Tag: It’s Getting Hot in Here…

Journal

Happy Birthday Dad

My father turns Sixty today, so I’m going to take this opportunity to wish him a very Happy Birthday. Given the health problems he had towards the end of last year, turning sixty isn’t something we take for granted in our family anymore. The rest of my family is already in a resort up on the Sunshine Coast, kicking the celebrations off early. I’m stuck in Brisbane until lunch time, but I’ll be disappearing after my shift at the dayjob this morning to join them. In theory I’ll attempt to do some writing – I’ve packed Fritz the Laptop – but in practice I expect I’ll be spending time with my dad for the next 48 hours or so. We are, after all, very glad he’s around to spend time with after his  heart surgery last year. # In totally unrelated news the web version of The Birdcage Heart went live over on the Daily Science Fiction site, for those who

Journal

Rumors of my absence may have been exagerated

It turns out that spending two-to-three weeks writing by hand just wasn’t on the list of things I was willing to do. Fortunately this roughly coincided with the realisation that I could pick up a very cheap desktop (to replace the machine that died last September) and write it off as a business expense. It’s not as ideal as no computer problems at all – I’ve spent the last two days uploading the various programs and back-up files onto the new machine rather than working – but it has fringe benefits (hello, photoshop. I’ve missed you). It’s a stinking hot, evil day outside my office so I’ve retreated into the air-conditioning with a pile of Primus CD and a large vat of coffee. The coffee because my sleep patterns are shot right now (going to bed at eleven, getting to sleep around 4 am). The Primus because I watched a lot of Robot Chicken in a row and it’s Les

Journal

January is almost done

Congratulations to Elena Gleason, whose story Erased picked up the chocolate in Fantasy Magazine’s  best story of 2008 reader poll. Congrats also to my Clarion South peep Michael Greenhut, whose story Watermark finished in the top-five, and thanks also to everyone who put in a vote for On the Finding of Photographs of My Former Loves – to my surprise, it snuck into the top five as well. The temperature seems to have dropped to reasonable levels here in Brisbane – today I walked into my office and saw the temperature was below 30 degrees for the first time in weeks. That probably explains why the last twenty-four hours have been more productive than usual, although that could also be because I’m now loaded up with projects again after giving up January to the thesis exclusively (I suspect I’m just not built for the singular focus approach, especially not when I’m fretting about the things I’m not doing. There is still thesis work

Journal

28 Days of Thesis Updates: Day X (yes, I’ve lost track)

I’ve always known that my flat tends to be warmer than the outside world. Just how warm was only recently brought home to me, courtesy of a thermometer reading in my study. Today, at 4 PM when I walked it, it delighted in informing me that it was 39 degreesin my workspace at present. Have now turned on the air-conditioning and am waiting for the temperature to drop before scrambling for words.