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.

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