Three Monkeys, Ten Minutes

I seem to be the only Cat Sparks in existence. I think that's a bit creepy.

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I'm the only Gilian Polack if I google, but there seem to be more Gillian Pollacks (Gillians Polack?) one of whom lives in New Zealand. This makes everything confusing because when people mis-spell my name I sometimes wonder what the Gilians Pollack make of their identities being diluted by me. Every few months I google their name just to watch the confusion in process. I've not met any of them, though.

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I would expect there to be a fair few of each of us out there. maybe all the other Cat Sparkses are mild mannered, non self promoting types?

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Or they all call themselves Catherine or Cathy or Cathie or Catriona or some such variant.

I firmly believe ( as of 3 seconds ago) that the plural of Cat Sparks is Cats Sparks. Cat Sparkses is too gollumish.

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I'm a Catriona -- but there aint no Catriona Sparkses out their in networld either. No matter -- one is probably way more than enough as it is.

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Same with Gillian Polack. More than one of either of us is just too terrifying :).

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Well we all know you are unique anyway so this just proves it. :-)

Interesting that terms like unique, one of a kind, distinctive, sui generis and special are all generally regarded as positive.

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special isn't always positive. as in 'special needs'

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But that interpretation of special is an ironic one. At the base level the meaning of the word is positive and it is just a sarcastic usage of it that gives it a negative twist.

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true. uniqueness is generally considered goodness. I can say what I like but the day I meet another Cat Sparks, I'll probably feel a bit bad about it. especially if she's a writer. especially if she's a shit hot writer...

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And so you see the odd feeling that I got.

But the chances of two Cat Sparks who are both shit hot authors would be just too extreme to happen. (thus proving that I can see the obvious compliment opening when it is presented to me, but since I just read Melt down my plutonium heart just a few minutes ago I have evidence that it is genuine)

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you are too kind. I'm having a bad year, story sales wise, so a compliment is very welcome!

There's a Bryn Sparks out there who writes SF. He and I are not related -- he nearly missed out on being published in Agog because of his surname. I didn't want folks thinking I was publishing my own family... but realised it was too mean to be prejudiced against him because of the surname factor.

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I know him - we have exchanged a few emails. It was nice of you to not be prejudiced against him for being a Kiwi in an Australian publication.

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Ha! he wrote me a fabulous letter when I was reading for Smashing Stories, explaining in great detail why he ought to be considered as an almost-Aussie. He convinced me! the last 2 anthos have included non-Aussies. I'm still most interested in focusing on pacific region stuff - because its hard enough reading all the subs I get from our end of the globe without having to cope with US stuff too. Not sure what I'm going to do about the next one yet. But NZ-ers should always try me, even if I say I'm only looking for Aussies.

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Most local writers I know assume that any Aussie-only market is a target for them unless told otherwise. On the other hand there just aren't really all that many writers over here.

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its a fair assumption. Not many writers in general or not many spec fic writers?

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Not many spec fic writers. You can't go out of the house without tripping over a childrens book author.

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Ha! Sounds like the Illawarra region of NSW where I live. I think we have more children's authors than children!!!

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:-) Sounds like my home town in South Canterbury.

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stephanie-pegg.livejournal.com

I do pretty well on vanity googling - all but one of the hits on the first page are me, and the last is, by random chance, the daughter of the bassist for one of my favourite bands, Fairport Convention. After that there are a lot more hits for other people, though.

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But I bet none of them are for the "Stephanie Pegg baptist Church".

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I really, really want hits for me at from searching the Gillian Polack Baptist Church. Then i want to send my exceedingly Jewish family to the site and thoroughly annoy them.

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More likely a catholic church with your surname, wouldn't you think.

With my surname, getting church, synagogue etc hits is almost inevitable - I'm surprised there aren't more. I thought I'd found another one in Canada but it is the Ross street Temple.

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Are Catholic churches names after people, though?

Your surname is definitely more interesting than mine in terms of the religious places it can go. And I will find other ways to stir my family :).

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Good point.

And I will find other ways to stir my family

You know, I have no doubt of that at all ;-)

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lobelet.livejournal.com

My favourite band as well, in all its various incarnations. I was surprised to learn recently that "Leige And Leif" is considered to be one of the most influential folk albums ever produced. I always knew there must be a good reason why I liked it so much...

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lobelet.livejournal.com

I recently called in an electrician to do various bits of this and that. Eventually he sent me a bill, which I paid. However there was a second bill included in the envelope which I didn't pay because it itemised work which I did not recognise.

"Why have you sent me this bill?" I asked.

"Ah," they said. "Sorry about that -- we do work for two people called Alan Robson. There's you, and another one in Johnsonvile, and our accounting system can't tell you apart."

Hmmm. I wonder if the other one has ever had any of my bills? There was a mysterious circumstance a while back where the bill didn't arrive until nearly eight months after the work was done. They claimed it had fallen down behind a desk drawer and never got posted out and they only found it when they scrapped the desk. But now I wonder...

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