Last day of the year

So, my 2012 looks like this.

Publications:

• The selkie novel, in February: in Aus. Sea Hearts, in the UK The Brides of Rollrock Island. The US will also use the Brides title, when the book's published there in September. I've just sent off the copy edits for that edition, and received early copies of the printed Australian and UK editions, both very pretty.
• The Twelfth Planet Press collection of four stories is also coming out sometime; I have a mid-January deadline on that.
• Two more new short stories are due out in anthologies (Danel Olsen's Exotic Gothic 4, Jonathan Strahan's Under My Hat witches anthology).
• Reprints. "Mulberry Boys" and "Catastrophic Disruption of the Head" are being reprinted in Year's Bests, and 'The Goosle' is getting another outing in Paula Guran's Witches: Wicked, Wild and Wonderful.

Travels:

• Tasmania at end of January to the ROR novel workshop to get help moving the colonial novel from zero-draft to first-draft stage (yes, it's as squishy as that)
• Adelaide Writers' Week in March, the highlight of which (for me) will be being on a fantasy panel with Kelly Link
• Beijing, for The Fifth Australian Writers’ Week 2012, also in March
• Fiji in July–August, to run a week-long 'Truly, Madly, Deeply' workshop with Paradise Courses

Writing:

• The NSW colonial fantasy, Formidable Energies, will probably take up most of my brain-space in the first half of the year. I'm committed to getting a sizable chunk of work done on it by end June to fulfil the requirements of the grant Arts NSW gave me to write it.
• Besides that, I'm only committed to writing one short story. Wow. This is because I've been saying no to requests, having said yes too often and thoroughly burnt myself out in 2010–2011.

There's day-jobbery, too; I'm still doing 3 days a week, and this will last probably well into next year but won't be confirmed until end January. Mid-year I have to think hard about going back to full-time technical writing, for the purposes of paying off the mortgage, funding house renovations and working up some superannuation, as time is marching on and the books don't seem to be getting any more commercial.

This year is remarkable more for what's not in it than for what is—after three years on the Literature Board and the Vogel judges' panel, I feel a bit wobbly at the thought of a whole year without any obligatory reading in it. As I was sorting books into boxes to make way for renovation of what was the boys' bedroom, I found that a New Year's Resolution had formed in me, to read no book out of a sense of duty, but only books that promise to be inspiring.

I think it'll be an interesting year.

Quick note re grant apps

This, from over here, struck me as spot on for grant applications:

The thing to avoid is the “To whom it may concern….” person appearing. It’s amazing how many people when they sit down to write down something become someone else. The “To whom it may concern” person suddenly appears. You don’t talk like that. So don’t [write your application] like that. Make sure that you can see you in your [app-writing voice].

Lisa Hannett's blog posts are useful too, in a longer, deeper, more detailed way!

Christmas e-gift? Tender Morsels e-book bundle

Right now, from, say, Readings or Avid Reader, you can buy an e-copy of Tender Morsels, bundled with the Black Juice story 'Singing My Sister Down'.

That's two World Fantasy Award winners in the one bundle, and for only $9.99.

Make someone you love cry this Christmas—in a good way.

I'm just about to sign an agreement to have my whole Allen & Unwin backlist come out as e-books within 12 months or so. Might have to write some posts about some of the more interesting historical documents. (You can already get my gritty-realist YA novels from the mid-90s, The Best Thing and Touching Earth Lightly, for the Kindle.)