A few things.

1. I got a printer. Not exciting enough for you? Well, this means I a) don't have to pay gasp-worthy amounts to internet cafes for a few damn pages and b) no longer have to pretend I still go to RMIT.

2. Other projects, which are still in development but are nonetheless exciting.

3. Fully embracing my brief break from the novel and brain-hemorrhaging on lots of America's Next Top Model.

4. I am convinced that America's Next Top Model (or ANTM) is perfectly equipped to break you down to your simplest components so your brain can be rebuilt from scratch. Like sniffing coffee beans to clear your sense of smell after too many perfume samples, or Pol Pot's Year Zero*. People have just laughed at me when I told them of my activities. But it is WORKING. Last night I read half a book (The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating, by Elizabeth Tova Bailey. Soul-lifting, mind-blowing and also just sweet). I owe it all to Tyra Banks and her torture of girls in the hopes of becoming America's. Next. Top. Model.

*Candace Petrik does not endorse Pol Pot or any other dictator, comments here are made due to a poor sense of humour and are not the opinion of the writer or any publisher who decides to give her heaps of money in the future.

Writing a novel fries out your brain

My attention span is shot these days. Did you know that I can't even read? Or at least that reading frustrates the hell out of me. Aside from Tina Fey's book. That reads itself.

It's something that happened towards the end of my Arts degree, and it's something that finishing up a novel inspires. At least in me. I am very close to the end, which makes me alternately excited and irritated. I don't want it to end. No, I want it to end right now. Story endings are something I have always had problems with, not that I've ever gotten this far with a 'book'. But it's a problem I have with short stories at least, so I would very much like there to be a nice balance to the structure, I don't want it to be top-heavy. I want there to be pay-off at the end that seems inevitable when you read it, but isn't laboured or predictable. I also don't want it to seem rushed. You might say I want a lot. Many nice people are reading for me and have been giving me useful feedback. I love these people a lot. They enable me to fix and rewrite and re-imagine problematic parts of the 'book'.

This is a rambling way to say I am not reviewing any books here right now. Because I have no attention span to do much beyond edit my book, watch Boardwalk Empire and read 'Bossypants.' The end.