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. . . then I must be in London.
When I was little all I ever wanted to do was travel, but I didn't have in mind hitting Los Angeles, Seattle, New York City (twice---very briefly), Indiana, Kentucky and London all in the space of two weeks. It's too much.
Things I hate about travelling:
airports (where they confiscate your toothpaste for being a few grams over the weight limit)
airplanes (full of people hacking up their lungs)
getting sick
leaving my favourite toothpaste/book/jacket/friends behind
never being a hundred per cent sure where I am or what time it is or where the stuff I need is
Other than that I adore travelling. Anyone else got some travel whinge or love to share?
This was written on ...
Posted by Justine at 6:14, October 26th, 2006 under Cons & Other Gatherings, Travelling, Whingeing |
Posted by Justine at 12:58, October 19th, 2006 under Fans & readers |
A while back I wrote a
wee little etiquette thingie for authors on how to talk to booksellers. It has recently been suggested by a remainder ((A "remainder" is the official term for a group of authors.)) of authors that the non-authors of the world also need such a guide. So without further ado here is how to talk to an author:
Never tell us that you don't read or like books. Or that you only read non-fiction or John Grisham. Unless we write non-fiction or are John Grisham we don't want to know.
Never tell us you haven't read our books even if you genuinely intend to. Such information will only cause us pain as we try to figure out ...
Posted by Justine at 15:11, October 17th, 2006 under Frippery, Praising, Writing life |
Posted by Justine at 14:15, October 13th, 2006 under Bloggery, Cons & Other Gatherings, Daughters of Earth, Reading |
I ain't
never going to love Los Angeles. Not going to happen. The car thing makes it so difficult. In the last few days I've spent more time in cars than the preceding few months! Aaarggh!
But on this---my longest trip to the city---I've been eating fabulous food, walking along the beach, visiting amazing cool places like the Getty Centre, and getting to hang out with my sister and my other fabulous friends here like Doselle and Janine Young, Cecil Castellucci (at last we meet!), Alice Taylor, and Rachel Cohn. If only our insanely jampacked scheduled had allowed us to see all our friends here . . .
And you know what? If LA had footpaths and decent public transport ...
Posted by Justine at 18:37, October 11th, 2006 under Cons & Other Gatherings, New York City/USA, Praising, Travelling |
For most of my life I've never had to wear make-up or dress any particular way. Most of my high school years were spent wearing jeans and T-shirts (unusual in Australia), which was also my uniform for pretty much every job I've ever had. For the last few years my working life has been spent wearing pyjamas. This means my wardrobe consists of lots and lots of pjs, a few jeans and T-shirts and some fun dressing-up clothes for party time (I do love to dress up), but bugger all in between.
Thing is of late I've needed some of that in-between clothing. Quite a few of my dressy clothes are way too much for school, library, book festival etc. ...
Posted by Justine at 20:37, October 9th, 2006 under Bloggery, Cons & Other Gatherings |
I have shoe issues. Or rather recalcitrant ankle issues. High heels are forbidden me. It's not like I ever wore high heels that much, but that's not the point! I have been condemned to a life of boring, not-fun shoes in the hopes of preventing further ankle injury and thus averting surgery. I know, I know. It's all too tedious for words. And makes shoe shopping a chore where I look at all the flats and low-heeled boots and my heart sinks. Gah! I hates them all.
Unfortunately, I cannot get about in sneakers, blunnies or kleenex boxes all the time on account of the increasing number of appearances and other formalish events I do. These require that ...
Posted by Justine at 10:01, October 8th, 2006 under Fashion, Praising |
Wow, it's cold here in NYC. Must be close to time for me to rack off back to Sydney where it's heap big much warmerness. But of course I'm doing my usual thing of being completely besotted with the place I'm in and not wanting to leave.
So here's a short list of things I love about NYC:
The crystalline light in Autumn (I'm betting
Margo's against crystalline)
Getting to wear a hat and coat and scarf
Hearing two perfectly civilised people come close to killing each over who has dibs on a cab
Being able to hang out with some of the best writers in the business pretty much any day of the week
Watching steam rise up through the street
Being able to order ...
Posted by Justine at 2:12, October 7th, 2006 under New York City/USA, Praising, Young Adult literature |
Posted by Justine at 22:58, October 5th, 2006 under Fans & readers, Publishing business |
I've had a bunch of people ask me recently why I don't blog about politics, given that I have strong opinions on the subject. (Like there's anything I don't have strong opinions on. Why is no one wondering why I don't blog about interior decorating? For the record: wall-to-wall carpet is an abomination.)
There are lots of reasons I don't rant politics here, but the main one is I hate flamewars. Don't get me wrong I quite enjoy following them on
other people's blogs. But I have no interest in having them here. The minute you start talking about current politics, people will come and people will yell. And then I'll have to waste my time deleting everyone. ...
Posted by Justine at 9:26, October 4th, 2006 under Bloggery, State of the World |
The 9 Oct
New Yorker features an article by Milan Kundera called "What is a Novelist: How great writers are made". And, um, I really, really hope it was written with tongue firmly in cheek cause otherwise these are the pearls of wisdom Mr Kundera offers:
Novelists are like lyric poets except that youth is the lyrical age and novelists are old.
To be a novelist you must tear away your lyrical chyrsalis.
We are always wearing make-up.
The novelist must tear through the curtain of pre-interpretation.
Girl characters are actually based on boy characters.
Readers don't read novels they read themselves reading novels.
We must all embrace the Whole.
Beat your grandmother.
To which I can only say, "Innit!" (("Innit" is the one word in ...
Posted by Justine at 16:57, October 3rd, 2006 under Frippery, Reading, Words & Language |
Posted by Justine at 13:28, October 2nd, 2006 under State of the World, Words & Language, Writing life, Writing process, Young Adult literature |
Posted by Justine at 0:01, October 1st, 2006 under 1930s NYC novel, New York City/USA, Praising, Research, Viewing |
