You may have noticed that Dark Matter Zine has generally dropped down to 3 posts a week. I still love all my readers, I just can’t keep up with all the things.
I’ve finished uni for the week. Classes resume on Monday, which I’ll be wagging to record a podcast for an assignment. And for Dark Matter Zine, of course. Where else will I publish my podcast?
It’s a special podcast, too, featuring Fiona Wood, Michael Pryor and Meg Mundell discussing their YA novels that feature diverse characters.
In the next 4 days I’ll be working on assignments, packing the house for moving and to go into storage.
By the end of next week I expect to be over half-way through this semester’s work, partly helped by assignments as follows:
- a CV (done), Linkedin profile (done) and career plan (in my head, just needs to go on paper)
- a podcast (organised & will be recorded on Monday)
- 4000 new words of my novel (already written 2,735 for that assignment)
- 1500 words of my novel (complete, just proofing then workshopping on Tuesday)
- an internship that I’m over 1/2 way through
- 2 essays (previously submitted to RMIT) to be submitted for selection to a published book (done); my interview with Keelen Mailman was accepted and my essay about being disabled in school — called “Passing in School” as a reference to racism and Max Allan Collins’s Dark Angel trilogy — was rejected
- research proposal 1/2 finished and the research itself shouldn’t take more than a couple of days including writing the 1500-word essay
This leaves completing/polishing the above, another novel-segment of 1500 words and working on the anthology.
Ironically, for my internship I have to do research too; I considered a 2-for-1 but decided it would be unethical and I could possibly find myself in hot water. So I have a second research assignment to do but that counts in my 48 hours for the internship anyway.
14 weeks until the end of semester. I graduate on December 16. PARTAY.
Wake me up when semester ends.
In all honesty, after semester ends, Dark Matter Zine will probably continue at 3 posts a day so I can write more of my novel and enjoy reading and reviewing more. I enjoyed writing today’s review of Jupiter Ascending and, as a result, it had more humour than usual. Essays and commentaries tend to receive fewer visits than short pithy reviews but I enjoy responding with more depth; there may be more of that next year, too. I’ll focus more on seeking out specific books to review rather than stretching myself too thin and reviewing books and movies that aren’t really to my taste. So expect some changes in the coming months and years.
And remember: Dark Matter Zine is still standing, after all these years. 5 years in October since the first PDF issue was published, and we’re still rocking the boat!
