Pretty much the end of the crazy

The Literature Board met today and finished the assessment of the individual New Work grants, which is one part of the obligatory reading that's been taking up my every waking hour since late July. There's a little more business to take care of tomorrow, and then I'll have a weekend to come to grips with the next short story deadline off the rank; we'll see if I can switch hats quickly, from the bureaucrat's (kind of pork-pie-ish) to the writer's (something dreamed up by a crochet artist for the Alice Springs Beanie Festival (oh, go and look—there are some fabulous creations there, many of them extremely writerly!))

Spring is here. Jasmine, wattle, later magnolias and all-sorts-of-thing-I-don't-know-the-names-of are out, and the air is balmy. HSC trial exams are over. My 3-day-a-week job at UNSW has been extended to the end of the year. My novel and Yellowcake short story collection have sold in Australia and Allen & Unwin are making revision noises about the novel—when will I ever fit revisions in? Things are still being worked out in the US and UK for both books, but should be finalised soon. My impressive list of short-stories-owing still looks pretty darn impressive. However, I've written three of them and had all three accepted. I'd like to complete another two by the end of September, but there's the small matter of a week or so in Melbourne coming up. Still, with no grant applications to read, you never know...