Gillian Polack's Blog, page 33
April 26, 2015
gillpolack @ 2015-04-26T23:07:00
I've had a lovely birthday. I didn't completely forget work (I've done small amounts here and there) but I spent wonderful time with marvellous people and I ate immeasurable amounts of junk food and I saw the new Avengers movie (new release! big screen!) and today it was as if all kinds of springs unwound and I slept and slept. Donna made me a cake and I have a lovely collection of presents. My friends know me: chocolate, books, wine, a warm scarf, pickles, trinkets, bubble bath, rose oil. What I love about presents is when I look at them or use them (or eat them, or cook with them) they bring a smile to my face as I remember the friend who gave them. This birthday is going to give me happiness for a very long time. This is why it doesn't matter how old I get, I always want birthdays: no matter how old I get, I'll always want my friends
April 22, 2015
gillpolack @ 2015-04-23T00:27:00
I started writing a post and realised that it's one of those lists of things that just explains what I have and haven't done and that it was deadly dull. Most of yesterday and today has been shadowed by watching the weather and keeping an eye on social media to make sure friends and relatives are OK. Obviously I know a lot of people in the path of this current east coast disaster and quite a few of them are electricity-less (though none of them appear to be homeless or injured). On top of that, so many people (from other parts of Australia) have been having personal crises . That's why the lists: they prove to me that this week is normal. It's not a normal week. It's the best of weeks and the worst of weeks. It's bizarre and wonderful. But it's not normal.
For something completely different, the southbound GUFF race is now open. I have details. I can post them here if people want, or you can email me and I'll send you the information directly. This GUFF race is from north (Europe) to south (here, with the Aussie 2016 NatCon as the central focus). If you know someone (or if you are someone) who you would like to see meeting Australian fandom, please persuade them (or yourself!) to nominate. It's such an amazing experience, from beginning to end and it sets up so many fabulous fannish conversations ( the ones from my trip are still happening) that it's 100% worth doing.
Fan funds are TARDIS-like. The names and the description of them give no indication of how very big they are on the inside.
For something completely different, the southbound GUFF race is now open. I have details. I can post them here if people want, or you can email me and I'll send you the information directly. This GUFF race is from north (Europe) to south (here, with the Aussie 2016 NatCon as the central focus). If you know someone (or if you are someone) who you would like to see meeting Australian fandom, please persuade them (or yourself!) to nominate. It's such an amazing experience, from beginning to end and it sets up so many fabulous fannish conversations ( the ones from my trip are still happening) that it's 100% worth doing.
Fan funds are TARDIS-like. The names and the description of them give no indication of how very big they are on the inside.
April 20, 2015
gillpolack @ 2015-04-21T10:11:00
PS I didn't write 3000 words yesterday. My messages will be done tomorrow and I get no time off for good behaviour. This is not my fault. It's the wind's. I hurt all over and feel tumbledown. This too, will pass. Soon, I hope. Autumn will become winter.
gillpolack @ 2015-04-21T10:08:00
I just watched the Fantastic Four trailer and realised (yet again) why I dislike the current pattern of exclusion of females from big screen movies of the kind I ought to enjoy. The universes of these movies are my playground. A world that's (the current figures for my internal count for 2015) four boys to one girl is not giving me a path into the movie. I lose the play element of the film and it becomes far more passive. If it keeps happening, I might have to go play somewhere else, as many of my friends are doing. Why watch superhero movies that (almost all) exclude them when they can watch TV shows that mostly don't?
April 19, 2015
gillpolack @ 2015-04-20T14:48:00
The exciting weather keeps leading to inevitable results. I've put off my messages until tomorrow and I'm working in my PJs today. I'm making my way through the various tasks that must be finished by Friday, despite being in perpetual argument with my own body,. I think the outcome is a draw, right now.
If I can write 3000 more words today, I get time out when I do my messages tomorrow and everything will be easier. If I write 4000 more words today, I'm allowed to buy a special treat of some kind. This is my last teaching-free week for a while (and I may have to finish my handouts by Friday for the Game of Thrones one, because of changes in how we get our photocopying done) so I need to take advantage of it.
And for my next trick... Whenever I say that, you know it's coffee. For some reason I'm cold and need a hot drink. The whole region is cold. The temperatures are fine, but snow fell on the high ranges and the wind is coming from there. This would be why the pain and why the PJ day and why, despite these things, I'm getting work done at a cracking pace. Still, coffee will help me get more done.
If I can write 3000 more words today, I get time out when I do my messages tomorrow and everything will be easier. If I write 4000 more words today, I'm allowed to buy a special treat of some kind. This is my last teaching-free week for a while (and I may have to finish my handouts by Friday for the Game of Thrones one, because of changes in how we get our photocopying done) so I need to take advantage of it.
And for my next trick... Whenever I say that, you know it's coffee. For some reason I'm cold and need a hot drink. The whole region is cold. The temperatures are fine, but snow fell on the high ranges and the wind is coming from there. This would be why the pain and why the PJ day and why, despite these things, I'm getting work done at a cracking pace. Still, coffee will help me get more done.
April 18, 2015
gillpolack @ 2015-04-19T12:35:00
I tried sleeping the migraine off, but all that did was cause more work. This is par for the course with me: if I try to sleep off a migraine work appears in my inbox sure as night follows day. Since the various non-headache effects are still not as big as yesterday. I'm going to deal with the proof now and clear my desk for a really interesting work-related phone call this evening NZ time. This latter is of the I-get-all-the-most-interesting-writers to work with sort.
And now I'm allowed coffee. Coffee is goo stuff for page proofs. It's even better stuff for my migraines. Also, I will need my other glasses.
BTW, if someone tells you that "This is the way publishers do things" I give you permission to laugh in their face. No two publishers I've dealt with this year have done things in the same way. One told me huffily just now that "we never send acknowledgements for emails" while being very surprised I should send a follow-up query after a few weeks of not hearing; I didn't even get that comment the week before when I had to follow up with another publisher after eight months of not hearing. Another had an out-of-office reply an hour later followed by an email saying "This is what's happening."
At the other end, when the book is almost due for release, things are just as different. Processes are different. Timelines are different.
All I can do as a writer who writes for more than one publisher is to do a good job within each publisher's processes and to sort out my life in relation to all the different timelines.
What's amusing is that most of them think there are industry standards and that they're observing them. If the industry standard is a good book at the tail end, then yes, they are. But if they're thinking about normative ways of doing things... they aren't for there aren't. Unless I'm just very fortunate and discovering the extremes.
And now I'm allowed coffee. Coffee is goo stuff for page proofs. It's even better stuff for my migraines. Also, I will need my other glasses.
BTW, if someone tells you that "This is the way publishers do things" I give you permission to laugh in their face. No two publishers I've dealt with this year have done things in the same way. One told me huffily just now that "we never send acknowledgements for emails" while being very surprised I should send a follow-up query after a few weeks of not hearing; I didn't even get that comment the week before when I had to follow up with another publisher after eight months of not hearing. Another had an out-of-office reply an hour later followed by an email saying "This is what's happening."
At the other end, when the book is almost due for release, things are just as different. Processes are different. Timelines are different.
All I can do as a writer who writes for more than one publisher is to do a good job within each publisher's processes and to sort out my life in relation to all the different timelines.
What's amusing is that most of them think there are industry standards and that they're observing them. If the industry standard is a good book at the tail end, then yes, they are. But if they're thinking about normative ways of doing things... they aren't for there aren't. Unless I'm just very fortunate and discovering the extremes.
gillpolack @ 2015-04-19T09:04:00
I'm over the worst of the migraine, thankfully. I stil have auras and some pain, but it's not as debilitating as yesterday.
One thing time by myself does is make me read the world a bit differently. Today I'm seeing the social media statements of each and every person as part of stories. The author who tells me only how magnificent they are is due for a fall (for such hubris is not permitted in stories) and the one who rams their work down my throat all the time without ever telling me what it's about is due to be forgotten by posterity. The friend who is bravely suffering is going to have a major breakthrough (but not of the 'some day her prince will come variety' for she's both married and sarcastic and Cinderella wasn't permitted sarcasm) and the five people (I counted, which was very foolish of me) who seem to spend their lives wafting at a higher level than the rest of us, leading superior lives, will float away to their ethereal planes as a group of clouds. Either that or they'll prove to be secretly nasty and will get comeuppance. I don't know which, for their narratives are not yet fully shaped. In fact, they're the narratives of young children, which means, probably, they're due for Important Learning. Any of these five could still have hero stories.
None of the stories bear any relationship to the actual lives of these people. It's interesting, though, that they're unintentionally shaping their social media presence to create these stories. Others are less unaware. There's someone who's intentionally shaping things to look like the good guy, who's there for everyone and who everyone loves, when there is no evidence for this outside FB. There's another who's intentionally shaping it to look like everyone's goofy BFF.
Me? I stick to being myself, but I suspect not all of me shows in FB and I totally know it doesn't all show on Twitter. I am a very large person, and not all of this magnitude is explained by my round and roly-poly body. I can't work out how my narrative reads, however, for I'm too busy living it. Except when I have a migraine, of course, but I'm not going to develop another one where the only thing I can do is sleep, just to find out my public narrative.s
One thing time by myself does is make me read the world a bit differently. Today I'm seeing the social media statements of each and every person as part of stories. The author who tells me only how magnificent they are is due for a fall (for such hubris is not permitted in stories) and the one who rams their work down my throat all the time without ever telling me what it's about is due to be forgotten by posterity. The friend who is bravely suffering is going to have a major breakthrough (but not of the 'some day her prince will come variety' for she's both married and sarcastic and Cinderella wasn't permitted sarcasm) and the five people (I counted, which was very foolish of me) who seem to spend their lives wafting at a higher level than the rest of us, leading superior lives, will float away to their ethereal planes as a group of clouds. Either that or they'll prove to be secretly nasty and will get comeuppance. I don't know which, for their narratives are not yet fully shaped. In fact, they're the narratives of young children, which means, probably, they're due for Important Learning. Any of these five could still have hero stories.
None of the stories bear any relationship to the actual lives of these people. It's interesting, though, that they're unintentionally shaping their social media presence to create these stories. Others are less unaware. There's someone who's intentionally shaping things to look like the good guy, who's there for everyone and who everyone loves, when there is no evidence for this outside FB. There's another who's intentionally shaping it to look like everyone's goofy BFF.
Me? I stick to being myself, but I suspect not all of me shows in FB and I totally know it doesn't all show on Twitter. I am a very large person, and not all of this magnitude is explained by my round and roly-poly body. I can't work out how my narrative reads, however, for I'm too busy living it. Except when I have a migraine, of course, but I'm not going to develop another one where the only thing I can do is sleep, just to find out my public narrative.s
gillpolack @ 2015-04-18T18:58:00
My reading (for the migraine is half gone and life continues) is a seventeenth century life of John Dee. The introduction contains a wonderful thought: that rabbis (or 'Jewish Rabbins' if one sticks to the letter of the text) say that "what Ghosts or Souls are raised through Necromancy, they always appear inverso corpore, that is their head dowards and feet upwards. Though nothing is to be wondered at in Rabbins, who (commonly) are as full of ridiculous conceits as ever came into the head of any Bedlam.." then he gives a scientific explanation. The 'dowards' is the author's and so is the 'Rabbins.' Rabbis obviously came into English via the French.
This marks the shift I was after in how Jewish magic was perceived and science by Jews was perceived in England over time. It also amuses me. It brings two strands of magic together and extrapolates logical consequences. I now need to absolutely have an upside-down ghost in my novel.
The migraine meant that those few words took an unholy time to type, so I'm not through it yet. I'm reading again, though, which is a significant improvement.
This marks the shift I was after in how Jewish magic was perceived and science by Jews was perceived in England over time. It also amuses me. It brings two strands of magic together and extrapolates logical consequences. I now need to absolutely have an upside-down ghost in my novel.
The migraine meant that those few words took an unholy time to type, so I'm not through it yet. I'm reading again, though, which is a significant improvement.
April 17, 2015
gillpolack @ 2015-04-18T13:25:00
I have an on-again-off-again migraine. At its worse it's severe. At its best it's dealable with as long as the lights are low and no-one makes loud noises. That latter is now, for all my tablets are doing their job and the massage cushion helped and I have drunk lots of water and stretched some of the symptoms into temporary submission. It isn't gone, and I still am not capable of everything I want to be capable of, but it's in abeyance (mostly).
Importantly, the Beast is finished from my end. Katrin gets one last look at it before it goes to print, but for me, the heavy lifting is done. And my next bit of proof-reading is due but hasn't arrived, so if one must have a migraine, today is the right day for it.
On a happier note, there is poetic harmony in the universe. The amazing soul who thought up the #illridewithyou hashtag is a friend of mine. She is also an SF fan and writer. Other friends are following her example (see the comments in this: http://bookviewcafe.com/blog/2015/04/15/i-will-walk-with-you/ ). One day I'll introduce you to each other. The world will be a better place for it.
The world will also be a better place when I hurt less, but that hour is yet to come. It's a combination of weather and having got rid of the second of my albatrosses. The Beast and The Art of Effective Dreaming weighed me down for so very long that I do wonder what I'll be capable of when this re-adjustment period is over. I'm giving the re-adjustment til dusk tonight and then speaking to it sternly.
Importantly, the Beast is finished from my end. Katrin gets one last look at it before it goes to print, but for me, the heavy lifting is done. And my next bit of proof-reading is due but hasn't arrived, so if one must have a migraine, today is the right day for it.
On a happier note, there is poetic harmony in the universe. The amazing soul who thought up the #illridewithyou hashtag is a friend of mine. She is also an SF fan and writer. Other friends are following her example (see the comments in this: http://bookviewcafe.com/blog/2015/04/15/i-will-walk-with-you/ ). One day I'll introduce you to each other. The world will be a better place for it.
The world will also be a better place when I hurt less, but that hour is yet to come. It's a combination of weather and having got rid of the second of my albatrosses. The Beast and The Art of Effective Dreaming weighed me down for so very long that I do wonder what I'll be capable of when this re-adjustment period is over. I'm giving the re-adjustment til dusk tonight and then speaking to it sternly.
April 16, 2015
gillpolack @ 2015-04-17T15:38:00
My noisy neighbours are moving. There's a van outside and all. In the process, they're being extra noisy and blocking my door and blocking the stairwell and leaving doors open and generally disturbing the peace, for the kids are running around the removalists and turning it all into a game. Still, they (the boys) are obviously enjoying themselves, and I was allowed to put my rubbish out, and it's all worth it if no-one parks outside my bedroom at 6 am and if the front door stays shut when it has to (which is most of the time) and if my friends no longer have to walk so far to help me lug groceries. I'll miss the family as people, but I'm hoping they've found a house that's big enough and that everyone's happy.
Canberra is wet and I'm about to make more coffee. And I'm exactly half-way through my tasks for the day.
This is the day of news that is not news. This is, in fact, the day of overwork, and I seldom have proper news when I'm overworking. So today I'm a bit ahead of things. Not much, but enough so that I deserve a small amount of chocolate with my coffee.
Canberra is wet and I'm about to make more coffee. And I'm exactly half-way through my tasks for the day.
This is the day of news that is not news. This is, in fact, the day of overwork, and I seldom have proper news when I'm overworking. So today I'm a bit ahead of things. Not much, but enough so that I deserve a small amount of chocolate with my coffee.
