Happy New Year from New Zealand!

If I've been slack when it comes to blogging and keeping up on social media, for once it's not laziness! I'm on holidays, hurray! I'm in New Zealand, where it is unquestionably beautiful, and very questionably summer. Seriously, it's January and it's stupidly cold. I've probably spend way too many years living in the tropics, but I'm pretty sure the winters here would kill me! 

But what I've seen of New Zealand is absolutely beautiful, and everyone should come here. I'll be sad to get back to Australia and the daily grind in many respects, but it will be nice to get back into some writing again. I always take my computer with me, but when  my holiday brain is activated, I can't get much done at all. So apologies to all my cowriters as well... but you guys knew what you were getting into, right? 

Here are some pictures of New Zealand to make you all jealous: 

And no, I swear I didn't take a photograph of New Zealand sheep just to make a dirty joke about it. It's just that even their sheep are cuter than ours! Ours are skinnier and dirtier. I think they put them through the wash here before they let the tourists see them. 

Happy Christmas, however you celebrate!

Christmas is one of those occasions that always looks different in the brochure, right? Well, you know, if there was an actual brochure. But the plethora of Christmas advertising shoved at your face this time of year serves the same purpose. Al those beautiful, smiling people in lovely sweaters, perfectly symmetrical faces bathed in the glow of the lights form the impeccably decorated Christmas tree. Ugh. I hate those people. I want to jab their eyes out with candy canes.

Christmas, to me and to any other inhabitant of the southern hemisphere, is always a little weird. We’re bombarded with carols about winter wonderlands, and sleigh rides, and our shopping centres are decorated with massive snowflakes and fake glittery icicles. Santa’s grotto is a little piece of the North Pole right between the food court and the department store. Meanwhile, it’s so stinking hot outside that the road surface is melting.

I told JA Rock the other day that Christmas gives Australian kids a strong grounding in cynicism. You try and watch TV at Christmas and see something without snow. Or a fireplace. Or a sled. Those Christmas movies don’t exist. Our version of Christmas is never the one played out on TV.

Our version of Christmas—at least here in the tropics—is one where the house smells of ripe mango. It’s the one where you spend ages in line at the seafood place late on Christmas Eve to pick up the prawns and Moreton Bay bugs. It the one where you’ve never had a turkey, because who the hell wants to stand in a sweltering hot kitchen when you should be relaxing with a cool drink instead? Cold cuts and salad. 

Which isn’t to say that I’ll be doing much of that this year either. When my alarm goes at 5 a.m. I won’t be leaping out of bed to see what Santa brought. I’ll be getting ready for work instead. And you know what’s weird? I don’t actually mind. Because I generally like the people I work with, so getting to spend half of Christmas day with them is actually a good thing. We’re having a Secret Santa, and all bringing something to share for lunch.

Then, in the afternoon, I’ll be hanging out with my Mum (since the rest of the extended family is having an actual white Christmas in Germany, damn them) and we’ll probably do an early dinner and catch up with friends and play stupid board games.

Then, in the one Christmas tradition my family accidentally developed, we’ll pull out a jigsaw puzzle at my Mum’s place, clear the dining table and every time someone passes the table, they’ll take a few moments to work on the puzzle. We usually have the thing finished by New Year.

Are there any Christmas traditions your family observes?

Giving Thanks

A few days ago I had my first Thanksgiving, courtesy of J.A. Rock. I took her to see crocodiles, and she made me a pumpkin pie. That sounds fair to me! 

We Australians don't have Thanksgiving, and the idea of actually listing the things we should be thankful for sounds a little strange. In the spirit of the season I'm going to give it a try, but I might not be very good at it. So here, without further ado, are the things I am thankful for: 

1. Banrock Station Moscato. Two bottles of this and one chance remark later, and it turns out you've planned an awesomely hot and creepy m/m story that will be OMG! SO GOOD! Seriously, I cannot wait to start writing this! 

2. Kangaroos that punch ducks. I mean, all kangaroos are pretty cool, but have you ever seen one punch a duck? I think that kangaroo is my soulmate. 

3. Pumpkin pie. How good is that stuff? I don't even like pumpkin that much, not even in scones, but pumpkin pie? More, please! 

4. Banrock Station Moscato. Yes, I know I already mentioned it, but there was quite a lot of it, okay? And maybe if I mention it a few more times, they'll send me some for free. Hello? Banrock Station, hello? 

5. And, naturally, my brilliant co-author J.A. Rock, without whom nothing on this list would have happened. 

For those of you who celebrate Thanksgiving, I hope you had a great time with the people you love, and if anyone wants to send me any leftover pumpkin pie, I'd certainly appreciate it. 

Holiday Success

I am home. 

My feet hurt. 

I have consumed more cider in the past week than is medically recommended.

Also, wine. 

I saw penguins. And meerkats. AND A LION! 

I now want penguins. And meerkats. And a lion. 

My dog is snoring on my floor. My cats are refusing to speak to me. 

So, you're back. I loathe you. Now feed me. 

My dining room table is full of stuff I've unpacked from my suitcase, but not got any further. 

Did I really need to buy that many books? Yes. 

Did I really need to buy that many random things? Apparently. 

I am back to the day job tomorrow. 

I am also back to writing and editing. Yay! 

Holiday: success! 

Melbourne

Melbourne is so pretty. Even in winter. It's cold, but no too cold. The only penguins I've seen were behind glass at the aquarium, not swimming up the Yarra, so it's not too bad. Mind you, I'm from the tropics, so I start to panic if I have to put socks on. 

And now I'm up to the part of the holiday I've (not so secretly) been looking forward to. My family, Travel Group One, had headed home because of work and school and suchlike, and I have two days before my mad drunken friends, Travel Group Two, arrive. 

So it's time to buy some nice wine, put on some music, and get some writing done. 

And, oh yeah, that novel set in Melbourne in the 1920s...that plot bunny is back, and it's refusing to be ignored. 

Source: Travel Victoria

Because hot boys. Because of the fashion. Because Melbourne Gaol. Because The Windsor Hotel. Because Chinatown. Because opium dens and the White Australia policy and racism. Because I haven't written anything with a clash of cultures before. Because historical.

But mostly the hot boys. 

Holidays!

Writers don't get days off. Seriously. 

But don't take this as a cry for help or a cheap ploy for sympathy, because I wouldn't have it any other way. Because everything -- EVERYTHING -- is grist for the mill. Or chaff in the wind. Or something. 

Anyway, I'm about to head off for three weeks in Victoria. Why the rest of the family has chosen winter as the season to meet up there, I have no idea. Because it's going to be cold. 

Fucking cold. 

And as someone who hasn't done cold in a long time, I'm alternating between "Oh, it won't be that bad" and "God help me, I'm going to die." 

But of everything we're doing in the next three weeks, here's what I'm looking forward to the most: 

Sovereign Hill. And no, not for the old-timey sepia photographs I'm sure I'll be forced into, but for the Gold Museum. Seriously, because I'm working on a historical at the moment that could really use a bit more research in that direction. Okay, so my story is set twenty years after the heyday of Sovereign Hill, and in Wyoming, but you can bet I'll learn something important about gold mining in any case. And if they've got a butcher's shop, even better. 

Note to self: stop giving your characters jobs you know nothing about just because "Oh, it surely can't be that complicated." 

A holiday? Hell no, this is an extensive research trip with some shopping, sightseeing and probably frostbite thrown in.