The Koala is Not Happy

Look to the right! I'm not pleased with a single one of you! I'm only moderately pleased with Sarah, whose status is dubious in the first place, due to trying to squeeze seven days into the weekend. The rest of you - bad, bad, bad! Get back to the grindstone! That's a computer, you know, not a desk ornament.

Report in, please: Chris, Robin and Sylvia. Grump. Snurfle.

More about Disneyland

One Saturday in February, Mr Koala went out shopping for mundane things, such as medicine and schoolbooks, and came home with a holiday to Disneyland.

I chastised him mightily with my mighty claws, but recognised a done deal when I saw one and settled down to paying very little attention to the details, merely muttering 'mortgage' every now and again when I passed him on the branches of the eucalypt. Soccer Boy inadvertently won additional mothering love with his comment of 'I'd rather go to New Zealand'. Princess was a lost cause from the start. 'Princesses! Princesses! Princesses!'

And so the time came, and we boarded the flying eucalypt and landed in an artificial land of multi-lane freeways and buses with windows you couldn't see out of thanks to the advertising plastered all over the glass. When we arrived in Anaheim my first thought was 'nature - smashed flat'. The artificiality of it all: the motels made to look like ancient castles, the fancy paving, the trees trimmed into unnatural forms. And that's before even going through the gates of Disneyland.

It was a grumpy koala that made her way to the theme park on the first day, mostly sticking her tongue out at Mr Koala's back. But then...but then...wait for it... More artificiality; a fake Main Street with every shop selling a souvenir or sugar overdose. Fake New Orleans, fake Frontierland, fake Tomorrowland - well, OK, that one has to be kind of fake. The artificiality shocked me - even the food was artificial, or made that way - even the bananas coated in chocolate and nuts. The excess, the consumption! Was this really the America our children should see?

'Rides! Rides! Rides!' Well, OK then, baby koalas, I suppose I'll have to go on a ride. I can't even remember what our first ride was. Whatever it was, I loved it. And the next, the next and the next. The whole place was totally dedicated to me having fun. Oh, yes, and the baby koalas too. And, once I got over myself, I did have fun. Heaps of fun. To the point where when I saw people walking around who weren't smiling, I had a little internal surge of anger: 'why aren't you smiling? Everything here is fun! I'm completely won over, why aren't you? WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU?'

I proudly admit that I am a Born Again Disneyland Fan.

Question: the President's pardoned turkey ends up a Disneyland. In a small enclosure, not sure it's such a great pardon. But...there's only one...what happened to last year's? And the year's before? etc etc. Is the pardon only valid for one year?! Is there no handstamp for reentry to the Happiest Place On Earth for last year's turkey?

Did I mention I was going away?

I did. I'm back. I've returned to tales of deadly plague. Apparently as of today Australian flights are sending any passengers from the US with flu symptoms to some kind of limbo. We flew in yesterday: me with laryngitis, Princess with travel vomiting and Soccer Boy with a massive sneezing fit moments before we landed. I think we narrowly escaped limbo.

Just shattered after a week of Disneyland frenzy. I'm not completely sure that we actually slept. Until the flight back, when all four of us fell completely unconscious within five minutes of sitting down. The flight was rough, I kept waking up from roller coaster dreams to find that the plane was acting like one. I was tired enough just to poke the sick bag at Princess and roll back over to sleep again. "Roll back over" meaning, move my head one inch to the left or right.

Kids tired and grumpy, dog excited and grumpy, Mr Koala working today - and grumpy. Planning on doing some domestic admin and then collapsing with a book for a few hours. Back to reality tomorrow - get back to grips with WiW and seriously consider looking for some new copywriting clients. Grr, recession.

In the meantime, where do I go to find the most detailed, gossip-filled report of The Great Meeting in London?

Unfinished! And Facebook!

Having discovered there was more to the latter section of WiW than I originally thought, plus getting a last-minute piece of work, I am going to have to take a break from it for ten days or so. It's so frustrating! Just hoping I can pick up the threads when I return - and that it makes sense to me again!

And on to Facebook. There are some things about it I love. Scrabble, anyone?! The instant life updates from friends. But the rest - I think I'm getting sucked into a real time-waste. Kind of like as predicted.

What do you think of Facebook? I'm considering giving it up altogether - tell me your thoughts.

Interview

Women on Writing has a nice interview up with The Koala's good friend, Shona Snowden:

Check it out!

Over 60,000 now!

And romping through a great scene which is going to be about twice as long as I thought, but that's not a problem for all kinds of reasons. Let the characters talk all they want! They're saying such fascinating things. Fervently hoping this is not some kind of psychosis.

Slightly worried there are more words required to get to the end of the novel than I am physically capable of typing by my deadline of next Sunday night...

WIP it good!

I've slithered past the 55,000 word mark on The Woman in the Wall, with at least three more chapters to go; a key moment that always proves to me that I am nearing the end of something that will turn out to be of actual book length. The Grand Climax is looming and I know roughly what is going to happen, which gives me the confidence that I will actually get there!

I'm hoping to crash through to the end with a writing marathon over the next ten days or so. I'm not entirely confident, thanks to the school holidays, which started yesterday. So if I'm not blogging much, it's because I'm squeezing writing around child needs. (The eyes are infinitely better, thank you for asking, but I think I'll avoid contact lenses for a while! I'll settle for being a specky without actual pain).

I'd really like to get the first draft of this completed if I can, because we're going on holiday for a week in the second week of the school holidays and that would be a fantastic, and complete, brain break before jumping into the rewrites and edits I will have to do before sliding it under the eyes of the first beta readers.

How are your WIPs going? Do you have any official, or self-imposed deadlines, that you need to meet?

I'll be cruising your blogs shortly to ensure you've been keeping up with the Koala Challenge. My claws are itchy, so be ready...

Updated to add...

My claws are more than itchy. Naughty, naughty writers! Tragic, tragic excuses:

"My dog was sick and ate my manuscript! Errr...except not in that order." *

"06-Apr = Got a bad case of the Mondays.
07-Apr = Apologies to Monday. I seem to have the flu" **

Note how many of you are sliding down the scales of approval... Socks up! Pronto! I want 100 words or more from every one of you today!

*This writer has no dog.

** Monday does not accept your apologies. Monday also has claws.

Tentatively returning to the blogosphere

If you like pink, look into my eyes, baby... Yes, even the kid are scared. I have zombie eyes. However (clutches large piece of wood) I think the unearthly colour of my eyes is my last remaining symptom.

Speaking of zombies... There's a small, fluffy black and white cow grazing in my back garden at the moment. He/she (I haven't examined that aspect yet) appears perfectly content. However, I will shortly be taking my deadly claws to that innocent creature in order to satisfy the bloodlust of my blog readers. Yes, it's all your fault. I'm merely your pawn. Updates coming soon.

Speaking of zombies...Aerin presented me with the much-coveted ZOMBIE CHICKEN award!!

"The blogger who receives this award believes in the Tao of the zombie chicken - excellence, grace and persistence in all situations, even in the midst of a zombie apocalypse. These amazing bloggers regularly produce content so remarkable that their readers would brave a raving pack of zombie chickens just to be able to read their inspiring words. As a recipient of this world-renowned award, you now have the task of passing it on to at least 5 other worthy bloggers. Do not risk the wrath of the zombie chickens by choosing unwisely or not choosing at all…”

I know I have many zombie fans here. Take a bow Sylvia, Whirlochre, Robin and just to be thorough, I'm re-awarding it to BT and FH, because even though I know you already have it, your love of zombies is such that I just can't bear to miss you out.

Creeping back...

The doc gave me some magical new eye drops that are taking away much of the pain of the eye problem - apparently it's a viral infection and will have to run its course, but he's hoping that by the start of next week it will be receding. I hope he's right and in the meantime these drops help a lot.

So I'm still a shady lady and still avoiding too much reading/computer time, but I'll be checking out a few blogs over the next few days.

Anybody want to tell me where the 'not to be missed' stuff was in the past week or so?!

Thanks for all your good wishes!