After eleven and a half years it's high time we had a change of government here in the Land of Oz. I am fairly cynical about politics and politicians of any shade, so I will not expect Shangri-La to manifest any time soon. However, there is always a honeymoon period when a new party takes power, so I hope they get stuck into some of the things they've promised - like improvements to health and education. Of course, they will be up against arguments from the state governments (this country is hopelessly overgoverned, IMO) but they can hardly do any worse than their predecessors:-)

I must admit to feeling a bit of compassion for the ex-PM, if he does indeed lose his seat, and it's looking very much as if he might. An ignominous end, but one that shows how little pollies learn from history. Apparently the only other Aussie PM to lose his seat while holding the Top Job did so because of an arrogant attitude to industrial relations, which is exactly why Johnny got his comuppance.

Our new PM-elect seems to be a decent sort of chap, full of energy and enthusiasm. And we have 5 senators from the Greens party in the senate, which has got to be an improvement. Maybe things will look up under the new regime. I certainly hope so.

And oh, Kevin, if you're reading this, how about a bit of a rise in the pension? I really can't live on $600 a fortnight. You'll be glad to know, however, that I've become involved in one of the last government's initiatives designed to get retirees back into the workforce. Whether or not employers can ever be convinced that people over 50 are worth employing, of course, is another matter altogether!

A few weeks ago, I blogged a Writers Workshop I'd attended, facilitated by Peter Dunn under the auspices of the Coastal Quills Writers Group. Last Wednesday was the follow-up meeting. Being in the evening, and a cool dark evening at that, it was less well-attended than it might have been, but in a way that was good because it allowed for a more informal approach and time to chat. Peter had set up a plan centred on the idea that the writing process can be seen as a cycle. I have always thought if it as linear - Beginning (research, ideas, planning) Middle (start the project) and End (polish and market the product) but for his analogy, Peter Dunn used the annual cycle of seasons:

Spring – awakening, enthusiasm, planning, creating
Summer – relaxation, confidence, enjoyment
Autumn – consideration, slowing down, ripening
Winter – static, frozen, unfruitful, but also gestation, preparation.

The keywords are not necessarily those Peter gave us to play with but my spin on them. The concept gave me another of those "Aha!" moments when I realised that the creative process is not linear, but cyclical. It put the idea of "writer's block" in perspective, as simply being indicative of a time when ideas need to lie fallow like autumn-sown fields, ready to spring to life when conditions are right. And like winters, some such periods are long and others are short. For the last few months I've been going though a longish one – I say "longish" because one hears of writers being blocked for years on end – but I've come to the conclusion that it's best to be patient; to wait for the seeds to germinate in their own time. In the interim, I do what I can – research, edit, and write a few words here and there as mini-ideas surface.

One excellent tip I've had was "ten words" – just write ten words a day! The idea came from Naomi Novik, author of the Temeraire series. All the tips are worth reading, as evinced by the fact that they are sprouting up on blogs all over the internet. Just Google for "Naomi Novik" + "ten words" and you will find them.

Novik wrote the tips for participants in NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). A number of friends including Simon Haynes are participating in this once-a-year writing marathon. They aim to write 50,000ww during November. I'd have as much chance of doing that as doing what Sean Williams is doing - growing a mustache for the Movember (Men's Health) Foundation! Sean is charting his progress in haiku and pictures.

That's more links than I've ever included in a post before. I hope they all work:-)

The hayfever has made me so non compus today that I was going to give blogging a miss - until I found a Shakespeare meme on Karen Miller's blog. Unfortunately Blogspot is being silly again and wouldn't let me post it here, so I've put my effort up on My LJ instead. It's a hoot.

I hope to have a clear head to blog properly next weekend - maybe even before if I feel inspired and gain some clarity!

Several nice things have happened over the last few days. First, my friend and cousin-by-marriage Elfriede rang me from Germany, which was a delightful surprise as we hadn't chatted in a while. It's autumn over there, of course, and from the sound of things they are having pretty similar weather to us. It's still very cold here in the southeast of South Australia. We've gone back to twelve degrees Celsius during the day, complete with pouring rain and howling winds, and at night it's dropping to two or three degrees Celsius. Brr. The dearth of warm weather is one of the things I really don't like about living here. In fact, one not-nice thing that happened this week was an electricity bill for nearly $400! This flat has a built-in electric space heater and I've been very glad of it these last few months, but I've been dreading the bill. I've been paying a bit into the account every pension day but I'd still only paid half of it by the time the day of reckoning arrived. I hate to think what I've done to my carbon footprint, too. It's obvious that I'm going to have to allow $50 each and every pension day to pay for electricity. (Blankets and hot water bottles are fine, but they don't warm my hands while I'm typing and sometimes my frozen fingers just won't hit the right keys!) This amount is at least twice the budget I used to allow for electricity in Perth. Sometimes I think I might as well have stayed over there and gone broke as moved over here to do it! So thank heavens for the nice things. I'm trying to focus on them instead of panicking about finances.

Another nicey was a tiny Lotto win – probably only about $20 to collect but it will go towards that wretched bill! And one really exciting thing is that a friend in Perth has offered me a free plane trip over for sometime next year – WOW! I'll keep you posted on that one. Maybe I'll make it to Swancon after all!

The fourth nice thing is that over at Writer Unboxed there is an interview of one of my favourite writers, Jacqueline Carey, by another of my favourite writers, Juliet Marillier. The first of three parts is up here. The remaining two parts will appear on successive Fridays. The preceding post on the blog, Dear Charlotte is also Juliet's – it’s about Charlotte Bronte’s letters.

I'm afraid there's still nothing happening on the writing front apart from a bit of editing, and for the same reason as last week – I've been out most days and when I haven't been out I've been catching up on e-mails and critiquing. I'm starting to think that maybe I need this break from the WIP to allow the story and my handling of it to simmer for a while. Well, that's my excuse, anyway!