Writing is a funny thing. It’s a performance art where the performance is done in private. It’s a private pursuit that relies to an arguable degree on having a public twin, a persona, if you will, that represents the private world without interfering with it, and grants time enough or space enough or validity, assurance, respect enough for the performer to go back to their solitary performing.
Have I over-laboured that whole performance analogy muchly?
Anyhow, this brings us (perhaps tangentially) to the topic of awards.
Awards make me uncomfortable. In fact, I find the entire public twin thing horribly embarrassing. Writing is something I do, but *being* a writer? That’s not something I get. In fact, the day I dropped the pretense of myself as a Writer, and put my energies instead into just freaking writing, a whole bunch of things became simpler.
But that’s probably another post entirely & I’m only using that comment as a way to procrastinate on my real purpose, which is to draw your attention to the Ditmar nominations — the Australian SF Awards that recognise excellence in professional & fan endeavours. I like that these two sometimes disparate categories are brought together here, ‘cos I have this whole thing about lines being drawn irresponsibly, dividing & conquering — when in my opinion the creative impetus is, if not identical (which, actually, I kinda suspect it is), surely at least very, very similar. Twinned, in fact.
But, again, I’m trying to distract you from what I’m really doing, which is listing my publications for 2004 — JUST IN CASE you have read one of them & were looking for a reminder while contemplating your Ditmar nominations. I am doing this because I’ve been advised by my betters that it’s a wise thing to do, & I should get over my agonies about self-promotion. I’ll be voting for me, because Connie Willis told this fabulous story at Swancon one year that convinced me all writers should vote for their own stuff. So even though I have this sense of pulling my own teeth at the moment, I’m gonna list my little stories & link to my damn site if it kills me, & please feel invited to read the excerpts if you’re still in need of that reminder, but don’t feel obliged.
Short stories:
Number Three Raw Place — Agog! Terrific Tales, Agog! Press, ed. Cat Sparks
Cinnamon Gate — Orb Speculative Fiction Magazine, Sarah Endacott publisher, ed. Sarah Endacott
And I quote: “You may nominate as many works as you wish. Eligible published works must have appeared for the first time in 2004. Please email your nominations to lenehan at our.net.au with the word ‘Ditmar’ in the subject heading.” And for a more complete list of publications in Australia last year, go to: http://www.geocities.com/aussfr/Lists.htm.
Phew, now I need to lie down, but some other time it might be interesting to talk about all those things I deleted from this post because I knew I was avoiding the task I’d set out to do. Too bad they don’t give awards for procrastinating. Now, *that* I’d feel assured I deserved.