Australian Speculative Fiction Blog Carnival

This month's carnival is brought to you by the wonderful Wendy Waring. She posted it from the somewhere supremely exotic (I shall not name the names of warm islands in fabulous location s- Canberra is cold), which makes it uber-cool.

It's not Wendy's fault it's late. Nor is it the fault of her exotic location. It was my fault, for being out of reach of all communications from Sunday evening until last nightish. Nothing exootic at my end. Just a busy day and a Sydney-Canberra bus. If only they had wifi on those busses! (Thank goodness it was a quiet month, otherwise Wendy would have been alone and in great difficulties - as it was, she was just alone - sorry Wendy - and thanks for dealing with it!)

Go and read! The Carnival and more of more of the Carnival and yes, even more of the Carnival.

PS If she missed any of your posts, don't blame anyone, just send links to philologa (at) gmail (dot) com next time. What we don't know about (ie your brilliant writing) we can't post about.

Scatty travel notes from a scatty Gillian

Monday morning and I am so very tired. It's transit day and my body keeps saying “Weather changes mean migraines mean day in bed” and “Gillians are never awake before 10 am except on teaching days.” Except it's hard to spend a day in bed when you're carrying all your luggage and are still in Sydney and the bus is 6 hours away and this particular Gillian has been awake for 2 ½ hours already. Regular infusions of caffeine and chocolate will keep the aches and pains and that strange need to sleep enough at bay so I can enjoy myself. To make sure this happens I've decided to give you all running commentary. Whenever I stop at a cafe, I'll update my notes and tonight I'll paste them in my blog.

You may well spend the next little while wondering about my sanity. You won't wonder about it just now, though. There is absolutely nothing crazy about eating a pain au chocolate at a café in the QVB.

The QVB is an exquisitely proportioned Victorian shopping mall, restored with great care. I adore it, and try to pay it homage at least once a year. It was the ideal place to take refuge after I had explored Martin Place and a bunch of old arcades and saved myself from spending vast amounts of money I don't have but the locked state of all the shop doors. Fabulous luxury shopping in this part of Sydney, though, for everyone who has $1760 for antique bracelets.

I had a coffee in one of the arcades and now, forty-five minutes later, decided my life would be a barren waste without the pain au chocolate under glowing Victorian internal (shallow) glass dome.

And that's Gillian to 9 am, in very damp downtown Sydney. In twelve hours the Sydney wet will have transmuted into bitter frosts and I shall be at home, huddled over my main computer, wondering when I shall ever feel warm again.

#

It's less than an hour later and I have no more complaint. I'm sitting in a comfy chair and listening to Delta Goodrem. I have proprietoral right over this chair for three more hours, then five minutes away is Galaxy Bookshop where I'm meeting Nyssa.

The simple truth is that two hours carrying a backpack was just a tad stupid for someone with shoulder problems. And I've been grieving for weeks about missing all the movies, so I just walked a full 30 metres to the downtown cinema. It's only expensive if you don't deduct the three coffees I'd have had to buy to emerge tomorrow capable of teaching (otherwise $16 for a film would be unjustifiable). There's no rain in here, either. No other people yet either – first session on a Monday morning is blessedly quiet and I have my favourite seat in the whole cinema.

Since I haven't seen any of the new films, I asked which would be finished in time so I could reach Nyssa. I had just one choice, but it's a good one. I can even justify it as work, because CS Lewis is going to be one of the writers students can choose from for my Literary Banquet course in July.

I'm feeling very smug right now. I only skip one of the thing on my list (Rex Mundi v. 1 will have to wait – the money has been spent on a voyage to Narnia); I've already done three big things from my tasks du jour, and I don't have to move from my comfy seat for three full hours. Picture me content.

#

Now it's 3 pm and I'm on a completely full bus that will soon be taking me home. It's running late, but not by much.

Nyssa's purple hair was not in sight and nor was my purple backpack (our secret meeting code) when we met in Galaxy, but she recognised me, so we were fine. She wore gorgeous clothes and had a new haircut and yes, I was impressed (though it pains me to admit such a thing),

The person on the next seat has just got out his laptop. No more blogging for me. Next stop: home.

(no subject)

No more Medieval Women this year. However shall I survive?

Also, only four more teaching times before I have to face my ghosts again.

That sounds ominous, doesn't it? It really isn't. I just hate the moment in the year when I've fallen in love with teaching all over again and have to leave it behind for a bit. Then I fall in love with writing (not hard to do - once I start, my fiction creates a mesmerising pool of sanity in my backbrain) and curse the teaching rising to confront me. The truth is that I get tired around this time of the semester and I rather need that break from such intense focus. It's just that I love the enthusiasm of students and their fascination for things that I adore, and so teaching gives me a big emotional lift at the same time as it exhausts me. Anyhow, that break is coming. In fact, it's eight days away.

I love both. It's a pity they use exactly the same type of energy and I can't write massively and teach heaps all at once. I can if I have to, but it really does take a lot of effort to do this ginormous refocussing act once a day or twice a week instead of 3 times a year.