Gillian Polack's Blog, page 290
October 19, 2010
gillpolack @ 2010-10-19T14:05:00
Today is so busy that I'm doing stupid things. Like being unable to count and packing too many books into my bag and losing my shopping list.
On the other hand, being so busy means I've sorted out the boar season in Medieval France and that I can probably have a boar hunt in my novel (if I want). I've also cheated madly and gumbo is on the stove and rice is in the cooker, ready for dinner tonight (which will be very late) and lunch tomorrow. Possibly also dinner Thursday.
I got to go to a very cool Facebook showing of a short film and its after-party ( the website is at http://www.barrier.tv/channel/) which delayed my boar hunt, but not by too much.
I'm all prepared for teaching tonight. I'm mostly prepared for teaching tomorrow. I'm officially 1/3 of the way through the form I need to fill in this week (15 pages and a zillion attachments - the attachments are the slow bit).
I'm spending time I don't have stirring Alan Baxter. This is probably a very foolish thing to do. That doesn't make it less irresistible. It's not witty stirring - just seeing if I can annoy him muchly. This is how I deal with overwork. I either stir my characters (which I can't, beause I'm working on background today) or my students (which I can't cos this mob is serious) or my friends. Al cops it because we're probably doing a kaffeeklatsch together at Freecon (an 'ask the expert' one - ask him about sensible things like fight scnees and ask me silly things like how to insult in Old French, or what bits of the boar you feed the hounds after the hunt) and he will have every chance of getting even.
I've finished my coffee - time to find that shopping list. Then back to the boar hunt!! (I might decide not to have it, but at least I shall have checked it out thoroughly first.)
ETA: Consider Mr Baxter stirred...
On the other hand, being so busy means I've sorted out the boar season in Medieval France and that I can probably have a boar hunt in my novel (if I want). I've also cheated madly and gumbo is on the stove and rice is in the cooker, ready for dinner tonight (which will be very late) and lunch tomorrow. Possibly also dinner Thursday.
I got to go to a very cool Facebook showing of a short film and its after-party ( the website is at http://www.barrier.tv/channel/) which delayed my boar hunt, but not by too much.
I'm all prepared for teaching tonight. I'm mostly prepared for teaching tomorrow. I'm officially 1/3 of the way through the form I need to fill in this week (15 pages and a zillion attachments - the attachments are the slow bit).
I'm spending time I don't have stirring Alan Baxter. This is probably a very foolish thing to do. That doesn't make it less irresistible. It's not witty stirring - just seeing if I can annoy him muchly. This is how I deal with overwork. I either stir my characters (which I can't, beause I'm working on background today) or my students (which I can't cos this mob is serious) or my friends. Al cops it because we're probably doing a kaffeeklatsch together at Freecon (an 'ask the expert' one - ask him about sensible things like fight scnees and ask me silly things like how to insult in Old French, or what bits of the boar you feed the hounds after the hunt) and he will have every chance of getting even.
I've finished my coffee - time to find that shopping list. Then back to the boar hunt!! (I might decide not to have it, but at least I shall have checked it out thoroughly first.)
ETA: Consider Mr Baxter stirred...
gillpolack @ 2010-10-19T12:19:00
Annual General Meetings are not my favourite thing. Tomorrow's CSFG one, however, will have a showing of a film based on one of Kaaron Warren's short stories and we get to ask questions of Kaaron afterwards. I may need a fluffy pink novel to read before bed so I don't get nightmares, but oh, it will be worth it.
October 18, 2010
gillpolack @ 2010-10-18T22:25:00
Today is the day for presents. Not only do I have fresh lemons, but I have a face washer beautifully handcrafted just for me. This facewasher has a dalek on it. All SF fans need dalek facewashers in charming pastel colours.
gillpolack @ 2010-10-18T18:40:00
I've just discovered that LJ ate notifications for at least a week, possibly more. If you've posted a comment or a thought on my blog and I haven't replied, this is probably why. Feel free to point to your words of wisdom, so that I can enjoy them!
gillpolack @ 2010-10-18T16:54:00
The wrong wind is blowing and everyone within a shofar's cry of me has a headache. It's taht time of Spring when birch pollen is in the air and the wind is chily and, if I had exams, I would be studying for them. Or not.
If anyone needs an excuse not to study, they may have my headache.
If anyone needs an excuse not to study, they may have my headache.
gillpolack @ 2010-10-18T12:06:00
I'm keeping an eye on Helen Lowe's blog because the series of contributions by writers on why they love speculative fiction is exceptionally cool. It's making me think.
Today's a day for putting thoughts together. This morning I've been re-reading Mary Carruthers' The Book of Memory and watching All the Rivers Run. Both of them have aged gracefully. Every time I open the first I learn something about how writers translate their world through memory. All the Rivers Run is a surprise, though. I'm enjoying it thoroughly. I haven't seen it since it was first released and I didn't much like it way back then. The 1980s dreaming of the 1950s dreaming of the 1890s - it's an interesting narrative. Mind you, I keep on thinking that Sigrid Thornton got all the best leading men and that her hair was happier after the eighties.
All of this muddled together in my brain got me trying to work out how I translate the minutiae of times past into fiction.
My first response when I read something (eg how Plato thought of memory, or how the Church changed its taxation practises in the thirteenth century) is to ask myself "How can I include this in my fiction." I want to include everything, initially. I don't know if this makes me a magpie or an historian. I suspect that I want to include everything because it's my way of thinking things through and finding out the patterns that evidence makes and sorting out an understanding of people in time and over time. Put this kind of thinking down on paper after marshalling and interpreting the collected information and you get a nice academic argument, with all the evidence neatly parcelled.
It's not a good technique for a novel. I keep thinking of novels that marshall information in precisely this way and I think of how I read past the marshalled data very quickly, skimming to get back to what really counts.
This doesn't mean that I don't collect data. I always collect information. My magpie-historianness is a deep part of myself and it would be daft to ignore it. What it means, however, is that I need to do something with the data other than collect it in serried ranks.
First, I have to ask what my novel needs. I need to think about the plot arcs and the character development and how the setting has to emerge as a character (I got into trouble the other day for saying that the setting is also a character and needs the right level of attention).
From there, I work to get that data under my skin, make it part of the fabric of the story's existence. This turns my vast piles of information into the stuff of story, if I do it properly.
There's a mediating question, though, that make it all happen. Throughout these processes I ask myself over and over again, what will make my world work. What do I need to understand and then dump (because it's the understanding I need, not the information) and what needs to be understood then used?
Today's a day for putting thoughts together. This morning I've been re-reading Mary Carruthers' The Book of Memory and watching All the Rivers Run. Both of them have aged gracefully. Every time I open the first I learn something about how writers translate their world through memory. All the Rivers Run is a surprise, though. I'm enjoying it thoroughly. I haven't seen it since it was first released and I didn't much like it way back then. The 1980s dreaming of the 1950s dreaming of the 1890s - it's an interesting narrative. Mind you, I keep on thinking that Sigrid Thornton got all the best leading men and that her hair was happier after the eighties.
All of this muddled together in my brain got me trying to work out how I translate the minutiae of times past into fiction.
My first response when I read something (eg how Plato thought of memory, or how the Church changed its taxation practises in the thirteenth century) is to ask myself "How can I include this in my fiction." I want to include everything, initially. I don't know if this makes me a magpie or an historian. I suspect that I want to include everything because it's my way of thinking things through and finding out the patterns that evidence makes and sorting out an understanding of people in time and over time. Put this kind of thinking down on paper after marshalling and interpreting the collected information and you get a nice academic argument, with all the evidence neatly parcelled.
It's not a good technique for a novel. I keep thinking of novels that marshall information in precisely this way and I think of how I read past the marshalled data very quickly, skimming to get back to what really counts.
This doesn't mean that I don't collect data. I always collect information. My magpie-historianness is a deep part of myself and it would be daft to ignore it. What it means, however, is that I need to do something with the data other than collect it in serried ranks.
First, I have to ask what my novel needs. I need to think about the plot arcs and the character development and how the setting has to emerge as a character (I got into trouble the other day for saying that the setting is also a character and needs the right level of attention).
From there, I work to get that data under my skin, make it part of the fabric of the story's existence. This turns my vast piles of information into the stuff of story, if I do it properly.
There's a mediating question, though, that make it all happen. Throughout these processes I ask myself over and over again, what will make my world work. What do I need to understand and then dump (because it's the understanding I need, not the information) and what needs to be understood then used?
October 17, 2010
gillpolack @ 2010-10-17T19:47:00
I've been given the versatile blogger meme by two different bloggers. Thank you both Satima Flavell and Mary Victoria for your thought and your lovely comments (also for your blogging - it's nice to be named by writers I enjoy reading) and yes, I shall paste the picture and tell the world seven little known things about me. I put off thanking Mary Victoria (I love her whole name today - I find it very hard just to call her Mary!) because I thought of fifty bloggers and couldn't make choices between them. I want everyone to read everyone else, which is entirely useless in terms of recommendations.
First, though, the picture:
Now for seven things:
1. I was probably born in a hospital with swinging doors.
2. I don't like moussaka.
3. I broke my finger when I was nine and it's still a little crooked. I broke it by running into the playground. I didn't fall over (I remember the event quite clearly) I just ended up running in a different direction to usual. I realised I was going in the wrong direction when my hand and face hit the asphalt. "It doesn't hurt," I told everyone. It didn't, then. Soon, however, I discovered why everyone else runs on the playground and not into it.
4. I have a fake Amati under my bed. Let me emphasise the fake aspect ie it's not worth breaking in to steal, though it has a very sweet sound. It has a wonderful sentimental history that I am happy to expound upon if asked.
5. My number in the extended family is here (six brothers and sisters, none of whom ring me).
6. The largest number of cooking spices I have ever owned at one time is 103.
7. I read War and Peace and Gibbon's Decline and Fall in their entirety when I was a teen. I liked the Gibbon better. I need to use this information, actually. Next time I am given an evil comment for reading light fiction and enjoying it, I shall discuss the Gibbon. Not the Tolstoy - I decided when I was 13 that I was forever Dostoievsky's fangrrl. Then I read Bulgakov: The Master and Margarita is one of my favourite books of all time. Is that one little-known thing, or several half-known things? You need a final bookish one though, because it's eating away at my mind and will destroy my peace forever if I don't say it: Agatha Christie is better in French.
First, though, the picture:
Now for seven things:
1. I was probably born in a hospital with swinging doors.
2. I don't like moussaka.
3. I broke my finger when I was nine and it's still a little crooked. I broke it by running into the playground. I didn't fall over (I remember the event quite clearly) I just ended up running in a different direction to usual. I realised I was going in the wrong direction when my hand and face hit the asphalt. "It doesn't hurt," I told everyone. It didn't, then. Soon, however, I discovered why everyone else runs on the playground and not into it.
4. I have a fake Amati under my bed. Let me emphasise the fake aspect ie it's not worth breaking in to steal, though it has a very sweet sound. It has a wonderful sentimental history that I am happy to expound upon if asked.
5. My number in the extended family is here (six brothers and sisters, none of whom ring me).
6. The largest number of cooking spices I have ever owned at one time is 103.
7. I read War and Peace and Gibbon's Decline and Fall in their entirety when I was a teen. I liked the Gibbon better. I need to use this information, actually. Next time I am given an evil comment for reading light fiction and enjoying it, I shall discuss the Gibbon. Not the Tolstoy - I decided when I was 13 that I was forever Dostoievsky's fangrrl. Then I read Bulgakov: The Master and Margarita is one of my favourite books of all time. Is that one little-known thing, or several half-known things? You need a final bookish one though, because it's eating away at my mind and will destroy my peace forever if I don't say it: Agatha Christie is better in French.
gillpolack @ 2010-10-17T16:58:00
My brain is on holiday. This could be because I nearly designed myself a whole region without a single child. Obviously a doomed society.
Once I made a list of things like this, so I shouldn't forget. Ten pages, single spaced and I still left things out. Either my world is doomed, my writing is doomed, or I am overdue a tea break.
Once I made a list of things like this, so I shouldn't forget. Ten pages, single spaced and I still left things out. Either my world is doomed, my writing is doomed, or I am overdue a tea break.
October 16, 2010
gillpolack @ 2010-10-16T22:22:00
I'm suddenly not quite sure I want cocktail testing for next year's Conflux banquet. Just the thought of it makes me tired. It would be much easier just to have a bar and leave people to their own devices. There's even historical precedent for this...
Does anyone have any strong opinions on the matter?
Does anyone have any strong opinions on the matter?
gillpolack @ 2010-10-16T11:47:00
I finished my cookbook chapter last night! I chose the easiest, just so that I could say I had done one, but I suddenly feel as if more is achievable. Today I intend to finish with my list of small things that must be done today (scanning of documents, filling in forms, sending bios to places that need bios), do another shelf of reading for the doctorate, process some of my notes for my novel, and then do another ten pages of cookbook. This is the first few days I've had to sit down and catch up with myself and I intend to make the most of it. My aim is that, by Monday night (when my solid time for work suddenly ceases) I shall have got rid of the feeling that it's all too much for me.
It really isn't too much for me, I just did a lot of travel (AussieCon and Sydney) when I still wasn't well enough for it. I'm healing from the travel and just need the feeling of being in charge of my own life again. So it's all good and later maybe I shall be lured into making bad jokes and giving out stray historical tidbits to the reader-magpies out there.
This morning's accomplishment was working out how the Medieval notion of forest and desert fitted into the perceptions of one of my characters and how that differed from how a modern character thinks about the same things. I don't know if I'll use this in the final, but it was very important for me to establish because it's something I knew but hadn't thought of from that direction. Forests and deserts supported different fears and hopes and quite different emotions a lot of the time to the ones I know from my personal experience of the two. I needed to get that clear.
This is a very different type of world-building to my usual. It's slower. It's a wonderful way to discover how I see the past. I'm unpacking and re-examining my learning from the last thirty years. For this experience alone it's worth doing the doctorate. I'm going to emerge a better writer, I think, and also a better historian.
It really isn't too much for me, I just did a lot of travel (AussieCon and Sydney) when I still wasn't well enough for it. I'm healing from the travel and just need the feeling of being in charge of my own life again. So it's all good and later maybe I shall be lured into making bad jokes and giving out stray historical tidbits to the reader-magpies out there.
This morning's accomplishment was working out how the Medieval notion of forest and desert fitted into the perceptions of one of my characters and how that differed from how a modern character thinks about the same things. I don't know if I'll use this in the final, but it was very important for me to establish because it's something I knew but hadn't thought of from that direction. Forests and deserts supported different fears and hopes and quite different emotions a lot of the time to the ones I know from my personal experience of the two. I needed to get that clear.
This is a very different type of world-building to my usual. It's slower. It's a wonderful way to discover how I see the past. I'm unpacking and re-examining my learning from the last thirty years. For this experience alone it's worth doing the doctorate. I'm going to emerge a better writer, I think, and also a better historian.
