August is an exciting month.
GammaCon (where that pic was taken) is over for another year (it RULED by the way) but the Canberra Writers’ Festival is approaching (23-26 August) and I’ll be launching TWO books that weekend.
Murder in the Mail: A Bloody Birthday will be launched with a week-long art exhibition at The Front cafe and gallery in Lyneham.
The official launch is 3:30-5:00pm on Saturday 25th, and at least two of the visual artists plan to be there.
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And the final book in my steampunk fantasy trilogy, Antipodean Queen 3: Iron Lights will be launched as an official part of the Canberra Writers Festival at Old Parliament House (aka The Museum of Australian Democracy) in Kings’ Hall 2:45-3:15pm Sunday August 26.
I’ll be selling all my stuff at both launches.
They’re also in stock (including Murder in the Mail: A Bloody Birthday and Magic in the Mail: Emmeline’s Empire, which are in the games section) at Dymocks Belconnen, which means all my books/games are super easy to order into any Dymocks store (but especially Tuggeranong, which is linked to Belco).
But that’s not why I’m blogging today.
I’m blogging because of an event far rarer and more impressive than a book launch. I usually release a book a year… but this is something that hasn’t happened since TJ was born.
I did a proper clean of the toilet.
I cleaned the whole room, including the floor and walls (there was quite a bit of blood on the wall*). Just look at how clean it is!
Chris and I are talking fairly seriously about dividing up our house so we can take a tenant (tenant rather than room-mate because they’d have a separate entrance and loo). So that’s why I was suddenly enthusiastic about cleaning… because it’s likely this will be my toilet soon.
Sidebar: I suspect any artworks that are unsold at the end of the exhibition will be in with a chance of making an impromptu gallery in this one tiny clean part of my house. A rather dubious honour, I think. But the above cleanliness is somewhat bland, don’t you agree?
Regular readers will know that we recently said goodbye to Princess Ana after ten fluffy years, and that a house without a cat is unthinkable. (As I write this, the wind is banging the cat flap, and I keep expecting Ana to walk in and glare at me in that adorable cat manner.)
That’s one of the VERY early pic of TJ and Ana. There are many more.
it is to TJ’s credit that he prefers an older cat. I am not a good enough person to adopt an older cat. I enjoy the short, playfully unco months of kittenhood, and I also like a cat that I’ve trained myself.
So at some stage soon we’ll get a kitten. Squeee!
But we’ll most likely get a tenant and kitten at around the same time, because kittens are fun and tenants are not. So dangling a future kitten in my mind keeps me motivated to continue figuring out how to fit all our stuff into smaller and smaller spaces.
I’ve donated three large garbage bags of clothes to charity/friends in the last few weeks—mostly my own. A lot of my outfits dated back to pre-Chris romances, which was quite a trip down memory lane. My general body shape has been extremely haywire for the last 8 years due to two enormous babies, various medical conditions, and an operation. Now that I’ve had the stomach op, though, I have a better idea of my proportions relative to one another. That’s helpful.
I kept some of my ‘optimistic’ clothes (including some gorgeous dresses) but put them in a box until next year.
Not for the first time, I noticed that I talk to myself a lot (and also talk to inanimate objects). Yet another reason to get a cat, amirite? That way at least I’m talking to an animal. Ana was always very helpful when a plot wasn’t working right and needed workshopping.
So that’s where life is at the moment. How about you?
*Louisette has really dramatic blood noses. I couldn’t tell you how long ago that particular stain happened; I rarely use that toilet so if you’ve visited us in the last three months… sorry ’bout that. You’ll also be pleased to hear that we changed the toilet seat to an adult sized version instead of the miniature one that we’ve been making people-who-are-not-us use for the last five years.