The Crazy Time Of Year.

Busy.

The end of school year is approaching, which means people think teachers are starting to slack off. But there's a lot of marking, report writing and course planning for 2014 to be done. I'm also completing kitchen renovations at home, as well as a few other bits that need doing in the garden and the house, and preparing for visiting family.

In about 2 weeks I feel like I'll finally be able to kick back and relax a little, and even maybe get some writing done. But for now it's full steam ahead.

And darn those torpedoes.

In And Around.

A couple of rejections this week, although they were not unexpected and I'm not overly disappointed by them.

That's not to say I didn't have hopes they would sell, or even that I was sending the stories to markets where they had no chance. I'm a firm believer in aiming squarely at your level and not wasting editors/readers time by sending them every little thing in the tiny hope they might like it. No, if I send a story to a market I'm of the belief the story could sell there. It simply that these markets are very difficult to break into as they take so few stories.

But I find that for the most part I can handle rejections quite well. And so those stories, with barely time to catch their collected breaths, were shipped straight out to other markets.

An interesting week all round. Work was fabulous, the renovations at home continue, and my wife and I went to the taping of a new show with my brother and sister-in-law. It was a lot of fun, I scored some loot, and we all went out for dinner.

New ideas for stories continue to stockpile - and of course I make notes on them all. I even started work on one of them - although I managed only the opening. It will do for now.

Tuesday is a public holiday, students tend to take Monday off, and I have a few things to look forward to in the coming week.

Life is good.

Renovations.

I've been building a kitchen, and I must say it's coming along nicely.

We bought all the components, of course - flatpacks - and then I used tools and sharp implements, and my incredible handyman skills and superpowers, to convert these panels into something where stuff can be stored.  We ordered the benchtops, had the stove and rangehood fitted, and the kitchen is once more functioning.

Some of the rooms had the original carpet still. Salmon pink may have been cool in the 80s (although I doubt it) but it had worn, faded, stretched and been stained. So yesterday new carpet was fitted in three rooms. It was quite an effort emptying those rooms, particularly since one is the study with many books on shelves, but I got it all done and back in record time.

I took the opportunity to sort through some stuff in the study. It's always been a cosy place, somewhere I enjoy writing, but now it's less cluttered and feels wonderful.

Just a little worn out, so I think Sunday afternoons were meant for watching SF films. The only thing to do now is choose which one to watch.