The jetsetting life and putting an end to that

I'm gonna put it out there - I co0uld never be a rockstar. Why? Well aside from not being able to read music nor play an instrument (though I learned the drums for a bit but didn't have a silencing kit so felt sorry for my neighbours and stopped practicing), the thing about rockstars is that they tour. A lot.

My point is that on January 16th I left England and after about 36 hours in transit, I got home to Australia. It was awesome to be home. It was warm since it was summertime, and my family was there, and my doggies were there and the cats were around but they didn't really seem to have realised I'd been gone.

And the night after I got home a bunch of friends turned up on my doorstep for a surprise homecoming party!
Wonderful, sneaky sneaky stuff.

However I was home for 10 days before I flew out again, and I was only JUST getting into a sleeping pattern of 10pm or later, waking up at 6am or later. Most nights my eyes were half closed by 6pm and brain disengaged by 8, and I was awake again between 2am and 4am.

SO. I am now BACK back in Australia, after spending 5 days in New York with my big sister. I went to the Winter Society of Childrens Book Writers and Illustrators conference which was held at the super-swish and ladida Hyatt Hotel, and my sister came for the experience.

It was fantabulous and I got a lot out of it. But getting sick just before the seven hour flight followed by fourteen hour flight then one hour flight then two hour drive? Kill me now.

So I could never be a rockstar. I never want to do a long haul flight again. I mean, I WILL, but JEEZ.

The conference was great, I got to spend lots of time hanging out as well as talking biz with my agent Jill, making some new writing buds and seeing some old writing buds. Well, by old I mean ones I made at the Summer conference in LA.

There were lots of interesting sessions at the conference, my favourites of which were Libba Bray's keynote speech - she was just as hilarious as I thought she'd be, and even more insightful - and Eddie Gamarra of the Gotham Group who spoke about Film, TV & New Media and believe me, the man KNOWS his stuff. Unfortunately for me, it turns out I was either concentrating too hard all morning both mornings, or I was jetlagged (I feel like I'll be jetlagged the rest of my life. I didn't even believe in jetlag until I got back from England) and found myself close to snoring a couple of times in the sessions that were run in the afternoons. Oops. Rude bloody Australians, eh.

Anyhoo, home now. I'm moving into my new place sometime next week so I have some packing to do. You know, after unpacking from England and New York I need to pack. And then in two weeks I start my new University course, a Bachelor of Writing & Publishing. That sounds a good fit for me, don't you think? :)

Plus I have an exciting new project to work on!

Hitting the ground running, I think it's called.

Ciao for now,

Sairz

The day before the day before the adventure begins!

Okay. Can tidy the room now. With clothes, paper and stationary spread all over the entire study which I have been using as a bed room for the past 5 weeks (Bed room. Really it was a couch room. I been sleeping on the couch) I can now tidy it all away, stuff it into drawers and cupboards. Why you ask? Why all of a sudden NOW can I tidy this room? Because I'm all packed and good to go!

Woo!

The time is nigh. The adventure is soonish.

First stop is San Francisco. I hear it's 15 degrees there. In Summer. Which is what it was today in my part of Australia. In winter. Thinking I may be needing some thicker coats than anticipated. I'm really looking forward to San Fran for a more mundane reason than all the amazing stuff we're going to do there. I'm looking forward to sleeping in a real bed again. Ah.

Then comes LA with the home of Mickey Mouse and the Hollywood sign poster at Universal Studios, celebrity sightings and gang wars. And the SCBWI conference!

Then off to Vegas, not so much to gamble but very much to visit Elvis in his wedding chapel. I'm not getting married. But I am going to snigger and giggle behind my hands as someone else gets married. By Elvis. In his Chapel. Awesome.

Then to Naw'lens (New Orleans) for some jazz, swamps, crocodiles with a touch of voodoo on the side before hopping a plane to Miami. With or without Key West. That remains undecided, considering it's the rainy season and the weather just might make the ridiculously long and expensive bus ride not quite worth it.

Then after all THAT comes Noo Yawk (New York) with that big green lady and that super tall building, a big park and Tyra! Or Jimmy Fallon. But I think it's Tyra! Though I'd prefer Jimmy Fallon. We'll wear our business casual and sit in the audience, if we get our tickets.

And that's when I say goodbye to Eleanor and venture off ON MY OWN...

Off to London. To collapse in a heap for a couple of days and recover from America. Where I will NOT have been shot (looking at YOU, Dean). Then to do touristy Londony things from my base at a backpackers somewhere in the city. Somewhere. Probably will NOT be going to Sheffield Bush...I don't think I got that right...the aussie section is what I'm talking about. Cos why be in Britain and hang out with a bunch of bogans? :) I coulda done that at home.

Anyhoo then off to ITALY for my 3 day tour, plus I'll do a day or so in Rome and I really wanna head over to Venice as well. I hear lots of people speak English in Italy. Which I hope is not a lie. Cos if it is a lie, then I am how you say...oh. Right. SCREWED.

Then back to England and probably about time to head to Leeds and my new home for the next 5 months. Let the learning begin!

I think/hope I have the money to go on a tour in Egypt at the end of my trip. And I have 2 nights in Hong Kong planned. And I'm pretty positive I'm doing a 3 day trip around Paris.

I mean there are heaps and heaps of other places I want to go, but I'll see how the funds treat me.

I will be sitting on my bum cheeks for a good 14-16 hours straight, including the Melbourne to Sydney flight. Aw man, that's NOT including the 2 hour trip from home to the airport. Considering I squirm at the uncomfortableness of the cinema seats in Morwell and can't even handle a 2 hour movie in them I might be in a bit of trouble with this one. But we'll see.

So excitement. No. Really. SO excitement.

Later!

Well. Later from SOMEWHERE ELSE IN THE WORLD!

Sairz

A new addition to the family

On Saturday we were blessed with a new Billington. His name is Henry and he's adorable. He's a PUPPY! By Puppy I mean small dog of 2 years old. He's not a PUPPY puppy.

We've had a pretty tragic year this year, with my parent's 2 dogs both passing away within the last couple of months. My dog Tessa lives with them now, and she was getting very quiet and sad and not playing anymore. We gave her time to grieve, but for such a boisterous dog, she was slowing down and not herself.

So she has a new friend now.

We took her with us when we went to The Save A Dog Scheme in Tooronga, which is an animal shelter where they foster out animals to people's homes, so that the animals don't have to spend forever in a cage at the pound. That's how I got Tess, actually. I was going to be her foster mum but then I fell in love and adopted her. Save A Dog Scheme don't give dogs expiration dates, either. They don't put animals down after a month just because their time is up. They do some fantastic work.

Anyway, we took Tess with us so that she could meet any prospective new family member first and give us the seal of approval or say "No WAY is THAT coming into my home". It was so great to see her playing and they got along from the get go. We tested what he was like with cats and he's more afraid of them than aggressive but mostly ignored them completely. So he passed! And that's how Henry joined our family.

And Tess and Henry play ALL the time, so much so that my parents bed is an out of bounds area for Henry, because Tessa needs to get away from him SOMEHOW. So she jumps up there, panting, rests and then dives down into the fray again.

It's funny. She's a blue heeler, and he's a corgi (we think jack russel) x heeler, so he has her face but itty bitty legs so he runs underneath her tummy. She's body slammed him a couple of times in their games.

Not much is known about Henry. He was a stray so we don't know where he's been or what he's been doing for the past 2 years of his life. He's toilet trained though, and he's a smart cookie, he knew his name and was coming when called within a couple of hours of having him. So yeah, WELCOME HENRY!

I was told today that for someone leaving the country in eleven days, for six WHOLE months, I'm really not acting stressed out enough.

I have lots to do but I'm cool as a cucumber. The days have been going by so fast on me that I actually hadn't realised it was coming up so soon. But now that I realise I think I'm reaching appropriate stress levels.

Must make a To Do Before Leave list.

And must do a practice pack of my suitcase. Well, my sister's baby pink well worn suitcase that I'll be taking with me. I'm starting to think there really isn't enough room for all the stuff I want to take with me. But we'll see.

I have to say, the thing I'm MOST psyched about is the SCBWI conference in LA. I. Can. Not. Wait. It's going to be amazeful and spectaperb. Being around so many other writers, agents and editors and people who just...get it. You know? They get it!

Yay yay yay!

I'm in edit mode for TWO books now. I have my wonderful agent's notes and am doing lots of pondering and thunking for a couple of new scenes, but mostly it's a case of Americanising some of my language.

Like my students are not in year eleven. They're juniors. And HELLO - you don't walk on foot paths over there, it's a sidewalk. I better not have any singlets visable either cos Tank tops are WAY cooler.

I feel a bit sad about getting rid of the word "mate" though. Mate sort of, it has a different meaning than the word friend. Friend is blah. Mate is more...friendly. To me, anyway.

Doesn't matter, fingers crossed and touching the nearest wood, I'll be getting published in Australia too so can keep my aussie language for the aussie edition!

That's all for now.

Enjoy the beauty of today! It's pretty out, doesn' t even feel like winter, but I feel I might just get blown over if I went outside at all. Eep.

SAirz

My name is Sarah. And I'm a Twitter Addict.

Twitter is the new Facebook. No longer do I check Facebook constantly for updates from my friends who I may have just seen an hour ago.
Now I get up to the minute info from published authors who's styles I love, with quirky sensibilities that I'd love to have in my social circle as well as publishing houses, editors and agents I could possibly (a couple of whom I have already) submit to in the future. Wow that sentence was weird. Past and future all rolled into one.
Moving on.
I got the Tweet Deck app thingy the other day, which is awesome cos you don't have to press refresh all the time, it just pops up with a little message in the corner of my screen every time someone, anyone I'm following has said something. And I can group everyone, like authors, agents, friends, celebrities. I am a pop culture addict as well as a Twitter addict. Have I ever mentioned that?
Anyhoo. Twitter is awesome.

My online critique group has expanded all of a sudden, once I handed over the power to anyone to invite and moderate and administrate the group we've been growing and growing. We have 21 members, which is a bit daunting. But they're all really friendly, and it's probably a good thing that not everyone is posting at the same time.
I've been getting some good feedback, for what little I've been posting of late. Uni is taking it out of me, man.
I'm getting really frustrated. I want to do creative work. I want to write a NOVEL for God's sake, but I just...it's so...I can't do it when I have an assignment due every week. And in my down time I'm watching TV over writing stories. But I'm gonna try and change that asap. When I've finished this blog I'm working on my psychological studies assignment and THEN I'm going to start plotting out my book. Ooooh yeah. Looking forward to that. The ORIGINAL MJ book. Because my NaNo about her was clearly book 2. It's a long story how that happened and I don't think I've mentioned it before. And I'm really not gonna mention it now.

Oh! Another reason I'm not writing creatively so much is because I've been getting publishing opportunities, but for non-fiction. So I've been doing a lot of that.
My interview with Comedian Mark Watson was published in the local paper recently. It was a little annoying that when sub editting it they wrote 'Journalism student Sarah Billington...'. Yes. I'm taking ONE journalism subject as an elective. I already have the qualifications to be a journalist I've just never really used it. But anyway. Another clip. Nice big 3/4 of a page thing too.
I have a review of his show and a fashion review in Lots Wife and I'm not sure but I THINK also a Monash Abroad article in the next edition.

Speaking of Monash Abroad, I went along to the compulsory pre-departure meeting last week which was exciting. There were over 300 students there, all travelling to different parts of the globe.
The 71 students going to America had already embraced their inner American, and whooped and cheered a lot when the speaker asked where the Americans were. Twas funny.
A couple of past exchange students spoke, and one guy gave advice that everyone appreciated. "Just say yes". He realised what he'd said and took a bow. Then finished the sentence with "to all of the experiences you get offered, and places you are invited to go".
I met a couple of others heading to my uni, there are 11 of us in total and a couple are also applying for the same residence as I am. Mind you it houses like, 500 people so it's not like they'll be right next door. Necessarily.
Found out that a bus pass for 1 semester costs something ridiculous like 400 pounds. Considering the accomodation I want to stay in is a good 3.3 MILES away from campus, I was thinking I might need one in the winter - plan to walk when it's nice weather though. Hopefully I only have a couple of days on campus and can get away with single tickets. Or find a car parked in the parking lot and wait there for hours until the owner comes out, and I can be all desperate and make friends with them, just for the ride.

Paid for my SCBWI registration. Conversion into Australian dollars was painful. I think I'm freaking about financing this trip so much because at current I have no money, but I have to keep reminding myself that I'll be getting a bunch of lump sums while I'm away which will get me through. I might have to see less of Europe than planned though. And I'm thinking a part time job will be a necessary option for me. Back to retail. We'll see what happens when I get there.

I've joined a writing community, litopia.com which I'm finding to be pretty fantastic already, and I'm not even a full member which means I don't have access to most of the message boards etc. You join up and in the first month you have to be an active member of the community, posting 50 times at least, and then at the end of the month you get to submit some work and if it's deemed that yes, you are in fact a good writer, then you get full membership and meet heaps of other writers. If you don't make the grade you get to keep trying, resubmitting until you are deemed fantabulous.
It's really great, I'm not in a writerly bubble so much anymore. Makes me sad for people who wrote and felt isolated from the writing community back before the interweb. But it doesn't have to be that way anymore. There are millions of other fantabulous people out there to connect with. I hope one day I can find another contemporary YA writer who's writing style really clicks with mine and we can collaborate on something. That's down the track a bit, I guess.

Okay, time to work on assignment, me thinks! Most exciting Saturday night ever. Ooh, someone wrote something on twitter!
Buh-bye now

Sairz