Category: Madcap Adventures and Distracting Hijinx

I’ve got a nine-day holiday coming up where I disappear to Adelaide and Melbourne, sans laptop, and will not have regular internet access. Because I love you all and refuse to let my absence from the internet keep me quiet, I’m starting to prepare posts that will go live in my absence. I have a few ideas for topics, but since I’m already breaking from my usual process, I figure that’s a good excuse to throw a question out there to the peeps reading this blog: what do you want me to write about? Give me topics. Ask me questions. Set me challenges, if you’re so inclined. The last time I did this, a whole bunch of posts started out with people giving me a single word. Essentially, if there’s a thing you’d like me to write and/or rant about, my brain is at your disposal. Answers will start going live from the 29th of February.  

I’m writing this in the past and setting it to post on Monday. Right now, as I write this, it’s 10:53 on Thursday evening and I’m ensconced in a hotel room at Rydges South Bank, watching the minutes tick by as the start of the conference gets closer. I’ve seen about twenty people I know this evening, courtesy of Lisa Hannett’s book launch. Almost all of those people started our conversation with some variation on “I’m surprised you’re still standing.” But this is not the exhausting bit. Even when the disasters hit – and the one rule of running a conference is that disasters will hit – once you get to the night before the conference it’s pretty much out of your hands. You just kinda…hold on. Answer the questions you can, do what needs doing to keep things running, roll with any punches that come your way. It doesn’t make it any easier to get to sleep. Partially it’s the nervous energy,

I’m going to be a bit scarce around the online world this week. We’re launching the all-new AWMonline next Monday (fingers crossed) and there’s a few projects I need to catch up on after focusing all my attention webwards for a few weeks, otherwise the deadlines will sneak up on me and kick my arse. In my absence, I leave you in the Spokesbear’s capable, if adorably fuzzy, paws. He’ll be here all week, being all intently interested in what you’ve got to say, and we’re both really interested in hearing what’s new in your world. Tell us about your hi-jinx and adventures, peeps. Let us live vicariously through your lives. Show me there’s a rainbow at the far end of the journey. What have you been doing that rocks the Casbah lately?