Up and down week

This damn cold! This damn, won't get that bad but will drag you down incessantly for weeks cold!

There, the whinge is done. Let me catch you up with what's been happening in my corner of the world.

First, my 40++sized romance went down a treat with the ladies – one is taking it to her bookclub to read and discuss. It's got me thinking – more and more, I'm desiring to promote a variety of portrayals of women's sexuality. There's still a real break between the freedom men have to express themselves sexuality without it impacting on their perceived worth and that for women. It's still quite prevalent in society that a 'good girl' will be a sexually innocent one, hopefully completely virginal until the right man comes along. There's still the mix up of people perceiving rape as being about sex, not power, and I can't believe men still come up with the argument on articles that if women don't want to be harassed, they should stop trying to be attractive.

Boy, does THAT one make my blood boil.

So I'm thinking that this needs to be combated, and providing a variety of role models showing that it's okay to be whatever you want to be to young women is one way of doing it. The idea that's playing in my mind at the moment is a collection of erotica, but we'll see what develops from it.

I've started working on Hope Lost, the second book in the People of the Star trilogy. I read through it, and made some great notes and great realisations. Then on Sunday night, I had one of those sudden flashes of insight that completely turns a story around. I had to kill a major character. Not just for the sake of killing them, but to upset the balance and make life even more difficult for the rest.

In the process of making that change, I realised that I'd left myself a giant plot hole. So I'm thinking through how to patch that up. I've got two possibilities and I'm working through which is the better option. One provides more tension at a later date, but then is that tension really necessary? These are the questions a writer asks.

There's been lots of other things going on too. Last Wednesday, the first semi-official Natcon2013 meeting took place and as a result, a venue is booked. The announcement is here - http://confluxnatcon2013.wordpress.com/2011/07/26/accommodation-and-venue-sorted/

On Friday, I went and did an interview for Irina and William Webster's Inspiring Author series http://www.youtube.com/user/inspiringauthortv I'll post the link to my interview when it's up. It was fun, to sit and have a chat with writerly folks.

Sunday I went to Wollongong, with Donna Hanson, Matthew Farrer and Kaaron Warren, to help celebrate Rob Hood's 60th birthday. It was great to catch up with Rob and Cat, and with a whole lot of other writerly friends. Rob had a great day, and it was wonderful to see one of the nicest, most generous people in the community have such a wonderful time.

Yesterday was more writerly stuff. At lunchtime, I went to the next in the ACT Writer's Centre's Tuesday Chats. This is a series of free talks they're putting on for members about a variety of topics. I went to one last month by a short story competition judge and will be going to one Irina and William are giving on promotion next month. Yesterday's was by Ian McHugh on story generation. Ian had some really interesting ideas on the element of story which is dutifully mulling away at the back of my brain. He ran one of the exercises at CSFG a couple of months ago and it resulted for me in a great story, so I'm going to give the one he gave us yesterday a go too.

Then last night was the launch of CSFG member David Dufty's first book. Lost in Transit is the story of the creation and then mysterious disappearance of the Phillip K Dick android, developed in Memphis around 2003. It's a book I'm very much looking forward to reading.

So, there's tis. That's what I've been up to since I last spoke to you. Until next time – see ya!