The weekend.
Sometimes, they just suck. Sometimes, they mean you get nothing done. Most of the time, mine are just as lazy as the rest of my week, not having a job and only doing Uni part time.
And sometimes, on rare occassions, I have weekends that freaking ROCK!
Friday saw my Writing and Publishing Industry group getting amazing feedback on our proposal by Ronnie Scott, editor of The Lifted Brow (http://www.theliftedbrow.com/?page_id=14), quite possibly Australia’s most prestigious literary journal publication. Then, as if that wasn’t awesome enough, I got my copy of Galactic North (http://www.amazon.com/Galactic-North-Alastair-Reynolds/dp/0441015131) – my first Alastair Reynolds novel – signed by the man himself at Pulp-freaking-Fiction (a bookstore that does ONLY genre fiction; http://www.pulpfiction.com.au/).
Alsatair Reynolds is my new favourite author, and first favourite Sci Fi author at that. He’s the first SF author I’ve read since like Animorphs as a teenager – well, the first I haven’t thrown away in disgust (generally, because it’s the first writing I’ve read in the genre that doesn’t dissolve into THIS LOOKS LIKE A PENIS!). Reynolds does societies that are as factional and divided as real life society. You won’t find a 100% utopian society (underlying dark secrets optional) nor will you find something that is 100% dystopian. What you will read about are communities that have as many elements as real cities have. That’s pretty cool. I just fear that sometimes I’ve jumped in on this SF thing with the best and nothing else will compare. I hope not though. We’ll see. Also, have I mentioned the Conjoiners? COOL bastards. They share experiences, sensory information and thoughts mentally through brain implants. They have the best technology in the universe, though they’re feared and exiled by the Coalition of Neural Purity and even the Demarchists aren’t so thrilled about them despite claiming neutrality.
And then there’s Nevil Clavain, the coolest old soldier I’ve ever read about.
So Saturday rolled around, and I had my well-loved favourite SF book with a shiney new signature on it, as well as the newest Terry Brooks novel, Bearers of the Black Staff (I’m not that far into it, considering this weekend). A friend of mine originally from Melbourne – works in QLD, lives in NSW, has a VIC driver’s licence – had asked me if I wanted to go to Pigapolooza, an alternative music festival. I did. I realised I hadn’t really been to any events this year, and really should have gone to at least the Burn Writer’s Collective during the Brisbane Writer’s Festival, (http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=28217586898 and http://www.brisbanewritersfestival.com.au/) even if there was a good chance of running into a certain someone it would have been awkward to run into.
Anyway, Saturday evening was fun, the company was great, we got a fair bit of one-on-one time which I realised I hadn’t gotten a whole lot of this year, and her hair looks amazing purple 
Then, on Sunday, I went paintball skirmishing at Samford. Those paintball thingies really hurt! Also, I’m pretty much exactly as fit as I thought I was, which is not at all. My legs still hurt a bit. But it was a FUN day out, and I ended up having to pay very little too (someone had to cancel last minute so Ryan and I got half price or something like that – the logistics were confusing as hell).
Monday’s class was filled with crazy fun group talk. One of our members is writing something involving insanity which involves an alarm clock that hates its owner. Note to self: brush up on apostrophes regularly.
And yesterday, I finally finished Borderlands. That only took a month of playtime! But damn was it fun playtime. And the game has barely any story, too; just lots and lots of missions, which I usually despise. I think it’s the way they present the missions, ie: different ones, that defines it from certain other games like Red Faction Guerilla.
Oh yeah, and my SF/F/H writer’s group wanted something to critique this month. Pretty desperately in fact. So I gave them my seriously craptastic 3rd chapter which even I thought was just off in so many ways. I rewrote the whole thing after that. Must post soon, both here and there. Probably not perfect, but a damn big improvement on what it was, that’s clear like some kind of clear, natural-forming, mineral-based crystaline substance… what’s that called again?
PS: ‘craptastic’ was my 666th word.
PPS: check if highlights of 2009 is up on this blog.
