Gillian Polack's Blog, page 224
October 31, 2011
gillpolack @ 2011-10-31T13:40:00
I will try to stop posting news after this. It's just that today is full of sequential small news bulletins. My current small bit of news is that I now have a Melbourne Cup Day celebration to enjoy. I'm joining my friends at Folk Dance Canberra and we're dancing The Black Nag and a bunch of our other favourite dances (I might put in a bid for Joc Batranesc, because the music has been swimming through my mind for days) and then we're lunching and we're placing our bids (in choc coins) and then I'm going back with friends from FSC and we're watching the Cup. And then I must work. Champagne-assisted work, but work.
I have a Cup hat, but I think I threw out my last pair of danceable shoes in France (years of illness take their toll and shoes age). If I have to, I shall dance in bare feet, but I might explore my cupboard and hope for something better.
I have a Cup hat, but I think I threw out my last pair of danceable shoes in France (years of illness take their toll and shoes age). If I have to, I shall dance in bare feet, but I might explore my cupboard and hope for something better.
October 30, 2011
gillpolack @ 2011-10-31T10:48:00
Talking about BiblioBuffet (which i was, just a few minutes ago), my new piece is up. This fortnight you get an interview with Justina Robson and Marianne de Pierres.
gillpolack @ 2011-10-31T10:17:00
This week I'm writing my holiday season pieces for BiblioBuffet. While I have review books I could talk about, what I really want to do is write about old favourites. Scintillating essays. Comfort reading. Prickly, brilliant novels. Non-fiction that is unforgettable. Any type of literature, in fact, as long as it first appeared in print a hundred years ago or earlier. Do you have any favourites you think I should include?
gillpolack @ 2011-10-30T22:44:00
My most interesting email today was from my US publisher, forwarding a query. Someone is doing research into the Arthurian quest material and came across the fake website we did for Illuminations' PR. Specifically, they had a very precise query about this page: http://www.triviumpublishing.com/ourbooks/illuminations/rose/nicodemus.html Revisiting it was a great deal of fun.
Now that I've revisited the serious fake part of the webpage and remembered odddities of my earlier life, including reading every single word of the Sommer edition of the Vulgate Arthur in Fisher Library, I think I need to find out what else I wrote for the site (though some of it was written by my editor). I don't think anyone's going to ask me about the daft rhymes, but it never hurts to check...
Now that I've revisited the serious fake part of the webpage and remembered odddities of my earlier life, including reading every single word of the Sommer edition of the Vulgate Arthur in Fisher Library, I think I need to find out what else I wrote for the site (though some of it was written by my editor). I don't think anyone's going to ask me about the daft rhymes, but it never hurts to check...
gillpolack @ 2011-10-30T13:26:00
My thought for the day (since it's a long time since I've had one) is that C.S. Lewis' allegories are classical physics and Franz Kafka's are quantum physics. This totally explains why I think Kafka wrote the Jewish Narnia, of course. (And Kafka invaded my brain this morning because I had to write about a book that explores him in some fabulous ways. By 'had to' I mean "And this is work! Yay!!!")
October 29, 2011
gillpolack @ 2011-10-30T10:50:00
I've been thinking about concept-driven books, largely because I'm supposed to be writing one. Every novel I read, every film I watch makes me stop and think "Is it really the concept that drives this book?" This is hardly the first time I've wondered about it, but it's the first time I've had to admit why I don't quite write like some others who use similar themes.
I worked this out the first time, I think, when I compared the Lensman books to John Wyndham's novels when I was in early high school. About the same time I was reading both Tolkien and Dostoievsky and discovering I didn't like Dickens. Age eleven to fourteen - three good years for learning about my personal response to fiction.
Ideas are immensely enjoyable (and always have been), but what I read novels for are the characters. Ideas and the lives of interesting people are an awesome mix. Add a good plot and a nice fistful of tension, and you get an excellent read. Without characters of interest, then the whole is much less than the sum of its parts. Without characters, the coolness of the underlying idea would have been better expressed by a thoughtful article in New Scientist.
This post was brought to you by Timeline, by my reading for the Aurealis, and by me having sent a chunk of doctoral writings to my supervisor and having finally stopped a moment to consider its implications. Now my brain is moving on to how writers write characters so that they look real, even if they only appear for three lines on two pages. I don't actually want it to move onto that, now, though, I want it to behave and move onto the next piece of work I must finish.
I worked this out the first time, I think, when I compared the Lensman books to John Wyndham's novels when I was in early high school. About the same time I was reading both Tolkien and Dostoievsky and discovering I didn't like Dickens. Age eleven to fourteen - three good years for learning about my personal response to fiction.
Ideas are immensely enjoyable (and always have been), but what I read novels for are the characters. Ideas and the lives of interesting people are an awesome mix. Add a good plot and a nice fistful of tension, and you get an excellent read. Without characters of interest, then the whole is much less than the sum of its parts. Without characters, the coolness of the underlying idea would have been better expressed by a thoughtful article in New Scientist.
This post was brought to you by Timeline, by my reading for the Aurealis, and by me having sent a chunk of doctoral writings to my supervisor and having finally stopped a moment to consider its implications. Now my brain is moving on to how writers write characters so that they look real, even if they only appear for three lines on two pages. I don't actually want it to move onto that, now, though, I want it to behave and move onto the next piece of work I must finish.
gillpolack @ 2011-10-29T15:41:00
I have to watch the film Timeline tonight. It's on free-to-air television. It's a strange doctorate when study appears on free-to-air television at the precise moment one is ready for it. This means I really have to finish Ch 5 by then, though. Allons-y!
October 28, 2011
gillpolack @ 2011-10-29T10:12:00
At this moment in time I'm annoyed about the weather (and that payment I made yesterday - with the assistance of two banks and a body corporate - not appearing on my record, though it has definitely come out of my account this time, which is progress) and you have yet another "I'm not really here - come back later" kind of post. Yesterday and this morning are rather like the Saturday at Conflux, in health terms. A bit challenging, but not impossible.
I have more spillage from yesterday's work than I ought, though, because these things happen when Weather hits at the right time of month. Chapter Five turns out to be something quite different to what I thought and is going to be resequenced for about the tenth time. It has lost vast chunks of text to Chapters Two and Tour, which means they need checking, too. My goal for this is still today, simply because there are more things in my life than Chapter Five and when they resurface, I'll be rather busy. If they don't resurface, I shall lead a sybaritic existence and turn into a hedonist*.
I only have 2 books left in my Aurealis pile, but they're slow ones. I only have 2 hours work left in my BiblioBuffet pile.
All this is a mere distraction. The bellbird outside has changed its call. It sounds like a bellbird should right now, at mid morning, but its dawn call and its dusk call are now the sound my computer makes when email arrives. I keep waking up thinking I have mail. It took me until now to realise that the bellbird has found its new best friend in my computer.
I'm beginning to think that this computer has power beyond its appearance. Nevertheless, I shall not name it. My friend Sharon (who is quite a different person from my friend Sharyn) names her computers and they all act like demons from hell as a result.
*I've just talked myself into having gourmet hot choc (with added coffee liqueur) for afternoon tea. But only if I get through two drafts by then.
I have more spillage from yesterday's work than I ought, though, because these things happen when Weather hits at the right time of month. Chapter Five turns out to be something quite different to what I thought and is going to be resequenced for about the tenth time. It has lost vast chunks of text to Chapters Two and Tour, which means they need checking, too. My goal for this is still today, simply because there are more things in my life than Chapter Five and when they resurface, I'll be rather busy. If they don't resurface, I shall lead a sybaritic existence and turn into a hedonist*.
I only have 2 books left in my Aurealis pile, but they're slow ones. I only have 2 hours work left in my BiblioBuffet pile.
All this is a mere distraction. The bellbird outside has changed its call. It sounds like a bellbird should right now, at mid morning, but its dawn call and its dusk call are now the sound my computer makes when email arrives. I keep waking up thinking I have mail. It took me until now to realise that the bellbird has found its new best friend in my computer.
I'm beginning to think that this computer has power beyond its appearance. Nevertheless, I shall not name it. My friend Sharon (who is quite a different person from my friend Sharyn) names her computers and they all act like demons from hell as a result.
*I've just talked myself into having gourmet hot choc (with added coffee liqueur) for afternoon tea. But only if I get through two drafts by then.
gillpolack @ 2011-10-28T12:15:00
We've made some progress on my capacity to actually pay my bills. Yay! Not there yet, however. Progress is much to be celebrated because this is another high pain day after a really bad night. That chest infection took me back a step or two, alas. Give me a few weeks, however, and I'll be enormously better and just champing at the bit*.
I'm edging through Aurealis reading (not powering through, but still making progress) and edging through my dissertation and soon I will be edging through finishing up some stuff that got left last week when life went a little awry. I do all this today (and a little of it tomorrow, since today is a bit challenging physically) and then i get a bunch of time off on Sunday. And then I work extra hard *all* week and turn my big to-do lists into ta-da lists and then I get my weekend at the coast with friends the following weekend. A full weekend, just like normal folks.
Right now, though, I need coffee. Much coffee. Not much sleep these last few nights and I have work that can't be put off.
*Gratuitous Melbourne Cup reference. So far, no cup function to attend. Woe is me! One may yet appear, however. Or one may not.
I'm edging through Aurealis reading (not powering through, but still making progress) and edging through my dissertation and soon I will be edging through finishing up some stuff that got left last week when life went a little awry. I do all this today (and a little of it tomorrow, since today is a bit challenging physically) and then i get a bunch of time off on Sunday. And then I work extra hard *all* week and turn my big to-do lists into ta-da lists and then I get my weekend at the coast with friends the following weekend. A full weekend, just like normal folks.
Right now, though, I need coffee. Much coffee. Not much sleep these last few nights and I have work that can't be put off.
*Gratuitous Melbourne Cup reference. So far, no cup function to attend. Woe is me! One may yet appear, however. Or one may not.
October 27, 2011
gillpolack @ 2011-10-27T15:26:00
My afternoon is all about banks. My problem with actually being permitted to pay my Body Corporate (and not to be charged late fees when I had paid and etc) was compounded by a letter today that told me I was paying bank rejection fees as well as late fees. For those who missed the earlier part of the saga, this was after the Body Corporate's bank and I had sat down together and talked through payment and followed it, live-action, on screens in different cities and made sure it had all happened. The Body Corporate's bank wanted to try the same again this time (and asked me if we could, six times) and I said "No, we can't. I know there's a problem - I would like a solution." Finally I got passed upstairs. Well, told that upstairs would ring me back. Upstairs at the Body Corporate is also ringing me back. If they don't, I will keep ringing them, for as many days as it takes.
In the meantime I rang my own bank and they investigated my accounts very thoroughly. There is nothing at my end that would have prevented those payments being accepted. I did nothing to cause that last payment being refused. The bank said, quite clearly (three times, because they were very frustrated) that the problem is at the other end. I said that what ought to happen is the Body Corporate cancel my account and reset, since obviously there's a glitch and has been for ages. "That's what I would do," said the helpful person at my bank. And it made me wonder why this wasn't done when the problem manifested, oh, four or more years ago.
The answer is simple. It had to be my fault. Even when it wasn't. And it was too easy to let me try to pay all those bills all that time and deal with each and every single time I got upset when the bills refused to stay paid than to simply fix the glitch in the system.
And so I'm wasting my afternoon.
ETA: There is a new person handling the Body Corporate and she's determined to sort things out. We have significant progress. I am less hysterical. Life is better.
PS I'm editing some private stuff out of a few of my locked posts in LJ. There is that glitch in LJ's system, you see, and I don't really want other people's private business visible to the world. Today is obviously about systems that don't work...
In the meantime I rang my own bank and they investigated my accounts very thoroughly. There is nothing at my end that would have prevented those payments being accepted. I did nothing to cause that last payment being refused. The bank said, quite clearly (three times, because they were very frustrated) that the problem is at the other end. I said that what ought to happen is the Body Corporate cancel my account and reset, since obviously there's a glitch and has been for ages. "That's what I would do," said the helpful person at my bank. And it made me wonder why this wasn't done when the problem manifested, oh, four or more years ago.
The answer is simple. It had to be my fault. Even when it wasn't. And it was too easy to let me try to pay all those bills all that time and deal with each and every single time I got upset when the bills refused to stay paid than to simply fix the glitch in the system.
And so I'm wasting my afternoon.
ETA: There is a new person handling the Body Corporate and she's determined to sort things out. We have significant progress. I am less hysterical. Life is better.
PS I'm editing some private stuff out of a few of my locked posts in LJ. There is that glitch in LJ's system, you see, and I don't really want other people's private business visible to the world. Today is obviously about systems that don't work...
