(no subject)

So much has crossed over my desk today that if I told you even a third of it this post would be too long. It's all to do with Conflux, too, except the stuff that's to do with the Masques anthology or with my own fiction. Yep, it's a science-fictional day. Also a science day, because the wonders of modern medicine are such that I managed a warm bath (till now it was short, cool showers and never feeling quite unwound) *and* sausages (but not together) and feel rather human.

Also, there was ogham on Time Team: I have a small fondness for ogham. If any of you write your best novel by hand onto nice bits of slate (chert would do, in a pinch - I like chert) in ogham I promise to read the tens of thousands of pieces that will make up your magnum opus, every single one. I'll even learn ogham in order to do so (I have a fondness for it, that doesn't mean I read it, which is significantly better than one language I can read but really don't like and no, I'm not telling anyone what that language is, someone clever is sure to think it a good idea to send me articles written in it, to test my patience.)

The gradual onset of humanity into my life means that I'm about to write a poem that begins:

"There was movement at the desktop, for the word had passed around
That the manuscript had truly got away."

If you want to find out more, you may have to hear me talk about it at Conflux. Or blog about it after Conflux. Or for someone else to say something around that time. There will be no spoilers. Except that it's to do with evil mirrors rather than murdered morris dancers. For some reason frogs and green jelly come to mind. Also tim-tams. If the manuscript had not got away I'd have to put it on diet.

If I kill anything in my current novel (on hold till the health thing is sorted, alas) it would be Malcolm Turnbull's superior laugh. This means I need a list, doesn't it? A G&S list of things we need to eliminate, given a chance.

1. Malcolm Turnbull's superior laugh

2. Brains that waft in and out of focus (in focus is practical and grounded - out of focus is genius: in and out of focus is just confusing)

3. Unreadable address labels

4. Optus phone marketers (all of them - or maybe they should just be redeployed into phone-free secretarial work, or sent to saltmines - there were some really good Medieval saltmines in Central Europe once, I wonder if they'd suit?)

5. Sticky notes that claim they're "From the warped brain of Gillian Polack" (I shall have to find an interesting way to use them up, then)

6. Green toenail polish

7. Time that mutates in just the wrong way (time that mutates in just the right way, on the other hand, needs gentle encouragement)

8. Teachers who make their very adult writing students clap their hands and sing the whole of "Once upon a time in a nursery rhyme," claiming it teaches narrative tension (oh wait, that was me)

9. Boring pens

10. Homes without books (is it possible to have a home without a book, in fact, or are books one of the things that make a home a home?).