Gillian Polack's Blog, page 192
April 22, 2012
gillpolack @ 2012-04-23T09:11:00
It's morning. At least, I think it's morning. I haven't had my coffee yet, for I did an extra hour's work last night, after I blogged. The fever had broken, you see, and so I looked at my list and thought "I can still cross things out." Besides, I thought I could sleep in today. I always sleep in on Mondays. Except, obviously, today, for I am already working. I'm blogging in my coffee break.
I just received a phonecall saying "I'm a parcel delivery person and have no idea where you live, so I'm driving around." I gave him instructions and he's driving around some more, maybe finding me. I have a lovely image of a young man, lost.
If the parcel is exciting, I'll report on it later, when I'm due more coffee.
I just received a phonecall saying "I'm a parcel delivery person and have no idea where you live, so I'm driving around." I gave him instructions and he's driving around some more, maybe finding me. I have a lovely image of a young man, lost.
If the parcel is exciting, I'll report on it later, when I'm due more coffee.
gillpolack @ 2012-04-23T00:32:00
I've finished the close read and still have tomorrow left to enter my changes and write the difficult bits that needed thinking. I haven't accomplished a great deal more than that (so many things I needed to do that aren't done!), this weekend, but, given that what I really needed was a day in bed, I'm pretty pleased. Also, my fever is diminishing.
I shall sleep the sleep of the smug.
I shall sleep the sleep of the smug.
April 12, 2012
gillpolack @ 2012-04-12T19:30:00
I'm tired of this clearing-up-after-burglar thing. I have decided - my loungeroom and kitchen and L-space will be done by my birthday. I shall make cakes. I shall feed them to visitors. All my friends are welcome to drop in between 2 and 5 on that day - just let me know you're coming in advance so that I make enough cakes and etc. This means that the place will be moderately respectable by then.
I will be older, more dignified and marginally tidier - and I'll be able to find the more interesting bits of my life. I will also have finished enough looming tasks so that there will be places for friends to sit! Ambition is made of stern stuff.
Which reminds me, I need to ring the insurance bods tomorrow and find out what happens next.
In other, less startling news, since it was less than zero degrees last night, I've hauled my heaters out of hiding. This is basically why I decided it was time to put a use-by date on the effects of the burgulation*.
*It isn't a word, but it ought to be. 'Burglary' isn't ugly enough. I'm thinking of replacing 'burglar' with 'burglebod.'
I will be older, more dignified and marginally tidier - and I'll be able to find the more interesting bits of my life. I will also have finished enough looming tasks so that there will be places for friends to sit! Ambition is made of stern stuff.
Which reminds me, I need to ring the insurance bods tomorrow and find out what happens next.
In other, less startling news, since it was less than zero degrees last night, I've hauled my heaters out of hiding. This is basically why I decided it was time to put a use-by date on the effects of the burgulation*.
*It isn't a word, but it ought to be. 'Burglary' isn't ugly enough. I'm thinking of replacing 'burglar' with 'burglebod.'
gillpolack @ 2012-04-12T15:36:00
The dentist was marginally less fun today because it turns out my jaw cannot stay open for four crowns in two days. I only have three, with catch-up later. Still, I have three, and one of those has saved a tooth whose death would have been imminent and the whole bite on that side of the mouth has been improved and stabilised and even made to look pretty.
I'm going to take a break, for I was at the dentist from early this morning and have only just got home. When I had my coffee break (while my tooth was baking) I did some work, but I still have a bunch to do today.
My aim is to finish the two articles I started yesterday and to finish the reading and note-taking for the third, which is about the same size as the other two combined. Also to do a bit of work on the Beast. This will free up tomorrow for a full day's work on my doctorate and means the weekend can be doing a mixture of all the catch-up work.
And now I shall leave my desk to the miniature spider that thinks it was made to be hover-space and take my rest.
I'm going to take a break, for I was at the dentist from early this morning and have only just got home. When I had my coffee break (while my tooth was baking) I did some work, but I still have a bunch to do today.
My aim is to finish the two articles I started yesterday and to finish the reading and note-taking for the third, which is about the same size as the other two combined. Also to do a bit of work on the Beast. This will free up tomorrow for a full day's work on my doctorate and means the weekend can be doing a mixture of all the catch-up work.
And now I shall leave my desk to the miniature spider that thinks it was made to be hover-space and take my rest.
April 11, 2012
gillpolack @ 2012-04-11T23:37:00
I drafted my whole article before I left, which was just as well. I finished the reading for the other article on the bus and at the dentist, which is also just as well. Everything the rest of the day was entirely enjoyable, but took up much time and I've done not a jot else, workwise. I had an hour and a half of meeting, and all the rest of the afternoon at the dentist's (where I got to see some amazing equipment and watch two caps being carved out, and those two caps will tomorrow be part of me, along with two more and my mouth will be halfway to being stable again) and the evening with friends visiting from the US.
The work on the teeth is much needed. More cracks appeared and were dealt with and so the tooth will not need removing. It did need careful recrafting and so does the cusp that digs into it. This recrafting will be finished tomorrow morning.
My dentist was really cool about showing me the reglazing and the baking and the painting and all. I find it wildly exciting that caps can be done in a back room in no time flat rather than be sent out to the dental technician and a two week wait ensue. In fact, the only reason the two caps weren't fitted tonight was because we were running so very much overtime and I had no way of ringing my friends to say how late I was. My excellent and most wonderful dentist actually drove me home so I wouldn't be an hour later still. This is the dentist whose accent reminds me of my nephew (New Jersey mixed with Australian).
I need to make all of them (the whole practice, for they are all wonderful) some matzah latkes for morning tea tomorrow. I don't know what they'll make of matzah latkes, but I want to thank them and Pesach has limited ingredients and I have even more limited time. I'm also taking some pickles, for my US-origin dentist missed NY pickles and my dental nurse adores any pickle. Yes, we spent much time talking food while my teeth were being crafted.
The work on the teeth is much needed. More cracks appeared and were dealt with and so the tooth will not need removing. It did need careful recrafting and so does the cusp that digs into it. This recrafting will be finished tomorrow morning.
My dentist was really cool about showing me the reglazing and the baking and the painting and all. I find it wildly exciting that caps can be done in a back room in no time flat rather than be sent out to the dental technician and a two week wait ensue. In fact, the only reason the two caps weren't fitted tonight was because we were running so very much overtime and I had no way of ringing my friends to say how late I was. My excellent and most wonderful dentist actually drove me home so I wouldn't be an hour later still. This is the dentist whose accent reminds me of my nephew (New Jersey mixed with Australian).
I need to make all of them (the whole practice, for they are all wonderful) some matzah latkes for morning tea tomorrow. I don't know what they'll make of matzah latkes, but I want to thank them and Pesach has limited ingredients and I have even more limited time. I'm also taking some pickles, for my US-origin dentist missed NY pickles and my dental nurse adores any pickle. Yes, we spent much time talking food while my teeth were being crafted.
April 10, 2012
gillpolack @ 2012-04-11T09:52:00
I'm postponing my morning cuppa for five minutes because once I start it, I also have to write an article. I shouldn't postpone it, because my life will be a lot better if I can finish a first draft before my meeting, before my afternoon-long dental appointment, before...
Today I am the Red Queen.
Today I am the Red Queen.
gillpolack @ 2012-04-10T12:53:00
I forgot to say - one of my friends has found a craft I may be able to do despite the eyesight and the RSI. I used to be one of those people who never sat, because sitting and crocheting or embroidering or doing origami was so much more fun. When I was an undergrad, I crocheted hair ribbons out of sewing thread, which gave me hours of design fun and made my friend who had long hair very happy.
I still have some stray craft materials that I can't use. I've been hugging them and holding onto them, more as memory than anything else. The burglary has made me rethink the logic of this. So...if any of you do a particular craft and are after materials, most of my remaining craft materials are at your disposal.
If you're in Canberra or near Canberra or visiting Canberra and would like to see if there's something you can use, just let me know! This offer is open until everything is gone.
Before any of you think, "Oh no, another bad thing for Gillian," pause for a moment and replace that thought in your mind with, "Oh good, Gillian will have more space for books." Changes in life happen - they're not always bad.
I still have some stray craft materials that I can't use. I've been hugging them and holding onto them, more as memory than anything else. The burglary has made me rethink the logic of this. So...if any of you do a particular craft and are after materials, most of my remaining craft materials are at your disposal.
If you're in Canberra or near Canberra or visiting Canberra and would like to see if there's something you can use, just let me know! This offer is open until everything is gone.
Before any of you think, "Oh no, another bad thing for Gillian," pause for a moment and replace that thought in your mind with, "Oh good, Gillian will have more space for books." Changes in life happen - they're not always bad.
gillpolack @ 2012-04-10T11:54:00
Last night and the night before failed to reach zero degrees, but only just. This meant I dreamed of autumn leaves. It also meant I eyed the heaters nervously, wondering if it's time to bring them out, but it's not quite time, yet. They normally emerge from hiding on my birthday which is over two weeks away.
Instead of heaters, I'm making a sorry excuse for chicken soup (using available ingredients, which include a parve chicken stock, parve chicken stock just feels wrong), mainly so that I can make matzah balls (which my family calls kneidlach) and be seasonal. In a few hours, I shall have many balls.
My fun book of the day is Helen Lowe's new one. I'm enjoying it muchly, but it keeps getting rudely interrupted by work I'm behind on. It contains exactly what I'm missing in reading those other books, however, so I'm reading it despite my deadlines.
My BiblioBuffet books are young adult and science and Medieval and I'm trying very hard not to read them all at once or to lose them. I need to have finished reading with them and writing them up by Thursday night, because I have to get one of my write-ups to my editor and if not one, why not three and be caught up on something? Also, I have much bus-riding, which means that I can read them and take notes and still get to all those dental appointments.
At this stage in my reading life, I've seen certain types of books once (or maybe twenty times) too often. Whether I like the novel depends less on its technical expertise and the glory of its editing than whether the book has a certain inner life. If it makes me smile, or laugh, or weep, or wonder, or if I want to know about the main characters - then it doesn't matter if I've read the book by other names and other writers. More and more, though, I'm finding novels that are solid in terms of technique, but where I think "How many more pages?"
Invention and pace have never been the main reasons for me to enjoy a novel, and right now that's proving a disadvantage, for invention and pace are becoming more and more prevalent as the reasons some publishers think we read. But as a young teenager I didn't love "To Kill a Mockingbird" for its sparkly invention and its rapid headlong rush into doom (which is good, because it doesn't have them) - I loved it for the characters and the story it told and for its immense radiance.
It really wouldn't take much to infuse these technically marvellous books I'm reading now with a bit more soul or heart. If someone is capable of writing a book so tight that every word matters and the build-up is inexorable and the quips fly, then surely they are capable of demonstrating to me that they love their book and that I must, too?
It's not just new writers, or writers who don't challenge us who leave me wondering where the soul has gone. This is my personal quibble with China Mieville's recent work. Perdido Street Station has so much heart - it's a sprawling giant, grinning and grimacing in equal measure. I adore that book. I'm not sure I want to read his most recent book, for The City and the City was cool and intellectual and didn't reach out to me in anything near the same measure.
Instead of heaters, I'm making a sorry excuse for chicken soup (using available ingredients, which include a parve chicken stock, parve chicken stock just feels wrong), mainly so that I can make matzah balls (which my family calls kneidlach) and be seasonal. In a few hours, I shall have many balls.
My fun book of the day is Helen Lowe's new one. I'm enjoying it muchly, but it keeps getting rudely interrupted by work I'm behind on. It contains exactly what I'm missing in reading those other books, however, so I'm reading it despite my deadlines.
My BiblioBuffet books are young adult and science and Medieval and I'm trying very hard not to read them all at once or to lose them. I need to have finished reading with them and writing them up by Thursday night, because I have to get one of my write-ups to my editor and if not one, why not three and be caught up on something? Also, I have much bus-riding, which means that I can read them and take notes and still get to all those dental appointments.
At this stage in my reading life, I've seen certain types of books once (or maybe twenty times) too often. Whether I like the novel depends less on its technical expertise and the glory of its editing than whether the book has a certain inner life. If it makes me smile, or laugh, or weep, or wonder, or if I want to know about the main characters - then it doesn't matter if I've read the book by other names and other writers. More and more, though, I'm finding novels that are solid in terms of technique, but where I think "How many more pages?"
Invention and pace have never been the main reasons for me to enjoy a novel, and right now that's proving a disadvantage, for invention and pace are becoming more and more prevalent as the reasons some publishers think we read. But as a young teenager I didn't love "To Kill a Mockingbird" for its sparkly invention and its rapid headlong rush into doom (which is good, because it doesn't have them) - I loved it for the characters and the story it told and for its immense radiance.
It really wouldn't take much to infuse these technically marvellous books I'm reading now with a bit more soul or heart. If someone is capable of writing a book so tight that every word matters and the build-up is inexorable and the quips fly, then surely they are capable of demonstrating to me that they love their book and that I must, too?
It's not just new writers, or writers who don't challenge us who leave me wondering where the soul has gone. This is my personal quibble with China Mieville's recent work. Perdido Street Station has so much heart - it's a sprawling giant, grinning and grimacing in equal measure. I adore that book. I'm not sure I want to read his most recent book, for The City and the City was cool and intellectual and didn't reach out to me in anything near the same measure.
April 9, 2012
gillpolack @ 2012-04-09T15:50:00
I have been tough on my notes and checked everything. I have 18 books to read and about the same number of articles. I need to book myself some library time!
Where all this came from is that I quite forgot I had lost two weeks of research to my eye even before the burglary. The things I was going to do during those two weeks were in different piles to everything else because they were imminent. The piles were moved during the kerfuffle of the burglary and the series of unfortunate incidents compounded and I forgot that those two weeks hadn't contained much of anything.
It means I have a bit more catching up than I thought. Given I have medical appointments and meetings by the half dozen from now until the first week of May (they come in matched sets, two of each a week, averaging two hours in length with one hour travel each way - I have it all calculated, which possibly means I'm focussed a bit much on it, but it *does* give me some reading time), this is a good time to work them into my schedule. Chapter Six can wait until May.
I cancelled my long weekend away. I was going to take time out and visit Cat and Michael this weekend because April was going to be a tough month even before March became curious and strange. Instead, I shall use it to help me achieve miracles and catch up a bit more.
Having said that, I'm going to try to do most of the articles today and tomorrow, for I really hate falling behind on things!
ETA: All the articles for Ch. 6 are read and notes have been taken. Just the 18 books to go! They'll happen more gradually - when I can get to libraries.
Where all this came from is that I quite forgot I had lost two weeks of research to my eye even before the burglary. The things I was going to do during those two weeks were in different piles to everything else because they were imminent. The piles were moved during the kerfuffle of the burglary and the series of unfortunate incidents compounded and I forgot that those two weeks hadn't contained much of anything.
It means I have a bit more catching up than I thought. Given I have medical appointments and meetings by the half dozen from now until the first week of May (they come in matched sets, two of each a week, averaging two hours in length with one hour travel each way - I have it all calculated, which possibly means I'm focussed a bit much on it, but it *does* give me some reading time), this is a good time to work them into my schedule. Chapter Six can wait until May.
I cancelled my long weekend away. I was going to take time out and visit Cat and Michael this weekend because April was going to be a tough month even before March became curious and strange. Instead, I shall use it to help me achieve miracles and catch up a bit more.
Having said that, I'm going to try to do most of the articles today and tomorrow, for I really hate falling behind on things!
ETA: All the articles for Ch. 6 are read and notes have been taken. Just the 18 books to go! They'll happen more gradually - when I can get to libraries.
gillpolack @ 2012-04-09T13:06:00
Two things of note from my day's reading so far (seven of those articles demolished!).
Firstly, scholars/writers who don't write in spec fic don't tend to notice when studies that include it are poorly conceived.
Secondly, scholar/writers (in this case just the one) who don't use spec fic as part of their analysis and who don't write it don't understand that the world of the novel can open up from publication ie that the novel is not necessarily a closed world. S/he argued that the novel is finished and then the author moves on, while with history, it's the discussion and the changes and the shifts that are important. Me, I argue that this is more shifting of grounds in the argument than a solidly demonstrated case for novels being so fundamentally different to history. Some novels close and the worlds are preserved, but most of them have that strange thing called reader interface (for most of them are read, and because many readers are acutely intelligent and thoughtful and latch onto ideas and start playing). This is more apparent to me for some works than for others: I'm very happy to play in an Anne McCaffrey dragon world but I have absolutely no desire to even walk round in any of Peter Carey's worlds.
Writing brilliance doesn't equate to desirability of universe. I can't see why it should - some novels are made so that they finish when the book is read, and for some the initial entertainment is only the beginning.
I think what's getting to me today is the way a whole series of academic writers have assumed that novels are a simpler form with a simpler role in society and a simpler interface with both writer and reader than is actually true.
Does anyone know a study that handles this well? This is not for my doctorate - it is for me. I can find my own understanding (I usually do) but it would be terrific to read an articulate and thorough analysis of novels regarding when they are limited worlds (that's it when you close the book) or when they extend and how they extend. The literary/genre divide is daft and helps not at all, for some literary works have extended worlds (Jane Austen!) and some genre live only between the covers.
I'm not interested in good/bad judgements, for that's not relevant as far as I can see. It's not about the quality of the writing, but about how society takes on that particular tale and its universe and decides how to play with it.
I should have asked about a book on this year ago. My books tend to encourage participation, you see, so the question has been appearing over and again when I meet readers. The number of times I've been told, wistfully "I want coffee with Rose" is astonishing, and one reader asked me how Liz was going, six months after he'd finished the novel and another started blogging her life as a case study and then realised it was fiction.
In my case, it's to do with the nature of the mimesis I write. In cases like McCaffrey, it's to do with a world that's sufficiently comfortable (the balance between formulae and character is just so) so that we as readers can insert ourselves in those worlds and create our own adventure.
And I so want to read a magisterial study on this!
Firstly, scholars/writers who don't write in spec fic don't tend to notice when studies that include it are poorly conceived.
Secondly, scholar/writers (in this case just the one) who don't use spec fic as part of their analysis and who don't write it don't understand that the world of the novel can open up from publication ie that the novel is not necessarily a closed world. S/he argued that the novel is finished and then the author moves on, while with history, it's the discussion and the changes and the shifts that are important. Me, I argue that this is more shifting of grounds in the argument than a solidly demonstrated case for novels being so fundamentally different to history. Some novels close and the worlds are preserved, but most of them have that strange thing called reader interface (for most of them are read, and because many readers are acutely intelligent and thoughtful and latch onto ideas and start playing). This is more apparent to me for some works than for others: I'm very happy to play in an Anne McCaffrey dragon world but I have absolutely no desire to even walk round in any of Peter Carey's worlds.
Writing brilliance doesn't equate to desirability of universe. I can't see why it should - some novels are made so that they finish when the book is read, and for some the initial entertainment is only the beginning.
I think what's getting to me today is the way a whole series of academic writers have assumed that novels are a simpler form with a simpler role in society and a simpler interface with both writer and reader than is actually true.
Does anyone know a study that handles this well? This is not for my doctorate - it is for me. I can find my own understanding (I usually do) but it would be terrific to read an articulate and thorough analysis of novels regarding when they are limited worlds (that's it when you close the book) or when they extend and how they extend. The literary/genre divide is daft and helps not at all, for some literary works have extended worlds (Jane Austen!) and some genre live only between the covers.
I'm not interested in good/bad judgements, for that's not relevant as far as I can see. It's not about the quality of the writing, but about how society takes on that particular tale and its universe and decides how to play with it.
I should have asked about a book on this year ago. My books tend to encourage participation, you see, so the question has been appearing over and again when I meet readers. The number of times I've been told, wistfully "I want coffee with Rose" is astonishing, and one reader asked me how Liz was going, six months after he'd finished the novel and another started blogging her life as a case study and then realised it was fiction.
In my case, it's to do with the nature of the mimesis I write. In cases like McCaffrey, it's to do with a world that's sufficiently comfortable (the balance between formulae and character is just so) so that we as readers can insert ourselves in those worlds and create our own adventure.
And I so want to read a magisterial study on this!
