girlie jones

A LEADING Jewish group says it is disgusted by an anti-Semitic email purportedly sent by a Victorian Liberal campaign director.

In the latest shot fired in an internal party war that has the Liberals reeling, the email - forwarded from campaign officer John Osborn - allegedly showed state campaign manager Susan Chandler making the reference to Liberal Party candidate Adam Held.

The email referred to Mr Held as a "greedy f****ing Jew" after he asked for more campaign material.
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,23684354-2,00.html

The Liberal Party, yet again, shows us the cutting edge thinking of 1937.

What are y'all reading right now? Come and pop past and tell me what you are enjoying or have enjoyed reading this year (all works, great and small!).

Is it just me or is Asimov's having a very off year this year?

I must admit to so far being very uninspired by short fiction published this year. I still have about 660 shorts in the spreadsheet to read - maybe all the good ones are in that lot?

In 46 days I am getting on a plane to fly to the Middle East.

46 DAYS!!! How the hell did this happen? I *know* I just made a big to do list that was kind of focused on wrapping up a lot of stuff before then but STILL! 46 DAYS?! I'm not ready! There's so much I have to do.

*breathes*

So ... I'll be reporting weekly on the size of my to do list - hopefully the page count will reduce. We'll see.

So ... after working on it all weekend, I have a final Master To Do List. It's not 25 pages long, so that's good. It came in at a workable 12 pages! Now I just have to get a week list from this and it'll all be good.

This morning we took my Mum out for brunch which is our traditional Mother's Day thing. There was some kind of crazy coffee mix up where lactose-free coffees kept arriving (we brought lactose free milk with us). My sister and I each ordered a caramel flat white and we each got a caramel latte and a flat white as a result. We drank em both but and I felt bad that they didn't charge us for em (I would have had two in the end in any case).
My B-I-L: How many sugars do you normally have in your coffee?
Me: 3
Him: Wow. Just like your sister!
Me: Huh
Him: How many coffees do you have in a day?
Me: Only 2 these days
Him: THAT'S 6 SPOONS OF SUGAR!
Me: No. I can only have sugar in my first cup of coffee for the day. All the rest have to be without.
Him: Why don't you just have 1.5 spoons in each cup then?
Me: That would so take away the point.

Am off to my sister's in a bit for what I am sure will be a delicious spread for afternoon tea. My Mum, my Nana, my Aunt from Melb, my sister's Mother in law and sister in law and all the assorted rellies thereof.

Last night kathrynlinge had us (valeskah1 and punkrocker1991 and I) over for dinner. The four of us kinda had a New Years resolution to have some foodie nights and we've had a few. The food was fantastic last night - we went for a light entree (delicious dips) and mains (veggie stack and salad) so we could have 3 dessert courses. We didn't make it to the hot chocolate round but it was all amazingly good. Sooooooo much sugar I ended up having to get up and do the dishes to expend some - the others felt the same and joined me!

NEEDLESS to say, that company is always unhealthy for my to do list. And why yes, there is another crazy project about to start. After the crazy of yesterday, I KNOW it's bad. And yet ... in the pursuit of art!

I just paid a healthy sum of Idiot Tax.

The *annoying* thing is I was *doing* something about it! I was!!! I've been sitting here today finally working through what needs to be on my to do list. It's going to be a big list. It's going to probably be about 25 pages long - the ASif page is 3 pages long on its own. But that's fine. I am prepared for that. The hard bit is actually thinking through what needs to be done. When it's all in your head, it's stressful because you need to remember all these things and not doing them means retaining the memory AND feeling bad for not getting ahead AND then the more guilty you feel, the worse you feel and then you forget *why* you feel bad about a particular task so that the task itself makes you feel bad and you don't know why. Leaving it for ridiculous amounts of time mean you can't remember *why* you weren't doing a task or what about it makes you feel sick and so it must be hard and that thought process puts you off.

And then there's the in between - when you've started making the list of some things but others you are still working from the list in your head and you don't know if you're coming or going. And so starting to make the list makes you feel sick because you won't be able to put everything down all at once and you won't remember some things and then you will forget to do things and then it won't be more efficient than winging it anyway. So you don't make the list.

But it could just be me. In which case - that's the kinda stuff goin' on in my head.

But today, I got into the right headspace to start making this to do list. I gave myself permission to allow the list to not be perfect - I can always add things to it as I remember them - and thus I made the transition from horrible, harassed headspace into organised, orderly, on top of it productive person.

But being able to make lists requires this "right headspace" - it's highly focused as you start big - FIX THE WORLD - and then work down into bitesize steps along the way. It's hard to first remember all the big things and then you have to brainstorm and work out how you are actually going to do these. Both being reasons contributing to earlier paralysis.

But see, tonight I had promised to take a chocolate mousse to dinner. And I needed to buy cream. So at 2.30pm I popped out to buy said cream. And FUCKING forgot my house keys - which I'd taken off my keyring to leave for my cleaning lady to let herself into my house this morning cause I had to take my car in for its service at 8am. And of course I did this on Shabbos so I couldn't call my aunt to borrow her set. I went to her place to see if they were there (after I rang my Mum of course) but they weren't. Went to my mum's, debated us driving all round random friends of my aunt and uncle's to see if they were there for lunch after Shule this morning and figured that would take me just as long, and may not even be successful, as just calling a locksmith and taking the Idiot Tax.

$165 for 5 mins lockpicking because I AM TOO BUSY TO PAY ATTENTION TO MY OWN LIFE. And I'm inside by 4.45pm. (That's a loss of 2 hours)

I've paid the tax and will now be halving my week commitments till my headspace is calmer. The annoying thing is I was in the *middle of the plan* to be in a calmer headspace in any case.

I fucking hate being this stupid.

(Choc mousse is now finally setting in the fridge).

- Idiot Out.

The AOC this week loosened its protest guidelines for athletes heading to Beijing.

It said athletes must respect the dignity of the host nation and the Olympic charter, but said they were free to express their opinions on Tibet, human rights and other issues in media interviews and online blogs.

However, athletes have been banned from placing protest signs or propaganda on clothing or equipment.

Mr Coates said there could be podium demonstrations in Beijing similar to the black power protest at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City by American track athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos

http://News.com.au

(Am catching up on a bunch of things)

Have had this book out on the table to blog it for ages - check out what ozisim sent me for my birthday! I think it's hilarious! And also really caring to offer me a way to dig myself out!!

Thanks Sim!

Am amusing myself - I just hung a quilt in pinks, white and navy and of dresses on stands in between a Shaun Tan and a contemporary Aboriginal painting in my living room. I'm amused mostly because the ex-sister-in-law would have commented not only on the mix of media but also of styles. I suspect "design-wise" you aren't supposed to mix art up like that. But ... I love the mix and with each glance up from my laptop, to a different part of my room, I get dazzled by something completely else. It's fun.

(valeskah1 - I finally figured out how to hang it!)
So, at Swancon, valeskah1 and I got a bit silly at the art auction but we have walked off with joint custody of said, gorgeous quilt. I currently am timesharing it! I'm glad we bought it - it's lovely. :-)

Sending good and healing thoughts out to jaylake tonight.

May everything go well and may your recovery be swift and painless.

So was working just now and it involved scouting round the BoM site for information ... and I just found this!!!

An important component of the Australian Bureau of Meteorology's Severe Thunderstorm Warning Service is a national network of volunteer Storm Spotters who provide "on-the-spot" information on damaging storms.

Spotters are community-minded people drawn from all walks of life including the fire & emergency services, educational institutions, rural industries and the general public. They report either on a freecall telephone number direct to our forecasting offices and/or by lodging report forms or cards. Spotters supplement the Bureau's existing network of weather stations and cooperative observers. The information they provide has a tremendous impact on the Bureau's services, allowing us to verify warnings, calibrate weather radars during events and improve our understanding of the frequency and distribution of these storms across Australia. There are currently over 2000 Storm Spotters active in Australia.

Duties of Spotters
In the event of observing a severe thunderstorm or on hearing about damaging thunderstorms in their general area, spotters are requested to:

Phone the Bureau on a freecall number as soon as the storm has passed.

Fill in and post (free) a report form or card to the Bureau.

Reports take less than 5 minutes to complete. Spotters in rural areas may also assist by forwarding local newspaper clippings that we would not otherwise see in the metropolitan areas.

http://www.bom.gov.au/storm_spotters/index.shtml#join

OMG!! Ever since Twister I have soooooo wanted to be a storm chaser! So yeah ... a storm spotter could be cool. Maybe more cool than the Litter Reporter I am now!

From news.com.au:
Yesterday, Mr Kouchner urged the international community to force the reclusive Burma authorities to accept outside help, under the UN's "responsibility to protect" civilians when governments are unable or unwilling to do so.

Gosh this in an interesting political situation unfolding in Burma. The US are contemplating some helicopter drops of provisions without permission from the Burmese government.

So many different things wrapped up in this. The world has stood by and not done anything in the past. The English had intelligence as to what was happening in Auschwitz but chose not to bomb the gas chambers and instead bombed political targets not more than a few kilometres away. That same day, Auschwitz set a record for the number of Jews it killed in any one day. Many many times we have watched as governments have abused and neglected and punished their people, in order to retain contol over them. Surely, as global citizens, it's our responsibility, our duty even, to help the Burmese people. The environmental damage that has been inflicted upon these villages is beyond comprehension. A death toll in the 100 000s is beyond my own comprehension. And now people have gone without food and water, and presumably are living in contaminated water, for 6 days and still their government says they are handling it.

At what point do we stand by watching and watch no more? At what point do we say, no, you are hurting your people, we must act if you cannot?

I can't help remembering though, all those camera sweeps over New Orleans and all those small groups of people standing on houses or broken bridges with signs that pleaded for someone to help them. What would the US have done if other countries had taken it upon themselves to decide to stand by no longer and to now take action? I always remember those Australians who were in the stadium and the Channel 7 news crew who went in and found them and drove them to safety whilst Alexander Downer stood by and wrung his hands, tied by red tape.

The world's not fair I guess. And there are different rules for everyone.

They reckon it's gonna rain today. I can't see how - the sky is blue as blue can be. I got to watch it as part of a stunning backdrop this morning of waves crashing along the beach whilst I was having breakfast with exp_err in the very last possible moment I could get into her flyby schedule.

Grrr that she never got my email about the very spare room in my vast house that she was more than welcome to use!!!

Still was good to catch up - nothing better in the world than long breakfasts with good friends.

Back to it, I spose.

I think that's the precise definition of a beast:

From News.com.au
Fritzl described himself as a man who valued decency and good manners, and said the emphasis on discipline in Nazi times, when he grew up, might have influenced him.

"Nonetheless, I am not the beast the media depicts me as.

"When I went into the bunker, I brought flowers for my daughter, and books and toys for the children, and I watched adventure videos with them while Elisabeth was cooking our favourite dish," he said.

"And then we all sat around the table and ate together."

Love it ... firstly, noone has *ever* allowed the "blaming it on the Nazis" as an excuse. Secondly - check out the typical thought processes of an abuser: yeah, I locked her in a bunker for 24 years but hey, I brought flowers so that makes it okay. Romantic even. [1]

Fucker. I hope he rots in hell.

[1] I do like the bit where he sat and watched TV with the kids whilst she had to cook. So fucked up in his head - I brought flowers down to the bunker and made my daughter cook us dinner whilst I played with our children! Nevermind that she must have been terrified out of her mind.

So a while back I was talking about lists and list management and I mentioned that I thought there was an underlying assumption that you actually wanted to do the things on the list. Ha! And ha! again I say. How the mighty have fallen, eh?

These days I can't even get myself to write the list let alone want to do any of the things on them. And the less you do, the less momentum you have and then ... oh then paralysis sets in. You no longer can remember where you were up to on things, when you pick things up they no longer make sense and you have to start over. And I am a terrible scientist because I never keep good log books and that translates over into everything in my life - I can never remember when i opened the milk, where money is supposed to go, what I paid for, what row I was up to on the jumper I am knitting etc etc etc.

I currently think I suck. And that makes it even harder to get up the energy to do things. *Any* thing. My life is still on speed so I am running around like a chook without a head and am home for 5 mins before bedtime in any case. Nothing is getting done.

Why then, you may ask, are you doing yet another book over this year? That actually has been planned since Swancon and is going to help me out of the New Ceres mag paralysis - submitters to which will have been aware of for some time. The book is actually action forward on a stalled project and some glimmer of hope for me of getting on top of things. It's also actually at least half-filled which is why we have asked for queries rather than an open submission period.

So. What to do when you can't even write the list and if you did, would be actively avoiding it anyway? Well, for me, it's time to bring out the big guns: BRIBERY. Yes. It works for toilet training three year olds and it works on me too for making me do things I don't really want to do and for kickstarting my momentum.

So ... I have a bunch of stuff that I have scouted round that I might like as rewards. Now I will work out a point system where each item is worth a point or 4 and then I will write up my grand EVERYTHING I NEED TO GET DONE list including things that will answer the big questions: who am I and what do I want from life? And then I will assign points. Harder and yuckier tasks worth more points. And see how i go from there. Trouble is? I think I still need a reward for writing the list cause it's Thursday and I've been "getting to it" since Monday.

My cooking has sucked this evening. I made a broccoli, mushroom and spring onion stirfry which was not nice - too bitter. I made a chocolate pudding which didn't set. I put it in the freezer but it's not nice frozen. So then I baked a blackberry sponge pudding but the timer on my oven stuck and it burned.

grrrr.... Am still hungry too! I think it's a hot milo and then bed for me.

I feel like I need to put my last post in context. I think any of those (rough) story beginnings are fine if you are reading the odd short story. But when you're ready a large volume of shorts - I've nearly hit 1000 for this year so far - so many stories just utterly fail to engage me. Not only that, but many many many stories become predictable and written down to a formula. So like, with a story that starts in the middle of action, or dialogue, you *know* several paragraphs down you'll be given context or background and then you'll go back to the action or the dialogue and suddenly that's the whole first page gone without any actual forward motion for me as a reader to want to know what's going on here. I *could* just start these stories on page 2 but I already know that they have wasted the first page and thus, are never gonna crack my final list for the year when better writers have not kissed away a good 500 or 1000 words.

And I think that's what I was basically trying to say. I read a lot of writers blogs about the place and so come across a lot of posts of the "Why won't someone buy *my* story" or "they musn't read X over at Last Short Story ..." variety. I just wanted to say that when you submit a story to a market, you don't submit it into a vacuum. The editor has read a bunch of other stories today, this week, this month. And if yours doesn't pique the interest of the reader, you won't pique their interest as a buyer.

As for brilliant writers or the years best stories ... I think we could probably all come up with a top 300 that would look similar (as Jonathan would say) but even then ... if you put that into the context of 7000 stories published that year ...

Twelfth Planet Press is delighted to announce the forthcoming publication New Ceres: the Anthology.

During the war that left Earth uninhabitable, refugees from the doomed planet fled to the outer colonies. Many of them found their way to New Ceres, a planet that embraced the Age of Enlightenment almost two hundred years ago, and has not yet let go.

The water may be green and spaceships may be landing on a regular basis, but New Ceres is a planet firmly entrenched in Eighteenth Century culture. Offworld technology is strictly forbidden to anyone outside the government, and powdered wigs are in fashion.

New Ceres initially appeared in 2006 with a second issue of the webzine following in 2007. The New Ceres project is set in a shared world where writers are free to play with genre, characters and worldbuilding. Tansy Rayner Roberts created the eyebrow-raising duo of La Duchesse and Pepin in her story "Scandal at the Feast of Saturn" in Issue 1 which Lucy Sussex picked up and ran with in her award-winning story "Mist and Murder" in Issue 2. This much-loved pair will be back for more scandal, this time in print. Dirk Flinthart's George Gordon from "She Walks in Beauty" (Issue 1) will also reappear, this time with an oriental flavour. Kaaron Warren brings some of the darker shades of New Ceres to light in her offering, "Tontine Mary".

New Ceres isn't just about the characters we have grown to love. It's also about the undercurrent of dissent as an underclass is created through the mass absorption of refugees as seen in Stephen Dedman's "Sufficiently Advanced" (Issue 2) and Cat Sparks' "The Bride Price" (Issue 2). It's about the power and the glory of the Lumoscenti (Jay Lake's "Tower the Sun", Issue 2) and it's about trying to control the unknown (Maxine McArthur's "Tyger Tyger", Issue 1). For me, it's also about the coffee houses and the dresses (as seen in various pieces of 'nonfiction').

New Ceres is an exciting project. Each writer has stamped their own claim on pieces of this world and its story. Where will they take New Ceres next? Find out in New Ceres: the anthology! This book is scheduled to be released at Swancon 2009. A limited hard cover print run of 50 will accompany the standard print run.

Editors: Alisa Krasnostein and Tehani Wessely
Queries should be directed to: twelfthplanetpress@gmail.com
Submissions will close October 15th 2008
Payment: AUD$50.00 per story and contributor copy.
Rights: First International rights, and exclusivity for one year after first publication. We are not looking to reprint stories that have been previously published in print or online.

All currently submitted stories are automatically being considered for the anthology.

The New Ceres project is being refitted, with the new print anthology playing a major role; the website is currently being overhauled as part of this. Further New Ceres support material usually maintained on the webspace is not available at this time. However this material can be made accessible to authors upon acceptance to the project.

If you always had intentions of submitting to the New Ceres webzine and have a story proposal, please send a query to the editors at twelfthplanetpress@gmail.com

Ugh .. I now have no patience for a bunch of first paragraphs for stories.

I HATE a story that starts with dialogue. If I don't know who's talking or who they are talking to or I get thrown in in the middle of a conversation ... I just. don't. care. Seriously. It's the quickest way for me to flick over to the next story.

I HATE looooooooooooong descriptions and backstory and infodump in the first paragraph. I. also. just. don't. care.

Of course, THE most important thing you can do with a story, in my opinion, is nail the first paragraph. You can do either of the above but you HAVE TO DO IT WELL. You need to hook your reader and you have the length of that word count to compel them to keep on reading. If I hate your first paragraph, I'm grumpy when I read the second one, I have half an eye on the room or my email inbox or my shopping list by the third and by the fourth, I know I am rating this a 2 and I'm only continuing to ease my own guilt.

None of this, of course, applies if you happen to be brilliant. Thing is though, if you happen to think you are brilliant, this greatly reduces the chances of you actually being so.

Here's an example ... I have read so many detective style stories in my slushing and in my LSS time that I CANNOT stand them. Most people do them as an homage and they don't do them very well. The irony doesn't work. The puns and the send ups look awkward. The stories look dated and are painful to read. Yet, I read Neil Gaiman's "Four and Twenty Blackbirds" on the weekend, which is set in the 50s detective style. It plays it straight. And it also works with nursery rhymes which, if you've read a lot of Jasper Fforde ... also is becoming "done before". Of course, Gaimain IS a brilliant storyteller and writer and he not only pulls it off but he rejuvinates the love of that particular story.

Most writers are not in Gaiman's league. But I read Gaiman and when I read your story, I compare it to his because that's the point of LSS and a Year's Best.

Harsh but true.

#1: A hot bath with lots of bubbles and lovely oils, a pineapple juice and Neil Gaiman's M for Magic really will help you to relax and destress (thanks - asimmum)

#2: Turning off all options to instant chat in all online programs really will increase your productivity and help you to feel less overwhelmed and stressed - reduced inbox by 50 emails last night and got to some long overdue ASif! things (thanks - kathrynlinge)

This man for Premier??

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,23653855-2,00.html
"We finished the meeting (with a constituent), I walked the bloke downstairs and out of parliament, and when I got back I walked into the room to pick up my notepad from the desk and Buswell started grabbing the chairs going 'aahww, which one did you sit in? I'll be able to tell'," she said.

"And then he picked them up and started sniffing them and groaning and making sexually satisfying noises. I went, 'you're sick, knock it off', and grabbed my staff and walked out, but he didn't pay attention to a word I said."

The woman said she was standing with colleagues about 10 minutes later when one of them knocked on Mr Buswell's door to ask one of his staff to lunch.

"Buswell opened the door really wide, grabbed a chair and started sniffing it, lifted it above his head sniffing it and breathing in, going `aaww yeah'," the woman said.

"It was awful. My colleagues, the four men I worked with, were just stunned into silence."