Sort of. The Heart of the Mirage is on the list* of 2008 bestsellers at Fantastic Planet Bookshop in Perth.
Interestingly enough, the vast majority of books ahead of me on that list are science fiction, not fantasy.
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*UPDATE: Just where on the list seems to bounce all over the place. Currently on number 22.
Since I finished the first draft of Book Two of Random Rain, I have been re-reading Book One. Again. Just to check that I have everything in it that needs to be there in the light of what happens in Book Two. And of course, finding still more odd bits that needed a slight tweak.
Pleasantly surprised to find that I still like it after this one hundred and seventieth read. (Well, that’s what it feels like.)
Today it’s back to work on Book Two. The dreaded second draft. This is the one where I read what I have written and start crying at how bad it is. Where I decide I am in the wrong business, should never ever have thought I could write, let alone be published, and everyone will hate it and I am going to shoot myself. Then I pick myself up the floor and rewrite every second sentence.
Ah, I love writing.
Here’s some photos around our garden.
(I brought the purple orchid inside so I could enjoy it.)
The first green plant, a bird’s-nest fern, is taller than I am.
The pinkish flower is a S.American bromeliad; the red one an ornamental banana. The yellow spray is yet another orchid, the dancing lady.
..
..
A good year. Saw younger daughter a couple of times and had a great holiday with her. Saw my sister and had a great camping holiday with her. Saw elder daughter, son-in-law and grandson (now aged 4) for an extended time and went camping with them. Caught up with other family members in Oz whom I love dearly.
Everyone healthy and doing well.
A good year for me, truly. I saw so many of my overseas friends…
The best of the best had to be something that Karen Miller did for me, completely out of the blue. That lady rocks. Never in all my life did I ever expect that anyone would dedicate a book to me. Yet there it was, the dedication for The Riven Kingdom:
It blew me away. Still does. Got to be one of the highlights of the year.
Great to share a room with Donna at Denvention. Donna is another one of those people I wish I lived just down the street from…
I had a friend here in Malaysia who has emerged on the other side of breast cancer in sound health. If ever I have the rotten luck to be in that position, I will try to emulate the strength and pragmatism and good sense of this woman. I have rarely admired someone so much as her during this time.
Hrugaar visited me from his rock and we went to Taman Negara, I met up with an old friend in Lake Como and had some more good times…
My wonderful sister-in-law still smiles even though life deals her a tough hand.
Another couple of friends here had a fiftieth wedding anniversary.
And then there’s all of you: the people who read this blog.
So many good friends in so many different countries – I am blessed.
I was the National Guest of Honour at Swancon. I shall not forget that in a long time – I revelled in the honour of being asked when the National Convention was in my home state, hope I did all that was expected of me, had a ball, made new friends and saw a lot of old ones. Davina, Satima, Dave (both of them), Karen, Trudi & Paul, Theresa, Helen, Simon, Stephanie, Zara, Ju, Juliet, Joel, Bevan, Sean, Jonathan, Ian, Marianne, Dianne, Cat, Annaliese…the list goes on and on.
Thanks, everyone on the Swancon Committee. Thanks a million, really.
And then there was Denvention, my second Worldcon. Another great convention. Wonderful to meet people like Kate Elliott and David Coe and Cheryl Morgan and Willandra for the first time. To meet up with Orbit US publishers. To talk books and fantasy and sf and…to enjoy the feast when I am more used to a famine.
And possibly, best of all, to vote for the 2010 Convention, AussiCon4, to be in Melbourne. I am now officially a participant. I was incredibly impressed by the people who worked to make this happen. And today’s the last day to pay up at the old price – quick, get over to the webpage and buy a membership!!!
Virtual Conflux. Where I was on a one-person “panel” with lots of virtual observers/questioners. Great fun. Love these, and kudos to the organizers.
This has been a bad year financially. I haven’t had any “real” work since the beginning of March and my husband has not been paid (although he works fulltime) since end of July*. So that leaves his pension and my writing to live on.
And yet…I travelled. A lot. The fare to Australia was courtesy of Swancon. The children chipped in for the far to USA. The Lake Como trip was my big expense of the year (husband on duty, so his fare/hotel got paid). But worth every bit – great friends old and new, gorgeous scenery, perfect weather, delicious food. Wish I could do that more often.
And what a lot of wonderful places I went to: Yosemite, the Goldfields and the southern coast of Western Australia, San Francisco, Charlottesville, Virginia Beach, Como Italy, Pulau Kapas In Malaysia….
Travel doesn’t come without sacrifice. We don’t have a TV. We share a not-fancy car. I don’t buy much in the line of clothes. The roof leaks. We don’t go out much. When I travel, I often do it cheap. Red-eye flights. Overnight in airports. Camping, smelly motel rooms, etc. But oh, what a store of good times and memories!
YAY. I signed up with two publishers for the new trilogy after an agony of waiting. YAY.
I wrote a book, 170,000 words. And polished another.
It was a good year. Thanks for dropping by.
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*will explain some other time.
I read 66 books in 2008 or 1.3 books a week. Possibly more, as I may have forgotten to record some. ( I am sure that at certain times in my life I have done a lot better than that.) I haven’t included books related to my work.
I have listed them below and will start a new list in my sidebar for 2009. The division into genre is of course a bit debatable, as the line is always blurred…
I read mostly fantasy not just because I enjoy it, but because as a writer of fantasy I need to know what is out there, and to learn from my fellow authors. I try to read a variety of mainstream books as well, for both enjoyment and to keep abreast of what writers are thinking about in different parts of the world. A good book is always a learning experience, as well as entertainment.
I like pure SF too, although if the author assumes a heavy knowledge of physics and chemistry, I am totally lost and tend to abandon the read. My science knowledge is all towards the life sciences and ecology – in the field what’s more, rather than what you find out in the lab.
Learning the World, by Ken MacLeod was a great read from my SF list – it has one of the most delightful “first alien contact” scenes I have ever come across. The title starts off by meaning that one has to learn all about the world you are about to explore, and ends up meaning so much more. When your knowledge of your universe alters, then you have to relearn your own world in light of that discovery.
I can’t help but think that this is where we have fallen down here on earth (no doubt one of the things Ken was so brilliantly pointling out!). Our knowledge of our world has altered so profoundly over the past 50 years, yet we still want to view it using old paradigms – religious, economic, educational, environmental, cultural. And now we are in a terrible mess as a result.
Highly recommended book. Although I probably should point out that I am definitely prejudiced. Ken was the international Guest of Honour at the Australian Sf/f convention in 2008, where I was the national GoH. He was not only a great GoH to have, possessing a marvellous dry sense of humour, but he also wrote in my copy of “Learning the World, the following: ‘To Glenda, a moving point of light…’ Love the man, love the writer.
Science Fiction:
–Nylon Angel by Marianne de Pierres
–Hal Spacejock by Simon Haynes
–Learning the World by Ken MacLeod
–Newton’s Wake by Ken MacLeod
–Doomsday Book by Connie Willis
Fantasy:
David B.Coe Winds of the Forelands
–Rules of Ascension
–Seeds of Betrayal
–Bonds of Vengeance
–Shapers of Darkness
–Weavers of War
Marion Zimmer Bradley
–Exile’s Song
–City of Sorcery
–The Fall of Neskaya
–Two to Conquer
–Thendara House
–The Shattered Chain
–Darkover Landfall by Marion Zimmer Bradley
Jennifer Fallon The Tide Lords
–The Immortal Prince
–The Gods of Amyrantha
–The Palace of Impossible Dreams
–The Chaos Crystal
Karen Miller
–Hammer of God by Karen Miller
–Witches Inc (K.E.Mills)
Marcus Herniman Arrandin trilogy
–The Siege of Arrandin
–The Treason of Dortrean
–The Fall of Latuan
Sheri S.Tepper
— Family Tree
–Six Moon Dance
–Grass
–Gibbon’s Decline and Fall
Miscellaneous authors
–Ysabel by Guy Gavriel Kay
–Lost by Gregory Maguire
–The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie
–The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss
–Feast of Souls by C.S.Friedman
–Spirit Gate by Kate Elliott
–Shadow Touch by Maureen Lui
–Shadowbridge by Gregory Frost
–Storm Front by Jim Butcher
–Empire of Ivory by Naomi Novak
–Daemon by Camille Bacon-Smith
–Monterra’s Deliciosa & Other Tales & by Anna Tambour
–The First Weapon (Bk 2 TheTriumvirate) by Bevan McGuiness
–The Awakening (Bk 1 The Triumvirate) by Bevan McGuiness
–Two Pearls of Wisdom by Alison Goodman
–Dark Heart by Russell Kirkpatrick
Mainstream:
–White Tiger by Aravind Adiga
–Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
–Certainty by Madeleine Thien
–The Sorceress of Florence by Salman Rushdie
–Animals’ People by Indra Sinha
–Birds without Wings by Louis de Bernieres
–Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky
–The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
–The Gathering by Anne Enright
Other Genre:
–Game of Kings by Dorothy Dunnett
–Born in Death by J.D.Robb
–Lean Mean Thirteen by Janet Evanovitch
–Immortal in Death by J.D. Robb
–Murder at Madingley Grange by Caroline Graham
Non-Fiction:
–The Year of Living Biblically by A.J.Jacobs
–The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins
–Growing up in Trengganu by Awang Goneng
–The Snow Leopard by Peter Matthiessen
–The Snow Geese by William Fiennes
–The Diving Bell and the Butterfly by Jean-Dominique Bauby
–Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali
On the twelfth day of Christmas/Yule/
Insert-Your-Holiday-Choice-Here,
my true love sent to me
Twelve knights a-jousting
Eleven gods a-squabbling
Ten priests a-scheming
Nine robots computing
Eight maids a-butt kicking
Seven dragons a-flying
Six zombies a-walking
Five woodcutter’s sons (on a quest)
Four talismans Three demons
Two emperor’s heirs,
And the one ring of power to bind them all …
And from me:
may you all have some great fantasy reading in 2009,
including a new Glenda Larke (the best yet)!
And why am I jumping the gun on the New Year wishes?
Because today is the Islamic calendar’s New Year’s Day.
Happy New Year!
And here, just for fun,
is the longhorn beetle
now sitting on my verandah clothes-line.
[And yes, all you dryer-using people – we use clothes-lines.
And sunshine.
In fact, I can’t say I know anyone who uses a dryer here,
although I am sure there must be some around.]
This guy is about an inch and a half in body length.
Note above the cat-like face on this spider’s abdomen.
Pix 2: Bracket fungi on a tree.
Above: A bug on the bark. And another fantasy face stares out above some fancy buttons on his jacket.
Pix 2: Don’t take any notice of the chopper. She added that for effect…
And here on the board you have the finished product. Simple.
