AliceFraser

Heat wave

Added 2023-07-08 14:39:24 +0000 UTC

Hallo friends, it’s hot in London and I made the mistake of heading to a paddling pool with Laser Fraser. A viler swamp of chaos and villainy I have never seen. The Australian water-access-privilege-snobbery kicked in hardcore, and I swept my delicate dumpling away from the scene as swiftly as possible lest she be polluted by exposure to people who think a muddy puddle counts as an acceptable public pool situation.

I wrote a joke once that in Australia, when we go to a beach and there is another person on the beach, we think “oh, this one’s taken”. Which is of course not true, if you’ve ever seen a picture of Bondi on a summer’s long weekend, but has the echo enough of truth in it. Seeing people lining up or signing up for pool access feels unsettling to the point of wrongness for someone who grew up with the smell of the ocean.

The D’Ancey LaGuarde Reader Update

Writing has started on the book and it’s a delight to throw myself back into the world of D’Ancey. All the unselfconscious joy and trope-juggling and language-fondling and knowing-winking that is so specific to genre novels is a far cry from the relentlessly repetitive depression juice that is modern news, and which I spend so much time working wrist deep in.

One of the fun things about writing the D’Ancey book is that I’m making fun *with* rather than *of* the genres. I think people who don’t read romance or fantasy or sci fi or the cross-genre with-a-supernatural -twist can think that such books are humourless. But particularly romance novels are often very self aware, sometimes very funny and a very rare genre in which almost by definition a female hero (in straight romance) will have a rich inner life, whose priorities and desires are taken seriously, whose pleasure and fulfilment are paramount, and where female joy is the ultimate underlying goal.

Not to wax lyrical and solemn about this project that’s making me laugh every day, but maybe I have to admit that pontificating about the underlying significance of under-estimated art forms brings me joy and I’m never going to Marie Kondo it out of the cupboard of my life.

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For those that aren’t connected to the calendar, here are the upcoming Patreon meet-ups for the next week.

Writers Meeting and Workshop

9 July 2:30-4:30pm (UTC +1)

Zoom link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88008338683?pwd=cVE1ZnE3eFQzTStCRVE1alhnZU94Zz09

Weekly Salon

10 July 9:00-10:00am (UTC +1)

Zoom link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86728796766?pwd=T0E2OG9yeFFjODlMU3pDR1dlTldYdz09

Weekly Salon

10 July 4:00-5:00pm (UTC +1)

Zoom link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87071468195?pwd=Y1dHQXdlL3J6MjJpZEdZaytaTnZMdz09

Useful site for Time Conversions