Time Vortex

I seem to have fallen into one this year. So much for the year being quiet. I really should know better by now. I did have a quite relevant reason for missing March online. During the mad preparations that was the Emerald deadline my laptop died. Died as in replacing the hard drive. Luckily for me, the m/s was in email land waiting for my reader/edit . One thing it did teach me, I must really want to pursue this writing thing. I could’ve quit. I could have in the tears and swearing, sometimes simultaneously quit. Stopped. Walked away. I didn’t.

The computer going kaplooey did throw a spanner in the works of my life. It didn’t help the computer was physically away for some time and when it did come home it wasn’t right. It still isn’t completely there but at least now I’m not so gun-shy of coming back online. My Google reader was approaching scary proportions with many still to be caught up on.
I’ve been amazed at how online many lives have become. Not just for writing but also socially and professionally. I had HR, pay office and all manner of things caught in emails I could not access (until recovery had occurred).


This brings me to the other reason for my absence online, or rather, my minimalist approach to online time. I have taken on an extra contract. I have no idea why given my plan this year was to write two books and get much more serious about sending the stories out into the world (I’ve whittled it down to one book to be written now). Life happens. So I’m now back in an adult classroom as well as my usual factory playground for work.


Making me organised is the way I’m seeing it. I’ll be this way until the end of June (or until the teacher I’m replacing returns, which I’m guessing will be early). Just in time for my event planning to take place.


So April is past the half way point. Least living in Australia I don’t have to worry about my taxes (that would be September for me) but juggling work x 2, engagement/birthday event planning, family and oh yeah, writing is keeping me out of any kind of mischief.


Til next month. Ciao.

Reading into the New Year

Wow. The first month of a new year has nearly passed me by. January always feels like that. One minute you’re looking at a calendar full of new shiny opportunities, next minute you’re wondering where in heck January went. For me it is summer, maybe that’s part of it. Like August in the northern hemisphere, January here is the month where lengthy school vacations occur (school in the process of resuming depending on which state one is in), everyone runs away for holidays/vacations and makes resolutions which most of the time don’t last past the first couple of weeks.

For me, New Year more often than not occurs around the Winter Solstice (Dec. 21/22). I feel a build up of energy and wonder what will be around the corner. By the time January 1 finally occurs, I’m already thinking of the year to come.

So, what is 2010 going to bring. Changes. A lot of them. They’ve already started happening and some I’ll post about. Another thing I’ve decided to do, in the interest of my online life is to commit to some reading challenges (if I ever work out how to set them up here). I’m always reading. My current TBR pile by the bed is hovering around the 75+ book mark (it’s down from about 90ish).

Without further ado these are the challenges I’m committing to as a reader for 2010.

The first is the Speculative Fiction Challenge. So much of what I read can be stored under this umbrella. I’m going with “Obsessed” . I found this one through Eleni’s Library (thanks Eleni).

The second reading challenge I’ve chosen is the Library one. I borrow a lot of books and make my librarians work hard. I don’t always use fiction and am curious to see the record grow over the coming year. This one I found through SuziLove & Eleni – thanks ladies….I think!

I’ve also set myself the challenge to aim for a blog post a month. That shouldn’t be too difficult….she says on the last day of January J