I've just discovered I have comments! 90% of them were spam about watches (since removed), which, while being spam, is at least inoffensive, so I should be thankful for small mercies. The site was supposed to notify me when people comment, but I think it's been quietly notifying itself and not telling anyone else. Or possibly just eating my emails.

But: yay, comments!

It's been a week for bizarre technology rebellion, though:

I'm in the middle of organising a mob of tutors into who's-going-to-what-meeting and who's-getting-paid-to-do-what in the midst of a new enterprise bargaining agreement, but the internet moves on the in the meantime. Steve Saus, over on ideaTrash, is talking about how DRM is teaching us to be criminals, while Rachelle Gardener's giving prime advice on what to do with all those "please, a monkey could have written that" books, and in more entertaining reading, "a grumpy literary agent wading through slushpile fails" with commentary at slushpile hell.

A wikipedia link from a friend brings you Mamihlapinatapai, considered the most succinct word by the Guiness Book of Records, and also one of the hardest to translate. Our approximation is "a look shared by two people with each wishing that the other will initiate something that both desire but which neither one wants to start". How awesome is that? I'm fighting the urge to create a story purely around that word...

And the Melbourne Writer's Festival is open for bookings and ticket-buyings, etc. I'm undecided about attending - this year has AussieCon/WorldCon, after all (which I'm already attending), and in previous years I've found the MWF is more focussed on beginners, dabblers, readers and established authors with lots of where-do-you-get-your-ideas, how-do-I-get-an-agent, and let-me-tell-you-about-my-upcoming-novel talks. A few years ago they had the Friday Pitch - literally a bunch of hopefuls spouting their two-minute pitch to an audience and a panel of editors and agents, with immediate feedback, but that doesn't seem to be running anymore. There is a much fuller program than in previous years, though. Worth considering.

Normal service will resume once we figure out what is normal anyway.

I looked at one of these mythical iPads in the city yesterday. It was chained to a bench and surrounded by teenagers, and by the time I got my grubby mits on it it was plain that a thousand mits of equal or greater levels of grubbiness had been there before. The screen had been near-obliterated under a a hundred thousand fingerprints, and I had to resist the urge to wipe it down before I had a play.

I had to say, I didn't experience any of the "magic" I was promised by Lord Jobs. I put it back with a 'shrug' and a 'meh', still convinced it's just a big brother to my iPhone.

Write a damning article about a successful mostly-self-published author's latest publishing deal complete with snide comments, backhand remarks and egregious factual errors. Publisher's Weekly sure are anxious about J.A. Konrath (whose rebuttal of the article corrects their howling mistakes). Or rather, anxious that his apparent success becomes less apparent. And rightly so, I guess - if everyone takes Konrath's path, the wallets of agents and traditional publishers (and bookstores)  - that is, the people who read this magazine - will be getting much, much thinner. Sky's not falling, folks, not to fret.

But still, there's biased-journalism and then there's just lazy idiocy. Most of the facts they had wrong can be found in about sixty seconds on Konrath's site. Writing that kind of slam about someone makes you look petty. Writing a slam based on nonsense? We have a word for that on the internet.

Troll.

Time for the yearly tradition of making promises to ourselves with the best intentions, and the sticky-note on the side saying "unless it's really really hard"... as the years go by, I've seen fewer and fewer 'really's attached there, so I'm taking a new tack with my goals: they're things that I intend to do anyway, rather than additional things I'd like to dream I'll do. And they're entirely within my control. 

So I'm starting a blog. And - ironic, as a writer - I'm stuck with the first entry. It's like walking into a party where you know about three people, and they've all gone out to get more booze. Do you introduce yourself first? Do you just start talking to people like they already know you, and hope no one will interrupt to ask "but wait, who are you, and why are you talking to me?" Do you lead with a joke, and hope you don't hear crickets after the punchline? Or maybe just buy everyone a round, and hope they're drunk enough it lands you some unshakeable friendships for at least the next half-hour while you learn enough names to make it sound like you belong?