Gillian Polack's Blog, page 253
April 27, 2011
gillpolack @ 2011-04-27T11:03:00
I was writing (I know, it's a terrible habit and I ought to shake it) and I realised that all my narrators are unreliable. Every single one of them. Charming and often knowledgable , but not trustworthy.
April 26, 2011
gillpolack @ 2011-04-26T19:53:00
My mother has been carefully examining family photos recently. We have determined (after much consideration) that I do not look at all like my father's first cousin when she was 103.
April 25, 2011
Competition extension
I talked about a competition here: http://gillpolack.livejournal.com/788863.html
Much chocolate cake (my friends tonight surprised me with some wonderful, wonderful things) and wine and I feel almost terrifyingly mellow. Since the committee isn't meeting until Sunday, you can all have until Thursday night to get entries in. Mary Victoria is still the person to beat. (I think I'll render your entries anonymous before putting them before the committee, though, just to be fair.)
And now, I need to go play with my birthday presents. Also to jump around happily for a bit. And watch Smallville (borrowed from Val and Mike). And maybe to wear off a bit of amazing birthday food. And to smile about the joy in life that good friends bring with them, in and of themselves and also in the bags they carry.
If any of you have any worries about turning fifty, dismiss them now. It's a very good place to be.
PS There were indeed yachts at the Yacht Club and the lake almost had ripples.
Much chocolate cake (my friends tonight surprised me with some wonderful, wonderful things) and wine and I feel almost terrifyingly mellow. Since the committee isn't meeting until Sunday, you can all have until Thursday night to get entries in. Mary Victoria is still the person to beat. (I think I'll render your entries anonymous before putting them before the committee, though, just to be fair.)
And now, I need to go play with my birthday presents. Also to jump around happily for a bit. And watch Smallville (borrowed from Val and Mike). And maybe to wear off a bit of amazing birthday food. And to smile about the joy in life that good friends bring with them, in and of themselves and also in the bags they carry.
If any of you have any worries about turning fifty, dismiss them now. It's a very good place to be.
PS There were indeed yachts at the Yacht Club and the lake almost had ripples.
gillpolack @ 2011-04-25T13:34:00
My birthday present to myself (I always give myself a birthday present) is my new BiblioBuffet article. You've seen the makings of it already, on this blog: http://www.bibliobuffet.com/bookish-dreaming
My god-daughter is totally gorgeous and has just turned 22 months. She and I like the same cheese and the same toys. She fell in love with a certain crowing cock a friend gave me and her mother was *so* happy that it stays here rather than goes back to Melbourne.
My god-daughter is totally gorgeous and has just turned 22 months. She and I like the same cheese and the same toys. She fell in love with a certain crowing cock a friend gave me and her mother was *so* happy that it stays here rather than goes back to Melbourne.
gillpolack @ 2011-04-25T10:59:00
My birthday is short on breath (although not as short as last night - everything is now rsepectably stable) but long on friendship. I even have a birthday cake. Did I say that? A friend brought me a kosher for Passover cake over from the US and dropped in the other day to leave it with me. I get a splendrous cake at my birthday party (Sharyn has threatened me with one) but I get a neat layered choc cake today, seasonally edible. And, in about a ahlf hour, a few of my friends are dropping by.
I'm having a lovely birthday - thank you all.
I'm having a lovely birthday - thank you all.
April 24, 2011
gillpolack @ 2011-04-25T04:47:00
The excitement of being me means that tonight I've got a lot of work done, unexpectedly. It's a weather thing, mostly. There was a strange shift from 2 am and it gave me an even stranger asthma attack. I worked until 2 am and slept for two hours. Right now, I can't lie down and breathe at the same time.
This is not the end of the universe as we know it, but it does mean I'm rather glad that my birthday is an extended one.
I've run out of work that's not writing or reading (the brain is only operative at certain levels when there is this little oxygen in the lungs) and so I'm going to have to try to sleep again. Wish me luck!
PS I haven't seen all the Ditmar results yet because of the asthma. I'll take a proper look later in the week. In the meantime, congrats to everyone.
This is not the end of the universe as we know it, but it does mean I'm rather glad that my birthday is an extended one.
I've run out of work that's not writing or reading (the brain is only operative at certain levels when there is this little oxygen in the lungs) and so I'm going to have to try to sleep again. Wish me luck!
PS I haven't seen all the Ditmar results yet because of the asthma. I'll take a proper look later in the week. In the meantime, congrats to everyone.
gillpolack @ 2011-04-24T11:21:00
I've finished my readathon for my PhD. There'll be another starting Wednesday, when more books come in. I have back-pack of books to return on that day.
I promised myself a bunch of writing once this was done and yet I have written nothing. This is because somehow, just somehow, I had forgotten to sort out some crucial parts of my Europe itinerary.
I needed to find out if Pezenas still has the remnants of building that I need (1), whether Saint-Guilhem-le-Desert teaches about the garrigue and its wildlife(2), whether there are any markets on suitable days anywhere I'm going, how far the Devil's Bridge is (walking) from Aniane and from Saint-Guilhem-le-Desert (4), how much it costs to get into the York museums I must go to (5), details of what's available medievalishly for Montpellier and Beziers and their days of closing (6), if the Herault bus network gets everywhere I need (7), various things about Aigues-Mortes including a street plan (8), details of the Montpellier transport system (9), city maps for most places (10), if I need to book anything in advance apart from accommodation (11) and so on (12).
And now all of ye-who-love-footnotes should be happy. I have intentionally formatted this so that there are more footnotes than post.
1. No, but the related ones are webbed and I only need to go through the town, not stop, which is good, because Pezenas has the least good tourist interface for historians of any place I had planned to visit
2. No, but Gignac might - I've written one email and have one still to write - my French failed me at 1 am - and this means that Gignac now replaces Pezenas on my places-I-must-visit list.
3. Possibly.
4. Still not certain - different maps say different things. There may, however, be a tourist shuttle bus from near the bridge to Saint-Guilhem, which'd do me fine.
5. I can spend a lot on a Yorkshire Pass or half that on just the ones I need to see - the York tourist information is excellent, the Yorkshire Pass information, less so.
6. Haven't managed to solve this one yet, though Beziers might be sending me a brochure. I just need to know about their garden.
7. It goes to Saint-Guilhem-le-Desert albeit with a restricted timetable and to Gignac, but I will need to book a train to Beziers. This is why I'm doing all this early work - much cheaper to book trains early.
8. The tourism folk for Aigues-Mortes totally, totally rock. Everything I needed is in one downloadable booklet, which, unlike the Herault booklets was actually saveable. I not only have a map, I have an annotated map telling me what was built when. I was so excited about this that I forgot to check transport to the town!
9. Very mixed information. Some of it is clear and some of it is very strange. I rather suspect I will need to visit the tourist info centre in Montpellier and ask questions, my first day.
10. I have htem for about half the places I need. I can't work out whether there's a path direct from the railway station in York to the guesthouse (it would be along the railway line if there were one) or if I have to go into town and out again because of bridges. Google Earth will solve this and also my Montpellier map issues. What I wanted was simple street maps to get me around. Again, with Montpellier, the tourist information service is essential. For some other places, however, I am all solved.
11. York encourages it but charges for it, as well. I need to find out if the queues are really, really bad in July - if they are then it's worth doing the timed and advance bookings and then queue-jumping. For other places, no-one seems to know.
12. I've run out of steam, right now, just as I ran out of French last night.
I promised myself a bunch of writing once this was done and yet I have written nothing. This is because somehow, just somehow, I had forgotten to sort out some crucial parts of my Europe itinerary.
I needed to find out if Pezenas still has the remnants of building that I need (1), whether Saint-Guilhem-le-Desert teaches about the garrigue and its wildlife(2), whether there are any markets on suitable days anywhere I'm going, how far the Devil's Bridge is (walking) from Aniane and from Saint-Guilhem-le-Desert (4), how much it costs to get into the York museums I must go to (5), details of what's available medievalishly for Montpellier and Beziers and their days of closing (6), if the Herault bus network gets everywhere I need (7), various things about Aigues-Mortes including a street plan (8), details of the Montpellier transport system (9), city maps for most places (10), if I need to book anything in advance apart from accommodation (11) and so on (12).
And now all of ye-who-love-footnotes should be happy. I have intentionally formatted this so that there are more footnotes than post.
1. No, but the related ones are webbed and I only need to go through the town, not stop, which is good, because Pezenas has the least good tourist interface for historians of any place I had planned to visit
2. No, but Gignac might - I've written one email and have one still to write - my French failed me at 1 am - and this means that Gignac now replaces Pezenas on my places-I-must-visit list.
3. Possibly.
4. Still not certain - different maps say different things. There may, however, be a tourist shuttle bus from near the bridge to Saint-Guilhem, which'd do me fine.
5. I can spend a lot on a Yorkshire Pass or half that on just the ones I need to see - the York tourist information is excellent, the Yorkshire Pass information, less so.
6. Haven't managed to solve this one yet, though Beziers might be sending me a brochure. I just need to know about their garden.
7. It goes to Saint-Guilhem-le-Desert albeit with a restricted timetable and to Gignac, but I will need to book a train to Beziers. This is why I'm doing all this early work - much cheaper to book trains early.
8. The tourism folk for Aigues-Mortes totally, totally rock. Everything I needed is in one downloadable booklet, which, unlike the Herault booklets was actually saveable. I not only have a map, I have an annotated map telling me what was built when. I was so excited about this that I forgot to check transport to the town!
9. Very mixed information. Some of it is clear and some of it is very strange. I rather suspect I will need to visit the tourist info centre in Montpellier and ask questions, my first day.
10. I have htem for about half the places I need. I can't work out whether there's a path direct from the railway station in York to the guesthouse (it would be along the railway line if there were one) or if I have to go into town and out again because of bridges. Google Earth will solve this and also my Montpellier map issues. What I wanted was simple street maps to get me around. Again, with Montpellier, the tourist information service is essential. For some other places, however, I am all solved.
11. York encourages it but charges for it, as well. I need to find out if the queues are really, really bad in July - if they are then it's worth doing the timed and advance bookings and then queue-jumping. For other places, no-one seems to know.
12. I've run out of steam, right now, just as I ran out of French last night.
April 23, 2011
gillpolack @ 2011-04-23T18:09:00
There is a conversation developing on the relative length of the big post vs its footnotes. There is, however, no conversation as yet on the post itself. I think this means I need more coffee. Or more Knights Templar. Or both.
gillpolack @ 2011-04-23T17:29:00
For the record, the footnotes on my last post were not actually longer than the post itself. It was a close shave, however.
Where Gillian becomes Arbitrary and Categorical
I keep on running across people who define themselves or who define others in simple terms and then whose opinion gets taken up and followed and becomes a kind of accepted wisdom. If I were to say "I am a genius and totally awesomely famous" and I had the right kind of voice, then it might well be accepted by a particular group that, of course, I'm right. Then everything I write and do will be judged on my apparent genius and known fame*.
This is interesting and annoying and frustrating** - I'm going to comment on each in reverse order, so I end on a happy note. Also on many footnotes. Our lives need more footnotes***.
1. Frustrating - when our apparent knowledge about someone obscures us to what they're actually doing. One example keeps hitting me over the head this week. The apparent knowledge about Margaret Atwood is her response (not the only response she has given, just the one that has developed resonance in my communities) to whether she is an SF writer or not. If she's not giving a response in terms of genre in that particular instance, she's not, and yet I've heard her criticised time after time for not describing herself as an SF writer or her novels as SF novels****. I find this frustrating because it means that a bunch of people aren't looking at her writing, but the definition of its genre as given by particular journalists and critics. Genre readers don't have to like her writing, but it would be helpful if they disliked it for what it is, rather than on the basis of accepted wisdom. Me? I think she's an awesome writer who lacks a quite particular genre sensitivity. I shall call this "Speculation fever" since I've recently observed this phenomenon when it hits SF writers and critics who want to fit Atwood into their understanding of genre and can't, or those who want her to proudly claim SF creds*****.
2. Annoying - when a writer uses their understanding of a subject to create a backdrop for a novel and then claims special knowledge of the subject when, in fact, their use of it has been worrying in the extreme from the point of view of specialists. We're not just talking about Medieval potatoes, here, we're talking about writers who design their historians without any understanding of an historian's toolbox****** and who will claim wild levels of understanding in public when, in fact, their research is significantly out of date and potentially misleading. This becomes more than annoying when they contradict themselves in their own novel and make daft assumptions that amount to "Everyone in the Middle Ages is rather stupid compared to us" and "Historians are less bright than scientists." I think I shall call these the "Greater Than Thou" writers - ie they communicate a belief (often unintentionally, I hope) that they are greater than almost anyone. It's not the errors that are the problem (stories are stories), it's the loss of understanding that enters in when wider claims of credibility and accuracy underlie how we interpret those tales.
3. When all this is in the past, it becomes interesting. More than interesting. It becomes a facet of historiography. Genre in its wider sense. History. Narrative. Tales that tell us more about the people who write than they do about the worlds brought to life by the writing. What's worrying in a modern writer is fascinating when it's Geoffrey of Monmouth. I shall call this "Historiographer's brain" - because that's what it is. And it's why I'm writing this blog post. I need to switch off my historiographer's brain and get back to researching my novel.
Now I need coffee.
*let me say right here, that I have no problem at all with you all according me genius and fame. None whatsoever. Just to make it quite clear.
**not that you all think I'm world famous and a genius, because patently you don't and I'm not, but that if I had the right sort of personality and declarative capacity, that you may well believe it on my say-so. I refuse to give examples of this, because I'm digging enough deep holes for myself with this post as it is.
*** my footnotes today are mostly concerning the status of the Knights Templar in regional France in 1305. I really don't need much information, but the type of information I need is surprisingly hard to find. This is partly because of the destruction of the Templar materials in the 16th century, and partly because 1305 is too close to 1307 and most studies get involved in trials and scandal and forget daily lives two years before. On this matter, however, I'm not yet defeated. When I go to France I shall investigate the Montpellier bookshops and see if I can find me a nice study of Pezenas that includes the Templar Commanderie. If there is none, then I shall investigate in Pezenas and ask difficult questions there in my strangely nineteenth century French. And, of course, I shall continue battering down the doors of libraries. All this for but a few paragraphs of novel! It may amount to two pages in toto.
**** for the record, I describe Life Through Cellophane as suburban fantasy. No-one else does. It's been called everything from cafe latte horror to feminist fantasy to literary fiction. I don't much care. All I care about it is that the readers who will enjoy it find it and that the readers who won't, make up their own mind and aren't too rude to me about it. It's not a matter of rocket ships (Atwood) or mirrors on the wall and Sleeping Beauty metaphors (me - but no-one has called LtC a suburban fairy tale) - it's that the writer doesn't always see the book in the same light as the reader. And that, really, the book is what matters.
*****I need to find the interview where she does just this. The one that tends to be ignored. I've completely lost all reference to it. BTW, this mini-rant comes to you by virtue of the justifiable complaints about the BBC overlooking SF in its World Book Night coverage. The initial reaction to the BBC's moment of idiocy left out most female writers and significantly mauled Atwood. It was not done with malice. That's the problem with these assumptions. They live inside us, waiting to emerge, monstrous in their incarnations...Um, not really. The people involved in that BBC program have a problem with recognising SF and Britain as a whole has a problem recognising women who write SF and some writers (and readers) get tangled over Atwood.
****** obviously I'm speaking to the subjects where I can perceive the problems most clearly. Deep down, once an historiographer always an historiographer (like being a Queen of Narnia, although in historiography terms I'm probably Susan) and, of course, I'm still a Medievalist, most protestations to the contrary notwithstanding.
This is interesting and annoying and frustrating** - I'm going to comment on each in reverse order, so I end on a happy note. Also on many footnotes. Our lives need more footnotes***.
1. Frustrating - when our apparent knowledge about someone obscures us to what they're actually doing. One example keeps hitting me over the head this week. The apparent knowledge about Margaret Atwood is her response (not the only response she has given, just the one that has developed resonance in my communities) to whether she is an SF writer or not. If she's not giving a response in terms of genre in that particular instance, she's not, and yet I've heard her criticised time after time for not describing herself as an SF writer or her novels as SF novels****. I find this frustrating because it means that a bunch of people aren't looking at her writing, but the definition of its genre as given by particular journalists and critics. Genre readers don't have to like her writing, but it would be helpful if they disliked it for what it is, rather than on the basis of accepted wisdom. Me? I think she's an awesome writer who lacks a quite particular genre sensitivity. I shall call this "Speculation fever" since I've recently observed this phenomenon when it hits SF writers and critics who want to fit Atwood into their understanding of genre and can't, or those who want her to proudly claim SF creds*****.
2. Annoying - when a writer uses their understanding of a subject to create a backdrop for a novel and then claims special knowledge of the subject when, in fact, their use of it has been worrying in the extreme from the point of view of specialists. We're not just talking about Medieval potatoes, here, we're talking about writers who design their historians without any understanding of an historian's toolbox****** and who will claim wild levels of understanding in public when, in fact, their research is significantly out of date and potentially misleading. This becomes more than annoying when they contradict themselves in their own novel and make daft assumptions that amount to "Everyone in the Middle Ages is rather stupid compared to us" and "Historians are less bright than scientists." I think I shall call these the "Greater Than Thou" writers - ie they communicate a belief (often unintentionally, I hope) that they are greater than almost anyone. It's not the errors that are the problem (stories are stories), it's the loss of understanding that enters in when wider claims of credibility and accuracy underlie how we interpret those tales.
3. When all this is in the past, it becomes interesting. More than interesting. It becomes a facet of historiography. Genre in its wider sense. History. Narrative. Tales that tell us more about the people who write than they do about the worlds brought to life by the writing. What's worrying in a modern writer is fascinating when it's Geoffrey of Monmouth. I shall call this "Historiographer's brain" - because that's what it is. And it's why I'm writing this blog post. I need to switch off my historiographer's brain and get back to researching my novel.
Now I need coffee.
*let me say right here, that I have no problem at all with you all according me genius and fame. None whatsoever. Just to make it quite clear.
**not that you all think I'm world famous and a genius, because patently you don't and I'm not, but that if I had the right sort of personality and declarative capacity, that you may well believe it on my say-so. I refuse to give examples of this, because I'm digging enough deep holes for myself with this post as it is.
*** my footnotes today are mostly concerning the status of the Knights Templar in regional France in 1305. I really don't need much information, but the type of information I need is surprisingly hard to find. This is partly because of the destruction of the Templar materials in the 16th century, and partly because 1305 is too close to 1307 and most studies get involved in trials and scandal and forget daily lives two years before. On this matter, however, I'm not yet defeated. When I go to France I shall investigate the Montpellier bookshops and see if I can find me a nice study of Pezenas that includes the Templar Commanderie. If there is none, then I shall investigate in Pezenas and ask difficult questions there in my strangely nineteenth century French. And, of course, I shall continue battering down the doors of libraries. All this for but a few paragraphs of novel! It may amount to two pages in toto.
**** for the record, I describe Life Through Cellophane as suburban fantasy. No-one else does. It's been called everything from cafe latte horror to feminist fantasy to literary fiction. I don't much care. All I care about it is that the readers who will enjoy it find it and that the readers who won't, make up their own mind and aren't too rude to me about it. It's not a matter of rocket ships (Atwood) or mirrors on the wall and Sleeping Beauty metaphors (me - but no-one has called LtC a suburban fairy tale) - it's that the writer doesn't always see the book in the same light as the reader. And that, really, the book is what matters.
*****I need to find the interview where she does just this. The one that tends to be ignored. I've completely lost all reference to it. BTW, this mini-rant comes to you by virtue of the justifiable complaints about the BBC overlooking SF in its World Book Night coverage. The initial reaction to the BBC's moment of idiocy left out most female writers and significantly mauled Atwood. It was not done with malice. That's the problem with these assumptions. They live inside us, waiting to emerge, monstrous in their incarnations...Um, not really. The people involved in that BBC program have a problem with recognising SF and Britain as a whole has a problem recognising women who write SF and some writers (and readers) get tangled over Atwood.
****** obviously I'm speaking to the subjects where I can perceive the problems most clearly. Deep down, once an historiographer always an historiographer (like being a Queen of Narnia, although in historiography terms I'm probably Susan) and, of course, I'm still a Medievalist, most protestations to the contrary notwithstanding.
