Since we’ve been working on the book, I’ve been taking more walks. Since I’ve been taking walks, I’ve also been taking the new wide camera out for a spin. Becky got me the fine little thing for Christmas.

I haven’t done any photography for awhile and it isn’t a hobby I am necessarily driven to be the best at. As a result, I find the whole affair rather relaxing. I need to get some better film than the expired stuff I used, as I don’t quite like how most of them turned out. Here are my top 3, roughly scanned.

Benediction has been an Auckland favourite for a number of years. Combining a convenient inner-city location with relatively hassle-free parking makes it a rather easy pick. The bold logo that adorns the front of house renders it instantly distinctive.

Today we were taking in a late breakfast right in the midst of the lunchtime rush. Despite a sizable line, the service kept it moving quickly and our drinks arrived under 5 minutes since ordering.

For drinks, I chose an espresso milkshake and an orange/lemon juice. The chocolate espresso milkshake balanced its two namesakes in a most wondeful fashion. Generally the bitter espresso overpowers a milkshake, but this was not the case. The orange and lemon juice was similarly well mixed.

To the mains: I chose the Red Flannel Hash, which had two pieces of heavily crusted white toast with copious amounts of butter, rustic diced garlic sausage, roast baby potatoes, fried tomato and poached eggs. It was indeed a generous portion.

The eggs were well-poached, but a little cold. The garlic sausage was perfect and the roast potatoes were close to it. The tomato had a slightly greasy “fry-up” quality to it, but it was shared around and enjoyed by most if not all.

Becky had mushrooms on toast, which had a little of the wild taste that you find with great mushrooms and were cooked well. Her portion was easily shared amongst our two friends. For both of our meals and all drinks, it came to only around 40 dollars, which is incredibly affordable, especially by most city cafe standards.

Our friends were similarly impressed with their bacon salad and spaghetti. I’ll have to try the Creaming Soda milkshake on my next visit.

Been down and out for about 3 weeks, the flu-thing went from being a sinus-thing to a throat-infection-thing. I’m rocking some antibiotics I found in a cupboard and they seem to be doing the trick.

This is Day 1 of the new routine. Wake up about 10am, watch BBC news over a bagel and coffee, half an hour of cardio, a shower and then onto work with a honey chai tea. 5 minute breaks every half hour. Work day over by about 8pm.

I can’t recommend it more to anyone who has a free-range job like I have. It is definitely much harder when you have to actually be somewhere at a certain time. I do find it difficult to keep to these sorts of things when I am ill, busy or traveling. I’m trying to develop a portable one that involves jogs round the block or a trip to a hotel gym, if I’m feeling particularly upmarket.

My travel schedule for 2010 is taking shape, with me abandoning conventions in March in favor of what I have nick-named a Death Tour in April.

WonderCon San Francisco: April 2-4
MoCCA Festival New York: April 10 & 11
Chicago Comic & Entertainment Expo: April 16-18
Stumptown Portland: April 24-25
Toronto Comic Arts Festival: May 8th & 9th

That is one con a weekend for four weeks, followed by a weekend off, then onto Canada. What on earth am I thinking?

I decided to start on science fiction research for the short story book first, as it seems I’m going to be working with two stories in the genre. As I slowly begin to process my story ideas, it seems both are getting away from the original intent, but I’m unsure if I am working from a place of fear or if I’m “being clever”. One story is clearly not science fiction, it is a pulpy boy adventurer story that happens to be set in space. I want to avoid the trappings of realism for that story, so science fiction is being clearly left in the cold on that one.

For the other story, I was thinking of instead writing what I suppose could be a period piece, a satirical look at utopian science fiction. Back when everyone thought flying cars were going to come along just after cell-phones. Either way, I can’t fall into my usual intellectually lazy trappings. If I’m going to parody it, I need to know it, so that is a call I’ll have to make after I read some books.

I should probably focus on short fiction to start with, as the sci-fi story itself would be 8-12 pages.

I’ve had a few blogs in my time. Not all of them good. Some sensible people would go as far as to say these blogs were a magnet for low commentary and a general sad state of affairs. Many would call them journals and they would be correct.

This one begins with a shift in perspective. I’m going to keep most of my day to day triteness over at the old LiveJournal, as I do have an incomprehensible desire to share every moment of my life with people I’ve never met, but I thought I’d focus this one on my work. Primarily, this means the blog will be about writing.

The current project I want to begin documenting is a book of comic short stories. I’ve been incredibly fortunate to acquire the services of some amazing artists, with whom I will be collaborating. It feels ridiculous, that I get to have so many fantastic people at my disposal. Either they feel some pang of pity when confronted with me, or they actually have a little bit of faith in my abilities. Today, as I am riddled with flu-spores, I suspect it is a little bit of both.

But I digress in my usual, tiresome, self-effacing way. Over the next few days,  I am going to begin researching science fiction, as I will be writing in that genre for the first time.  As an adolescent, I read a lot of Asimov and Clarke. A couple of years later, I became fairly obsessed with Warren Ellis, especially his high concept work. I don’t really know what sci-fi is about anymore and I’m out of touch with anything created in the past decade. Mostly, from what I have seen on Boing Boing, it includes very terrible Photoshop book covers and a hopeful Creative Commons license. I hope on this little journey of mine I find some interesting contemporary work.

And none of that steam punk nonsense.