Gillian Polack's Blog, page 246
June 3, 2011
gillpolack @ 2011-06-03T18:36:00
I was going to remind people that the open question season ends Sunday. You already know that, though, so I'll find something else. There's always something else to be reminded about.
For instance, giving me chocolate. Everyone needs to be reminded that I need chocolate, always. Except that today I really don't need chocolate, given I just put all the chocolate I bought for UK friends into my suitcase. It will be less daunting once I've given it all away, which is mostly in London. Right now, though, I'm wondering if I should bother packing clothes. So you don't need reminding about chocolate either. Not this time.
How about buying my books? I really shouldn't be reminding you about Life Through Cellophane, though, because copies are scarce on the ground - we're nearing the end of the print run. So, no to that one, too.
There is a weather shift in Canberra I could remind you of, except it wouldn't be so much a reminder as advance notice for the unwary. I've known long enough (about a day before the Bureau of Meteorology this time round) so that all my laundry is done and the first half is drying over the heater. My weather sense isn't nearly as well-honed outside Canberra, alas. I've lived here too long, perhaps, and can smell feel a change five hundred miles away. This is not the super power I dreamed of when I was a child.
You don't need reminding that I'm not teaching anything except my Wednesday class until I get back, or, in fact, that I'm going away. In fact, despite the chocolate-in-suitcase I'm not going away for weeks yet - my theory is that if the chocolate is in the suitcase it's not mine and therefore I can't eat it.
A couple of you possibly need reminding that you might want to actually get in touch with me before I leave, if you want to see me when I reach my ancestral shores (the shores of 1/8 of my ancestors, to be precise).
I definitely need reminding of my two books a day rule because today I have read none at all. I know today was a day off, due to eyesight, but I've had most of the day off and I have four books to read and no writing done and...I really suspect I need to remind myself not to overwork.
How about I remind us all not to overwork? Take the weekend off for me. Go to the park. Eat some chocolate.
For instance, giving me chocolate. Everyone needs to be reminded that I need chocolate, always. Except that today I really don't need chocolate, given I just put all the chocolate I bought for UK friends into my suitcase. It will be less daunting once I've given it all away, which is mostly in London. Right now, though, I'm wondering if I should bother packing clothes. So you don't need reminding about chocolate either. Not this time.
How about buying my books? I really shouldn't be reminding you about Life Through Cellophane, though, because copies are scarce on the ground - we're nearing the end of the print run. So, no to that one, too.
There is a weather shift in Canberra I could remind you of, except it wouldn't be so much a reminder as advance notice for the unwary. I've known long enough (about a day before the Bureau of Meteorology this time round) so that all my laundry is done and the first half is drying over the heater. My weather sense isn't nearly as well-honed outside Canberra, alas. I've lived here too long, perhaps, and can smell feel a change five hundred miles away. This is not the super power I dreamed of when I was a child.
You don't need reminding that I'm not teaching anything except my Wednesday class until I get back, or, in fact, that I'm going away. In fact, despite the chocolate-in-suitcase I'm not going away for weeks yet - my theory is that if the chocolate is in the suitcase it's not mine and therefore I can't eat it.
A couple of you possibly need reminding that you might want to actually get in touch with me before I leave, if you want to see me when I reach my ancestral shores (the shores of 1/8 of my ancestors, to be precise).
I definitely need reminding of my two books a day rule because today I have read none at all. I know today was a day off, due to eyesight, but I've had most of the day off and I have four books to read and no writing done and...I really suspect I need to remind myself not to overwork.
How about I remind us all not to overwork? Take the weekend off for me. Go to the park. Eat some chocolate.
June 2, 2011
gillpolack @ 2011-06-02T22:34:00
I was wondering why work seemed so hard tonight and why television wasn't something I wanted to turn on. It appeared my eyes are having an off day. Everything I write has to be rechecked because it comes out oddly. This is only happening every few weeks, mostly when I'm overtired and there are weather shifts. I've really made a lot of progress since early last year, when it was 100% of the time. It means that I won't get much done today or tomorrow. I'll have to shift some of my deadlines. Most of my deadlines are re-arrangeable for the next couple of weeks in any case - the important thing at this stage is that I finish a set group of things, not that I do it in any given order or at any given time.
My big aims for the next few days are a close read of a big book (with much note-taking) and weaving strands of found stuff into my novel. neither of these are possible tonight, so I'm reading a Penelope Lively book. It has big print and it's purely for fun (if my eyes fill in words or phrases I won't pay for it later).
The problem with books by Lively is that I keep thinking I've read them before. Sometimes I have and the cover has deceived me. Sometimes it's the familiar characters or incidents. Still, I have to keep reading, just in case it's a new book. In the case of this volume, however, I have the sneaking suspicion I read it just two years ago, and then put it on the wrong pile...
I need to take time and re-alphabeticise my fiction. What I need, in fact, is a group of friends who love books and want to do it with me. I shall make lots of ice and get out my home-made liqueurs and declare open season on my library this summer. Books will be borrowable and coffee will be unlimited. There will be food at mealtimes and movies or board games in the evenings. There will be library floorspace for anyone who wants to sleep over and get the full L-Space experience. Until then, I'll put a book away here and a book away there and wonder where my shelf space went.
My big aims for the next few days are a close read of a big book (with much note-taking) and weaving strands of found stuff into my novel. neither of these are possible tonight, so I'm reading a Penelope Lively book. It has big print and it's purely for fun (if my eyes fill in words or phrases I won't pay for it later).
The problem with books by Lively is that I keep thinking I've read them before. Sometimes I have and the cover has deceived me. Sometimes it's the familiar characters or incidents. Still, I have to keep reading, just in case it's a new book. In the case of this volume, however, I have the sneaking suspicion I read it just two years ago, and then put it on the wrong pile...
I need to take time and re-alphabeticise my fiction. What I need, in fact, is a group of friends who love books and want to do it with me. I shall make lots of ice and get out my home-made liqueurs and declare open season on my library this summer. Books will be borrowable and coffee will be unlimited. There will be food at mealtimes and movies or board games in the evenings. There will be library floorspace for anyone who wants to sleep over and get the full L-Space experience. Until then, I'll put a book away here and a book away there and wonder where my shelf space went.
gillpolack @ 2011-06-02T18:34:00
It doesn't matter what I read today, my mind keeps coming back to the fact that the Big Message books and the writers who get written up as change agents mostly only change their immediate world, the world that's already convinced that they will change when they read this book or this author. Not always, Sometimes it's possible to pick up a big name book and have your world shatter and crystallise into a new form as a result.
Mostly it's the quieter stories, the ones that don't get the attention that provoke real change. This is partly because they *are* quieter - there isn't a big public reaction, readers don't know what to expect: this means that the reader can react to the book in their own way and carry more of it away with them.
Challenge doesn't provoke change nearly as easily as does taking something into one's heart. If it's soapbox vs a cup of tea and a scone, the cup of tea and a scone wins hands down ninety nine times out of a hundred. Soapbox gets told it wins, however, because, let's face it, it's easier to talk about a soapbox message. For one thing, it's not so personal.
Eventually, if you add my posts together over a long period of time, you might get one decent thought. Today's part-thought has to be added to several posts from the last three months. It's not quite one decent thought yet, but maybe, one day...
Mostly it's the quieter stories, the ones that don't get the attention that provoke real change. This is partly because they *are* quieter - there isn't a big public reaction, readers don't know what to expect: this means that the reader can react to the book in their own way and carry more of it away with them.
Challenge doesn't provoke change nearly as easily as does taking something into one's heart. If it's soapbox vs a cup of tea and a scone, the cup of tea and a scone wins hands down ninety nine times out of a hundred. Soapbox gets told it wins, however, because, let's face it, it's easier to talk about a soapbox message. For one thing, it's not so personal.
Eventually, if you add my posts together over a long period of time, you might get one decent thought. Today's part-thought has to be added to several posts from the last three months. It's not quite one decent thought yet, but maybe, one day...
Conquilting
I tried to post about this in Facebook, mainly so that everyone could see what a gorgeous quilt is up for sale. It's a fundraiser for Continuum and contains the signatures of many of the good and great and the occasional odd sod like myself.
The result is gorgeous and so very collectible (despite my signature). Anyhow, Facebook wouldn't post it, so you may have to go to the site directly to find the quilt. I was being witty, so it's probably just as well FB didn't want to post my comment.
The result is gorgeous and so very collectible (despite my signature). Anyhow, Facebook wouldn't post it, so you may have to go to the site directly to find the quilt. I was being witty, so it's probably just as well FB didn't want to post my comment.
June 1, 2011
Quantum Poet Day
I sorted my problem with verbs today, by teaching the relative nature of nouns and verbs and how crucial they are to make operational sentences. Now we can move onto nouns, gracefully. I'll get back to verbs later.
Alliteration was a great deal of fun to teach, as it should be. It proved to be a lovely vehicle for showing people how language and poetry work together. It would have been cooler if I hadn't somehow left half my examples at home, but the first set of poems my class wrote provided exactly the right tools. Actually, it worked better using their own examples ("Could you hear how J has anticipated that there will be a rhyme and that he's adjusted his rhythm to foreshadow that rhyme and how this expectation of rhyme drags the alliteration down?" Yes, they could. Not only could they hear, but they could then write rhymelessly and still poetically. This is a bit of a breakthrough for some of them, as they were taught in school that any batch of words slung together charmingly was poetry. Today they started their reading with an awareness of the underlying feel of the language, and it really, really showed, both in that reading and when they came to writing.
I think my favourite question of the day was about the use of foreign words when writing alliteratively. We discussed acclimatisation and how long it took for a word borrowed from somewhere else to take on the necessary colouration, and we also discussed which languages were more likely to support their poetry and which to undermine. I used French as a language that undermines the beat that I hear in alliterative poetry. Now that I think about it, I don't know if that's French or if that's the way I personally hear French. I know the theory of why the romance languages don't alliterate as strongly as English, but in reality, I want to test this and question. I want to pick up some Baudelaire and see if I am make him boom.
Word of the day was 'classical' and we know now the shape of a wave. We also know the behaviour of a wave when there is nothing to interfere with its formation. This led to an interesting discussion of the relationship of tsunamis with light (the shape of the wave), which, if anyone is still playing along with the quantum physics and poetry thing at home, would be a rather intersting subject for a piece of alliterative verse.
And that was my Wednesday morning.
Alliteration was a great deal of fun to teach, as it should be. It proved to be a lovely vehicle for showing people how language and poetry work together. It would have been cooler if I hadn't somehow left half my examples at home, but the first set of poems my class wrote provided exactly the right tools. Actually, it worked better using their own examples ("Could you hear how J has anticipated that there will be a rhyme and that he's adjusted his rhythm to foreshadow that rhyme and how this expectation of rhyme drags the alliteration down?" Yes, they could. Not only could they hear, but they could then write rhymelessly and still poetically. This is a bit of a breakthrough for some of them, as they were taught in school that any batch of words slung together charmingly was poetry. Today they started their reading with an awareness of the underlying feel of the language, and it really, really showed, both in that reading and when they came to writing.
I think my favourite question of the day was about the use of foreign words when writing alliteratively. We discussed acclimatisation and how long it took for a word borrowed from somewhere else to take on the necessary colouration, and we also discussed which languages were more likely to support their poetry and which to undermine. I used French as a language that undermines the beat that I hear in alliterative poetry. Now that I think about it, I don't know if that's French or if that's the way I personally hear French. I know the theory of why the romance languages don't alliterate as strongly as English, but in reality, I want to test this and question. I want to pick up some Baudelaire and see if I am make him boom.
Word of the day was 'classical' and we know now the shape of a wave. We also know the behaviour of a wave when there is nothing to interfere with its formation. This led to an interesting discussion of the relationship of tsunamis with light (the shape of the wave), which, if anyone is still playing along with the quantum physics and poetry thing at home, would be a rather intersting subject for a piece of alliterative verse.
And that was my Wednesday morning.
May 31, 2011
gillpolack @ 2011-05-31T22:44:00
Tomorrow I'm teaching alliteration and light. I haven't done my homework on what the quantum physics book says next about light, so I have absolutely no idea what approach I'm going to take. Except... I was going to use Beowulf and perhaps some Middle English poetry. I was thinking, of course, of the Dream of the Rood. My class would have loved it, but it would be bad, bad teaching. We'd digress for the full class into the stuff of linguistics and my science enthusiasts would be not exactly happy. I have a selection of modern poetry that will do. It's not the Dream of the Rood, however, which is a vast sorrow.
Also, I have to decide if tomorrow is the day to talk about the conditional, or if I want to talk about sentence parts or maybe something else.
They want grammar, my class, but they want everything at once, in a kind of instant infusion. They're willing to put the work in, but it's slow going and I want to leave them with an understanding of how English operates rather than with a detailed list of terminology. One student counted (last week) how often I explained that being able to conjugate 20 pages of verbs did not actually mean that one can use those verbs properly. I guess I have a thing about tables of conjugation used as a prop instead of actually learning to use a language. Also, two of my students wanted to be able to create tables. I think we were all surprised when I turned obdurate.
My class wants to write beautifully - that's its main aim - not to produce perfect grammarians. This means they're going to learn how to manipulate verb forms in contexts, possibly in contexts that incorporate the dead bodies of a couple of natural grammarians. I think I'll leave the battle for another week and look at nouns, then adjectives, then adverbs and so on. When we have an overview and can understand how sentences work, then I can return to verbs*.
*Don't you think this is a fine excuse for cowardice?
Also, I have to decide if tomorrow is the day to talk about the conditional, or if I want to talk about sentence parts or maybe something else.
They want grammar, my class, but they want everything at once, in a kind of instant infusion. They're willing to put the work in, but it's slow going and I want to leave them with an understanding of how English operates rather than with a detailed list of terminology. One student counted (last week) how often I explained that being able to conjugate 20 pages of verbs did not actually mean that one can use those verbs properly. I guess I have a thing about tables of conjugation used as a prop instead of actually learning to use a language. Also, two of my students wanted to be able to create tables. I think we were all surprised when I turned obdurate.
My class wants to write beautifully - that's its main aim - not to produce perfect grammarians. This means they're going to learn how to manipulate verb forms in contexts, possibly in contexts that incorporate the dead bodies of a couple of natural grammarians. I think I'll leave the battle for another week and look at nouns, then adjectives, then adverbs and so on. When we have an overview and can understand how sentences work, then I can return to verbs*.
*Don't you think this is a fine excuse for cowardice?
gillpolack @ 2011-05-31T10:58:00
News of the day: I have a gorgeous new American great-niece. When my mother asked my nephew (the baby's uncle) about her weight, J said "She's too young to worry."
May 30, 2011
gillpolack @ 2011-05-30T23:48:00
I'm re-reading The Female Man, because I really thought I ought to. I was right. I totally, totally had to. What I missed when I was a confused teenager was the humour. What I miss as a much more ancient person (with half a life behind me and with some profound social changes having happened) is the in-your-face quality. It's almost an entirely different book to the one I read when I was so very much younger. The words are familiar, and the plot and the characters, but whole categories of meaning have shifted.
What came between then and now? Being a feminist. Not arguing the ideas or wondering about what one can do, but actually trying to change the world. I want to be worried that this means I find Russ ineffably amusing (and intentionally so), but I suspect it's simply that I see the world now more the way she wrote it, then. The world is, indeed, a strange and amusing place, for all sorts of reasons that were not apparent to me when I was a teenager.
Canberra friends - the book is now available for loan (like most of my library). I'd love to have someone to talk with about it, face to face, this time round.
What came between then and now? Being a feminist. Not arguing the ideas or wondering about what one can do, but actually trying to change the world. I want to be worried that this means I find Russ ineffably amusing (and intentionally so), but I suspect it's simply that I see the world now more the way she wrote it, then. The world is, indeed, a strange and amusing place, for all sorts of reasons that were not apparent to me when I was a teenager.
Canberra friends - the book is now available for loan (like most of my library). I'd love to have someone to talk with about it, face to face, this time round.
Open season for questions
I would rather you asked your questions in LJ and not Facebook (my LJ account has been set so that you can, even if you don't normally use LJ). It's easier for me, and it's more interesting for everyone else.
The usual rules apply. You can ask anything - it can be about one of my areas of expertise, about my fiction, about my private life, about my forthcoming travels and my taste in alcohol. If an answer will take more than a few minutes, I won't reply (but I do have professional rates if you need history-for-writing or whatever) but if I can, I will send you to resources or institutions that may contain what you need. If your question is relates to matters historical, I know more about the Middle Ages (especially of England and France) than other periods, but I also know a bit about other periods and even some other places.
Your question doesn't have to be serious. I don't have to take your question seriously. If you ask about my shoe size or the length of a piece of string you risk being boring, because those jokes have already been made.
Is there anything else you need to know? Oh, yes. I'll answer questions up to and including Sunday this week (Canberra time). And, as usual, you don't have to know me, love me, or read my blog to ask questions*.
*In fact, you don't even have to ask questions in English, although my answers will probably be more useful if you ask in a language of which I have a reasonable knowledge. French and Spanish and their ancestors and cousins are your best bet. If anyone sends me a really good question in Old French (Poitevin is my first preference, although Champenois is also desirable) then I'll either send them something cool in the post or buy them a coffee at Leeds. I'm not quite as enthusiastic about Middle English or Latin today, for some reason, so there are no bribes available for those languages.
The usual rules apply. You can ask anything - it can be about one of my areas of expertise, about my fiction, about my private life, about my forthcoming travels and my taste in alcohol. If an answer will take more than a few minutes, I won't reply (but I do have professional rates if you need history-for-writing or whatever) but if I can, I will send you to resources or institutions that may contain what you need. If your question is relates to matters historical, I know more about the Middle Ages (especially of England and France) than other periods, but I also know a bit about other periods and even some other places.
Your question doesn't have to be serious. I don't have to take your question seriously. If you ask about my shoe size or the length of a piece of string you risk being boring, because those jokes have already been made.
Is there anything else you need to know? Oh, yes. I'll answer questions up to and including Sunday this week (Canberra time). And, as usual, you don't have to know me, love me, or read my blog to ask questions*.
*In fact, you don't even have to ask questions in English, although my answers will probably be more useful if you ask in a language of which I have a reasonable knowledge. French and Spanish and their ancestors and cousins are your best bet. If anyone sends me a really good question in Old French (Poitevin is my first preference, although Champenois is also desirable) then I'll either send them something cool in the post or buy them a coffee at Leeds. I'm not quite as enthusiastic about Middle English or Latin today, for some reason, so there are no bribes available for those languages.
gillpolack @ 2011-05-30T10:26:00
It's Monday morning and I've done work. This is, I think, a problem. Monday. Work. Both together. I have more work planned, too. It's going to be a long day but a good one. Also, some of my housework will be done. This is a sad state of affairs and only due to the fact that tomorrow afternoon is all about messages and cardiologist. what I don't do today interferes with the rest of the week, and my rest of the week is quite busy enough already, thank you. I'll be back to the 2+ books a day by that stage, you see.
Despite this, there will be a question post. In about five minutes, there will be a question post. One set of questions has already been asked and answered, hopefully usefully (thank you, Mary!) and all others will be answered on the post.
Despite this, there will be a question post. In about five minutes, there will be a question post. One set of questions has already been asked and answered, hopefully usefully (thank you, Mary!) and all others will be answered on the post.
