'Twas yesterday, the second. Thanks for the birthday wishes, though. And same again to you.

Edited by author 01-02-2006 08:54 PM
Sorry I missed your birthday--so was it the 1st? In any case Happy Birthday you kid, you!

I waited way too long to respond to all of your comments, for which many apologies. To get started:

Ellen: I did like Kong, and do think it's fun. I was aware, though, of most of what people are complaining about. The movie is flawed, but I enjoyed it anyway. As you say, it's a B grade movie. What were they expecting: art? This is the guy who made Meet The Feebles, for crying out loud. And Narnia - it seems more and more unlikeable as time passes. On awards - I would have nominated the stories you published. Heck, I would have put them in an Australian year's best, were it up to me.

BenPeek/Dave/Lee: The awards thing - I dunno. I think discussing awards is good. It's part of the whole process. I think complaining about the system (and trying to fix it) is good too. It's all good. It's just not important. Know what I mean?

BenPayne: Glad you liked the Eels and Stevens too. I have a bunch of old Eels stuff, but Stevens was new to me this year, and I was impressed.

Martin: Ask me privately. You'll probably not be surprised. And they weren't just referring to editors. They were referring to everyone, when it came to not being creative.

Jeremy: I agree that without context art is meaningless. For the artist, art should be part of a life well-lived. Something that contributes to the quality of life the artist lives. For the community, art is valuable only when consumed. It is what art means to someone that gives it value.

Justine: Thanks for the birthday wishes! I've been putting on weight and checking out prescriptions of late, so we're on track :) Editing and writing are so different that it's amazing they relate to one another. As to awards - they can all be improved. Nice to get 'em, though.

Jeremy: I have. It was a very unconsidered decision. I checked a box on Blogger. The problem, though, with being Web2.0, is that we're up to Web 4.0, yes?

Sean: I understand the business of it. Honest, I do. People want to read them. Publishers want to sell them to readers. Writers want to sell books to publishers. It's a simple loop. I just don't get step 1 in this case.

Jay: Good to know.

Per your most recent post, I try to pop over here and comment, but I read Coode Street as an lj feed myself.

A quick few examples:

Armstrong, Kelley. Dime Store Magic, 60.000 copies.
Davidson, MaryJanice. Dead and Unwed, 65,000 copies.
Harris, Charlaine. Dead Until Dark, 110,889 copies.
Harrison, Kim. Dead Witch Walking, 97,000 copies.
Kenyon, Sherrilyn. Night Embrace, 90,000 copies.

Since most of these are mass-market paperbacks, with the majority of the sales in those channels, you can assume the numbers are probably twice this (as bookscan tracks trade sales, generally)

That's your reason why everyone is jumping on the bandwagon.

"Everyone wants to tap into the romance/fantasy/vampire/chicklit crossover. I don't know why this is so, but it is. sigh." It's quite simple . . . they sell. Not only do they sell, they sell like hotcakes—if you punch in most of the hot vampire novelists into bookscan, they're selling quite a lot of copies . . .

Aha; I see you've just monetised your blog. How very Web2.0!

Edited by author 01-02-2006 08:19 AM
Happy birthday, Jonathan! (You do know Elvis was 42 when he died? I'm just saying . . .)

Editing a book is way harder and more infuriating than writing one. I know cause I did both this year.

Sure, no award is perfect. (I've judged and been nominated.) I wish all awards were like the Tiptree with no tension waiting for the announcement of who won. They make the announcement of shortlist and winner at the same time. Very classy. Still I think most awards could be improved. Which is all that was being said about the Aurealis. It's kind of crazy to make the nominating process for an award tricky and to hamstring the judges.

Lots to respond to, and I will. First, Jeremy thanks for the head's up re: the LJ feed. I didn't set it up, had never looked at it, and so didn't know there were comments there. I'll check 'em. Doh!

Thanks for the birthday wishes. That's me another year older and all that. Don't feel a day over 50 though.

Art is the effluvial froth at the periphery of a roiling whirlpool of madness. "Secondary creativity" scrapes in that jetsam of troubled minds and realises in it something of worth. Without context, art is meaningless.

Do you ever read the comments on your Livejournal feed, btw?

Oh, and Happy Birthday!

Holy... if you'd mentioned who'd actually said that, Jon, I'd rip them a new one. That's not just belittling what you do, it's belittling *all* the great editors out there. That really ticks me off! Grrrrrrr!

Sorry, I'm damn protective of my editors, past and present. I'm 100% aware of how vital they (you) were and are.

Jonathan, Illinois and the Eels are both near the top of my list too. Both great albums. And I agree with you about the song thing... there are some albums I own in which I have no idea what order the songs are actually in, because I've only listened to them on my ipod on random.

Hey Jonathan,
You could always use
http://www.flickr.com/photos/35025258@N00/...285/in/set-1331668/

or this one
http://www.flickr.com/photos/35025258@N00/...941/in/set-1331668/
(you look so lovely in your tux!)

I don't care about awards until I'm nominated for one, and then, well, if you're nominated for something you may as well hope to win it. If you believe in your work, then that goes hand in hand with the belief (for me, anyway), that it's good enough to win an award for which it's nominated. So if you lose, the story that beat yours must deserve it, because, well, it had to beat yours to win. Does that make sense, or do I need to take another pill?

Anyway, onto an easier subject: Narnia. Bites. Worst movie of the year. The 4 most unpleasant children in the world take a goddamn hour of screen-time to even get in the wardrobe, and then a series of gods jump out of a series of boxes, and in the end it's all for nothing. Granted, I've not read the book, but my Gimmeabreakometer blew up at the point in which previously unheralded writings on stones were used to justify the biggest bloody loophole in cinema history. Blah with chips.

I agree with you Jonathan.

I'm of course, disappointed that nothing from SCIFICTION was considered --I wasn't aware of the process of nomination. But that doesn't mean I;m not happy for those who have been nominated.

I do think a simple remedy is for the administrators of the Aurealis to annually alert Locus online and other online newsletters/news sites of the nomination process. That publishers/editors/authors/etc can nominate works by Australian writers.

"The only thing you can do is be happy and gracious when you get one, and applaud the winner when you don't. It's all good."

Having been on both sides of this exact equation, I agree completely. For me, awards and award nominations have whatever meaning I'm willing to assign to them. The only 'fairness' I might expect to see is internally consistency within any given award process, but I don't even expect that neccesarily. If I wanted that badly, I'd start my own award.

(Which I've considered, btw, the Brass Monkey Award for Stylistic Excellence.)