Ok now I'm getting insecure.

I haven't heard anything official about Varuna. Just Trevor's (very confident) news. Last night, worried that it might be a dream and not true at all I left a phone message and sent an email to Varuna asking for further information.

Now we wait.

And while we wait we proofread and panic about how totally awful the rest of the manuscript is!

Well an exciting 12 hours (and most of it was spent sleeping)!

Last night I got home from dinner out and discovered an email from the fabulous Trevor congratulating me on making the 2nd round of the Harper Collins Varuna Award. This means I'm amongst 20 - 30 novels which will be considered with the main 'prize' being a 10 day residential workshop with a Harper Collins Editor. To make it that far would be a dream - to be shortlisted is pretty excellent!

Then to follow up I jumped onto Horrorscope. Matthew Tait has posted a review of ShadowBox and, to my delight, singles out my story 'Changing' for a mention.

Changing by Susan Wardie is charged with an erotic, almost incestuous feel.

It doesn't sound like a big mention - but I was thrilled to be singled out.

Now all I have to do is rearrange my diary so I can spend the next 10 days writing in order to polish up the 20,000 words of my novel that I now have to submist for round 2 of the Harper Collins Varuna award!

Recently, while walking through Glebe Markets with Rju he recommended a book of short stories by J Ballerd (or Bellard). Last night, having got thoroughly frustrated with writing (I'm trying to change a first person present tense story into second (or third) person past tense and the story seems to be losing its soul in the process) I went to bed and read.

The language is lovely, the ideas fabulous. In fact having turned out the light it was on again minutes later with me scratching notes. I got up early this morning and scratched for another 20 minutes or so before work. A brand new idea... how exciting! Much more interesting than rewrites or changes.

Back from four days in Grafton visiting a friend. They live on an island in the middle of the Clarence - beautiful green fields, sugar cane, views of the river. It was absolutely lovely. I even put pen to paper - if only briefly - I was then overwhelmed by a nap!

Now back in Sydney attempting to catch up on everything.