Financial Year End in Sight
Reminder: Time for all you self-employed writer types to top up your super with your contribution so the government will match it because self-employed writer types are all low-income earners. Don't leave it till the last day like I usually do.

Pay your BAS for this quarter, start getting all those 07/08 invoices and receipts in a pile and wait for those little yellow slips to roll in from all your part-time jobs and the final BAS sheet to rock up and then you'll only have to put all the amounts into columns the night before you head off to the accountant to get all your tax back. Yes, you're a writer, you didn't make enough money this year, you should get all your tax back. If you don't, look at your record-keeping and ask your accountant what else you should be claiming.

I wandered into the movie room at MacDibble Hotel last night and a movie had already started. I waited till someone got up and stole a comfy chair and settled down to watch. Within five minutes I sat bolt upright and exclaimed: "I recognise that dialogue!" It wasn't a book I'd read, although it was a book I'd attempted to buy without success, so for me to recognise the dialogue was merely me recognising the writer's style. A quick crawl around the floor hunting for the remote in the dark, which cost me my comfy chair and caused a wail of protests as the blue info window partially obscured the movie, proved that the movie was Stardust by Neil Gaiman.

Until that moment, I hadn't registered that Gaiman's style was so distinguishable from other great writers. It felt very English in the movie, so that narrowed it down I suppose, and it was clearly a fantasy mix so that narrowed it down even further but it wasn't until I heard a bit of dialogue that the brain went "PING!"

Of course, in a movie, all that's left of the writer's words IS the dialogue, unless there is a narrator. Anyway, fun movie, great dialogue, watch it and pay attention to that Gaiman style and think about your own style.

I've just completed a webdesign course through Chisholm Institute (92% on the final exam!), in the hope that making webpages for people will provide me with a little more income, and I'm back teaching science fiction in schools around Melbourne. I was teaching SF a few years ago and quickly got through all the children interested in science fiction, so I got a part-time job doing office work instead, but since I've been away, there seems to be a surge in interest in science fiction and other teachers have stepped in and picked up topics like space travel and alien creature building which were some of the things that I did with the kids. I was surprised, but the new interest of the children and other teachers reflected the publishers' interest at the CBC Con recently. Obviously science fiction appeals more people than it used to. I spent years thinking I was some kind of genre geek, when I was clearly just ahead of my time.

This is an argument for following your muse no matter how geeky it may seem at the time.