Gillian Polack's Blog, page 24
August 9, 2015
gillpolack @ 2015-08-10T13:19:00
I caught up with all my medical stuff (so much waiting) by lunchtime. I'm now not hungry. There were blood tests so I was fasting, but I'm simply not hungry. What I intend to do shortly is warm up my PJs and spend the rest of the day working as if I'd just emerged from bed. If I can't live the life of a hedonist I can at least look as if I am. Appearances are important.
What I did while waiting was finish some reading for an article. This means that while I wait tomorrow (for this is the week of the annual checks on this and that) I shall finish drafting my ideas for it, which means that on Wednesday I get the signal honour of writing the thing after teaching and messages and meeting a friend for coffee. All of these are time when I wouldn't have got stuff on the book done, for I can't get to my regular computer, so it works out rather well. Or it will, by Wednesday night. This means that on Thursday I am back to my regular schedule, just in the nick of time.
My planning will quite possibly go awry, but at least I'm planning! Also, I'm so much better than five years ago. I've not fallen behind on work and I've made all my teaching (and taught well, I'm told). Even with the eye and the checks that follow I am doing fulltime work. Whatever is wrong with me hasn't been serious for a while. It might affect my capacity to do messages, but I can still work long hours. Since I am someone who really likes working*, this is a Very Good Thing.
My big news is that my emails are down to 150. One day they will be tamed again, but that day has not yet come. It's really slow, with the eye, is the problem. I am getting there, however.
In nicer news my fifty daffs are all shining splendidly in my kitchen. Every time I go in there I blink at the brightness and I smile.
Also, is it my imagination or was much English folkstuff founded on 17th century culture? The dances, the music and even a lot of the folklore are very familiar. And does this mean that morris dancing is basically 17th century? It wouldn't surprise me, given the dance patterns. If this is all true, then it means that English folklife modernised and stabilised before English intellectual life. Something in me finds this highly amusing.
*I always have been, even when I was little. It used to drive my mother crazy. I don't understand it, myself. My life would've been a lot easier if I were someone who really likes parties, for instance. And really liking working means I need the right job. There are Complications to enjoying work.
What I did while waiting was finish some reading for an article. This means that while I wait tomorrow (for this is the week of the annual checks on this and that) I shall finish drafting my ideas for it, which means that on Wednesday I get the signal honour of writing the thing after teaching and messages and meeting a friend for coffee. All of these are time when I wouldn't have got stuff on the book done, for I can't get to my regular computer, so it works out rather well. Or it will, by Wednesday night. This means that on Thursday I am back to my regular schedule, just in the nick of time.
My planning will quite possibly go awry, but at least I'm planning! Also, I'm so much better than five years ago. I've not fallen behind on work and I've made all my teaching (and taught well, I'm told). Even with the eye and the checks that follow I am doing fulltime work. Whatever is wrong with me hasn't been serious for a while. It might affect my capacity to do messages, but I can still work long hours. Since I am someone who really likes working*, this is a Very Good Thing.
My big news is that my emails are down to 150. One day they will be tamed again, but that day has not yet come. It's really slow, with the eye, is the problem. I am getting there, however.
In nicer news my fifty daffs are all shining splendidly in my kitchen. Every time I go in there I blink at the brightness and I smile.
Also, is it my imagination or was much English folkstuff founded on 17th century culture? The dances, the music and even a lot of the folklore are very familiar. And does this mean that morris dancing is basically 17th century? It wouldn't surprise me, given the dance patterns. If this is all true, then it means that English folklife modernised and stabilised before English intellectual life. Something in me finds this highly amusing.
*I always have been, even when I was little. It used to drive my mother crazy. I don't understand it, myself. My life would've been a lot easier if I were someone who really likes parties, for instance. And really liking working means I need the right job. There are Complications to enjoying work.
gillpolack @ 2015-08-10T08:12:00
Today is I-miss-my-father Day aka the anniversary of his death. My birth father, not my stepfather, for those who tangle the two. I never tangle the two. I am quite like Dad in many ways, and in just as many ways I am quite different to him. In ten years time I will have lived as long as he did.
No jokes today. Those are for his birthday, this year. I don't feel funny today: I just miss him. I've a yahrzeit candle burning and I'm quietly getting through everything. I've already played the song he hated but I loved, just to remember the complaints.
It doesn't matter how long a parent is dead, one still misses them.
I'll be ringing Mum alter today and talking about everything except Dad, I expect. Some years we talk about Dad and some years we carefully avoid it. We always talk.
No jokes today. Those are for his birthday, this year. I don't feel funny today: I just miss him. I've a yahrzeit candle burning and I'm quietly getting through everything. I've already played the song he hated but I loved, just to remember the complaints.
It doesn't matter how long a parent is dead, one still misses them.
I'll be ringing Mum alter today and talking about everything except Dad, I expect. Some years we talk about Dad and some years we carefully avoid it. We always talk.
A bit of news, but mostly chatter
Chapter Seven of the research book keeps changing, but is, I think, nearly done.
My right eye also keeps changing, but is not nearly done. I can see more colour, which is a bit miraculous, and the right eye now tracks alongside the other eye and lets me know smugly that it was quite capable of this all the time and was just annoying me earlier, because it chose to focus on its inward vision rather than the outside world.
The rapid changes in vision make me dizzy, alas, and the Eye Clinic's solution of a special patch was easier said than done. When I can get it, I'll get it, and until then I'll continue to limit my activity. I can deal with the dizziness and the need to avoid crossing roads alone or handling sharp objects (also only putting out rubbish when I must, for it involves walking through car parks, and the cars come from the right and I can't see them coming!), because the change was significant today. Every bit that improves, I am more likely to get complete vision back without an operation and its accompanying problems. It's a big breakthrough to be able to use both my eyes, however. It means I see funny things in my whole vision and they fade as I glance left: this is a lot better than the glare of the previous month!
Also, today, for the first time since this happened, my vision has not given me a severe headache (I am a painkiller free zone!). I am listening to music as a natural consequence. I started with Piaf but have somehow migrated to 17th century music. Somewhere not very deep in me my novel wants me to return to that research.
Also, if the vision keeps improving apace, I'll have my editing-level vision back and will be able to do a bit of paid editing and to catch up on emails.
My right eye also keeps changing, but is not nearly done. I can see more colour, which is a bit miraculous, and the right eye now tracks alongside the other eye and lets me know smugly that it was quite capable of this all the time and was just annoying me earlier, because it chose to focus on its inward vision rather than the outside world.
The rapid changes in vision make me dizzy, alas, and the Eye Clinic's solution of a special patch was easier said than done. When I can get it, I'll get it, and until then I'll continue to limit my activity. I can deal with the dizziness and the need to avoid crossing roads alone or handling sharp objects (also only putting out rubbish when I must, for it involves walking through car parks, and the cars come from the right and I can't see them coming!), because the change was significant today. Every bit that improves, I am more likely to get complete vision back without an operation and its accompanying problems. It's a big breakthrough to be able to use both my eyes, however. It means I see funny things in my whole vision and they fade as I glance left: this is a lot better than the glare of the previous month!
Also, today, for the first time since this happened, my vision has not given me a severe headache (I am a painkiller free zone!). I am listening to music as a natural consequence. I started with Piaf but have somehow migrated to 17th century music. Somewhere not very deep in me my novel wants me to return to that research.
Also, if the vision keeps improving apace, I'll have my editing-level vision back and will be able to do a bit of paid editing and to catch up on emails.
August 8, 2015
gillpolack @ 2015-08-09T11:49:00
I got an extra trip to the market today, for there will be none next week. I bought a bunch of the best mint ever, and many cucumbers.
gillpolack @ 2015-08-08T18:11:00
Today is when I complain because things are going well. I gained a little more sight in my right eye and I am still short the correct eye patch, so it leaves me dizzy and confused. It will pass, though, when the vision stablises again, and it's a very good thing to have, this little bit of vision. I can see that there is a TV now when I cover my left eye, though I still can't make out anything on it. There is enough light for me to make out vague shapes. This is wonderful and, as I said, dizzying.
This morning on the way to market there was a very deep mist and I realised that this is what the trouble is with the eye. It's why it glares and shouts. The vision in my right eye has been swallowed by a profound white-grey mist, with the sun and shapes hidden behind it and all colour muted to monochrome. Crawling through the mist are the black spiders. Erratic. Sprawly. Very dark and ugly. And that's my vision. And this afternoon the mist became just a little less dense.
When I cease being dizzy, I shall be smug. In the interim, I'll use the patches that worked for the worse vision, sleep when I can, and wait for one that will work for this interim vision. And, one day, it seems I shall see more. It's no longer hypothetical.
In my more regular news, I emerged from the market this morning with three types of citrus (tangelo, mandarines and early navel oranges), a dozen very tiny very organic fresh eggs, and fifty half-open daffs. Tomorrow morning I expect to walk into my kitchen and live the Wordsworth. Spring is on its way.
Today is, overall, oddly reassuring. it's the bud that heralds the sun rising at a decent time and the weather being warmer.
This morning on the way to market there was a very deep mist and I realised that this is what the trouble is with the eye. It's why it glares and shouts. The vision in my right eye has been swallowed by a profound white-grey mist, with the sun and shapes hidden behind it and all colour muted to monochrome. Crawling through the mist are the black spiders. Erratic. Sprawly. Very dark and ugly. And that's my vision. And this afternoon the mist became just a little less dense.
When I cease being dizzy, I shall be smug. In the interim, I'll use the patches that worked for the worse vision, sleep when I can, and wait for one that will work for this interim vision. And, one day, it seems I shall see more. It's no longer hypothetical.
In my more regular news, I emerged from the market this morning with three types of citrus (tangelo, mandarines and early navel oranges), a dozen very tiny very organic fresh eggs, and fifty half-open daffs. Tomorrow morning I expect to walk into my kitchen and live the Wordsworth. Spring is on its way.
Today is, overall, oddly reassuring. it's the bud that heralds the sun rising at a decent time and the weather being warmer.
August 6, 2015
gillpolack @ 2015-08-07T15:43:00
My right eye is improving very slowly and they're still not in a position to decide about the operation. We now know what's wrong with it (posterior vitreous bleeding) though not why it happens. Just like last time, my pupils are (four hours after I came home) still so very much dilated that everything screams at me. Only for some reason today it's all so much brighter. The world glares at me and I half-hardheartedly glare back.
Anyhow, the good news is that the blood is clearing and it's now cleared enough to check everything behind it and in it and my eye is fundamentally sound. This is a lot better than was feared two weeks ago. It's still such bad bleeding that someone entirely knew said exciting things about it, but there's no fear for my long term eyesight and even the operation may not have to happen.
I'll be dealing with this strange impaired vision for a while, it seems, but I now have some advice on a contraption that can be home made and that cuts down the headaches at once. When eh world stops shouting at my eyes, I will be able to use scissors and make a temporary version using brown paper and things will be far better from then. I've asked a friend who can sew if they can help with the two-week version, but that can't happen until next week.
And y friends are still being wonderfully supportive and today I didn't have to face traffic without enough eyesight to handle it safely.
There is no other news. There ought to be, but there isn't. Sorry!
Anyhow, the good news is that the blood is clearing and it's now cleared enough to check everything behind it and in it and my eye is fundamentally sound. This is a lot better than was feared two weeks ago. It's still such bad bleeding that someone entirely knew said exciting things about it, but there's no fear for my long term eyesight and even the operation may not have to happen.
I'll be dealing with this strange impaired vision for a while, it seems, but I now have some advice on a contraption that can be home made and that cuts down the headaches at once. When eh world stops shouting at my eyes, I will be able to use scissors and make a temporary version using brown paper and things will be far better from then. I've asked a friend who can sew if they can help with the two-week version, but that can't happen until next week.
And y friends are still being wonderfully supportive and today I didn't have to face traffic without enough eyesight to handle it safely.
There is no other news. There ought to be, but there isn't. Sorry!
August 5, 2015
gillpolack @ 2015-08-06T15:08:00
I had a lovely evening off. Now I'm finishing stray notes and then I'm going to go through Chapter Seven one more time, since I have some issues with it still. All of this is putting off my nervousness abut tomorrow, for tomorrow is when the eye gets checked next. Watch this space.
August 4, 2015
gillpolack @ 2015-08-05T13:15:00
Teaching was tricksty today. This week is a Gollum week. We got through it and were gentle to each other when we realised that things were going to be fragile and all is well. When I got home, I checked the weather and realised that the problem is in the wind. We were all reacting to it. It's got a sharp chill to it (while it's technically nine degrees outside right now, for instance, it feels like zero). I gave them warming writing and a bit longer for morning tea and, as I said, it all worked out. Some days are fragile days, is all, and some groups are more likely to be affected by those days.
What I want to do is have a nap, but writing beckons. I'm getting the evening off, with friends, though, so it's worth pushing through this afternoon.
What I want to do is have a nap, but writing beckons. I'm getting the evening off, with friends, though, so it's worth pushing through this afternoon.
August 3, 2015
gillpolack @ 2015-08-04T11:59:00
Chapter Five turned out to be tricksy. You've possibly guessed that, since I almost finished a draft several days ago and the 'almost' lasted long. I now, in fact, have finished a draft and it's quite different to its previous manifestations and it makes sense of a lot of stuff and... I now have to shed a few thousand words in the remaining chapters. That's the trouble with unexpected insights, they cost words, and the trouble with them late in the process is they cost words when all the words have been allocated. Chapter Six has much detail and far less theory, so I hope to lose 1000 words there. And my Chapter Five has done evil things to my last ten thousand words, so they're kinda up for grabs. Some of the content will remain, but the argument has developed. All this means is that my book is much scarier than I had meant it to be.
What I'm noticing is that this is quite different to the way I write a novel. The changes are dire, but I still have my underlying argument and I still have the same body of evidence. It's closer to a genre novel than to a literary novel because of the underlying body of evidence (which structurally meets the same needs as the plot points and story arcs one ends for a genre novel) but it really isn't like either. Some of the writing processes overlap, which is reassuring.
Anyhow, I'm down to my last twenty thousand words. The end is in sight. And very few of those words need to be written fro scratch, because I have early drafts of much of it. This is good, for three chapters more and I'm down to editing.
My eyesight plays a very odd role in this. I had to re-read Chapter Five two extra times just to make sure I was making sense, for I read what I wanted to read at some stages, because reading what was on the page was disrupted. At this moment I am very thankful for Van and Stu, who are also reading it. Some journeys by trapeze need the safety net.
On a happier note, I've discovered that I am much closer to reading things normally than I was 2 weeks ago. I'll be back to normal editing and etc in a week or so (which is good, for I have a copy-editing job to do, and it's a fun one), even if the eye isn't fully functional. I don't know if this means the eye is clearing or if it means I'm learning to use it more effectively, but either way works for me.
What I'm noticing is that this is quite different to the way I write a novel. The changes are dire, but I still have my underlying argument and I still have the same body of evidence. It's closer to a genre novel than to a literary novel because of the underlying body of evidence (which structurally meets the same needs as the plot points and story arcs one ends for a genre novel) but it really isn't like either. Some of the writing processes overlap, which is reassuring.
Anyhow, I'm down to my last twenty thousand words. The end is in sight. And very few of those words need to be written fro scratch, because I have early drafts of much of it. This is good, for three chapters more and I'm down to editing.
My eyesight plays a very odd role in this. I had to re-read Chapter Five two extra times just to make sure I was making sense, for I read what I wanted to read at some stages, because reading what was on the page was disrupted. At this moment I am very thankful for Van and Stu, who are also reading it. Some journeys by trapeze need the safety net.
On a happier note, I've discovered that I am much closer to reading things normally than I was 2 weeks ago. I'll be back to normal editing and etc in a week or so (which is good, for I have a copy-editing job to do, and it's a fun one), even if the eye isn't fully functional. I don't know if this means the eye is clearing or if it means I'm learning to use it more effectively, but either way works for me.
August 2, 2015
gillpolack @ 2015-08-03T11:19:00
My right eye doesn't like this wind. It turns it misty and aggravates it. It's still not as annoying as two weeks ago, but it's a lot more annoying than it was on Saturday. Eye patches and etc help, and so today will be the big day of work I planned, but with many tea breaks. And that's my eye update.
My other update is far more personal. I've been trying to work out for years why some people fall naturally into tropes and the centre of current genre and think their work is original and others don't and are certain their work is derivative and why so many people use a bit of this and a bit of that in their writing. I've also been trying to work out why, in all these years of teaching, the people how say "I'm writing for market, not from my inner core of total passion that this novel must be written" are less likely to find a publisher quickly. All these things are linked. Not unexpectedly, really, It's just that I've been accepting the public statements about novels which isn't the same at all as what writers actually do. Some reflects the reality of sitting down to write, and some reflects the same narratives we put in our fiction and for pretty much the same reasons ie we have stories about writing, the same way we have stories within writing.
And on that tantalising note, I shall leave you, for I'm not ready to research this and give proper explanations. What I'm ready for now is to finish my book on writers and history. I'm exceptionally happy, however, that history turned out to be a way in to understanding a range of other cultural issues, for what I am, au fond, is a cultural historian. I have a driving need to understand why we do the things we do and what contexts we create for ourselves.
there's a real joy in being able to distinguish between the stages of creation and interpreting a work after publication. I'm so used, as a historian, to dealing with dead people and trying to interrogate the record after it's in its final form. Finding its final form and working with mixed forms can be fun, and can be very tricky, but being able to study culture as it's developing and find out what makes it tick is immensely wonderful. Also, not as much studied as I expected. (We do tend to feel safer with studying even current writers as if they are dead.) The processes of culture are rich and varied and ever-changing and have constants and none of this is quite as visible if one focusses on a book or story as a final product. And now you know why I'm doing fewer book reviews and less traditional criticism than I used to. I'm focussed on this other stuff.
This other stuff feeds directly into my teaching, and will probably get me into much trouble (most things I do tend to get me into trouble) and it will all come to a sad end if I don't get income, but it's so much fun to turn cultural history inside out and examine it from that direction. At the very least, it feeds my fiction. I am growing as a writer by looking at cultural constructs that envelop fiction and by seeing all narratives as part of living, breathing societies and their active culture-shaping inhabitants.
PS Did I remember to tell you to watch for the next issue of Foundation?
My other update is far more personal. I've been trying to work out for years why some people fall naturally into tropes and the centre of current genre and think their work is original and others don't and are certain their work is derivative and why so many people use a bit of this and a bit of that in their writing. I've also been trying to work out why, in all these years of teaching, the people how say "I'm writing for market, not from my inner core of total passion that this novel must be written" are less likely to find a publisher quickly. All these things are linked. Not unexpectedly, really, It's just that I've been accepting the public statements about novels which isn't the same at all as what writers actually do. Some reflects the reality of sitting down to write, and some reflects the same narratives we put in our fiction and for pretty much the same reasons ie we have stories about writing, the same way we have stories within writing.
And on that tantalising note, I shall leave you, for I'm not ready to research this and give proper explanations. What I'm ready for now is to finish my book on writers and history. I'm exceptionally happy, however, that history turned out to be a way in to understanding a range of other cultural issues, for what I am, au fond, is a cultural historian. I have a driving need to understand why we do the things we do and what contexts we create for ourselves.
there's a real joy in being able to distinguish between the stages of creation and interpreting a work after publication. I'm so used, as a historian, to dealing with dead people and trying to interrogate the record after it's in its final form. Finding its final form and working with mixed forms can be fun, and can be very tricky, but being able to study culture as it's developing and find out what makes it tick is immensely wonderful. Also, not as much studied as I expected. (We do tend to feel safer with studying even current writers as if they are dead.) The processes of culture are rich and varied and ever-changing and have constants and none of this is quite as visible if one focusses on a book or story as a final product. And now you know why I'm doing fewer book reviews and less traditional criticism than I used to. I'm focussed on this other stuff.
This other stuff feeds directly into my teaching, and will probably get me into much trouble (most things I do tend to get me into trouble) and it will all come to a sad end if I don't get income, but it's so much fun to turn cultural history inside out and examine it from that direction. At the very least, it feeds my fiction. I am growing as a writer by looking at cultural constructs that envelop fiction and by seeing all narratives as part of living, breathing societies and their active culture-shaping inhabitants.
PS Did I remember to tell you to watch for the next issue of Foundation?
