Gillian Polack's Blog, page 133

gillpolack @ 2012-12-24T13:45:00

I have so many thing I ought to do that I threw them all up in the air and did the two that fell into my hands. I have made chocolates for my friends for tonight and I have read another book for the Aurealis awards. I only have seven left on my pile on the Great Unread, though more ought to arrive. I also wrote some emails, for no-one will be around to read them in about 15 minutes time, so they had to be finished.

Not a big morning's work (and only the emails were actual work), but I'm going to blame the heat. I did two hours of real work when the temperature was more tolerable. I'm finally sorting out the missing segments in how writers work and how historians work and how writers can evilly snatch at the amazing stuff historians do and use it effectively in their fiction. I've been working on the big pieces for years, but it's all coming together now. I've taught bits and pieces to test and refine my ideas, but the bottom line is that until I started to write chapter outlines, I just wasn't seeing the missing bits. I'm looking for a publisher, but looking slowly because, as ever, the fun is in the doing. Why I am not a commercial success, reason #1.

I can't find any book out there that joins the dots in this way, so I really ought to find that publisher. It's the stuff I get asked about over drinks at cons and during classes and in urgent emails by friends who have taken a step further than their current understanding permits.

In a couple of days I'll be revising chapters from the Beast, which will bring me back into the Middle Ages. A chapter a day keeps the Moderns away?

I'm also working on a short story (I know, that will be three short stories in a year - unheard of!) and the articles and reviews I promised.

This plus a bunch of DVDs means that the end of December and the whole of January is going to be a heap of fun. I even have a social life! Three times this week, I'm seeing friends.

That reminds me - if anyone is round in Canberra on 31 December, I shall be making chocolate fondue late in the evening. All my friends are welcome! Let me know you're coming so that I can make enough fondue.

KJ Bishop visits

I'm rather lucky. I got to edit a short story by KJ Bishop. That's led to this, via a circuitous route. And so you get a guest post, introducing her new book and the e-book of The Etched City (which is such a glorious novel).

Gillian (sharing her good fortune)

Hi folks. Many thanks to Gillian for lending me her blog. I promise to leave it just as I found it!

Product placement first: I’ve just published That Book Your Mad Ancestor Wrote, a collection of short fiction and a couple of poems. It’s currently only available as a Kindle ebook, on Amazon and Amazon UK, but I plan to put out a print version next year, one way or another.

All the stories are in some way fantastical, ranging from hallucinatory surrealism to human dramas tinged with the strange, taking in fantasy, fable and science fiction on the way. The collection includes Aurealis Award winner ‘The Heart of a Mouse’ and two stories in the world of my novel The Etched City.

I decided to go the self-publishing route for the ebook as an experiment. I formatted the book myself and also did the cover. Most of the stories are previously published, but I wanted to polish/revise them for the collection, in which I had the indispensible help of beta readers (of whom Gillian was one).

The title comes from a line in one of the poems: ‘handsome twits and twats from that erotic book your mad ancestor wrote’. If I’d left ‘erotic’ in it might have given the wrong impression, so it’s just ‘that book’. ;-)

The Mad Ancestor took on a life of his own in my mind. He’s on the cover, in a frock coat and gas mask, taking a creature for a walk. I think of him as a whimsical, more benign relative of Gwynn, the gunslinger, dandy and walking troublespot from The Etched City.

Gwynn had been around in my head for a long time before I wrote the book, in one guise and another. As some people know, for a while he seemed to be an almost tangible ghost whose presence I could feel when he was around and whose voice in my head, though not actually an auditory hallucination, felt strongly distinct from my own thoughts.

Lately he’s been back again, though as a less palpable presence.

He appears twice in Mad Ancestor, in the previously published ‘The Art of Dying’ and in a new story. In the latter he’s going by another name, but I’d be surprised if The Etched City’s readers don’t recognise him. Some people might be surprised at the position I’ve put him in in the story, but he’s nothing if not an actor, and it was simply a role that he wanted to play.

One of Gwynn’s own literary ancestors, the incomparable Maldoror—created by Isidore Ducasse, aka the Comte de Lautréamont, in Les Chants de Maldoror (1868-9) —also has a story, ‘Maldoror Abroad’, which I wrote as a love letter to Ducasse’s book. I urge anyone with a love of surrealist literature, or of bad guys and antiheroes, to try Les Chants de Maldoror for yourself. It’s a reading experience quite unlike any other. The proto-surrealism of Ducasse’s writing grabbed me and never really let me go. Fiction is famously known as ‘the lie that tells a truth’, but surrealism doesn’t have to lie. As I see it, surrealism expresses the truth of whatever is in the mind at the time—wherever the mind wanders to—and I find the surprises inherent in that mental journeying make surrealism a fun way to write.

And then there’s the Marquis. The Marquis floats around the edges of my thoughts, making quick appearances here and there (he turns up three times in Mad Ancestor), though I’ve never gotten past an early draft of a proper story for him. He’s supernatural, perhaps a demon, or one of the Unseelie Court—a third brother to Gwynn and the Ancestor. I hope I’ll find a way to write more about him in future.

The idea of the fairy or spirit world has a perennial appeal for me. I’m enchanted (literally?) by the possibility that there really are other beings—fairies, angels, the dead (who knows how to name them?) inhabiting the same space as us, unseen by most of us, but perhaps not unfelt.

In Thailand, where I currently live, the belief in a spirit world is widespread. Most houses have a spirit house, and ghosts are frequently sighted. And in Australia, a more secular country, Aboriginal beliefs nonetheless mark the land with the presence of powerful spirit beings that inspire wonder and provoke questions about the realities of different worldviews. But it was the six months I was fortunate enough to spend in England as a child that really gave me the idea of an Otherworld as a lifelong keepsake, since almost every weekend we went out and visited some location of significance in legend or history. From that experience I retained the feeling of ghostly and imaginary influences lingering in the physical world; and where to draw the line between ghostly and imaginary, I’m not sure.

Many of the stories in Mad Ancestor include in some way the idea of a mythic, supernatural or imaginary world having a presence in reality (not necessarily our own reality, but someone’s). The idea of a story world intersecting with reality is particularly charming for a writer, I suppose, unless the story world is horrific—though even that may suit some people’s tastes.

One can follow the Buddhist logic that the individual self, which feels so real, is an illusion. Therefore, is a dreamed-up character any less real than the writer? And what about characters with long histories, who have survived through hundreds or even thousands of years, their stories retold and altered and used as inspiration for other stories, bandits becoming heroes and then gods, gods becoming fairies and then demons, gods and angels being recast as evil spirits by conquering peoples? If those characters were real (let’s say they are, somewhere in spacetime) what would they be like?

Whatever else my Mad Ancestor is, I think of him as a walker between worlds, in one way or another—appropriately enough, since an ancestor’s existence stretches across time and the dimensions of memory and story.

Thanks for reading these meandering thoughts of mine. Gillian, thanks again for letting me post here. Best wishes to all,

KJ Bishop

P.S. Returning to Gwynn for a moment before I go, I’ve been writing a story set in Ashamoil, prior to The Etched City, on my blog. Since it happens before things in the city started getting very strange, it has a different flavour than the book. It starts here, and subsequent posts can be found on my blog by searching for ‘fragment’. Also, UK rights to The Etched City having reverted to me, it is now available as an ebook on Amazon UK.

gillpolack @ 2012-12-23T11:41:00

Today is just a little bit warm and so I plan to spend it melted. I have chocolate to make for friends and was thinking I could just let it sit outside for a few minutes and it would melt quite perfectly.

The odd thing is that it really isn't impossibly hot. I have the aircon on right now in the loungeroom, for my computer sulks when the temperature inside goes above 25 degrees, but outside is only 31 degrees. It's not the level of heat: it's the nature of it. I discovered this years ago. I'm much better off when it hits forty than when it's in this range. So I shall puddle now and be strangely chipper in February.

When it became almost unhot last night (technically it became quite cool last night, in fact, but there was no breeze, so the coolness was more theoretical than in my flat) I caught up with Aurealis stuff. It as a real catch up this time. I've now entered everything I have been sent onto the judge's spreadsheet (our panel has a spreadsheet this year, with many columns!) and given scores and comments to, I think, 46 books. I have maybe ten more minutes on the spreadsheet today (for I forgot just one thing) and then I'm caught up until I've read some more.

I woke up at an unholy hour to close the windows and checked my email and my BiblioBuffet article was there, with comments from my editor, ready for me to think about. So that's done.

I forget what remains in my day (except that it's a lot, for today I enter my "how much can I get out of the way while things are quiet" mode. I need to go on a bear hunt. No, a list hunt. It's too hot for bears.

seasonal thoughts

So many people are wishing me a happy Chanukah that I wish to make a public announcement.

Despite all my celebrations in Blogland, some of my friends have managed to miss out on the vital information that Chanukah and Christmas are not the same festival, do not occupy the same space and that Chanukah finished days ago.

I have found a solution to the confusion. I have cleared a safe space inside a chest of drawers. All the Chanukah greetings will be placed there until late 2013, when they will be seasonal again.

In other, equally non-vital news, Rachel has made sure I have viewing for the two loneliest days. Anyone in Canberra who has a desire to see Star Trek the animated series or Star Gate: SG1 (first season) is entirely welcome to drop by. I have vast quantities of tonic water and either raspberry cordial or strawberry liqueur to help my mammoth endeavour*. I have alternate, equally serious viewing should the occasion warrant it. I also have alternate liqueurs.



*Pun entirely intended.

gillpolack @ 2012-12-22T13:02:00

I'm emerging from Aurealis mode. Counting books, though, not reading them. I have ten books waiting for me to read. I have eight books I haven't received yet. Otherwise the novels are finished, unless someone does a last minute entry on the website tomorrow (the website is here, just in case you want to see for yourself). I hope they do, for most of the Australian-writers-publishing-outside-Oz contingent is absent this year. No Westerfeld and no Larbalestier, for instance.

I can read those 18 books in a week if I must, but I'm going to start them in a couple of days and give myself two weeks and be leisurely. By the time I finish the ones I have, maybe the others will have arrived? If everything gets here before the cut-off date then I will have read 59 new Australia YA speculative ficiton novels in a reasonably short time. If they don't, then I will have read fewer. I kinda hope that we get a few more entries, because I really like YA novels and this is the best time of year to read them. My Scroogitudiness came at the precise time I'd run out of Aurealis reading - the influx of the last books was just this week.

The reasons for the counting is because a few people have been proudly pointing to their reading statistics for the year and of those people, a couple have wondered about the statistics of other readers. The reason I don't post descriptions of what I read each day is because it would take too much time, and the reason I don't accurately count every single book I read is the same. This time I counted some of the books I'm reading, though. And I counted for my PhD, too. And I know how many review books I've read (four times the number I've written about). So I'm pretty clear that I'm still right when I say that I read between three and five hundred books in a year, most years. I enjoy most of them, too. I just don't compare numbers at all often. The count today comes because I had to work out which Aurealis books I was missing, because the deadlines for publishers are so soon and because a couple of Twitter friends talked about the number of books they read in 2012.

I read because I love it, not because of the count. This is why I want there to be a lot more YA books this year, too. 59 is a lovely number. 100 would be a better number. Imagine if Australia produced 100 good spec fic books that were classifiable as YA every single year! I wouldn't be the only happy reader.

short story

Every couple of years I produce a short story despite myself. This next one will appear in the CSfG's Next anthology, which is also the CSfG's next anthology. The editors have a propensity for punning. There is a long list of writers I am very proud to be on a table of contents with - it's going to be a very good book. The announcement is here: http://csfg.wordpress.com/2012/12/21/next-anthology-announcement-of-table-of-contents/

In my story I am evil to archaeologists and to those who write modernised fairytales and tales of a simplified fairytale England. I intend to make myself very unpopular with this one.

gillpolack @ 2012-12-20T12:36:00

I'm paying for the evening out yesterday and etc, and have just emerged from bed. It reminds me why the 'spoons' idea was invented. After 12 hours of bedrest, I feel as if I've not had much sleep, but I have maybe a couple of spoons. I am out of bed, for instance, which took one spoon. I managed to put together lunch from stuff I already had (not to cook anything, though, coffee has to wait today). Because I've got the right kind of chronic illness, I'll be getting a few more spoons when the weather change is finished (soon) and also this evening. That's when I'll get the bulk of my work done for the day.

The reason I'm explaining it at moderate length is because I've noticed in conversations (offline as well as online) that 'not having many spoons' has become a euphemism for extraordinary tiredness at the end of the year or after doing something rather amazingly big. I can see how that's happened. The more we use it that way, however, the harder it is for those people who face that level of fatigue every single day to explain just what they face.

Mostly, when I'm tired, I avoid saying that I don't have many spoons (although I have been known to slip up). I've learned to assess whether my fatigue will address itself with a coffee or a good meal or time out from overwork, or if I have to just give up doing most things and wait for it to pass. This is why I was in a flutter over the return of the fibro symptoms - just waiting for the fatigue to pass is a stinker of a thing. It's also why I kept saying how lucky I was. I had a friend, years ago, whose fatigue took two years to pass sufficiently for her to be taken shopping once a week and another three years before she could call her life her own in any way. I still have only minor symptoms and they can still be kept (mostly) at bay with sound sleep and the right tablets. That's why I complained about the cars in the morning; my sleep was interrupted every two hours and I knew I would pay. I wouldn't be surprised if this flare is because of the asthma I've had all year, with its tendency to gift me with sleepless nights. Sufferers from chronic illnesses work very hard to keep symptoms down to manageable levels (our feet are paddling madly underwater, in fact) and we tend to know our triggers.

'Spoons' for me are for when the chronic illnesses intervene and I have to evaluate how much strength I have in a given day before I can do such basic things as get out of bed, get dressed, eat breakfast. This is why I keep saying I'm fortunate in my illnesses. I seldom have enough energy to do housework or even move bits and pieces from here and there, but I only have to count spoons in the way I did this morning ("Can I get out of bed? Yes. If I take one more step, will I be able to do anything else? No. Should I go back to bed? Fraid so.") a few days a year right now.

I talk as if the bedrest gives recovery, but I'm not sure it does. That's another difference between lack of spoons and ordinary fatigue. Bedrest is the only option on some days: it is not a cure.

Now I've explained at great length, but I still haven't worked out how the 'spoons' terminology has gone into wider use. All I've done is hazard a guess. I'm too tired to do more, though. I'm better than I was first thing this morning (tablets help) but my body still feels as if it's been partying wildly all night instead of coming home sedately at 10.30 pm and going to sleep at a normal hour. I shall drink some water and go back to bed and ponder the slight language shift from there.

The good news is that I managed my work yesterday. Work and parties! My list of writing to complete before 31 December is still very achievable. Each of us who has chronic illness is entirely different from every other. It may be a couple of months before I'm back to full Gillian-capacity, but I'm doing pretty well notwithstanding.

gillpolack @ 2012-12-19T16:36:00

Every Tuesday night I sleep late*. Every Wednesday morning, I wake up early**. This is because my neighbours park their cars just close enough to my bedroom so that it wakes me up when the car doors open and close and the engines turn (but just far enough so that they're making an honest attempt to not disturb anyone, which means I can't complain). I get home from teaching on Wednesday and don't achieve a great deal for an hour or two. This is the last week of school, however, and if my adult neighbours don't take holidays and sleep in a bit, then my child neighbours enjoying summer will take care of me.

None of this would be an issue without the fibro flare-up. I'd nap for an hour and then work the rest of the day. Or, when I have a full day's work ahead, I'd have an early evening. I'm only just emerging from the fatigue now, thanks to the flare-up, and even typing this is surprisingly difficult. I shall emerge, however, for if I can catch a bus in a couple of hours, I don't have to cook dinner, and I *do* get to see a whole bunch of friends. My next two hours, therefore, will be a careful balance of work and finding more spoons. It's over 33 degrees outside right now, so some of the spoonlessness is warmth. Hot tea will help with that. And then I shall do work. Gentle work, but work.


*by late, I mean 1 am, but this morning it was 2 am.
**by early I mean 7 am, but this morning my new neighbour left at 6 am, and took a half hour to achieve departure.

gillpolack @ 2012-12-18T13:55:00

We had a nice little cool spell and now the weather is warming up. The 'warming up' is the crucial bit for me. I will work very nicely when it finally reaches where it's going. Until then, I am desultory and feel lazy. Which I'm not. (If I say "I'm not" often enough, I shall believe it too) for I finished two articles last night and did some chasing of various things. I now have 10,000 words to write (some of which needs groundwork) before early January which is, I think doable.

I have lots of news, but it's all waiting on go-aheads from various bods. Some of it is wonderful. Some of it is quite sad. It will slowly emerge as everyone else gets their paperwork done for the year. Until then, you'll just have to trust me that things are happening. Not jobthings and not doctoratethings - for them I'm going to have to wait until next year, at this stage. But I have more teaching in interesting places and I have more forthcoming (short) publications. That's the sort of news I'm sitting on. Big enough to be rather reassuring without actually being big enough to sort my life.

I ought to at least pretend to work until the weather stabilises as hot, oughtn't I? I have some notes that can be made and played with. That will do nicely. It doesn't feel like work, but if I do it then it will save me real work later on. A screen-writing friend shared her approach to planning with me and I'm curious to try it out. It means sticking paper on the back of the door I just denuded of my 1305 calendar, which would be a very nice thing. It would also help me sort out how I develop plots from characters. Instinct isn't good enough: if I want to teach, then I have to understand my own processes. Instinct never was good enough for me to do my best work, to be honest, for I like to understand things but the suggestions everyone else gave me just didn't work for me. Mit's suggestion, on the other hand, is malleable and fits well with my standard research techniques (even uses the same size paper) and so can theoretically be integrated with my current work. We shall see. I get to write notes and play with paper, which is always a good thing. And if it does integrate nicely with my research system then it will be rather magic.

And if I fall asleep in my armchair because the climbing temperature outside induces fatigue (one of my fibro symptoms - I get periods when I can do things and periods when I can't) then no-one will notice.

I'm rather pleased that I have maintained my record of meeting deadlines when encumbered by fibro. It really helps to be able to work from home and skimp on things like wearing clothes. I also managed to unblock my sink using a combination of hot water and brute force. The brute force was by a sinkful of water, not by me. This means, of course, that I must wash more dishes. Not yet, though. The thing about the fibro flare is that it will pass faster (or at least not get as bad as it could) if I rest when it tells me to, which is now. When next I stop resting, though, I get to play with paper.

The Next Big Thing

The Next Big thing is a meme for writers. I don't ever seem to get this kind of thing correct, but in this case there are now a few variants of The Next Big Thing floating the internets and different rules apply to them. so mine matches some but doesn't match others.

I was tagged to respond to this meme by several quite amazing writers. Every time I delay writing my post because of lifehappenings, someone else tags me! You should check out the previous posts in this meme, but especially those by the gentle writers who have named me: Nicole R Murphy, Mary Victoria, Sophie Masson, Kim Falconer and Talie Helene. They're all wonderful, and worth visiting.

The next big thing is supposed to be about a work that’s coming out soon but, like others before me, I'm waiting to hear. Nicole has dropped gentle hints that she would like to know more about my time travel novel. Since it 's currently being examined as part of my PhD (as regular readers of my blog know) and it feels very much like tempting fate to talk too much about it at this stage. Later, I promise. In the meantime, another novel of mine had a death to life story very recently, and this means that it has more than deserved a little time in the sun.

What is the title of your book?

Ms Cellophane - and here is the crucial link: http://momentumbooks.com.au/books/ms-cellophane/

Where did the idea come from for the book?

From my frustration that:
a) women I knew were invisible. I call this 'the time of cellophane' and a lot of people go through it, but especially middle-aged women. You know (if you've been there) the moment when you're left off dinner party lists and not served in shops and relatives check dates with everyone but you and…; also, however (and just as important)
b) middle-aged women don't get nearly enough carriage of the plot in fantasy novels. I was sure we'd do things differently, given half the chance, so I gave my character half a chance. She does indeed, do things differently. Usually with cake. Although the ingredients for eggnog icecream also appear in the novel. Very seasonal.

What genre does your book fall under?

I call it suburban fantasy. One reviewer called it magic realism. One publisher called it café latte horror. I guess no-one really knows. Contemporary fantasy-realism?

Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?

I find this a very difficult question to answer. I obviously think about my books from the wrong direction entirely. I can only give you three of the characters and those after great reflection.
Liz - Sigrid Thornton
The Beehive - Toni Collette (though I really, really wanted to say Bronwyn Bishop - I think she would do a splendid job. She has the hair for it, after all.)
Andrew - Sam Worthington

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

Liz descends into a very peculiar hell and tries to interior-decorate her way out of it by buying a mirror that may not have her best interests at heart.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?

I really don't know. I wrote it over a period of time, in scribbles and scrabbles. I did a big rush at one stage, though, and then went back to scribbles and scrabbles. The big rush came at this time of year and ever since then I have associated this time of year with Liz struggling with Christmas.

What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

I so wish I knew. Suggestions are very welcome. Suggestions containing icecream recipes are particularly welcome, for I'm feeling the heat today.

Who or What inspired you to write this book?

Women! I was tidying up and getting out of a phase of my life that included lots of committee work on women's issues. The stuff that took me to the committees was still fretting at me. I wanted to explore for myself why some things happen in the way they do.
Also, I wanted to explore why so few actual life experiences made their way into the novels I was reading. Also, the Mirror. And a plague of ants.

What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?

It's very gentle. It's seriously strange. It explores the inner life of the sacked Canberra public servant. OK, maybe that last is not the biggest drawcard. It should be, though. Sacked Canberra public servants are many, varied and can be decidedly exotic.

I would like to tag two writers who are quite, quite different and whose writing fascinates me (for quite, quite different reasons): Marianne de Pierres and Kari Sperring.