Queensland Floods

It’s a truly horrifying time for Queensland, and the flood is a bona-fide disaster of arse-kicking proportions.  Like everyone else I’ve been devouring the news sites, clicking on maps of the affected areas, and worrying about friends and family near the flooded areas.  It’s really sad to see such a beautiful city cop the brunt of this riparian smack-down.

Tehani Wessely of Fablecroft has put out a fundraiser to help those affected by the floods, an e-book edition of her new anthology After the Rain.  More info here: http://editormum.livejournal.com/266883.html

The Ideas File Is A Bleedingly Obvious Idea

As a writer, if you keep getting distracted by cool new ideas that take over from whatever project you’re currently working on, start an Ideas File.  Dump all the salient info into this file, and forget about it.  If it’s still capturing your imagination when you’re ready to start your next project (even if it’s 6 months later), it’s probably worth writing.  If it doesn’t rock your socks, it was not meant to be.  But at least you got your other stuff done and didn’t get derailed.  I should have started one of these things 2-3 years ago, instead of bounding from idea to idea like a hyperactive kitten.

Elliptical Rider:

There is now a great big stonking piece of exercise equipment in our living room.  Toddler Fisch “assisted” in its construction, and by all accounts it is a very cool new thing with moving pedals and big handle thingies.  Goodbye, spare tyre 🙂

Pimping my peeps:

Fellow WOTF winner and allround good guy Steve Savile has put the word out that his novel Silver is now $2.99 in e-book form, and I’m happy to do my part to endorse and pimp such a groovy book.  I devoured this book in a couple of days, and can’t recommend it highly enough.  Good fun, a great thriller that had me from start to finish, and he out-Browns Dan Brown.  I don’t normally read this genre but if I enjoyed it, anyone can.  It can be found at the following links:

http://www.amazon.com/Silver-An-OgmiosTeam-Adventure-ebook/dp/B00332FFHU/ref=tag_dpp_lp_edpp_img_in

http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/19399

Goodreads

Is very very good.  Since signing up to this website (and rediscovering public transport) I have absolutely smashed my way through a stack of books.  There’s just something about being accountable with your reading, and being able to easily score/review a work.  I used to throw the occasional “I love this book” on the old LJ blog, but this is arguably a much better way of managing one’s reading.