#ImACelebrityAU Ep. 1: 7 Things You Must Know

Okay, here’s the 7 things you need to know about I’m Desperate For Cash Because My Career Has Mercilessly Stalled – Australia:

1. No celebrities are in it.

2. One of the non celebrities hit themself in the head with an oar and then was traumatised for the rest of the show.

3. One of the “celebrities” has the Shane Warne Foundation as their charity, which is awkward because it’s been deregistered… because of corruption. So much corruption.

4. Shane Warne is apparently the massive celebrity everyone is meant to be excited about… yeah, that guy. The one who makes sleazy phone calls to women about drinking wine off their body, somehow managed to date Liz Hurley (here’s a tip, she actually is a celebrity, guess you missed it by one), and takes the medical advice of his mother over actual medical professionals… Apparently she loves diarrhea and speed. Must have been a fun childhood.

5. Paul Harrigan is on there. He’ll possibly be the only one not to annoy you because he won’t whinge nonstop nor will he call the women “chicks.”

6. Anthony Callea is in there. It is a galactic surprise because who would have thought his career had stalled that badly.

7. They have to pick up their own poop. You read it. Poop. Pick it up.

That’s it. I suspect that will be it for the whole series. Oar related PTSD, Warnie looking plastic, more questionning over exactly what has befallen Anthon Callea (is he being blackmailed), and poop.

Open Submissions: Last Call!

Listen to High Fantasy Addict. She knows what’s what.

H L Petrovic

January is a good month if you’ve got an unsolicited SF/F manuscript you’d like to get in front of a publisher, with two major publishing houses opening their doors to unsolicited manuscripts this month:

Submissions are open for a brief period at the following publishers:

Angry Robot Books

Seeking: Complete manuscripts between 70-150,000k in the genres of science fiction or fantasy (incl. steampunk, dark fantasy, alternate history, military SF, modern fantasy, horror, space opera, dieselpunk, cyberpunk)

Electronic submissions only

Submissions close 31st January 2016

You can read all about how to apply here.

Gollancz 

Seeking: Complete manuscripts over 80,000 words in the genres of SF, Fantasy, Horror and YA Crossover.

Hard copies only

Submissions close 22nd January 2016 (so throw you m/s in a courier bag today!)

You can read all about how to apply here. 

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My New Year’s Resolution Is To Be More Me

Gandhi once said something akin to – happiness is when your actions and ideas are in harmony. I’d like a slice of that happiness. The happiness of living to your own moral code, to be in harmony with myself. That’s my aim this year, to be me, to respect my own choices, to back my own choices, and to be happy about it.

Everyday we make judgements and it’s important to do so. I judge pedophilia as wrong, I judge child abuse as wrong, I judge domestic violence as wrong, I judge hate crimes as wrong. I judge the beginnings of these things as wrong – sexism, racism, homophobia, ableism, etc. My aim for this year is to stand firm in my moral judgements, to speak up about them, support those who likewise speak out, and not to be shamed into silence by those who would prefer bigotry to go unquestioned.

We all make our own judgements, it’s time we owned them. If you find your standards tell you something about yourself that you don’t like then change them don’t deny them.

I’m not saying this will be easy. And I am not saying that the attacks (ranging from passive agressive to flat out vitriolic) won’t leave me shaken at times. But in the long term I hope to get there, to that happy place of living my own authentic life. In the meantime I’ll just have to keep reminding myself of the great mantra from the movie Labyrinth – You have no power over me. Any time I feel shaken by someone attempting to silence or shame me I’ll simply whisper – You have no power over me.

Who wants to try it with me?

I paid for and awful hair cut with terrible styling and it matters.

This morning I was so excited because I finally got a me day. I was going to go get a hair cut and feel fabulous. Last time I did this was my birthday, the time before mothers day. I was really looking forward to it. You see, with a four year old and almost two year old twins I rarely get time to myself. Add to that my husband works really long hours, plus once a week has a regular activity of his own and on top of that many an unkind person likes to tell me how I need to give him more time and how I need to do more for him despite the fact he has a minimum of the one activity a week to himself and I, if I’m really lucky, get to go to the gym for an hour and a half a week, but often it gets thrown aside because of something of his, I don’t get much time and I often get the reverse of support. And after spending time away with my husband’s family I was even more excited to get time to myself. To do something nice for myself, to not be judged or exhausted, or pressed upon. I was super excited to get a few hours for me and to get a hair cut and colour…

… but the hair cut was shit, the hair dye was left on my head  (extensive parts of my head) and my instructions were ignored. Dark brown please, just a trim please, please don’t blow dry my hair because I really like my curls these days and would like to have my naturally curly hair please.

I got chestnut brown hair, much shorter hair, and they straightened it. Not a good straightening job either. A messy, boxy, hideous, job.

People say, oh it’ll grow out, oh you xan wash it and the curls will be back BUT I SHOULDN’T FUCKING HAVE TO! I managed to finally get some time to myself after some incredible stressful moments, I pretty much had to escape in the spot to make it happen before yet another excuse was given as to why I didn’t deserve a break and why I shouldn’t need one and why my husband should get even more yet again. I managed to get a moment away from being eroded, I just wanted to feel good, but instead I have left feeling even worse. Because I don’t have much money. I have zero income, my husband doesn’t share a bank account with me, so managing to get $110 squirreled away for a haircut was a big deal. A really big fucking deal. And because of this insane bias that straight hair is somehow superior to curly I’m expected to be happy with a truly awful straightening job because it supposedly better than my naturally curly hair. I’m supposed to smile and pay $110 to have my very rare and very precious me time violated. I’m supposed to say it’s no big deal. I’m supposed to not over react.

BUT IT IS A BIG FUCKING DEAL.

And anybody else in my situation will understand that. And to those people I say, “I’m so sorry, you’re worth so much more, and you deserve so much more.”

The offending styling