Archives
Posted by Justine at 10:59, January 8th, 2008 under Bloggery, Excuses, Frippery, Writing life |
On New Year's Eve, thanks to regular reader, Marrije, I was surrounded by palm trees. Okay, just the one palm tree. A palm tree that required a certain amount of assemblage:
before it was fully grown:
How can it be cold when there's a palm tree in the house?
Thanks, Marrije!
Posted by Justine at 0:14, January 5th, 2008 under Frippery, New York City/USA |
This is couch:
Is noice couch.
Posted by Justine at 0:10, November 17th, 2007 under Frippery |
My desk is not so small as you all think. It has two levels. Two! Look closely at this photo:
See the stuff below? It's not on the floor it's the second level of the desk.
I'm now curious about your working spaces. If you feel so inclined take a photo and link to it in the comments.
Posted by Justine at 9:44, November 9th, 2007 under Frippery, How To Ditch Your Fairy, Writing goals & milestones |
Over at
Maureen Johnson's blog she's busy answering punters' questions in a vastly entertaining way. ((The trick to entertaining answers, apparently, is to make stuff up. Why didin't I think of that?)) Yay, Maureen!
If you haven't already go over and ask her a quessie. Make it curly though. The most difficult question you can think of. Then make it more difficult than that even. Frankly, I don't think she's being stretched enough. We all need to really put her through her paces.
I wish Maureen would tell me how to write six things at once without my head exploding.
Posted by Justine at 15:54, October 26th, 2007 under Bloggery, Frippery |
I am a jacket monkey which totally works for me as those are two of my favourite things. I love beautiful jackets and I love monkeys. What could be better than putting them together? (If I weren't pressed for time there would a picture of a monkey wearing a jacket here. You'll just have to imagine it.)
Today me and Nicola from
Nicola's books in Ann Arbor opened many many copies of Extras to the signing page for Scott to scribble all over. We were his jacket monkeys. I want a Jacket Monkey t-shirt. I've already earned it. So many copies! So many jackets! So many pages!
In other news I am regretting that I learned on an earlier trip never ...
Posted by Justine at 1:20, September 29th, 2007 under Cons & Other Gatherings, Fashion, Frippery |
The worst book ever written is so very bad that there are warnings on Amazon to not even glance at the cover in case it infects you with its badness. Those warnings are true!
Holly Black LOVES this unspeakably bad book. So much so that she has many copies of it. So much so that she made us all read chapters out loud on the DragonTrain, which made us all laugh so hard we wept. I threw up I was laughing so hard.
The book is THAT bad.
Remember I was rambling recently about how you
can't include all details when you write? This book attempts to do that. It takes a kajillion chapters for the protag to cross a steet. All ...
Posted by Justine at 0:03, September 6th, 2007 under Frippery, Reading |
And Theo Black is some peace keeper person from Farscape. He tried to get me to teach him an Australian accent. But, ya know, you're either born with one or you're not.
As usual Scott Westerfeld took the photo.
Posted by Justine at 1:16, September 1st, 2007 under Cons & Other Gatherings, Fashion, Frippery |
I just had a fight over which is the kiss and which is the hug: the x or the o.
I say the x is the kiss on account of it's representative of a scrunched up mouth. The o is a hug cause it's arms in a circle which (unless you're hugging yourself) is classic hugging action.
I will not share my friend's strange delusion of what they mean because, really, too weird!
Then I asked Scott and he agreed with my friend. And even google says the friend is right.
Madness reigns! Or maybe it's another one of those Oz versus US of A things? she asked hopefully.
Whatever. I have decided to ignore them all. For me the x is the kiss and ...
Posted by Justine at 14:28, August 11th, 2007 under Frippery |
Posted by Justine at 14:05, July 22nd, 2007 under Frippery, Praising, Reading, State of the World, Young Adult literature |
The contest is open until the end of this month (
rules are here). The response has been amazing. I mean, we were hoping for at least half a dozen responses, there's been more than fifty.
If you don't want to spend all day being
Posted by Justine at 9:08, July 20th, 2007 under Bloggery, Frippery, Young Adult literature |
Holly Black is
making me giggle (via
Gwenda). Now all I can think about is vampire elves and zombie unicorns and werewolf-griffins and pirate-orcs and . . . and which of all of those would win in battle and what they'd look like and what they'd eat. Would vampire elves still not like steel and not tell lies? And what would a novel with all these creatures in it be like?
Oh, hush, Justine. You have stories to write! Novels to unbuggerize! Admin to adminerate! Stop procrastinating.
Posted by Justine at 12:23, July 18th, 2007 under Bloggery, Frippery, Unicorns, Zombies |
Over at
insideadog Scott has had an attack of the
lolcats and defaced several fine Australian young adult book covers. I am deeply horrified. Has he no sense of the sacred?
If you feel the urge to vandalise some other book covers (they don't have to be Australian or young adult) post the links to your efforts in the
comments thread over there. The best ones will receive a lovely
Extras T-shirt. The contest is open until the end of the month and we'll announce the winners in early August.
Posted by Justine at 0:02, July 18th, 2007 under Bloggery, Frippery, Scott's books, Sydney/Australia |
On Saturday I ran into wondrous super-librarian Carlie Webber at Book Expo America (BEA). She was wearing the best T-shirt of all time. Check it out:
And how about the back:
I laughed and laughed.
For those who do not know what a
Mary Sue is or have not read any of the
Harry Potter books---where have you been?
Update: The T-shirt of greatness was created by Amy
Tenbrink of
Narrate Conferences.
Posted by Justine at 10:38, June 4th, 2007 under Frippery, New York City/USA, Praising, Viewing, Young Adult literature |
Posted by Justine at 4:53, June 1st, 2007 under Frippery, New York City/USA, Praising, Travelling, Vainglory, Young Adult literature |
Because that's how much it's costing me to be online.
I may need to do hotel-hatred management classes fairly soon.
In short:
Adelaide still gorgeous, still full of churches.
The wedding was awesome. I'm a sucker for weddings at the best of times. But this was more excellent than most. The bride's speech rocked.
Despite the insane hotel gouging not allowing me to function in the 21st century, I'm more relaxed and happy than I've been in ages. Amazing how wonderful not working (and possibly not going online) and getting to hang out with my friends without feeling guilty is. More please!
Melbourne next. Where there will be much work and fun at Reading Matters. I'd link but that would lose me my second and third ...
Posted by Justine at 18:13, May 20th, 2007 under Bloggery, Cons & Other Gatherings, Excuses, Frippery, Praising, Sydney/Australia, Whingeing |
Posted by Justine at 2:22, May 14th, 2007 under Frippery, Reading, Vainglory, Young Adult literature |
Courtesy of
Marrije, I now know what happens to Reason after the Magic or Madness trilogy:
She's now working advertising coffee in the Netherlands!
See the eerie resemblance?
It's a huge relief to me to know that at least one of my characters is not going to starve just because I've stopped writing about them. Phew!
Posted by Justine at 9:40, April 9th, 2007 under Frippery, Magic or Madness trilogy |
I was hanging out with a fabulous group of young adult writers t'other night and we got into a silly debate about the following question:
If you could only choose one which would you choose:
the publishing house with a wonderful editor who brings out the best in you, or
the house with fabulous publicity, marketing and sales departments?
A surprising number of authors plumped for publicity because they have a brilliant group of first readers who can critique their books so that even without a great editor they'd still be getting a kind of editing.
There were lots of attempts to cheat, like, "Can I have a pretty good editor and pretty good publicity?"
No! This is a hypothetical. You have to pick one!
A few ...
Posted by Justine at 7:43, March 21st, 2007 under Frippery, Publishing business |
Posted by Justine at 0:01, February 23rd, 2007 under Cons & Other Gatherings, Frippery, Reading, Unicorns, Viewing, Zombies |
Scott just sent me this because we both love cricket and monkeys. ((He
found it here, but I'd love to know the original source.)) It is the personification of our love. It makes me so happy!
Though I gotta say that's a pretty suspicious looking bowling action. And why is the umpire lying on the ground? Because the monkey is totally using body line? Check it: the monkey's aiming at their heads! Or perhaps because the monkey has used six different balls? That's gotta be worse than ball tampering, right? Bad cheating monkey!
Posted by Justine at 16:52, February 11th, 2007 under Cricket, Frippery |
Pt wants to know how to cope with jetlag. I have but two pearls of wisdom:
1) Be very very rich and fly first class. On those rare occasions I've been upgraded to business class I've recovered from jetlag many days earlier than when I fly cattle class. I can only imagine how much faster the whole thing would be in first class. Or in your own private jet. Or if you could teleport. I would not say no to a door between Sydney and New York either . . .
2) Don't fly anywhere. You get no jetlag and the environment will thank you.
Little Willow asks what my favourite fruits are and gets extra points for being an American and ...
Posted by Justine at 0:06, January 25th, 2007 under Bloggery, Cons & Other Gatherings, Food, Frippery, Mangosteens, Ranting, Travelling, Writing life |
I cannot explain why this make me so very very very happy. It just does.
Australian fast bowler, Brett Lee, in a duet with Indian legend
Asha Bhosle. Why don't more cricketers sing?
The song is currently no. 4 on the charts in India. Wonder if they'll release it here?
Posted by Justine at 14:49, January 21st, 2007 under Cricket, Frippery, Listening |
I misspoke. Turns out that it's more than possible for my name to be bigger than the title.
You can see the proper cover of Magic's Child in the sidebar to your right. And, honestly, my name is so small you can barely even read it. How humiliating!
Now, this, this is much better:
Isn't that a vast improvement? I likes it! I likes it a lot!
Well, okay, yes, my photoshopping leaves much to be desired. But work with me! You can see where I'm going with it, right?
You may add my name to the list of writers who dream that one day their name will be bigger than the title: "Look, Ma! That's me! My name's in lights!"
One day, one ...
Posted by Justine at 1:17, January 16th, 2007 under Frippery, Writing life |
There's been
much debate about what authors owe their readers out there in bloggyland. I think the whole thing is really rather simple:
When I've got my writing hat on then it's very clear that authors owe their readers absolutely nothing. Do you hear me readers? I owe you nothing!
I can write about what I want, when I want, and how I want. If I want to set fire to your favourite character's hair, push them off a cliff, and then jump on them, I can and I will, and there's nothing you can do to stop me. So nyer!
When I've got my reading hat on, then it's very very clear that authors owe me exactly the book ...
Posted by Justine at 0:03, January 15th, 2007 under Bloggery, Frippery, Praising, Ranting, Reading, Whingeing, Zombies |
There's a bunch of kids playing loudly next door and one of them just yelled out, "I am the ruler of the universe!" I'm thinking that's not a bad resolution, but a tricky one to follow through on. The kid next door did not succeed, because now all the kids are yelling that they are the ruler of the universe. Scott included.
I like the idea of resolutions. I like the idea of trying to better or test yourself in some small concrete way. And I especially like the idea of lots of folks all over the place all resolving to do stuff at the same time. But like most everyone else I'm usually crap at sticking to them.
I was ...
Posted by Justine at 13:40, December 30th, 2006 under Excuses, Food, Frippery |
Posted by Justine at 7:37, November 17th, 2006 under Frippery, Writing process |
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 |
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 1:56, September 19th, 2006 under Frippery, Praising, Writing life |
Because
Margo Lanagan is one of the best writers I know, and is wonderful in every way, and has written two of the best short story collections ever published (White Time and Black Juice)---I should probably follow her rules of writing to the letter.
But, see, she has this list of banned words and every one of those words sings to me:
accretion
amidst
amongst
atop*
corruscating
crepuscular*
effulgence
enervating
iridescent*
jasmine
maelstrom
obsidian* (Margo says, "only okay when used to describe arrowheads".)
pellucid*
roiling* (Margo says, "must be used with care".)
silken*
ululate*
whilst
There are heaps more but I can't remember the rest. Help me out, Margo? Margo's Clarion students?
Update: *Are Margo Lanagan additions to the list.
Ever since I heard of the existence of Margo's banned words list it has become my goal in life ...
Posted by Justine at 0:31, September 14th, 2006 under Frippery, Ironical (This is Writ), Magic or Madness trilogy, Words & Language, Writing process |
Posted by Justine at 6:28, September 13th, 2006 under Frippery, Magic or Madness trilogy, Scott's books, Titles & names, Writing life, Writing process |
Posted by Justine at 17:09, September 6th, 2006 under Best of Blog, Bloggery, Frippery, Unicorns, Writing process |
Posted by Justine at 20:10, August 21st, 2006 under Bloggery, Frippery, How To Ditch Your Fairy, Magic or Madness trilogy, Vainglory |
Last night after a hard day's work we thought we'd order up a movie. As you do. And we're trying to pick one, but the movies we know anything about we've already seen or would rather die than see. So we're reading descriptions of movies and we both start exercising the veto like you wouldn't believe:
Scott: not watching any movie that has the word "cop" in the description.
Justine: or "battered" or "gruelling" or "genocide".
Scott: not "lawyer" either or "detective".
Justine: Isn't that covered by "cop"?
Scott: No. Look "private detective".
Justine: I rule out "bleak", "heart-warming", and "family-oriented".
Scott: Also "doctor".
Justine: Not to mention "life-threatening" and "disease", especially if they're the one phrase.
Scott: Aren't those ruled out on account of my previous anti-"doctor" ...
Posted by Justine at 9:13, August 20th, 2006 under Frippery, Viewing, Zombies |
Quit asking already! I told you:
I'm now
Pollyanna the Glad Girl.
Posted by Justine at 17:42, August 16th, 2006 under Frippery |
Posted by Justine at 18:05, August 5th, 2006 under Bloggery, Cricket, Frippery, Magic or Madness trilogy, New York City/USA, State of the World, Writing goals & milestones |
You are correct that I have not been blogging much or responding to comments like I usually do or even responding to email a whole lot.
The reason is that I'm on a deadline (yes, the same one, yes, it was moved again, yes I really have to meet this one) and am working my arse off. (Oh, how I miss my arse!)
In the meantime I think you lot should entertain me. Here are some questions:
Does anyone have any recs for best brunch place in NYC?
Who's going to be the first Australian to win the Tour de France (no, it doesn't have to be this year)?
What's the best book you've read lately?
I just read
Out by Natuso Kirino. Loved it. ...
Posted by Justine at 11:18, July 16th, 2006 under Basketball, Bloggery, Excuses, Fashion, Food, Frippery, Magic or Madness trilogy, New York City/USA, Praising, Reading, Sport, Tour de France |
Over at Miss Snark's some
folks get all snooty when agents address them by first name. I find their crankiness weird and am wondering if it's a generational thing or because (as another commenter says) I'm Australian and we're less uptight more relaxed than USians.
Personally, I'm more squicked when people insist on using a title with my name. My name is Justine Larbalestier, it's not Ms Justine Larbalestier, certainly not Miss or Mrs Justine Larbalestier and you're risking life and limb if you ever use
Mrs Scott Westerfeld, though FYI Scott adores being called Mr Justine Larbalestier.
If you must use a title the correct one's actually Dr, which I'm not wild about either, but at least I earned ...
Posted by Justine at 10:14, June 11th, 2006 under Frippery, New York City/USA, Ranting, State of the World, Sydney/Australia, Titles & names, Whingeing, Words & Language |
Shana tagged me and I
didn't even know it.
It's a tricky meme, I'm not saying I'm not weird and all, it's just that pretty much all the weirdnesses I'd be willing to tell you about---how much I hate socks etc. a) have already appeared on many other people's lists (and thus how weird can it really be?) and b) I just don't think that's weird. Frankly, it's the people who like socks that I worry about.
So here are the weirdnesses I'm okay with you knowing about (oh, and family of mine and close friends---you do not have permission to post comments):
1) I don't like anything with caffeine in it. Not coffee, chocolate, coke, tea, not anything. This is ...
Posted by Justine at 7:09, January 20th, 2006 under Bloggery, Food, Frippery |
©
Niki Bern
Nothing says
author photo like exploding hair . . .
And, no, I didn't know it was being taken. My sister's sneaky that way.
Posted by Justine at 13:32, December 27th, 2005 under Frippery, Viewing |
1. Why the exact same brand toothpaste has radically different packaging in different countries.
2. Why everyone thinks King Kong is the best movie ever.
3. Why no one told me that Lost is excellent genre TV.
4. Why whenever you buy chips in an Oz pub they always come served in a plastic fake-wood bowl.
5. Why cricket isn't the dominant sport in every country in the world.
6. How anyone could wear gold sandals and not be ironic.
Posted by Justine at 21:33, December 23rd, 2005 under Bloggery, Cricket, Fashion, Frippery, Sport, State of the World |
Posted by Justine at 15:12, December 6th, 2005 under Bloggery, Frippery, State of the World |
I finally did it. I finally got a photo of a hummingbird. Hell, I got two. What kind of a genius, am I? And it required no patience or planning at all. I just happened to be in the kitchen with the camera.
You see it? There in the centre right of the photo, just behind the pale purple flowers.
No? Well how about in this photo:
This time look just left of the pale purple flowers.
Okay then, here's the first photo again, but this time cropped with the hummingbird dead centre:
And the second, also cropped and in the centre:
See it? Isn't that cool? You don't see it? Look closer, damn it! See the grey blur? See the ...
Posted by Justine at 13:26, October 11th, 2005 under Frippery, Listening, Travelling, Viewing |
Posted by Justine at 12:25, August 23rd, 2005 under Bloggery, Frippery, Ironical (This is Writ), Reading |
Should be writing, shouldn't be flibbergibberting all over the interwebby thingie. I think I'm addicted to
spirit fingers. It's my favourite blog eva! What's not to love? Its name is a reference to the
finest film ever made (except for all the other really good ones). Must stop reading through the archive, must stop spraying water over my laptop from laughing too hard. Must do some actual work.
Blogging has eaten my brain. I knew it!
Posted by Justine at 13:38, June 29th, 2005 under Excuses, Frippery, Whingeing |
I adore the way the oz media runs articles on sledging for the sole purpose of repeating some of the choicer examples.
This one's my current favourite 'cause it doesn't bother pretending to be against it, plus it repeats my favourite anti-
W. G. Grace sledge.
What do you reckon my chances are of getting some sledging going on science fiction panels at this year's
WorldCon? That'd liven them up quicksmart, not to mention preventing
Gwenda's death declaration from coming true.
Posted by Justine at 9:19, June 13th, 2005 under Cons & Other Gatherings, Cricket, Frippery, Sport |
Interwebby thingies I read and enjoyed today:
Tingle alley has some flittering thoughts about how fascinated she is by other writers' acknowledgments
here and
here. Me too!
Some more
Australian gloating about the coming Ashes series.
A cool review of
David Levithan's Boy Meets Boy.
Lesson learned today: sometimes google is definitely not all that, and a trip to the library is required. My attempts to find out more about the recording, publishing and reception of Bill Broonzy's"Get Back (Black, Brown and White)" inspired by Josh's comment
here yielded close to nothing. Anyone out there got any leads please to let me know!
I finished up with the oz version of
magic or madness---damn it's hard to ...
Posted by Justine at 17:22, June 9th, 2005 under Cricket, Frippery, Listening, Reading, Sport |
Awhile back Gwenda called on me to do this meme thingie. However,
my musings are too high-class a location for such low-brow frippery (that's right, Mely, I mock your mock!). But now that I'm slumming in blogland with the rest of youse . . .
1. The person (or persons) who passed the baton to you.
Gwenda the Spenda
2. Total volume of music files on your computer.
10.89 GB. Not a tonne . . . Haven't managed to get done ripping all my cds on account of them all being in Sydney in a storage unit. Sigh. I am missing my seventies Elvis. I surely am. And Buddy Guy & Junior Wells Play the Blues. Double sigh.
3. The title and artist ...
Posted by Justine at 11:18, May 25th, 2005 under Frippery, Listening |
