Tansy Rayner Roberts's Blog, page 159

Testing for Aussiecon

This is an experimental post, to see for myself how practical it is to blog from the iPad and thus to blog regularly from the convention. I'm surprised at how easy the virtual keyboard is! And the lack of apostrophes on the main keyboard is made up for by a fairly smart – what's the word, the thing that fills in words for you.

So yes, assuming I get more than five minutes to myself each day and that these five minutes correspond to me getting to the front of the family iPad queue, there will b...

Mothers, Authors and Milestones

I've spent a lot of the weekend so far reading the comments from this great blog post by Yarn Harlot, about the double standards inflicted on female vs. male parents, especially when it comes to travelling for work. It took me a little time to realise why I was particularly entranced by this feminist rant out of the many feminist rants I read each week – but of course, I have Aussiecon coming up, at which I will be trying to balance the needs of my family with the needs of my career, with...

Shades of Milk and Honey, by Mary Robinette Kowal

When I first saw this book described by the author as being the book Jane Austen might have written had she lived in a world with magic, I did think that was a bit much. Obviously I wanted to *read* such a book, but really, comparing yourself to Austen? Isn't that reaching a tad high, especially for a debut novelist? Also, let's face it, a lot of authors have jumped on the Austen bandwagon. I've been burned by a lot of bad sequels to Pride and Prejudice, and while I never actually got...

Tuck Boxes, Literary High Ground, and the SF Community

Mmmm coffee cake. I have just returned from Raeli's Book Week parade. She dressed up as Rhapsody from the Fairies which isn't overly literary (though she has several of their books!) but she came up with the idea herself, based on a trouble-free costume she already had, so who was I to argue? I was also delighted that her obsession with Cats the Musical has gone viral, as her friend Inigo insisted on going as Macavity. Not sure if he had a copy of TS Eliot with him.

The coffee cake came ...

SuperMamaWriter

I've spent the last several weeks sinking into a slow swamp of rewrites, but I can finally see a glimpse of sunshine, and if you don't record the good days, somehow they get forgotten faster than anything else.

So today I:

edited seven chapters of Book 2, including three really tricky ones that needed New Writing, and one scene I've been planning to write for several months and only just got around to.

while also: shopping for baby food, doing laundry, ridding the kitchen of a scary large pile o...

Go To Tartarus! [Xena Rewatch 1.13-1.16]

1.13 Athens City Academy of the Performing Bards

Gabrielle is tempted by a cute boy to enter a storytelling contest in the hopes of fulfilling her dream to attend Bard School. There are hijinks.

Oooh AND we find out how Xena and Gabrielle have been surviving. Xena might not sully herself with money, but Gabrielle earns a few dinars storytelling in a tavern.

Basically this is a clip show, but right from the beginning, the Xena production team (and later, Hercules) embraced the challenges of ...

Smart Women Doing Stuff on the Internet

This wasn't going to be a themed link post and then at the last minute I looked at the list of links and – well, yes!

NK Jemesin is interviewed for Locus.
This is only a taste of the full interview which I really enjoyed reading from the paper version of the magazine last week. The last pullquote on this page is particularly good but I liked the expanded version better where she discusses some of the amazing roles women and people of colour have had in history, that are often forgotten about b...

Tansy's Worldcon Schedule

The whole provisional programme for Aussiecon is up here, but it is very much subject to change. I wasn't available for the two panels I am listed for on Thursday, sadly.

But you will be able to find me here:

Friday 1000 (Room 204)
Galactic Suburbia
Alisa, Alex and Tansy record a "live" episode of their SF discussion
podcast, Galactic Suburbia. On the menu for this episode: regular
segments SF News and What We've Been Reading, plus Worldcon gossip and
highlights. Pet Subject: our Favourite...

Weekend of Ups and Downs

A mixed weekend, many highs and lows. I ran away from my family on Saturday to do some work on my book at the State Library in Hobart (it stays open an hour and a half longer than my local on Saturdays) and worked up a storm. I haven't been in there for years, and was pleased to see how gorgeous it is now! It was my childhood library and it was exciting to see what a nice space it is.

Then I swung by to vote before going home. No sausage sizzle! Either I was ripped off or it was over...

That New Book Smell

Day 30 – What book are you reading right now?

I was looking forward to this question all along, because it was so far in the future, and how can you know what you're going to read in a month's time? There was always the possibility that I would completely cheat and fix the question, but I hoped I wouldn't.

And I woke up this morning and realised I couldn't answer the question at all, because I finished reading Palimpsest by Catherynne Valente on the iPad last night, and I wasn't reading a...