{"id":10913,"date":"2016-03-29T11:25:13","date_gmt":"2016-03-29T01:25:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zenashapter.com\/blog\/?p=10913"},"modified":"2016-03-29T11:25:13","modified_gmt":"2016-03-29T01:25:13","slug":"be-careful-what-you-wish-for-exactly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/zenashapter.com\/blog\/be-careful-what-you-wish-for-exactly\/","title":{"rendered":"Be Careful What You Wish For, Exactly…"},"content":{"rendered":"

This long weekend, I really wanted to go to Brisbane for Contact 2016<\/a>. I know, first world problems, right? Contact 2016 was the 55th Australian National Speculative\u00a0Fiction Convention<\/a> and many many talented and lovely writers attended. As for me… finances! I’ve loved going to speculative fiction festivals ever since my dear friend and very clever editor Abigail Nathan of Bothersome Words<\/a> introduced me to them back in 2011<\/a>. To be surrounded by so many like-minded people \u2013 it feels like coming home. And when you move countries you really come to value that feeling, even more so when you work alone.<\/p>\n

My children, on the other hand, really wanted me home this long weekend AND not working. I love it when they enforce no-working periods for me because it shows they care and they get creative with it too. One school holidays they stuck these post-it notes on my computer so I wouldn’t work after they went to sleep \u2013 if I did I’d get a ‘bad mark’ in the grid:<\/p>\n

\"Zena<\/p>\n

This long weekend, they then stuck this big guy in my seat and demanded he stay there until Tuesday.<\/p>\n

\"Zena<\/p>\n

Fair enough! Especially since I could always work from here (and in fact had to for a couple of hours on Saturday to finish a book layout<\/a> for a client)!<\/p>\n

\"Zena<\/p>\n

Luckily the kids didn’t notice because they went to help Daddy with the weekly grocery shop. And apart from that, I have<\/em> stayed off the computer and I’m so glad… When you work from home it becomes hard to ever switch off. You can always do that little bit extra to make things easier for yourself the next day \/ week (and in my case I always need it easier so I can get to writing my own stories!). Periods of enforced no-work, however, give me the opportunity to re-learn how to be in my home and<\/em> relax. If I’d gone to Brisbane, I wouldn’t have re-learnt that. And I do keep forgetting, like a colour that has no name.<\/p>\n

Did you know that ancient civilizations didn’t really notice the colour blue because they had no name for it? See here:<\/p>\n

\"Screen<\/a><\/p>\n

The first colours most civilizations identify are black and white, followed by red, then green and yellow. Blue is usually last, perhaps because it’s not an easy colour to render with paint or dye, and so many ancient cultures prized the colour blue \u2013 it was rare and so expensive, and came to be associated with royalty and divinity. It’s part of human nature to want what you can’t have!<\/p>\n

Which is why when my 10-year-old asked all of us this weekend what super powers we’d have if we could have any, I assumed the question was the start of a game and naturally picked things I could never have:<\/p>\n