Right, so I've been busy...

You're all getting sick of these excuses by now, aren't you. I know it. So I won't offer any. Just this enigmatic post after three weeks of nothingness.

I've finally got the semester all wrapped up, now. Marking done, grades submitted, all signed off and officially behind me. It's been a rather flat out experience, but a good one. My next big task is to prepare two papers for presentation at a couple of conferences I've got coming up in a fortnight; a symposium paper on the topic of 'making to unmask' - which will be a creative-practice led paper looking at the writing and response to Into White Silence, and the degree to which as a writer I 'unmasked' myself in that book. (I'd provide you with a few more details except that (a) I don't have them yet and (b) I'm not sure whether I actually did any unmasking in that book...)

The other paper is for a conference at Woolongong on The Power of Prizes - this one is going to be an update and expansion on some of my PhD research and so (touch wood) should be okay to write.

Then (finally!) WRITING TIME! Six glorious weeks put aside through July and the start of August where I can write. I'm going to hurl myself into the long-stalled Orion and see if I can get a draft of that done before the start of semester two. It should be achievable, I think, given that I've already got about 15000 words written, the planning done, and the pace of the book is much higher than my usual stuff. Once it's done, I might be looking for a few beta-testers, so keep an eye on this blog if you think you might be interested.

I've got another interesting research project coming up, too, which will also involve a little crowd-sourcing, but it's early days on that one at the moment, so you'll just have to wait for details. For now, it'd be a good idea to start working out who you think are the ten most significant Australian children's writers. Ever. Only ten, possibly fewer... Give it some thought.

There's also a re-deign of my Anthonyeaton.com website in the pipeline, but that's a few weeks off, too. I'll keep you posted.

In the meantime, I've been watching Masterchef, and enjoying it almost as much as last year, though I do wish Matt Preston would stop washing his reds with his whites. It's quite disconcerting when he shows up there in pink pants. This might just be me, though...

Yesterday, during a workshop here at the uni, we had to do a quiz to determine our procrastination habits. I put off doing mine until later, which I found funny. It did make a point though, and so on that note, I'm going to stop rambling away here, and get onto my symposium paper.

Cheers everyone,

t