Random thoughts and images

Yesterday was my sister Annette's birthday, and as it was the first one she's had in Australia for a few years, she was determined to make a day of it.

So we spent the afternoon trawling a few wineries. We didn't get to see as many as we wanted, so there's been talk of an all-day exploration. Anyway, first port of call was the Kamberra Wine Company, only to find out it's been a function centre for two years. Good publicity, peoples! Oh well, we moved on up the Barton Highway to Poacher's Pantry, which many of us hadn't been to. Poacher's Pantry, for non-Canberrans, is a restaurant and specialty shop about 20 minutes out of town. They smoke their own meat (I got some heavenly Sicilian chicken breast) and do tastings of some local wines - I got a really nice sparkling shiraz.

Then we tried to go to Dionysus, but they were closed - at least we think they were, the sign said so, but the gate was open... So then onto Clonukilla, which has gained a seriously good reputation. The winemaker there has won an Australian Wine Maker of the Year award and the 2007 Viognier Shiraz the best red in Australia. The wines here were fantastic, and the Viognier astonishing - a white wine, but it drinks like a red. Got some of that, some of the 2008 Viognier Shiraz and the muscat (can't go past a good fortified).

We thought we might make it to Jeir Creek before closing time, but got scared and so pulled into the Murrumbatemen winery. The wine-tasting section was closed, but the organic food was open, so I got my first taste of marinated figs (tres wonderful) and ended up buying some dukkah.

Dinner was at the Griffith Vietnamese Restaurant (yes, that is the name). It's a great example of one of the delights of Canberra - how your local suburban shopping centre can house one of the best restaurants in the city. You can eat brilliantly in Canberra without going anywhere near a major shopping district.

This particular restaurant is a favourite haunt of the pollies, and their thoughts and signatures are up on the wall - we sat near Julia Gillard, Joel Fitzgibbon and some others (the signatures, that is, not the people - they're not here, as parliament is in recess), and stared across at Amanda Vanstone's message and tried to work out what it meant - Lips loved the food, but I stayed clear of the paper - I think Amanda was already going a bit batty. (Have you heard any of the stories coming from Italy? Apparently the cops there spend as much time watching out for her dog as they do watching out for threats to the embassay - we always knew she was a class act, right?)

Anyhoo, the food was fantastic, and we managed to stuff ourselves for just $15 bucks a head - pretty good.

So it was a lovely way to spend the day off, and now it's time to gird the loins to head back to work. Oh, in work related news - back all good now. Back on full duties. *sigh* Why didn't I win lotto?

First comes news that Fantasy and Science Fiction editor Gordan Van Gelder is joining forces with ex-Asimov's editor Gardner Dozois to run writing workshops. The idea that two vastly experienced editors will be offering advice and training to writers is great. Then you hear that the workshops will also provide some of the content for F&SF. My first thought on this was to agree with Sean Wallace of Prime Books - that there's a whole lot of wrong there. But then I thought about when I edited The Outcast, and allowed CSFG members to get individual critiques of their work from me before the submission period opened in order to increase the potential that their works would be accepted. That's fine, I told myself, it's a CSFG anthology, why shouldn't the CSFG get an extra hand in getting stories in (as it turns out, two of the 20 stories that were published were worked on with me prior to submissions opening). But now, I'm thinking well, why can't an editor work with authors to get the stories they want? I mean, we all know that editing is both a subjective and objective process - while you want to choose good stories, and make a collection have a good balance and so on, at the same time you're choosing stories that you like. And everyone is constantly telling new authors that you need to read magazines/anthologies to find out what an editor likes, what their style is, so you've got the best chance of acceptance. So really, Van Gelder is just giving a select group a heads up to what he wants, and that's something that participants of Clarion and people who go to cons and meet him and people who read the magazine get anyway. The line that has been used is it's a "backdoor way" of getting into F&SF, and you can get there via your credit card. Is he really going to pick stories to publish just cause the writers paid him to attend a workshop? For a man who's been fighting and making hard decisions to ensure the magazine survives the current economic downturn, that sounds a strange thing to do.

In the end, I have one thing to say - I'm jealous I'll never be able to attend the workshops, which are undoubtedly to be held in America.

I've been quiet on the ONR front, in terms of crossing things off the list, but actually incredibly busy with the fall out and repercussions of the list and what it means. ONR is in part about facing life, and living it, and re-establishing myself so I can go into decade number five with a renewed sense of self. I've been doing a lot of work on that lately - opening myself up to my creative instincts, becoming proud of myself, taking chances, trying (slowly) to become more assertive and not automatically put other people's feelings and needs before my own. It's a decidely uncomfortable experience, yet it's also a good one. I'm rediscovering the things I knew about myself as a teenager (who knew adolescents knew so much?) which I allowed perceptions of adulthood and responsibility to take from me - my need to be creative, my need to play, my ability to take chances. In short, I'm learning to be me again, and it's a nice feeling.

Almost finished dance class for the term, and had to do a performance last night for the other class that's on at that time, and they performed for us as well. Didn't have the dance very clean, but at least I remembered an important step that even the teacher (dancing with us) forgot. Next week, we start preparations for the September concert. Oh my god, am I really going to be up on stage? How did that happen?

Finished reading American Gods during the week, and am confused about why I didn't fall in love with it. I could see it was good, I was enjoying reading it, but I found it easy to put down and walk away from. Hmm...

Am entering a lotsa work period. This is good from the point of view that I owe hours, so they'll start being ticked off, but bad from the point of view of time for writing. Especially since July is supposed to be getting Battle For Odana ready for beta-readers time. Hmmm, do I get up early to do an hour or so before work, or just make do? And yes, after work is not an option.

Goropo = ghost romance poem :) Although it does sound like the name of a Daikaiju, doesn't it...

Yes, I finally have a draft of it. Yesterday, after avoiding working on it successfully for a couple of hours (which I'm managed to do successfully on a number of other days as well), I succumbed and made myself do SOMETHING so the day wouldn't be a total waste.

"Just write the refrain," I told myself. "Get it started, so you can keep thinking about it."

And blow me down if the damn thing didn't just flow at that point. Even when I stopped to find rhyming words (God bless you, Rhymezone.com) or research what happens to bones left in water (still not sure on this point), I was able to keep going.

So now I have something that I can work with, can manouvere and polish until it's a shining jewel. Or a polished turd. Which, as followers of Mythbusters will know, is actually something that can be achieved - I think it was the lion poop that polished up best, from memory.

Anyway, we'll see if I can actually make it good.

So, the ghost romance continues to insist that it is a poem. "Don't you wanna be a piece of prose?" says I. "I know prose, I don't have to do all this research for prose, and you'll be written that must sooner, and I can get back to the novel." But no. "I wanna be a poem. I WANNA BE A POOOOOOOOOO-WOOOOOOOOEM" it screams at me.

In thinking about this bullshit dilemma, I've made some more realisations about Nicole the writer (do any of you just wish I'd finish all this insight stuff and get on with my life? I know I do).

For me, writing has been about storytelling, characterisation and worldbuilding. They're the things I'm good at, the things that come naturally to me. I've viewed words, and grammar, as just the tools that I use.

But that's wrong. Words, and grammar, are art within and of themselves. They deserve as much thought and consideration as the rest (and more, in the case of poetry - are you sure you don't want to be prose...)

This has come about through a variety of confluences (is that the right word?). First, there's been a couple of people talking about rhythm of language. Rhythm? Then there was reading Ulysses, and having the experience of not having a clue about the story, but just letting the words roll over me. And then there was (even if it was at times very wanky) the art exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art. And now, this driving need of this story to be a poem.

As I result,. I've stopped and looked and realised that I give words short shrift, and I need to do more with them. The question now is - what do I do now? How do I learn more about words, how to use them, how they best work together? Is it just through reading more? Are there courses I can do? How, how, how, how, how?

All ideas welcomed.

So, my romatic ghost ballad ain't going so well, although a spark did fire this morning... Anyway, am looking for suggestions of romantic ballads to read. I've got my favourite The Highwayman, but would like some more to get the braincells activated. Thanks

Had a wonderful three days in Sydney. Should have been four, but of course the car died - well actually, it was the radiator that died, and took more than a day to replace. So instead of arriving at a leisurely pace on Wednesday, ran in for dinner on Thursday.

Friday was mostly a sleep day - trying to get over the last vestiges of the cold. Also went for a nice long walk up some great hills - have decided to do the City to Surf this year and need to get into training. Friday night was dinner for the sister-in-law's 40th (the reason I was in Sydney, Tim was there for that and croquet). It was the restaurant at Cronulla RSL, which is a bloody long way from North Rocks. Nice restaurant though, and the food was great (along with the company) and got a nice big hug from my youngest nephew, so it was lovely.

Saturday was "feeding the inner culture-vulture" day. Got  a lift to Tempe with Tim, and then trained into town (had a great run with trains all weekend - barely had to wait at all). Off at Circular Quay, and first stop was the Museum of Contemporary Art, which I'd never been to before. The first exhibit I saw was a photographic one, by Ricky Maynard, a Tasmanian Aboriginal. He's taken a few series of photographs, some of his own people and places, others of urban Aboriginals in St Kilda or some in custody in South Australia. He's a beautiful photographer - the series he took of just some elders faces, blown up really big, were just stunning. Others, such as from the urban or in custody series, were extremely confronting and terrible. He also curated himself some photos of photographers that had insired him, going right back into the 1800s. It was great, and really inspired me to get more into my own photography. In particular, a comment he had up about documenting the world as it is now, as he sees it, forever. I like that.

The next floor was closed for setting up a new exhibit, so I went up to the other floor, to see an exhibit on the interaction between artists and the written word called Avoiding Myth and Message: Australian Artists and the Literary World. At first, I found it really interesting, and it reminded me that there is a beauty to the shape of letters, and to words, and to sentences, something that I should try to keep in mind with my own writing. And then I read a couple of artists (or maybe it was the curator's) explanations of the work, and started to see stuff like "searching for the silences between the spaces" and "exploring the juxtaposition between..." and my eyes glazed over and my mind started shouting "wank, wank" at me. Am I being too harsh? Or are these artists being pretentious and trying to come up with an explanation for their work beyond "I did it and thought that looks good" that makes them appear to be thoughtful rather than experimental?

From the MCA, I walked over to the opera house, and got myself an icecream on the way cause it was beautiful and sunny and I was a little hot. Eating icecream in June? Coool. At the opera house, I saw an exhibit that's part of the Vivid Sydney festival - 77 Million Paintings, by Brian Eno. It's a light and visual installation, in which Eno's music is played while his artwork is played with and displayed and changed so that over time, you'll see 77 million different paintings, which is supposed to take years to play out. I sat for half and hour, absolutely enthralled by it all. You're in a dark room - to your left, on the floor, is three cones that are lit within and change colour. On the right, a spotlight shines on the floor and it too changes colour. On the wall in front of you is the installation itself, and as you watch it changes and shifts and both before your eyes and without you seeing it, you are witnessing a whole new painting every few minutes. There's a certain mandala aspect to it that sends you into a meditative space, and the music fades in and out of consciousness. You'll find yourself experiencing a sudden emotion, and then when you try to consider why, it escapes you. A truly fascinating thing.

After lunch, went up to the Museum of Sydney, yet another place I hadn't been too. It's built on the site of the first Government House, and is dedicated to the first few decades of white settlement in Sydney. It was great to have stories I knew a little of, such as Australia's only military coup (the deposition of Governor William Bligh of Bounty fame) explained in more detail, with insight into the players involved. The room I really enjoyed was the Cadigal Room, given over to the local Indigenous people. In particular, there was the stories of some of the more important Aboriginals in the initial contacts with white men. I was fascinated a) to see that there were men in the white camp who did attempt to understand the Indigenous peopled and b) the way the Aboriginal men (in particular) who came to be close to the white settlers seemed to open themselves so willingly to the new culture and language and try to understand it themselves. I'd love to know more about it, cause it seemed to be it would be a great base for exploring alien encounters in science fiction.

I left the museum and started to walk up and around the Botanic gardens, not sure if I wanted to go to the Art Gallery of NSW or go home. I came across my favourite building in all of Sydney. the Conservatorium of Music, not just because it's brilliantly OTT, but because it's so OTT and yet was originally built to be stables! Yes, my friends, these were built in the 1800s to be the stables for a new Government House. Unfortunately, that Government House wasn't built because if these were the stables, imagine what the house would have been!

Anyway, I kept walking and did actually come across the Government House that was built and while it isn't as OTT as it could have been, it's still the closest thing I've come across to a castle/palace in Australia.

Saturday night was dinner with croquet friends, and Sunday was spent waiting for Tim to finish the croquet comp so we could go home. It was really cold, but I rugged up and the Harmonie Club turned on it's outdoor heaters, so I ended up quite cozy (the glass of red wine helped too) and plowed me way through quite a portion of American Gods.

So, that was my weekend. And I'm all inspired and feeling artistic now, so stay tuned to my attempts to express myself creatively.

What a lovely little con - lots of catching up with friends, spending time with people and getting to know them better. For me, the best thing about the con was the realisation that I really am a writer - I think like one, I want to be one, I want to be a better one, I'm prepared to work and wait for as long as it takes.

Anyway, I've got a report on the con here. I'll put it under an LJ cut, so those not interested don't need to be bored :) But here's my general thoughts on the con - considering the inexperience of some of the con-committee and the fact there really wasn't an active Adelaide fandom prior to this, I was impressed with how they put it together. The lack of notice on the program for some of the panellists caused a few anxious moments, and it was hard to plan the con when you were only getting the program the morning of (although Monday's did come the day before). But those things said, everyone seemed to have a great time, there was lots of socialising and best of all, it appears the Adelaideans had a great time and want to do it again. So that's great. It would be wonderful if Adelaide could start doing cons consistently, and there would be four to attend in Australia - Swancon (Perth), Continuum (Melbourne), Conflux (Canberra) and now Adelaide. So I hope it does happen, because there's lots of good things for them to build on and deliver better and better cons. And I thought the venue was great, even if I never managed to get my computer connected to the internet.

( Conjecture report )

I went to the CSFG short story crit group last night. From time to time, I have a go at shorts - mostly when whatever novel project I'm currently working on is on down time. I was interested (as I always am) by the assumptions of the readers, particularly of the things they believe I'm thinking of when I wrote the story. It intrigues me that they give me much more credence for thought and deliberate decision-making in my short story writing than I actually do. And as always, the idea of being thought of that way - an artist, in my mind, a deliberate writer - makes me feel uncomfortable and I start shouting in my head "You're wrong, wrong, WRONG!"

On the way home, I started to think about my reaction, and its link to the worldview I have that I can't write short stories (which isn't true - in all the discussion of my story last night, there wasn't a "it's crap". Even one critiquer, who didn't like the subtext of the story and thus wasn't able to read it with any comfort at all, said it was well-written). And I had an epiphany.

I have Nicole cultural cringe.

I tell myself that I don't need to go deeper, to try things, to think more about things, to embrace real creative thought and processes but in fact, what's really happening is that I'm scared to do this, cause what if I fail? What if I'm no good at it? What if nothing comes of it?

So I potter around at the surface, and that's fine - it gets me a certain distance, achieves certain things, I'm quite sure for example I can write publishable novels at this level - but I'm never actually going to be as good as I can be, do the things I should be doing if I stay here at my comfort level.

Part of Operation No Regrets has been about challenging myself to do new things. I thought that meant I'd read new stuff, try to write poetry, try a bit of photography and artwork, but it wouldn't really mean anything except a tick in a box. I never realised that it would lead to this inevitable conclusion - I need to immerse myself as a creative person, and open myself up to all the new things that my imagination and my experience of the world can bring. I need to test and try and reinvent and do whatever is necessary to bring out the art that I'm meant to create.

Pretty bloody terrifying.

I have no idea where to go from here, but it's probably not bad that I've got the con in a couple of days (one sleep, yay!) and a week off afterwards, during which I can write and read. I'll be spending a few days up in Sydney at the end of it, and I'm already planning to spend time touring galleries and stuff. It will be interesting to see what happens, and what writing and such comes out of me as a result.

First, an award-winning journalist, now a prize-winning photographer!*

A photo I took has taken the Highly commended prize in the Queanbeyan City Council "Show us your assets" community photo competition. Note - the name of the competition was not my idea, please direct all groans to QCC.

The idea was to take a photo and write 150 words about it. There were three categories - People, Places and Hidden Treasures. I took three pics, which were all shortlisted into the Places category. They were then all displayed in shopping centres around Queanbeyan for consideration and voting for the People's Choice awards, and then some judges decided on first place and highly commended in each of the categories.

I didn't make it to the prize giving on Saturday, so recieved a phone call from council today telling me I'd got Highly Commended in Places for a photo I took of Queanbeyan River. My prize was a certificate and a framed copy of the picture.

I can't show you the actual pic - QCC has some rights to now use it in advertising and I don't want to step on their toes (after all, I'd hate anyone to step on my toes regarding my rights). But here are the two pics that were shortlisted but didn't win.



This is a pic of the Queanbeyan Art Gallery. I took this because I was quite inspired by the members of the Queanbeyan Art Society when I was a journalist - they work they did to raise funds to almost double the exhibition space and then landscape the grounds was incredible. I felt they deserved to be acknowledged in the competition.



Tim and I love this pic. it shows the flood markers from the river up towards the cemetary. Never seen 12 metre high flood markers before. Scary thing is that doesn't quite reach the cemetary, and the last big flood we had actually undermined the cemetary so much that it washed some of the coffins out of the ground and downstream. Apparently they ended up in Lake Burley Griffin, bobbing away.

We don't get those sorts of floods in Quangers any more, thanks to the Googong Dam. However, should there be a catastrophic failure of the dam (and there will be - Hollywood wouldn't lie), then these flood markers won't be a remnant of our history but harbingers of doom!

I've always wanted to write "Harbingers of doom" in a sentence. Now I can die happy :)

* Now, just have to achieve Oscar-winning actress, Logie-winning tv personality, Aurealis/Ditmar/Hugo/Nebula/WorldFantasy/Locus/Nobel/Pulitzer prizewinning writer (all of them, not just one). Hmmm, must develop talentn and skills.

Yay, a con! I'm soo happy. And I'm particularly looking forward to Conjecture because it will be the first con since Convergence in Melbourne in 2007 that I won't have worked my arse off at a convention.

I can go to panels! And meet up with people! And hang in the dealers room! And maybe even end up in the bar DURING THE ACTUAL CONVENTION! The mind boggles with the idea of having fun at a con.

Not that I'm completely work free - as a member of the Ditmar sub-committee and Aussiecon 4 committee, I will undoubtedly have commitments. But still, nothing compared to my last two conventions - Conflux 4 (I chaired), Conflux 5 (I programmed).

I've only actually attended one convention where I didn't have to work at all - Thylacon. Funnily enough, it's still my all-time favourite con.

Anyway, roll on Conjecture!

A call to anyone who might be taking part of the Haigh's chocolate tours at Conjecture - please, please, pleeeeeeaaaaase can you get me some? Not fussy, just a little taste of Adelaide. I'll pay you back.

Following from the thinking post before (and thanks to everyone for your comments), I've been thinking more about creativity, and what it actually means psychologically and the impact it has on your life.

For example - I tend to not be overly brilliant at committing myself to things. Not that I can't do it - more than nine years married, and it's been about 15 months since I quit full-time work to commit myself to my writing and I'm still going strong with it and don't get me started on the last few years of Conflux - but that there are lots of instances in my life where I've started things and decided it wasn't for me, or I've done thing and once I've proven that I can do it, lose interest and start to see where the next green pasture is.

Now, is this restlessness a result of being a creative type - always looking, always searching, always wondering - or is it just me? And is it a bad thing?

My work record shows this up - nine years of teaching (five years in Sydney, three in an Aboriginal community in the Kimberley, a year in Alice Springs and then a term back in Sydney), then a couple of temp jobs before taking time to write, then deciding not able to write full-time yet and want to do more so why not open a bookstore, then decided that I want to make money from writing so take a job at the local newspaper, then decide I want to really have a go at being a journalist so get full-time job in Canberra, then decide after less than two years that I'm not a journalist, quit to re-focus back on fiction and start working at local supermarket, and now I'm over working at the supermarket (in a big way because of the back problem) and looking for something else (that won't interfere with my time to write, of course).

I'm constantly looking for new challenges, for the job or position that will satisfy me, that will enable me to have the life that I want. Right now I'm telling myself that this is because I can't have the job that I really want - full-time writer. But if I did get it, would I eventually be disatisfied with that because that's the type of person I am - once I have something, I no longer want it? Or will it be fine, cause it will enable me to be as fully creative as I am from time to time feel driven to be.

In a nutshell - am I nuts?

While you're considering whether to stay well clear of me or not, I'll give you my all new favourite quote from choreographer Martha Graham (who's work I studied at teacher's college and was amazed by). I'm a hearing ya, Martha!

"There is a vitality, a life force, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and will be lost. The world will not have it. 

It is not your business to determine how good it is, nor how 
valuable it is, nor how it compares with other expressions. 
It is your business to keep it yours, clearly and directly, 
to keep the channel open."

 

At 4pm yesterday, Tim finally got the all-clear - more than 48 hours after the test. The reason for the delay - cruise ships in Sydney Harbour.

Anyway, within about 10 minutes, I had shoes on and I was out the door. For someone who is such a homebody, I really don't deal with cabin fever well. Same thing happened to me up at the Aboriginal community I worked in last decade - only left it say once a month, but then there were floods, and cyclones, and the road got cut, and we couldn't get out for a few weeks and I got so antsy that by the time the road opened, the boss let me leave early so I could escape! Happy to choose to stay somewhere, don't deal well with being forced to.

People still care about Tim, despite the fact he's got the all clear - he got the daily phonecall from NSW Health again this morning. But this means no more pressies (although we're pretty well stocked with tissues now, and have more than enough masks to play with) and that's a sad thing.

I have to go back to work today, and a nine-hour shift too. Of course, that means that I've now come down with a cold, and it's a doozy. Luckily I'm not rostered on tomorrow - I think I'll spend it sleeping.

This is going to be a personal, thinking sort of post so if you aren't interested, move on. If you think you might be, here's a bit more (but I'll put the bulk under a cut).

One of the things about me that a lot of people wouldn't know is that I have a very twisted mind. Not twisted in the fabulous Kaaron Warren manner - take something normal and make it fascinatingly awful/beautiful. No, my twistedness involves my fluctuating ability to see the world in a realistic manner.

( An example of twisted thinking )

Wasn't sure whether to do the Dreamwidth thing or not, until I read Ellen Datlow's post about how LiveJournal has been bought by a Russian company who subsequently sacked most of the LJ staff and that Dreamwidth has been started by those self-same staff. As I'm not a huge fan of corporate greed and bad treatment of employees, I've come on over.

My Dreamwidth account is nicole_r_murphy Feel free to make me part of your circle, and I'll do to the same.

Possibly my husband! Yes, Tim has succumbed to the flu less than a week after returning to the States, and that makes him a candidate for swine flu. Could be worse, I suppose - he could be a candidate for a political party :)

We've been up to the hospital, he's been tested and we're both in home quarantine until the results come in - possibly tomorrow, maybe Wednesday. I'm hoping for tomorrow, and that he's clear, so I can go to dance class.  Still, the good thing about this is I get two days off work, when I'm not even sick! Bonus! Downside - not supposed to leave the house. Bummer!

We're pretty sure it's not actually the dreaded H1N1 virus - just a regular, run-of-the-mill flu. In fact, it's probably the cold that's been bugging me for the best part of two weeks that found a much happier home in Tim. If it does turn out to be the germs from a pesky little pig, then Tim's in quarantine until the end of the weekend, and he's currently on Tamiflu. What this means for me is less clear - I imagine work won't want me back until Tim's cleared. So we'll wait and see.

Tim was quite impressed with the effort people were going to to see him once we were put into isolation - masks, glasses, booties, gowns, washing hands, gloves - the poor nurse had to do this twice. He believes everyone should have to go to this sort of effort in order to approach him :)

We aren't concerned - while it was quite devastating in Mexico, swine flu doesn't seem to be killing people any more than regular flu does. But we will be taking precautions - lots of hand washing, no contact outside the house, and we're getting a quarantine pack from NSW Health to wipe stuff down.

And do not fear - I should be clear to come to Conjecture :)

* Question - an F? a U? Is this right?

Dontcha hate it? You're thinking "It works" and then you get two different rejections and you think "shit, maybe it doesn't work". Case in point - fantasy publisher says "not for us, try romance publishers". Romance publisher says "romance isn't strong enough, more a fantasy with romantic elements". So, is it fantasy, or is it romance, or is it neither and I'll never get it published, or is it both and I've created a new sense in the genres and am a genius but no one knows it?

At least all my rejections for the novel so far (we're at four at the moment) have said the writing is strong and the worldbuilding good. So that's something.

*sigh* Why can't I get published already? :)

Onwards and upwards - time to submit to the next publisher.

Why yes, I have been working on erasing and the paint drop, what makes you think that?

Wish I could draw better with a mouse. Don't want to invest in a drawing pad just yet...



This one was based on a photo of a Keep Left sign that I took a while back. I deleted words, some path markings and the bike and added new words, the club and changed the hat.



Again, based on a photo I took, this time of my mother-in-law's new beagle puppy at Christmas. And yes, there's a bit of Good Omens influencing that work :)




When we moved into the house, we took photos of things in the house with damage done, just in case... This is something I tried with the photo of the soap holder in the kitchen. I quite like it, actually.

The 2009 Ditmar sub-committee is pleased to announce that both an online voting form, and a downloadable paper ballot, are now available. All eligible voters, which includes all members of Conjecture 2009 or Swancon 2008, are encouraged to vote.
The online voting form is available at http://conjecture2009.org/ditmar.php
The paper ballot is available for download at http://wiki.sf.org.au/images/2009_Ditmar_Ballot.pdf
Paper ballots will be mailed to those eligible voters for whom we have a postal address.
Voting will close at midday on Saturday the 6th of June. The deadline for postal ballots is Friday the 5th of June.
 
David Cake
Ditmar Sub-Committee Chair