Gillian Polack's Blog, page 181
May 31, 2012
gillpolack @ 2012-06-01T08:20:00
I'm trying to gather enthusiasm for going out into the cold, cold morning. This is my last of the big sequence of dental appointments. I think the enthusiasm will magically appear tomorrow when I can look out from my bed and say "I'll get up in a little."
The actual treatment today isn't as much as previous appointments (a crown and two big fillings) but it's cold and it's been a big few months and I want to renew my hot water bottle and spend quality time hugging it. Also, it's Friday.
I'm not unhappy. Just cold. Very cold.
The big things is that after this my mouth will cease to be a danger to me and in a few weeks I shall be able to eat as others eat. I'm already carrying around so much less pain and discomfort. So its good. Or it will be, when I brave the outdoors and stop complaining.
The actual treatment today isn't as much as previous appointments (a crown and two big fillings) but it's cold and it's been a big few months and I want to renew my hot water bottle and spend quality time hugging it. Also, it's Friday.
I'm not unhappy. Just cold. Very cold.
The big things is that after this my mouth will cease to be a danger to me and in a few weeks I shall be able to eat as others eat. I'm already carrying around so much less pain and discomfort. So its good. Or it will be, when I brave the outdoors and stop complaining.
gillpolack @ 2012-05-31T22:33:00
Teaching is finished for the week and tonight's class was small, so we took down our hair and I sat on tables a lot. One of my favourite worldbuilding exercises is to have students test their own understanding of the Middle Ages by creating a fantasy Medieval town, so that's what they did. I would go from map to map, making rude comments about the functions of a castle or how the town is fed. We did a lot else - the classtime wasn't entirely dedicated to me and my rude comments, but I enjoyed the mapmaking the best. Only one more class with this mob, and then no more teaching on Thursdays for a fair while. This means that after Continuum I get four days a week straight research/writing, which will be a very good thing. I will miss the worldbuilding class, though, for they're a lot of fun.
May 30, 2012
Sydneysiders, flee!
Admit it, if you're in Sydney you looked at the Continuum program smugly and thought "I can avoid Gillian so very easily - she's going to Melbourne." I know one person who did. This is your warning to get out of Sydney (specifically, don't visit the NSW Writers' Centre) for a short time in July. I'm teaching for just one day there, and it will be grammar and punctuation very specifically for writers.
One thing I promise in this short workshop: I will make my Star Trek joke. Boldly.
One thing I promise in this short workshop: I will make my Star Trek joke. Boldly.
gillpolack @ 2012-05-31T10:38:00
I am 90% sure I have found a way out of the Scholar's Circle of Hell (which Dante didn't write about for fear of being confined there): I've found the underlying good in a book. For three weeks this book has been nagging at me. It wasn't as bad as it read. I knew that. What I didn't know was why. If I hadn't had this nagging sense of missing wood for trees, I probably would have trashed the book and got myself into deep trouble. Thank goodness for inner scolds!
There are flaws in the book, but I had the exact opposite flaws in my reading of it. I was looking at it from the wrong discipline, quite simply.
Today I was reminded of this by a discussion of literary awareness vs historical criticism elsewhere.
And this is exactly why reading too narrowly can be a problem. Doctorates are wonderful things, for they focus the mind, but they need to *not* get in the way of really good reading habits.
There are flaws in the book, but I had the exact opposite flaws in my reading of it. I was looking at it from the wrong discipline, quite simply.
Today I was reminded of this by a discussion of literary awareness vs historical criticism elsewhere.
And this is exactly why reading too narrowly can be a problem. Doctorates are wonderful things, for they focus the mind, but they need to *not* get in the way of really good reading habits.
gillpolack @ 2012-05-31T10:24:00
It's Thursday. It has taken me hours to work this out. I keep thinking it's Friday and that I have to be at the dentist. Instead it's Thursday and I get to torment my world-building class. My inner prophet sees butchers' paper in their future, and Medieval chronicles. My other inner prophet sees that I have no medical appointments today and that my eyes seem to be operational: my day will be full of words.
gillpolack @ 2012-05-30T18:39:00
My Wednesday class was on fire today. We had three words of the day (chandelier, temporise and renaissance) and the latter led to a request for a reminder of which king was which and when in the Middle Ages.
Apart from this, we spent a lot of time on transits of Venus, Captain Cook, and reconciliation. We agreed that it was ironic that the transit of Venus occurred just after Reconciliation Week ends. To note this irony, J made sure that one of the word-art posters we did included Captain Cook, ironically.
Irony comes easily to this group. So does politics. I had a case of hiccups at one stage and one of the students turned to me and said "Tony Abbott." The hiccups were defeated. He maintains it was the shock; I maintain it was the laughter.
I did so many messages both before and after the eyes that I only have housework and one phone message to run before teaching tomorrow. Two hours of stuff, in toto. This means I can do actual work, and not minutiae. Life proceeds.
The eye? It was checked and re-checked and lasered. I am short a small amount of peripheral vision (but less than 2 years ago, when I lost over 25% - I think the amount of vision I recovered surprised everyone) and my eye is about as safe from blindness as it can be with modern medicine. I don't have to go back to the hospital for two months. This is good all round, though I did find the laser unnerving.
I keep thinking back to two years ago. It was only two years ago - the eye specialist reminded me of this. Comparing me now with me then and I've made stunning progress. I'm doing more than a normal day's work (study and paid work and various bits and pieces add up) and it took me a series of unhappy incidents to slow me down this much, right now.
I may whinge for a while to come, for I'm still sorting things out, but two years ago I was nearly dead and now I'm merely mopping up the mess and whingeing. It really is rather wonderful, when one stops to think.
I have so earned my special treat tonight: Geoscience Australia here I come!
Apart from this, we spent a lot of time on transits of Venus, Captain Cook, and reconciliation. We agreed that it was ironic that the transit of Venus occurred just after Reconciliation Week ends. To note this irony, J made sure that one of the word-art posters we did included Captain Cook, ironically.
Irony comes easily to this group. So does politics. I had a case of hiccups at one stage and one of the students turned to me and said "Tony Abbott." The hiccups were defeated. He maintains it was the shock; I maintain it was the laughter.
I did so many messages both before and after the eyes that I only have housework and one phone message to run before teaching tomorrow. Two hours of stuff, in toto. This means I can do actual work, and not minutiae. Life proceeds.
The eye? It was checked and re-checked and lasered. I am short a small amount of peripheral vision (but less than 2 years ago, when I lost over 25% - I think the amount of vision I recovered surprised everyone) and my eye is about as safe from blindness as it can be with modern medicine. I don't have to go back to the hospital for two months. This is good all round, though I did find the laser unnerving.
I keep thinking back to two years ago. It was only two years ago - the eye specialist reminded me of this. Comparing me now with me then and I've made stunning progress. I'm doing more than a normal day's work (study and paid work and various bits and pieces add up) and it took me a series of unhappy incidents to slow me down this much, right now.
I may whinge for a while to come, for I'm still sorting things out, but two years ago I was nearly dead and now I'm merely mopping up the mess and whingeing. It really is rather wonderful, when one stops to think.
I have so earned my special treat tonight: Geoscience Australia here I come!
May 29, 2012
gillpolack @ 2012-05-30T08:26:00
I had so much happening yesterday that I didn't tell you about my bus ride. This was very negligent of me.
People were staring at me on the way to work. I was too tired to wonder much, so I just let them get on with it. About halfway there I remembered I had fluoresced the day before. I also remembered that the bus had fluorescent lights, it being after dark. I looked down at my hands and lo, I was glowing, faintly.
I'm afraid I spent the last few minutes of the bus ride analysing the glow and working out all the ways that glow-in-the-dark characters in movies are wrong. My twenty minutes of pretending I was a stray deity mixing with the hoi polloi are now lost, forever, not utilised.
People were staring at me on the way to work. I was too tired to wonder much, so I just let them get on with it. About halfway there I remembered I had fluoresced the day before. I also remembered that the bus had fluorescent lights, it being after dark. I looked down at my hands and lo, I was glowing, faintly.
I'm afraid I spent the last few minutes of the bus ride analysing the glow and working out all the ways that glow-in-the-dark characters in movies are wrong. My twenty minutes of pretending I was a stray deity mixing with the hoi polloi are now lost, forever, not utilised.
The Official Guide to Avoiding Gillian at Continuum
I ought to apologise for so many posts today, but I'd have to apologise more if people weren't given the wherewithal to avoid me at this year's NatCon. It's very important to me to make sure that this opportunity is given to everyone. Not everyone can take advantage of it - note that some souls have to suffer the ignominy of sharing panels with me. If you turn up to support them, I will completely understand.
Friday 5 pm I Flunked Physics: Hard Science Versus Accessible Science Fiction
Alan Baxter and Steve Cameron are a bit worried about this, for entirely different reasons. It's not my fault I cursed Al. And Steve hasn't actually been on a panel with me before. He doesn’t know that I only throw chocolate in self-defence.
Friday 6 pm Writing different genders, sexualities & cultures
Three intelligent, articulate, thoughtful people on this panel and then there's me. Deborah Biancotti's chairing, so it's going to be a good discussion. Shame you can't go. Especially a shame if you can't go because you're avoiding me.
Saturday 10 am Backyard Speculation
I want to meet Claire Corbett for I very much liked her last year's book. This is possibly not how to convince you to skip this panel because I'm on it, especially when the other panellists are interesting (my spellcheck wanted me to type that they were 'infesting' but I can't swear to this and I *can* swear to the other.) The panel is about us. Well, not us as writers, but us Australia - how we use Australian settings and culture and...ignore that last bit, you're supposed to be dissuaded. Anyhow, I can't promise chocolate this year. It's probable, but not yet definite.
Sunday 10 am Elizabethans are Awesome
Ian Nichols and I are on a panel together again. I'd pity the other panelists, but I'm pretty certain that Dave Cake and Grant Watson can hold their own. My emergency reserve for this panel is food tales (of course) and stories from chapbooks. I have a misogynist werewolf tale just waiting for an outing. What I really want to talk about is magic in Elizabethan England. You still want to avoid me, however, because I am tempted to source all my ideas and thoughts the way John Dee did. Thank goodness my handwriting is already unreadable.
Sunday 2 pm Book blogs and reviewing
Blogs and books and I'm blogging about it here. Meta-everything - that should dissuade you. Ignore the other panelists, who are very cool. If you don't ignore them, you're stuck at a panel I'm on (and my spellcheck just changed 'panel' to 'penal', which says everything). Sue Bursztynski, George Ivanoff, Alexandra Pierce and Sean Wright are quite possibly worth the sacrifice of not avoiding me, but don't tell them I said that.
Sunday The Crafty Middle Ages
I'm so not going to explain what I intend to talk about in my half hour. Except that I might bring some of the replacements from the burgulation to help explain things. And that one of them might be a little surprising. Apart from that, I mainly intend to chat about some of the crafts we've been working on for the Beast (researching, writing about) and how they were used. Substitutes for plastic and the like. And maybe answer questions. Possibly a rant or two. We'll see.
Monday 10 am Readings
OK, you can't avoid the readings. The best voice in fandom is one of the four in this timeslot and it would be a sad loss to your life if you came to Continuum and missed hearing the best voice in fandom. That's OK, though, I'll be back home soon after and you'll be able to enjoy the rest of the convention in safety.
Friday 5 pm I Flunked Physics: Hard Science Versus Accessible Science Fiction
Alan Baxter and Steve Cameron are a bit worried about this, for entirely different reasons. It's not my fault I cursed Al. And Steve hasn't actually been on a panel with me before. He doesn’t know that I only throw chocolate in self-defence.
Friday 6 pm Writing different genders, sexualities & cultures
Three intelligent, articulate, thoughtful people on this panel and then there's me. Deborah Biancotti's chairing, so it's going to be a good discussion. Shame you can't go. Especially a shame if you can't go because you're avoiding me.
Saturday 10 am Backyard Speculation
I want to meet Claire Corbett for I very much liked her last year's book. This is possibly not how to convince you to skip this panel because I'm on it, especially when the other panellists are interesting (my spellcheck wanted me to type that they were 'infesting' but I can't swear to this and I *can* swear to the other.) The panel is about us. Well, not us as writers, but us Australia - how we use Australian settings and culture and...ignore that last bit, you're supposed to be dissuaded. Anyhow, I can't promise chocolate this year. It's probable, but not yet definite.
Sunday 10 am Elizabethans are Awesome
Ian Nichols and I are on a panel together again. I'd pity the other panelists, but I'm pretty certain that Dave Cake and Grant Watson can hold their own. My emergency reserve for this panel is food tales (of course) and stories from chapbooks. I have a misogynist werewolf tale just waiting for an outing. What I really want to talk about is magic in Elizabethan England. You still want to avoid me, however, because I am tempted to source all my ideas and thoughts the way John Dee did. Thank goodness my handwriting is already unreadable.
Sunday 2 pm Book blogs and reviewing
Blogs and books and I'm blogging about it here. Meta-everything - that should dissuade you. Ignore the other panelists, who are very cool. If you don't ignore them, you're stuck at a panel I'm on (and my spellcheck just changed 'panel' to 'penal', which says everything). Sue Bursztynski, George Ivanoff, Alexandra Pierce and Sean Wright are quite possibly worth the sacrifice of not avoiding me, but don't tell them I said that.
Sunday The Crafty Middle Ages
I'm so not going to explain what I intend to talk about in my half hour. Except that I might bring some of the replacements from the burgulation to help explain things. And that one of them might be a little surprising. Apart from that, I mainly intend to chat about some of the crafts we've been working on for the Beast (researching, writing about) and how they were used. Substitutes for plastic and the like. And maybe answer questions. Possibly a rant or two. We'll see.
Monday 10 am Readings
OK, you can't avoid the readings. The best voice in fandom is one of the four in this timeslot and it would be a sad loss to your life if you came to Continuum and missed hearing the best voice in fandom. That's OK, though, I'll be back home soon after and you'll be able to enjoy the rest of the convention in safety.
gillpolack @ 2012-05-29T20:51:00
Back from teaching and the phone rang. I answered and it was a phisher. I said, three times "Are you sure you meant to ring a business? Who did you want to talk to?" He finally picked up the word 'business' and became very, very apologetic and hung up before I could say "Goodbye."
It might have helped that I used my teacher voice. This is because I have just come from teaching Latin and Latin Requires a Teacher's Voice. Latin especially requires a teacher's voice if one teaches using 19th century versions of nursery rhymes. My students needed to start seeing the language as a language and not just as a set of grammatical constructs, and I thought it was far better to ruin "Bye Baby Bunting" for them forever than to ruin Cicero. They thought so,too, and have asked for a reprise in the final week.
In an ideal world, I shall find more silly texts to use. The short poems really helped my students sort out how sentences fitted together and what I meant by the grammatical explanations. If anyone has any suggestions (with accompanying text - they need clear English translations even if the translations are loose - as they were tonight - for 12 hours is not a lot of time to learn Latin) I promise to credit you in class.
I also took in some food (based on Cato) and that made my students very happy. One of them admitted that it seemed a shame to have a course by me and not taste my historical cooking. No-one ever says that it seems a shame to have a course by me and not get my personal view of the chansons de geste. I guess some specialisations are sexier than others.
It might have helped that I used my teacher voice. This is because I have just come from teaching Latin and Latin Requires a Teacher's Voice. Latin especially requires a teacher's voice if one teaches using 19th century versions of nursery rhymes. My students needed to start seeing the language as a language and not just as a set of grammatical constructs, and I thought it was far better to ruin "Bye Baby Bunting" for them forever than to ruin Cicero. They thought so,too, and have asked for a reprise in the final week.
In an ideal world, I shall find more silly texts to use. The short poems really helped my students sort out how sentences fitted together and what I meant by the grammatical explanations. If anyone has any suggestions (with accompanying text - they need clear English translations even if the translations are loose - as they were tonight - for 12 hours is not a lot of time to learn Latin) I promise to credit you in class.
I also took in some food (based on Cato) and that made my students very happy. One of them admitted that it seemed a shame to have a course by me and not taste my historical cooking. No-one ever says that it seems a shame to have a course by me and not get my personal view of the chansons de geste. I guess some specialisations are sexier than others.
May 28, 2012
Next CSFG Anthology
Callout to Australian writers - the new CSfG anthology is seeking submissions.
Submission Guidelines
Canberra Speculative Fiction Guild is delighted to announce:
Submissions for the next CSFG Publishing anthology, ‘next’, are welcome between 20 May and 15 October 2012.
Sequence. Succession. Cause and Effect. Show us what happened. next.
‘next’ will be edited by Simon Petrie and Rob Porteous. Stories may be any length up to 5,000 words. All approaches to the theme are welcome, as long as they are by nature speculative.
Payment will be a copy of the print version of the anthology plus $10 for stories under 1,500 words and $30 for all others based on published word count.
Submissions are encouraged from Australian writers of all levels of experience, with special encouragement given to CSFG members.
Multiple submissions (up to 3 per author) are OK; simultaneous submissions and reprints are not.
Submissions should be sent (as .rtf attachments only) to next.anthology@gmail.com
Please make sure that the following information is in the email proper:
Name
Address
Email address
Author's name, as you would like it to be published
Name of Story
Word Count
Other contact information
If you wish to contribute to the interior artwork, please contact next.anthology@gmail.com
Small Print: If your story is selected, we will be seeking assignment of First English Anthology Rights, First World Anthology Rights, and First Electronic Rights, for its publication in the English language. We'd like an exclusive licence to print, publish and sell your work (story or artwork) for one year from the date of first publication. We will use your work only in the print and e-book versions of the anthology and re-printings of it.
Visit the CSFG website
Submission Guidelines
Canberra Speculative Fiction Guild is delighted to announce:
Submissions for the next CSFG Publishing anthology, ‘next’, are welcome between 20 May and 15 October 2012.
Sequence. Succession. Cause and Effect. Show us what happened. next.
‘next’ will be edited by Simon Petrie and Rob Porteous. Stories may be any length up to 5,000 words. All approaches to the theme are welcome, as long as they are by nature speculative.
Payment will be a copy of the print version of the anthology plus $10 for stories under 1,500 words and $30 for all others based on published word count.
Submissions are encouraged from Australian writers of all levels of experience, with special encouragement given to CSFG members.
Multiple submissions (up to 3 per author) are OK; simultaneous submissions and reprints are not.
Submissions should be sent (as .rtf attachments only) to next.anthology@gmail.com
Please make sure that the following information is in the email proper:
Name
Address
Email address
Author's name, as you would like it to be published
Name of Story
Word Count
Other contact information
If you wish to contribute to the interior artwork, please contact next.anthology@gmail.com
Small Print: If your story is selected, we will be seeking assignment of First English Anthology Rights, First World Anthology Rights, and First Electronic Rights, for its publication in the English language. We'd like an exclusive licence to print, publish and sell your work (story or artwork) for one year from the date of first publication. We will use your work only in the print and e-book versions of the anthology and re-printings of it.
Visit the CSFG website
