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Gillian Polack's Blog, page 269
February 21, 2011
February Australian Spec Fic Carnival
Not here. Here: http://monissaw.livejournal.com/473404.html
It's Monissa's first time to host (am I remembering correctly?) so we should all visit and say nice things. We would all be visiting anyhow, but maybe not leaving notes.
No other news: still sick. I want to be well now. Or yesterday. And I want to stop being argumentative. Also, I want icecream.
It's Monissa's first time to host (am I remembering correctly?) so we should all visit and say nice things. We would all be visiting anyhow, but maybe not leaving notes.
No other news: still sick. I want to be well now. Or yesterday. And I want to stop being argumentative. Also, I want icecream.
gillpolack @ 2011-02-21T15:12:00
I just lost it on FB. I rather suspect I have got myself into hot water. I did the same (and on the same subject) at AussieCon. I think I need to do a paper, one day, on the nature of modern cultural colonialism. That'll upset even more people... (the trouble is, that it's friends, and I respect them - I just disagree with them rather strongly)
gillpolack @ 2011-02-21T11:46:00
Today I'm in catch-up mode. Gentle catch-up mode, because obviously I'm not well yet (still feverish, still not hungry, still tired, but the aches are definitely diminishing). So far my big achievements are to wash a bunch of dishes, to scare fruit flies, and to write some novel. I now only have 15,000 words of fiction to write before I polish off the location checks and museums and asking historians difficult questions and sorting out the life surrounding abbeys, which is all planned for July. That's one thing, then, that's pretty much under control.
I need to have that 15,000 words written before I talk to scientists, I realise, so that they know what I'm trying to achieve. Today's section, for instance, related the Heisenberg uncertainty principle directly to the plot. Not entirely effectively, I have to add. I need more explanation of the how and I need to give it without info-dumping, but I put the mechanism in today, and it's character linked *and* it ups the tension and it also advances one set of relationships. All of this will be good, when I've tidied the writing and added the science to explain. And here this paragraph comes full circle - I have more sections like this to write, before I can talk to specialists and make sure I have the specifics right. The general stuff I've already checked on (CSIRO peoples rock, just in case you didn't know this).
Now I need a rest, but after that I'll tackle my very urgent list. If I can get 15 items off it, then I'm clear for teaching prep tomorrow. Teaching prep tomorrow is rather hefty, as it's first session of a new course.
Everything is possible, as long as I take my time and don't push too hard.
I need to have that 15,000 words written before I talk to scientists, I realise, so that they know what I'm trying to achieve. Today's section, for instance, related the Heisenberg uncertainty principle directly to the plot. Not entirely effectively, I have to add. I need more explanation of the how and I need to give it without info-dumping, but I put the mechanism in today, and it's character linked *and* it ups the tension and it also advances one set of relationships. All of this will be good, when I've tidied the writing and added the science to explain. And here this paragraph comes full circle - I have more sections like this to write, before I can talk to specialists and make sure I have the specifics right. The general stuff I've already checked on (CSIRO peoples rock, just in case you didn't know this).
Now I need a rest, but after that I'll tackle my very urgent list. If I can get 15 items off it, then I'm clear for teaching prep tomorrow. Teaching prep tomorrow is rather hefty, as it's first session of a new course.
Everything is possible, as long as I take my time and don't push too hard.
February 20, 2011
gillpolack @ 2011-02-20T15:03:00
There are good things about being sick. I solved two plot issues while stuck in bed, contemplating the absurdities of living in a frail body. The fever obviously helped my brain, because I also realised that all I had to do was slip a sentence in here and there earlier in the book and one of the major crises would be inevitable, which is what one wants from major crises in novels. What's more, I can make it fit precisely within the character's normal scope (he puts himself in peril - yay!). It will look as if I knew it all along and was just amazingly clever, whereas the truth is that I built my characters and was waiting for them to explode.
I haven't done anything else today. I didn't do much yesterday. The truth is that I was less well than I thought. I'm only eating because the antibiotics have to be taken with food. All I want is to drink and sleep and come back online to annoy friends when I get bored. I plan to watch TV for a long time today, with the computer on in case I have enough energy to do some urgent stuff. The non-urgent stuff will have to wait.
It's taking me ages just to type this. One key, then a ponder and a rest, then a few more keys, then a ponder and a rest, then a sentence finished, then a ponder and a rest. Imagine me writing 2,000 words of essay. I would emerge three weeks later, wondering if I had missed anything...
I haven't done anything else today. I didn't do much yesterday. The truth is that I was less well than I thought. I'm only eating because the antibiotics have to be taken with food. All I want is to drink and sleep and come back online to annoy friends when I get bored. I plan to watch TV for a long time today, with the computer on in case I have enough energy to do some urgent stuff. The non-urgent stuff will have to wait.
It's taking me ages just to type this. One key, then a ponder and a rest, then a few more keys, then a ponder and a rest, then a sentence finished, then a ponder and a rest. Imagine me writing 2,000 words of essay. I would emerge three weeks later, wondering if I had missed anything...
February 19, 2011
gillpolack @ 2011-02-19T16:51:00
I'm too sick to work, so I'm sulking. So is the sky, given the amount of tepid rain that's falling.
If I had waited until Monday to go to the doctor, I would have been much worse. The fact that I went to the doctor for entirely different reasons, is completely and utterly irrelevant.
I'll be very relieved when I can breathe fully again (I have about 50% of my normal lung capacity right now). I'm finding it very hard to string two thoughts together, and my paragraphs are each and every one of them two sentences long.
Also, I want to work; I have work I want to do: every time I sit down to do something, I can't even string two thoughts together. This is why I'm sulking.
If I had waited until Monday to go to the doctor, I would have been much worse. The fact that I went to the doctor for entirely different reasons, is completely and utterly irrelevant.
I'll be very relieved when I can breathe fully again (I have about 50% of my normal lung capacity right now). I'm finding it very hard to string two thoughts together, and my paragraphs are each and every one of them two sentences long.
Also, I want to work; I have work I want to do: every time I sit down to do something, I can't even string two thoughts together. This is why I'm sulking.
gillpolack @ 2011-02-19T12:40:00
I'm doing the Bechdel test on every novel I read from last Wednesday until I turn fifty. So far, the results are 100% fail, but it's early days and I've only read one novel. I can't count short stories (especially not romance short stories!) and non-fiction has its own traps for the unwary.
In the non-fiction, my litmus test is whether women are part of the society or only subordinate elements. I'm checking out Mortimer's popular book on the Middle Ages so that I can address it next Tuesday, and most activity in late Medieval English society is by men. Their wives sometimes appear as wives. Prostitutes get a fair amount of discussion, though Mortimer finds his own path through the complexities and contradictions in Medieval sexuality - prostitution is OK, he says, because only women were constrained to be faithful in marriage. It's early days for this, too, however, and I'm sure it will improve and that men are not the default makers of history.
PS I really don't feel well today. This is partly because I'm not well and partly because the antibiotics are the sort that knock me down and bowl me out. I'm about to check the TV guide and see what sick days have to offer. If there's nothing on, then I shall sulk. Also, I shall work.
In the non-fiction, my litmus test is whether women are part of the society or only subordinate elements. I'm checking out Mortimer's popular book on the Middle Ages so that I can address it next Tuesday, and most activity in late Medieval English society is by men. Their wives sometimes appear as wives. Prostitutes get a fair amount of discussion, though Mortimer finds his own path through the complexities and contradictions in Medieval sexuality - prostitution is OK, he says, because only women were constrained to be faithful in marriage. It's early days for this, too, however, and I'm sure it will improve and that men are not the default makers of history.
PS I really don't feel well today. This is partly because I'm not well and partly because the antibiotics are the sort that knock me down and bowl me out. I'm about to check the TV guide and see what sick days have to offer. If there's nothing on, then I shall sulk. Also, I shall work.
February 18, 2011
gillpolack @ 2011-02-18T18:22:00
My very long day is half over.
I've done all the medical stuff. My last set of tests (in my dreams, anyhow) will be completed tomorrow morning: I am all equipped to report in at ten sharp (I have a bag full of essential equipment, and asmall page of instructions on what to do with it - all of the instructions are very polite) and the nurse is expecting me and has sharpened many needles.
I had a two hour wait for the doctor, and it took another two hours to get everything else done. I have medicine (including antibiotics - it seems I have a secondary infection and am consistently good at underestimating how sick I am) and I have even managed to find cheap green vegetables (I used my two hour wait wisely and went shopping round the corner, with permission from the reception desk - Chinese grocers has cheap green vegies, for the record, and was upset I hadn't been in for ages as he had no-one to whom he could tell his idea for a Dr Who story).
I have the suspicion that some of you have already worked out where this is going. I have a secondary infection and did a lot of walking today: I might not be halfway through my day's work. I might be prioritising said work after I've rested a bit. That's the bad news.
The really good news is that if I can teach and consult and spend a day in rural NSW and teach and teach and teach again, and if I can manage other work on top of this and if I can do it all with a chest infection, then my underlying condition is improving. This means I'm not nearly as scared of the tests tomorrow as I was.
Tomorrow I return to normal sentences (without all the brackets). (I was having fun today, is all.)
I've done all the medical stuff. My last set of tests (in my dreams, anyhow) will be completed tomorrow morning: I am all equipped to report in at ten sharp (I have a bag full of essential equipment, and asmall page of instructions on what to do with it - all of the instructions are very polite) and the nurse is expecting me and has sharpened many needles.
I had a two hour wait for the doctor, and it took another two hours to get everything else done. I have medicine (including antibiotics - it seems I have a secondary infection and am consistently good at underestimating how sick I am) and I have even managed to find cheap green vegetables (I used my two hour wait wisely and went shopping round the corner, with permission from the reception desk - Chinese grocers has cheap green vegies, for the record, and was upset I hadn't been in for ages as he had no-one to whom he could tell his idea for a Dr Who story).
I have the suspicion that some of you have already worked out where this is going. I have a secondary infection and did a lot of walking today: I might not be halfway through my day's work. I might be prioritising said work after I've rested a bit. That's the bad news.
The really good news is that if I can teach and consult and spend a day in rural NSW and teach and teach and teach again, and if I can manage other work on top of this and if I can do it all with a chest infection, then my underlying condition is improving. This means I'm not nearly as scared of the tests tomorrow as I was.
Tomorrow I return to normal sentences (without all the brackets). (I was having fun today, is all.)
February 17, 2011
gillpolack @ 2011-02-17T23:07:00
I'm heading into peak teaching period. Last year lots of things got cancelled (which was just as well, considering) and this year they're going ahead (which is also just as well, considering).
Today was the big test, in a way. How good was I after a series of longer days (study and teaching and book reviews and articles and normal everyday crises and health stuff) and the answer is, not as bad as I have been. Still not wonderful, but significantly better than the last three years.
My reward is another long day tomorrow, of course, but after that I get a couple of days with only study to do. No other work at all. And I get to turn the alarm clock off. This means if someone really wants to annoy me, they can ring me early.
I was going to give you a real post tonight, about how we create our narratives, but I shall have a hot drink and settle down with a book. I can pretend I'm working, when I'm really relaxing. I've done all the thinking for this one. I know the essay I want to write (it turned out to be a book that needs an essay and possibly a couple of questions of interesting folks) and so I just have to finish the book. (I read the whole of everything I get sent - it's only fair. Someone was surprised by that the other day. Which surprised me. I must be easily surprised.)
Today was the big test, in a way. How good was I after a series of longer days (study and teaching and book reviews and articles and normal everyday crises and health stuff) and the answer is, not as bad as I have been. Still not wonderful, but significantly better than the last three years.
My reward is another long day tomorrow, of course, but after that I get a couple of days with only study to do. No other work at all. And I get to turn the alarm clock off. This means if someone really wants to annoy me, they can ring me early.
I was going to give you a real post tonight, about how we create our narratives, but I shall have a hot drink and settle down with a book. I can pretend I'm working, when I'm really relaxing. I've done all the thinking for this one. I know the essay I want to write (it turned out to be a book that needs an essay and possibly a couple of questions of interesting folks) and so I just have to finish the book. (I read the whole of everything I get sent - it's only fair. Someone was surprised by that the other day. Which surprised me. I must be easily surprised.)
February 16, 2011
gillpolack @ 2011-02-16T16:22:00
My students and I got excited about science today. We've therefore decided to try an experiment. I'm current reviewing a book called Quantum Physics for Poets. Each week I shall teach them some quantum physics from this book and they shall write poetry from it.
We might try different forms. String theory and superstring theory haiku. Schrodinger's sonnet. Particles vs waves: a poetic debate in dodecasyllabic rhymed couplets. Special relativity in very special rhyme schemes (when I teach one of my new students that there's more to life than abac).
If anyone wants to play along, I can post the topics each Wednesday.
ETA: I keep feeling I have to explain (even though it's pretty obvious, given my science background or lack thereof) that I won't be actually teaching physics. I shall be teaching the ideas behind the concepts following the explanations in the book and using the diagrams in the book. And now that I have belaboured the obvious, I go to write my time travel novel, where, so far, of science there is insufficient. I need to talk to more scientists to balance my historians and all my scientist-friends have the wrong specialisations. I could curse them all, or I could contact CSIRO. I shall do the latter, because curses will lose me dinner parties (never trust food cooked by anyone under one of my curses).
We might try different forms. String theory and superstring theory haiku. Schrodinger's sonnet. Particles vs waves: a poetic debate in dodecasyllabic rhymed couplets. Special relativity in very special rhyme schemes (when I teach one of my new students that there's more to life than abac).
If anyone wants to play along, I can post the topics each Wednesday.
ETA: I keep feeling I have to explain (even though it's pretty obvious, given my science background or lack thereof) that I won't be actually teaching physics. I shall be teaching the ideas behind the concepts following the explanations in the book and using the diagrams in the book. And now that I have belaboured the obvious, I go to write my time travel novel, where, so far, of science there is insufficient. I need to talk to more scientists to balance my historians and all my scientist-friends have the wrong specialisations. I could curse them all, or I could contact CSIRO. I shall do the latter, because curses will lose me dinner parties (never trust food cooked by anyone under one of my curses).
February 15, 2011
gillpolack @ 2011-02-16T09:05:00
Some things are predictable. One of these is that I will get questions from writers (that 'will' is emphatic - you can insert underlines and caps and exclamation marks if you so desire) that assume that the data they need for their novels is available in exactly the right form and all they need from me is the name of the book that will contain it. I am supposed to produce the name of the book with a flourish and then suggest a page number and lo, many hours of work and much brain activity are circumvented.
History doesn't work like this. Not the sort of history writers mostly need, anyhow. I'm always after different ways of explaining this without causing too much disillusionment. When I was sorting out my program for Leeds (too many conflicts! can't get to things I want *and* things I need!! want longer days!!! more energy!!!! friends to deliver papers at my quiet times!!!!!) I kept an eye on the nature of the program, what topics are current and what approaches are being used and what history is likely to be produced from these topics and approaches.
The programs for Leeds and Kalamazoo are wonderful tools of explaining to writers that the research historians do isn't intended to make writers happy, but exists for entirely different purposes. Two huge academic conferences: between them they provide a really good overview of the sorts of areas being researched currently. In each of them, there are items that would be of distinct interest to writers. The pigment workshop and the food workshop at Leeds, for instance. Nevertheless...
'Useful for writers' is not the same thing as providing straightforward answers. Part of this is because research needs for scholars and research needs for writers overlap, but they are vastly different because the endgame is vastly different (one of the things my doctorate is about).
Another is sources. History emanates from available sources. Fiction only sometimes does.
I encounter some writers who think that somewhere there is the sort of information that leads to an understanding of society or sword women or magic that fits exactly with their understanding (or the direction of their understanding). This fits very closely with our needs as writers to create a world that feels real to readers. This only works for periods and places in history where the sources are equivalent to the structure the writer has in mind (eg knowing about someone's school success through school records doesn't work when schooling is private and records have not been kept).
A third is assumptions. Historians spend a lot of time learning how to ask if the ground we walk on is ground at all. Writers spend a lot of time learning to weave ground from a mere speck of dirt. The two can be incompatible (although they don't have to be).
I have a lot more I could say (or to expound upon from what I've said) but I'm teaching soon and really ought to catch my bus. The bottom line is, though, that if a writer wnats to use history, they either need to understand how it's researched and written (and other aspects of the context - a knowledge of academic discourse helps, for instance) or they need to find specialists in the field they're after who understand how fiction writers think and work.
The other option is to write bad history into fiction. That will be noted by savvy reviewers and readers* and won't do a writer's reputation any good.
I guess I'm saying that there's no easy way out. The brain must be used. The self must be aware and reflexivity must be engaged. If Gillian the historian doesn't get you, Gillian the reviewer will!
*Aren't you impressed by how quickly I changed hats when I had to?
History doesn't work like this. Not the sort of history writers mostly need, anyhow. I'm always after different ways of explaining this without causing too much disillusionment. When I was sorting out my program for Leeds (too many conflicts! can't get to things I want *and* things I need!! want longer days!!! more energy!!!! friends to deliver papers at my quiet times!!!!!) I kept an eye on the nature of the program, what topics are current and what approaches are being used and what history is likely to be produced from these topics and approaches.
The programs for Leeds and Kalamazoo are wonderful tools of explaining to writers that the research historians do isn't intended to make writers happy, but exists for entirely different purposes. Two huge academic conferences: between them they provide a really good overview of the sorts of areas being researched currently. In each of them, there are items that would be of distinct interest to writers. The pigment workshop and the food workshop at Leeds, for instance. Nevertheless...
'Useful for writers' is not the same thing as providing straightforward answers. Part of this is because research needs for scholars and research needs for writers overlap, but they are vastly different because the endgame is vastly different (one of the things my doctorate is about).
Another is sources. History emanates from available sources. Fiction only sometimes does.
I encounter some writers who think that somewhere there is the sort of information that leads to an understanding of society or sword women or magic that fits exactly with their understanding (or the direction of their understanding). This fits very closely with our needs as writers to create a world that feels real to readers. This only works for periods and places in history where the sources are equivalent to the structure the writer has in mind (eg knowing about someone's school success through school records doesn't work when schooling is private and records have not been kept).
A third is assumptions. Historians spend a lot of time learning how to ask if the ground we walk on is ground at all. Writers spend a lot of time learning to weave ground from a mere speck of dirt. The two can be incompatible (although they don't have to be).
I have a lot more I could say (or to expound upon from what I've said) but I'm teaching soon and really ought to catch my bus. The bottom line is, though, that if a writer wnats to use history, they either need to understand how it's researched and written (and other aspects of the context - a knowledge of academic discourse helps, for instance) or they need to find specialists in the field they're after who understand how fiction writers think and work.
The other option is to write bad history into fiction. That will be noted by savvy reviewers and readers* and won't do a writer's reputation any good.
I guess I'm saying that there's no easy way out. The brain must be used. The self must be aware and reflexivity must be engaged. If Gillian the historian doesn't get you, Gillian the reviewer will!
*Aren't you impressed by how quickly I changed hats when I had to?
