awesomeness of female characters rather than being all doom and gloom.

I was first sucked in by an interesting little post on Amanda Redman, one of my favourite older British Actresses (Why has she not been in Doctor Who yet? Why?) and how cool it is that she doesn't try to hide her obviously scarred arm, in any of her TV shows or even her recent wedding photos.

From there I dipped further in, following a link to another Redman related post, this one about how great her character Sandra is in New Tricks, and how rare it is to see a female leader who is allowed to be really good at her job, especially when that job involves giving orders to a bunch of men.

Next I found a brilliant, deeply affecting essay about Disney's Pocahontas, and why telling fluffy bunny fairy stories to children instead of Actual History is not helpful at all, especially when that history is Not Pleasant.

I knew that this site was one that was for me when I read about how much SF they read, and why, and how SF has a greater responsibility to portray gender issues in non-sucky ways because, you know, the possibilities are ENDLESS, you're not locked into antiquated human social conventions unless you really want to be.

Finally I ended up back at the beginning of the blog, with two posts about the film industry that actually made me shocked and angry while at the same time dismally unsurprised: how female audiences are consistently sacrificed so no one has to admit what a crapshoot the Hollywood financing system actually is, and how screenwriters are trained to produce scripts which do not pass the Bechdel Test because no one actually believes women have anything of import to say to each other if it doesn't involve a male character.

So now I'm all cranky. But I have found a new favourite blog which has gone straight into my RSS feed, so I'm happy cranky. Let me know if any of these articles strike a chord with you too!

Galactic Suburbia #19 The Greco Roman Edition Show Notes

New episode is up on iTunes! You can also download it directly, or stream it from our Galactic Suburbia site.

While Alisa is away, Alex & Tansy play… in ANCIENT GREECE! We talk awards, the end of publishing as we know it, stressful feminist debates, Vonda McIntyre, Twitter fiction, Stargate, and whether there's enough Greek & Roman mythology in modern fantasy.

News

Tansy wins WSFA Small Press Award for Siren Beat

Last Drink Bird Head Award Winners

John Joseph Adams takes over from Cat Rambo & Sean Wallace as editor of Fantasy Magazine

Realms of Fantasy dies – farewell notes from the publisher and editor Shawna McCarthy

Wiscon committee disappoints through inaction…

and then finally moves to disinvite Elizabeth Moon as GoH

(warning, many of the comments on that one are pretty awful to wade through)

Reaction posts from Cheryl Morgan and Catherynne M Valente.

Paul Collins on how the ebook revolution isn't working so well

Cat Valente on tedium, evil, and why the term 'PC' is only used these days to hurt and silence

Peter M Ball on how white male privilege uses requests for civility to silence the legitimate anger of others.

on Vonda McIntyre's "Dreamsnake", a controversial Hugo winning novel from 1979 which has been out of print for 10 years and an interview with Vonda McIntyre about the book.

What have we been reading/listening to?

Tansy – Death Most Definite, Trent Jamieson; Blameless, Gail Carriger, Bleed by Peter M Ball, "Twittering the Universe" by Mari Ness, Shine & "Clockwork Fairies" by Cat Rambo, Tor.com.

Alex – Silver Screen, Justina Robson; Sprawl; Deep Navigation, Alastair Reynolds; The Beginning Place, Ursula le Guin.

abandoned Gwyneth Jones' Escape Plans

listening to The 5th Race, ep 1 (Stargate SG1 fan podcast).

Pet Subject

Classical mythology in modern fantasy. Can it still work? Do you have to get it 'right'?

Book mentioned:

The Firebrand, Marion Zimmer Bradley

Medea, Cassandra, Electra by Kerry Greenwood

Olympic Games, Leslie What

Dan Simmons' Ilium and Olympos

Gods Behaving Badly, Marie Phillips

Troy, Simon Brown

Margaret Atwood's Penelopiad and Jeanette Winterson's Weight, also David Malouf's Ransom – along the same lines as Lavinia by Ursula Le Guin

Robert Holdstock's Celtika, Iron Grail, Broken Kings

Please send feedback to us at galacticsuburbia@gmail.com, follow us on Twitter at @galacticsuburbs or on Facebook, and don't forget to leave a review on iTunes!

Jane Austen's Punctuation

Oh, really?

Historically, women authors get a lot of flack. Hardly any of them manage to struggle through the gauntlet of academic sneerage, the popular theory of "well it's not like she wrote about anything serious" and The Great Specific-To-Female-Authors-Amnesia-Plagues that occurred regularly through the 20th Century.

But at least we have Jane Austen, right? Author of the Greatest Book Ever Written (ABC TV told me Pride and Prejudice was more popular than the Bible and I think that's excellent news considering the lack of sparkling dialogue and pretty frocks in the Bible)

Only apparently, Jane Austen isn't as brilliant as we all thought she was. Guess why. No, go on, guess. Cos she wrote about women and parlours and forgot to put in a few pithy remarks about Napoleon? Nope. Cos she couldn't land a husband? Nope.

Apparently Jane Austen no longer counts as a literary genius because she didn't singlehandedly arrange every piece of her own punctuation. Apparently (prepare those fainting couches, ladies) AN EDITOR PUT IN THE SEMI-COLONS FOR HER. Obviously all lady authors must give up now, our heroine forever sullied by this dramatic revelation.

Possibly my sarcastic tone of voice just got a leetle too high pitched, as all the dogs in our neighbourhood are sounding anxious. But, seriously. I get that new revelations about Austen's writing style are actually newsworthy and of interest to the book reading world, but how is this beat up into some kind of scandal? Authors need editors. Having editorial input is not cheating, it's now considered a vital part of the process, and if Austen's didn't do much more than replace some em dashes with semi colons, she was still far more lightly edited than any author these days who doesn't have a close personal relationship with Lulu.com.

Once I calmed my ire and read the article properly, of course, I saw that it wasn't actually proclaiming that Austen was a lesser author because she had the help in to tidy her manuscripts – though from the set up of the article that is certainly the initial tone, and others like this one have no problem with dismissing Austen's contributions to her own books, despite the best efforts of the academic in question to steer the topic on to her more positive discoveries. The key to this literary "scandal" is that a myth has been exploded – the myth of perfection. One which was started not by Austen herself, but by her brother who claimed ""Everything came finished from her pen."

So we have a great writer, built up into an impossibly perfect paragon by a male relative, and now that we have evidence that maybe she didn't live up to that impossible ideal, who is going to be blamed? I really hope that this story doesn't metamorphose into a vague sensation of "but you know she didn't write it all herself," one of those classic tactics of suppressing women writers that Joanna Russ identified. And yet… the headlines are way ahead of us, turning this story of interesting scholarship into a negative blow against one of the few women whose position in the literary canon is so ingrained that few have the bottle to try to kick her out.

The aspect that most interested me, reading through the sensationalist reporting to the actual quotes by Professor Kathryn Sutherland, is that Jane Austen's personal punctuation style tended more towards the dash than the semi-colon… was, in other words, far more in touch with how most fiction writers work now than with her contemporaries (apart from, apparently, Lord Byron who was also prone to dashing about). I will be scouring the papers for a headline that reads JANE AUSTEN'S PUNCTUATION AHEAD OF HER TIME!!! or something equally positive but somehow I don't think I'm going to find one.

Twas the Week Before Nano

It's now less than a week until the end of the month, which is a little scary for me as that's when my book is due in. But that also means it's less than a week until NaNoWriMo starts! As good a time as any to link to the post I wrote last year about The Myths of NaNoWriMo that are regularly perpetuated by writers who haven't actually tried it…

I adore Nano. I love everything about it. I love the frantic pace of writing, the PRESSURE, the word wars, the playlists, the self-imposed deadline to end all self-imposed deadlines, the creativity, the pressure. I love making writing dates with my friends, those who write all year round (and I never get a chance to see otherwise) and those who only clock in with the writing thing at this time of year. I love carting my big fluffy monster laptop bag around to cafe after cafe and living room after living room and playing Lily Allen through my headphones on an endless loop because damn it that woman makes me write faster.

Last year, I wrote with a three month old baby on my lap. It was challenging, to say the least, but it was also an amazing step in proving to myself that I could juggle new motherhood and writing.

This year, the buzz is starting, and we've managed to lure new flies into the web (HEY MILLIE) which is super exciting. But… I won't be old schooling it this year. It was a big admission for me to make to myself, that the full NaNoWriMo was not on the cards for me this time around. I'm looking at finishing the most intense book project I've ever worked on this Sunday, and even I am not crazy enough to launch into a 50K marathon the day after. A mad riot of new bookery is tempting, but it could burn me out for months. I've been swamped in deadlines all year, and this is finally a chance for me to breathe and catch up on other things. Including, um, some rather major copy edits for Book Two, which my editor was nice enough to postpone a few weeks to let me get the much-interrupted Book Three finally done.

On the other hand, it's FREAKING NANO and there's no way I want to be left out. Plus, I don't want to miss the chance to harness the magical November vibe and get some serious work done before summer holidays hit me and I'm back to full time mummying. So…

I'm making a list and checking it twice. Instead of one big 50K project, I'm going to put several smaller projects together, covering different areas in my life that have been crying out for some serious attention. Call it the Month of Manic Multitaking Mama – MoMaMuMa! Heh okay, maybe we won't give it a special name. But here's my November plan:

TANSY'S NOVEMBER LIST [35]

PROFESSIONAL COMMITMENTS

Final prep & notes arrangement for writing workshop [1]

Teaching novel writing workshop, 6 November [1]

Copy edits, The Shattered City due 22 November [3]

WRITING ETC.

Proposal for Fury to send to agent – 3 chapters, synopsis, cover letter [5]

one short story [1]

4 chapters of Blueberry edited [4]

READING

5 books from my "archived to read" shelf [5]

10 children's books for Aurealis Awards [10]

QUILTING/CRAFT

2 bookmarks [2]

squares for my Creature Court quilt [2]

finishing rocket quilt top [1]

Okay it looks like a lot, but apart from the professional commitments this is all stuff I have been desperately wanting to work on… pretty much all year. So I'm very excited about November!

WSFA SPSFA = AWESOME

Some of the more astute among you may have worked out that Alisa Krasnostein is over in Washington DC at the moment, where she just attended the prizegiving ceremony at Capclave. I'm delighted to announce that my story "Siren Beat," published by Alisa last year, has just won the Washington SF Association Small Press Short Fiction Award.

Not only is this an enormous honour, there is also a trophy! How brilliant is that? I've never won a trophy before.

Here is the speech I gave Alisa to read, although apparently there was unlicensed adlibbing and the getting of laughs, so who knows what she actually said! *grins*

As an author, "Siren Beat" is the story that keeps giving back. I have been overwhelmed by the buzz and response to this story, which began as an experiment in trying to create urban fantasy with a distinctly Australian flavour. My Australia is not the outback or the crocodiles or the soap opera suburbs. I live in Hobart, a small city on the edge of a bright grey coastline; there's nothing between us and Antarctica but a very cold wind. I loved bringing monsters to my hometown, and indulging in the Tasmanian obsessions with weather and seafood to drag a kraken and a handful of sirens into our harbour.

Receiving international recognition for a story I thought would not make sense to anyone but me is a tremendous honour, and I am very grateful for it. I am also delighted to announce that I recently received an Australia Council grant to write the first Nancy Napoleon novel, further exploring the characters and world of "Siren Beat."

I would like to thank Alisa of Twelfth Planet Press, not only for publishing this story and creating such a beautiful book, but for taking up the challenge to fly halfway around the world to have an adventure I would have loved to attempt myself, if I was not at home with a baby glued to my left leg. Credit also goes to Marianne de Pierres, who originally inspired this story, to my partner Andrew who supports me with every definition of the word, and to Kaia Landelius, my Swedish Writing Fairy, who pitched in when I was struggling with one of the most confrontational scenes. Everyone needs a friend who will help them write tentacle smut.

Happy Snaps from Fairyland & Beyond

My new phone has a camera in it! I know, most people are way ahead of me on this technology, but I'm excited by it, especially as the only camera we own that I've ever known how to use has broken recently. So hooray, lots of pictures!

Kathryn Lomer at Fuller's Bookshop last Sunday, launching Three Things About Daisy Blue, the final book in the A&U Girlfriend series by Kate Gordon. You all know how much I have loved this series – while it's sad to see it end I was delighted to be able to attend the launch of the last one, which happens to have been written by a friend of mine!

Here's Kate herself, describing what sounds like a great fun teen book set in Bali. She read a scene about a girl eating a durian and throwing up on a boy's shoes which had us all squirming! I look forward to reading this one.

Jem's new trick, feeding the Glammer! She loves sitting at the big girl table, but loves feeding her food to grown ups even more.

This one turned out very dark – still figuring out how to snap in sunshine – but it's Raeli at her sports day, showing off her prized 3rd place ribbon in the skipping race. So proud of her!

Yesterday being Hobart Show Day, we all trooped off down to my mother's cottage in the country to have lunch and romp in the garden. The weather was stunningly good (especially for Show Day which is usually either stinking hot or flash flood raining) and we enjoyed ourselves greatly. Mum's garden is exceptionally photogenic, and I went a bit crazy.

Is it or is it not like something out of an Arthur Ransome novel? Or possibly E. Nesbit.

Yes, her house really is that colour.

Playing cricket with a badminton racket, a ping pong ball & Daddy! My child is so inventive.

Yes, my mother has basically built a fairyland.

Ladybug!

If my daughters end up with anything resembling a green thumb, it will not be from me.

My mother is a sculptor, and makes her own trellises by binding fallen branches together. The overall effect is – yep, pretty much like walking through a Brian Froud painting.

Baby Jem with her Glammer.

I am not a gardener, and while I appreciate beautiful things, I usually don't prioritise making everyday space into something of beauty – our own home is comfortable but it is not art! I am glad beyond words that thanks to Mum, my girls will have childhood memories of such a magical place. I am also glad that I don't have to do as much mowing as she does.