Gillian Polack's Blog, page 237
August 11, 2011
gillpolack @ 2011-08-11T19:35:00
I have given great thought to my post earlier today. I think I'm scared that I have too much work to do.
I have entirely reviewed what has to be done and renegotiated a couple of things. I now only have twelve hours work a day for the next week. I have also taken migraine medication. Only the best people get migraines that last so long when there's work to be done (yes, ADM, I'm looking at you).
I have three tasks tonight only. One is to revise something. The second is to glue receipts on A4 pages and scan them. The third is the fun one - I get to look at my novel. I will be much less stressed when I have spent a little time in fictionland.
I am giving the universe strict instructions that there be no urgent things arise at late hours and that I get to actually sleep tonight. Also, to take more medicine...
PS I am addicted to ellipses. Is there a twelve point recovery program, or is it only three point...
I have entirely reviewed what has to be done and renegotiated a couple of things. I now only have twelve hours work a day for the next week. I have also taken migraine medication. Only the best people get migraines that last so long when there's work to be done (yes, ADM, I'm looking at you).
I have three tasks tonight only. One is to revise something. The second is to glue receipts on A4 pages and scan them. The third is the fun one - I get to look at my novel. I will be much less stressed when I have spent a little time in fictionland.
I am giving the universe strict instructions that there be no urgent things arise at late hours and that I get to actually sleep tonight. Also, to take more medicine...
PS I am addicted to ellipses. Is there a twelve point recovery program, or is it only three point...
gillpolack @ 2011-08-11T11:37:00
I spent a lot of last night (while working until 1.30 am) berating myself for not having worked hard enough since I got back. The bottom line is that my list of work that must be done urgently or by specific dates is quite terrifying. I just made myself a cup of coffee (to help with the migraine, which is related more to weather and PMTishness than to work) and wondered "Just how much work have I done since I returned? Have I really been as lazy as I think?"
I've been back just over eight days.
I've taught twice. I've read 3 review books and 7 books for my novel and 4 for my dissertation. I've answered 300 odd emails. I've proofread the cookbook. I've co-ordinated the other proofreaders and entered their changes (2 chapters from one proofreader to go, otherwise it's all done). I've started work (barely) on the next course I'm to teach and on my workshop in Sydney. I've sorted out what I have to do about the French medical bill (that took over two hours of my yesterday, but all that remains is a visit to the bank and to the post office - the expenses all combined come to just under the threshold for claims, so I have no forms to fill in, only a bill to pay) and I've asked what to do about accounting for university and government money spent while I was away (but haven't started doing the accounting yet, because I haven't heard back). I've solved a bunch of technical issues for people, including for the Conflux banquet. I've downloaded all my pictures (which was problematic - took a half day) and half sorted them on one computer and taught with some of them from another. I've only emailed 1/3 of the people the pictures I promised (remind me if you were promised a particular picture!). I've sorted out Jewish New Year in theory, but haven't actually booked transport yet. I've booked transport and sorted out most things for Sydney in two weeks (class handouts still to go). I've paid back money I owed and spent much time at the doctor (3 hours!). I've done work for Conflux. I've done grocery shopping (bigtime).
I know that's not all. That's the worst of it, though. I suspect that it really doesn't matter how much I've done in the last week - I won't feel at all happy until I've actually done some of the big and urgent things still on my list.
Today I shall do much. Or else...
I've been back just over eight days.
I've taught twice. I've read 3 review books and 7 books for my novel and 4 for my dissertation. I've answered 300 odd emails. I've proofread the cookbook. I've co-ordinated the other proofreaders and entered their changes (2 chapters from one proofreader to go, otherwise it's all done). I've started work (barely) on the next course I'm to teach and on my workshop in Sydney. I've sorted out what I have to do about the French medical bill (that took over two hours of my yesterday, but all that remains is a visit to the bank and to the post office - the expenses all combined come to just under the threshold for claims, so I have no forms to fill in, only a bill to pay) and I've asked what to do about accounting for university and government money spent while I was away (but haven't started doing the accounting yet, because I haven't heard back). I've solved a bunch of technical issues for people, including for the Conflux banquet. I've downloaded all my pictures (which was problematic - took a half day) and half sorted them on one computer and taught with some of them from another. I've only emailed 1/3 of the people the pictures I promised (remind me if you were promised a particular picture!). I've sorted out Jewish New Year in theory, but haven't actually booked transport yet. I've booked transport and sorted out most things for Sydney in two weeks (class handouts still to go). I've paid back money I owed and spent much time at the doctor (3 hours!). I've done work for Conflux. I've done grocery shopping (bigtime).
I know that's not all. That's the worst of it, though. I suspect that it really doesn't matter how much I've done in the last week - I won't feel at all happy until I've actually done some of the big and urgent things still on my list.
Today I shall do much. Or else...
August 10, 2011
gillpolack @ 2011-08-10T13:09:00
Apparently I still act jetlagged. This scored me two cups of chai by a concerned student, in class today. I have to admit, I feel much better for the tea, though I suspect that how much work I'm fitting into a day is as much to blame as jetlag.
It's all wonderful stuff, which helps, given the volume of work from now until October. I have four columns to write for BiblioBuffet in the next week, which means I have a huge stack of books to read. I have to process everything from my trip and get back to that novel (now that I know what I'm doing with it), I have to prepare the Sydney workshop and my magic class for next Tuesday (it's going ahead, *and* there is space for more students - perfect all round), plus there's that article I have to finish tomorrow and there's my dissertation and a novel to crit and... quite a bit more. It's a big week.
My Wednesday class, is, as ever, wonderful. Today we wrote about doorways and windows, using photos I took specially on the trip as inspiration. Also about squirrels. One of the squirrels turned into Robo-Squirrel and rode a flying motorbike (illustrated story!). Instead of quantum physics, we watched The Lost Thing (I was Evil Teacher and insisted - "I won't see it" claimed three students, but they did and they loved it) and we talked about common and proper nouns.
Next week I have a request for more pictures to write about, and for acrostics as the poetic form to accompany the quantum physics.
This post means life is back to normal!
It's all wonderful stuff, which helps, given the volume of work from now until October. I have four columns to write for BiblioBuffet in the next week, which means I have a huge stack of books to read. I have to process everything from my trip and get back to that novel (now that I know what I'm doing with it), I have to prepare the Sydney workshop and my magic class for next Tuesday (it's going ahead, *and* there is space for more students - perfect all round), plus there's that article I have to finish tomorrow and there's my dissertation and a novel to crit and... quite a bit more. It's a big week.
My Wednesday class, is, as ever, wonderful. Today we wrote about doorways and windows, using photos I took specially on the trip as inspiration. Also about squirrels. One of the squirrels turned into Robo-Squirrel and rode a flying motorbike (illustrated story!). Instead of quantum physics, we watched The Lost Thing (I was Evil Teacher and insisted - "I won't see it" claimed three students, but they did and they loved it) and we talked about common and proper nouns.
Next week I have a request for more pictures to write about, and for acrostics as the poetic form to accompany the quantum physics.
This post means life is back to normal!
August 8, 2011
Dinner Sydney 27 August
A group of us are meeting for dinner in Haberfield (probably at the post office - very nice Italian food) when I'm in Sydney. Let me know by 24 August if you want to come.
gillpolack @ 2011-08-08T16:21:00
I want to say sage things while my camera downloads to my computer (I have finally - I think - sorted it). I have two different arrangements of pictures to do from two different downloads to two different machines and one must be done by Wednesday morning.
Until this instant, my brain was full of grasshoppers and cicadas and wild harvesting in the Languedoc. I'd been looking for this information everywhere and picked some up simply by walking and by seeing what plants grew where and why (there was distinctly different vegetation in the once-gardened areas by the stream, for instance to on the decaying terracing) but the tourist people found me a book that talked about seasons and wild harvesting and about the garrigue, so my intelligent guesses have been confirmed and I can write about the place almost as if I know it. At this stage, I probably almost *do* know it - I just have to convince my brain of that. Pictures and the book on local wildlife are supposed to push my brain into a kind of strange recognition. I have to be able to walk those hills in my mind, and I'm a bit nervous. It's like Sam Gamgee leaving the Shire - I'm moving from History to Fiction. If I don't do this properly, I'll end up with a very informative and wholly turgid novel.
Last night I talked about other things, but what I was doing for the novel was thinking about access to all the places of the story and what the shape of those limestone hills mean to my intrepid timetravellers.
In other words, step by step it's slotting into place and my created world becomes habitable. Asparagus and edible snails and blackberries have all got nice firm evidence and are not things of theory. Also, I have worked out the cow problem (most of you didn't know I had a baffling problem with cows) and the answer is 'transhumance.' It sounds so much more interesting in French, too (most of my current solutions are in French - I don't know what this will do to my fiction, any more than I really know what maintaining the history brain will do to it).
Also, my castle solution actually feeds into the plot I already had. If I want a knight to be disaffected, Saint-Guilhem-le-Desert is totally the right place to send him. I chose the town because it was the last resting place of one of my favourite characters from the chansons de geste, but it was entirely the right place for so many reasons.
And now I go to see if I can play with photos.
Until this instant, my brain was full of grasshoppers and cicadas and wild harvesting in the Languedoc. I'd been looking for this information everywhere and picked some up simply by walking and by seeing what plants grew where and why (there was distinctly different vegetation in the once-gardened areas by the stream, for instance to on the decaying terracing) but the tourist people found me a book that talked about seasons and wild harvesting and about the garrigue, so my intelligent guesses have been confirmed and I can write about the place almost as if I know it. At this stage, I probably almost *do* know it - I just have to convince my brain of that. Pictures and the book on local wildlife are supposed to push my brain into a kind of strange recognition. I have to be able to walk those hills in my mind, and I'm a bit nervous. It's like Sam Gamgee leaving the Shire - I'm moving from History to Fiction. If I don't do this properly, I'll end up with a very informative and wholly turgid novel.
Last night I talked about other things, but what I was doing for the novel was thinking about access to all the places of the story and what the shape of those limestone hills mean to my intrepid timetravellers.
In other words, step by step it's slotting into place and my created world becomes habitable. Asparagus and edible snails and blackberries have all got nice firm evidence and are not things of theory. Also, I have worked out the cow problem (most of you didn't know I had a baffling problem with cows) and the answer is 'transhumance.' It sounds so much more interesting in French, too (most of my current solutions are in French - I don't know what this will do to my fiction, any more than I really know what maintaining the history brain will do to it).
Also, my castle solution actually feeds into the plot I already had. If I want a knight to be disaffected, Saint-Guilhem-le-Desert is totally the right place to send him. I chose the town because it was the last resting place of one of my favourite characters from the chansons de geste, but it was entirely the right place for so many reasons.
And now I go to see if I can play with photos.
gillpolack @ 2011-08-08T12:36:00
Sydney friends - do any of you think you might be able to put up with me for a couple of days when I come down for my next workshop at the NSW Writers' Centre? All sorts of falling-throughs have happened (sequentially) and I am without a place to stay. (If the worst comes to worst, I shall discover the joys of the city backpackers, but it's not a good teaching base and it means I won't see any friends). I arrive the last Friday in August and leave the Monday lunchtime. I can bring chocolate...
gillpolack @ 2011-08-08T10:55:00
That wonderful shop, Album, is even more impressive than I had thought, and so is the French postal system. I have all my parcels from France (as of five minutes ago) and Album kindly threw in two extra BDs. This means I have the grand total of fourteen new BDs to read. This is on top of the piles of review books I stacked last night, in an attempt to find out where I was up to. I only have ten review books still unread.
They're good review books, too. I just read a steampunk superhero novel (The Falling Machine, Andrew Mayer) and am well into the first book in a new fantasy sequence (Sword of Fire and Sea, Erin Hoffman). If I can finish the Hoffman and four research books today, then I shall be keeping up (just).
My HG Wells original (first non-serial publication, The History of Boots - which I've never actually *seen* before) arrived safely, as did my copies of Vector and other cool things from the Masterclass. I should have sent the Masterclass items with the Leeds packages, but I didn't realise just how easier life was when I wasn't carrying heavy luggage, so I left them out. Anyway, they're here, six days after I am. Hopefully the Leeds packages won't come until after Conflux. When they come, I shall be lost to the world for many days...
I also have my French Golden Age SF (bought on the banks of the Seine, for almost nothing), Zaouali's La Grande Cuisine Arabe du moyen age (with colour pictures!) and Cassagnes-Brouquet's Les metiers au Moyen Age. Plus there's a present for Mum and quite a few postcards (the Album people make rather nice postcards and they gave me a good selection - if you want to visit them online, they're at http://www.album-montpellier.com/).
And now I have all sorts of reasons to get back to work. The harder I work the sooner I reach my stacks of special treats!
They're good review books, too. I just read a steampunk superhero novel (The Falling Machine, Andrew Mayer) and am well into the first book in a new fantasy sequence (Sword of Fire and Sea, Erin Hoffman). If I can finish the Hoffman and four research books today, then I shall be keeping up (just).
My HG Wells original (first non-serial publication, The History of Boots - which I've never actually *seen* before) arrived safely, as did my copies of Vector and other cool things from the Masterclass. I should have sent the Masterclass items with the Leeds packages, but I didn't realise just how easier life was when I wasn't carrying heavy luggage, so I left them out. Anyway, they're here, six days after I am. Hopefully the Leeds packages won't come until after Conflux. When they come, I shall be lost to the world for many days...
I also have my French Golden Age SF (bought on the banks of the Seine, for almost nothing), Zaouali's La Grande Cuisine Arabe du moyen age (with colour pictures!) and Cassagnes-Brouquet's Les metiers au Moyen Age. Plus there's a present for Mum and quite a few postcards (the Album people make rather nice postcards and they gave me a good selection - if you want to visit them online, they're at http://www.album-montpellier.com/).
And now I have all sorts of reasons to get back to work. The harder I work the sooner I reach my stacks of special treats!
August 7, 2011
gillpolack @ 2011-08-07T20:25:00
I'm taking a break from the wild excitement that is my day because I complained to my UK friends that it was cold in Canberra this time of year. And it is. And I so need to let everyone know that I was right. I should have stayed in the south of France an extra fortnight. Or I should have packed the climate in my suitcase and brought it back with me.
Of course, having made a vast pot of chicken soup to scare the cold away, I forgot to have any for dinner. Instead I found myself wondering if I could make my life easier by moving back to the two books a day regime until I'm all caught up again. In reality, there is no reason why I can't read two books a day and eat chicken soup. It's other-work that interferes with reading-work. Chicken soup ought not get in the way of anything at all.
I'm talking myself into doing something with that soup, aren't I? Also in finishing at least one book tonight, in between sorting the changes I'm being sent for the cookbook and wondering if I should watch TV. Rumour has it that Eureka started here while I was away. I adore Eureka.
Of course, having made a vast pot of chicken soup to scare the cold away, I forgot to have any for dinner. Instead I found myself wondering if I could make my life easier by moving back to the two books a day regime until I'm all caught up again. In reality, there is no reason why I can't read two books a day and eat chicken soup. It's other-work that interferes with reading-work. Chicken soup ought not get in the way of anything at all.
I'm talking myself into doing something with that soup, aren't I? Also in finishing at least one book tonight, in between sorting the changes I'm being sent for the cookbook and wondering if I should watch TV. Rumour has it that Eureka started here while I was away. I adore Eureka.
gillpolack @ 2011-08-07T17:54:00
No excursions for me today. Too much Weather and too much proofreading. Although I'm making wild progress with the latter. Which is something.
It appears (and laughter, even restrained laughter, is not permitted) that I use different styles of punctuation in fiction, in matters of scholarly import, in blogging, in emails. It also appears that when more than one of these forms of punctuation come into the one document (a long document) it causes a bunch of problems.
One of the issues is that a blogging platform I used to use and an email client I loved a great deal did not handle em-dashes. Just like LJ, really, when one types in html rather than rich text. Another of the issues is, of course, that my casual style demonstrates an em-dash addiction. It's only fair, I suppose that I'm the person that gets to fix these and that I have a weather migraine to boot. I'm just hoping that no-one will mind too much if I miss a couple or if the spacing around the dashes is not entirely and perfectly consistent.
I need to do more academic writing. This sort of problem doesn't occur when I write formally. Other problems occur, of course, but I'm not facing those other problems right now. I'm facing the fact that I write using more than one punctuation style, and that, when these styles are brought together, the results are rather odd.
Anyhow, this is my wildly exciting day. If I complain about my migraine to my editor one more time, she may just strangle me...
It appears (and laughter, even restrained laughter, is not permitted) that I use different styles of punctuation in fiction, in matters of scholarly import, in blogging, in emails. It also appears that when more than one of these forms of punctuation come into the one document (a long document) it causes a bunch of problems.
One of the issues is that a blogging platform I used to use and an email client I loved a great deal did not handle em-dashes. Just like LJ, really, when one types in html rather than rich text. Another of the issues is, of course, that my casual style demonstrates an em-dash addiction. It's only fair, I suppose that I'm the person that gets to fix these and that I have a weather migraine to boot. I'm just hoping that no-one will mind too much if I miss a couple or if the spacing around the dashes is not entirely and perfectly consistent.
I need to do more academic writing. This sort of problem doesn't occur when I write formally. Other problems occur, of course, but I'm not facing those other problems right now. I'm facing the fact that I write using more than one punctuation style, and that, when these styles are brought together, the results are rather odd.
Anyhow, this is my wildly exciting day. If I complain about my migraine to my editor one more time, she may just strangle me...
August 6, 2011
gillpolack @ 2011-08-06T18:39:00
Today my body is paying for the last month. It was a wonderful month, though, and I don't regret the payment.
Also, it's time to knuckle down and do much of the slower and duller sort of work. This meant no movie today, but if I can get enough grudging work done by tomorrow, I may still get my movie.
Dinner for the next few days is roast chicken in various forms (tonight as a hot roast, after that in manner more exciting) and chicken soup. If I'm feeling like this today, then I doubt I'll feel up to cooking tomorrow or the day after or the day after that. Chicken is what I do when I can't think of what to do. Garlic and lemon chicken, with sweet potato. And the soup is the family's traditional soup. All sadly healthy.
I need some exciting news to tell you. A whole month of interesting things to say and now I'm back to declaring that it's 8.7 degrees outside. Although I've seen the early drafting of the program that Talie Helene will sing at the Conflux banquet (which meant that lots of people got spammed with banquet news today) and it's going to be very cool. Some of my favourite songs. There will be a CD. I am so going to buy that CD!
Also, it's time to knuckle down and do much of the slower and duller sort of work. This meant no movie today, but if I can get enough grudging work done by tomorrow, I may still get my movie.
Dinner for the next few days is roast chicken in various forms (tonight as a hot roast, after that in manner more exciting) and chicken soup. If I'm feeling like this today, then I doubt I'll feel up to cooking tomorrow or the day after or the day after that. Chicken is what I do when I can't think of what to do. Garlic and lemon chicken, with sweet potato. And the soup is the family's traditional soup. All sadly healthy.
I need some exciting news to tell you. A whole month of interesting things to say and now I'm back to declaring that it's 8.7 degrees outside. Although I've seen the early drafting of the program that Talie Helene will sing at the Conflux banquet (which meant that lots of people got spammed with banquet news today) and it's going to be very cool. Some of my favourite songs. There will be a CD. I am so going to buy that CD!
