with anthologies!

My haul from Conflux9, as small as it may be physically, is huge in reading prospect. Let me see, I bought Next which was launched on the Friday night (and got it signed by many of the authors, one of whom loved my "cool story bro - needs more dragons" t-shirt so much that I gave him the url for the website so he can get one for himself); Patty Jansen's Out of Here (which I read all but the last 9 pages of on my trip to work and home on Monday) - bought because it has a dragon on the front and I had only read one of Patty's stories previously; Five Historical Feasts (which I've been meaning to get and now I have! Not that I've attended any of the feasts...); and because it was on special if bought with FHF, Gastronomicon; and finally Masques!

Then, yesterday, when collecting the mail, what should be there but my expected but unanticipated "apology" anthology from the Bristol Short Story Prize people. You see, I'd tried to submit a story and was having great troubles with paying my entry fee via PayPal. Emails were flying back and forth and just as I hit Send on my final attempt (which was successful) an email arrived saying they'd waive the fee! Ah well! But also, they said that because I had been having such trouble, they would send me a copy of last year's anthology. So now I can see what kind of chance my little epistle has against the quality of what they selected last year (fingers xx'd nevertheless!).

So my TBR pile has grown dramatically along with a couple of novels - Leopard Dreaming (book 3 of AA Bell's excellent trilogy), The Lavender Keeper by Fiona McIntosh - I devoured this novel, am now looking for Fields of Gold and will wait patiently for the regular pback size of The French Promise; and an author I've not read before - Juliet Marillier's The Dark Mirror.

Hopefully all this reading will fill my brain up with words so I can finally get my own novel finished! Much progress is being made... and other short stories are popping up so something has switched on in my brain at last.

I just read over my rant and the comments and smiled. You see, in January when we were having floods again she was on the phone to Mr DM about how her daughter was going to drive to Rockhampton and the ex was this and that and Mr DM, having a major Sheldon moment, told her he couldn't give a flying feck about her family and didn't want to get involved... then couldn't understand why she has now completely dropped him from her life without even a thank-you for everything he's done for her after her man passed away! That latter part really sucks but I don't blame her for unfriending him.

I've decided to call him Sheldon because given that he loves Big Bang Theory so much, he might just realise that the reason he has so few friends who "apparently" all let him down, is because he is the one driving them away. They are retreating to lick wounds and decide whether he's worth the effort.

Men!