'Sea-Hearts' is up for a World Fantasy Award!

Yes, it's true! And in fine company. Congratulations to all nominees.

One of my big jobs for August is done. The Australian/Vogel Award is judged, to all three judges' and A&U's satisfaction. Now we just have to all keep the result under our hats until May next year.

The next week and a bit will be wall-to-wall grant applications. Possibly the weekend after next I'll get to work on a short story. Possibly.

Life is slightly too full...

...of Vogel reading (2 more MSS to go!).

...of Lit Board application reading, thwarted slightly by me dropping my laptop, so I'm continuing on my son's high-school-issue ThinkPad with about an eighth of the screen display missing.

...of the day-job, which now looks to be going on until Christmas.

..of socialising, though I'm not complaining about that, or about weekends at the beach. That's a good kind of fullness.

...and of school visits. Greetings, Abbotsleigh girls! What a fantastic festival you're having. And what a pleasant audience, full of questions and willing to laugh at my jokes. Very kind of you.

I hope everyone else's life is slightly less full, leaving them time for reading-for-pleasure, and of course writing.

A good (long) weekend

I filled up this 4-day weekend by:

• drafting one short story to the end, typing it up and printing it out for (probably quite a bit of) further work
• probably half-drafting a second story which I'm rescuing for a previous draft, which I wrote right to the end but which somehow never really got up from the page and started breathing
• reading several manuscripts on the Vogel longlist—I've now got 2 shortlistees
• reading half the children's and YA New Work (Developing Writers) Literature Board grant applications
• going for a 36km bike ride down to Sans Souci
• attending this panel at the Graphic festival—it was fascinating. Made me think we need more 1.5 hour panels at litfests. I know the panellists were wiped out by the end of it but it was great for the audience.
• eating (in and out, with and without friends)
• sleeping (in).

Oh yes, a smidgin of tweeting was done, too.