Eight in October

1. October was the eighth month in the Roman calendar, which seems about right, as it does not seem possible that we're heading toward the round-up of 2012.  Mind you, so much has changed this year, for better and for worse, that it seems more like the work of eight years, not ten months.  So much crammed into a dizzyingly short time.

2. October is the month of this.

3.  I've been doing gigs all over the place recently, fitted around the day job: for Wanneroo and Cockburn libraries for Book Week, at Hampton High, St Mary's, Wesley (my first ever boy's school, incidentally).  I also had the delight of going to Melbourne for two days for the Melbourne Writers Festival, which was wonderfully captured here by the wonderful Danielle. I also got to meet with my fabulous publisher and Losing It editor at Penguin before I succumbed to a virus and became filled with mucus and self-pity.

4. I have half-moved house (I know, long story), and recently planted herbs in pots in my new place. It gives me great pleasure to gaze out on them morning and evening, to stir them into sauces, and watch the new growth push upward and outward.

5.  Last year, my birthday resolution was this.  This year, my intention is to become more Zen, in the sixties sense of the word.  Or, to put it another way, less this:

And more this:

I'll let you know how I go.

6. Even without a telly, I've been enjoying Rake, Scott and Bailey, Puberty Blues (what a script! what a brilliant set of performances!) and Call the Midwife, post series one and two of the highly addictive Game of Thrones.  I'm a bit less organised with my reading: if anyone's got a good book they reckon I should read, do let me know.  (Beside Dianne Touchell's Creepy and Maude, which I'm looking forward to getting stuck into this week.)

7.  Dog. Does. Not. Like. Dogwash.

8. I've properly started a new project, at long last. It features ABBA, the Olympics and Countdown. I'd forgotten how much effort, aside from creative effort, is necessary for historical fiction.  It's delightful to be at the plotting stage, where everything is possible, and hardly anything committed to paper.