Gillian Polack's Blog, page 54
September 29, 2014
The Book Countdown 5
Today there will be two posts to celebrate the incoming book (Zooming like mad at a printer far away from where I am, currently) , because the first is not nearly strange enough. This first post is for a giveaway (because people also asked for giveaways).
The first three people who ask nicely and send me email addresses (by one means or another) will get the special access code that will give them a free copy of the academic article that goes with the novel. However... there will be one code for each region: Australasia, Europe and the Americas. If you come from a fourth region, then I'll make a fourth code available, because you'll be my first reader from that area.
If an enormous number of people want the article, I might make another code available and do a random draw for it, so put your name down even if someone from your region already has it.
For those who are curious, this is the article in question. The novel is a perfectly novelish novel without it (it stands alone and is its own creature), but if you read it you'll get all sorts of insights into writers and how they use history.
The first three people who ask nicely and send me email addresses (by one means or another) will get the special access code that will give them a free copy of the academic article that goes with the novel. However... there will be one code for each region: Australasia, Europe and the Americas. If you come from a fourth region, then I'll make a fourth code available, because you'll be my first reader from that area.
If an enormous number of people want the article, I might make another code available and do a random draw for it, so put your name down even if someone from your region already has it.
For those who are curious, this is the article in question. The novel is a perfectly novelish novel without it (it stands alone and is its own creature), but if you read it you'll get all sorts of insights into writers and how they use history.
September 28, 2014
Novel Countdown Day 6
Today is all about portable soup, which is not always the same as potable soup. The soup itself does not appear in my novel, but my book has travellers and they would have had stock cubes (and, at various stages, missed fresh produce) and this is the ancestral stock cube, and that's my excuse.
I found a webpage that has most of what I would have written, plus a good picture of the soup, which saves me a lot of work. http://preparednessadvice.com/recipes/portable-soups-carried-lewis-clark-make/#.VCjBoxYX8us I can't work out if I'm lazy or overworked, though, that I'm falling back on someone else's writing. Possibly both.
Chicken doesn't work at all well for portable soup (the bones are too soft), while duck is OK and beef is best of all. I need to try other meats one day, really, but I think I've established that one needs solid bones to make portable soup - it's not a matter of much meat.
Here's an alternate page with more pictures and some thoughts on the magnificence of the finished product: http://www.wwnorton.com/pob/spottedd/psoup.htm Here's some more thoughts on its magnificence, plus some hints as to why not all portable sups are equal when eaten: http://franceshunter.wordpress.com/2010/03/16/mm-mm-good-not-lewis-clarks-portable-soup/
And here's a specific use of portable soup: http://lewis-clark.org/content/content-article.asp?ArticleID=2128
I have to say that my experiments showed that not all portable soup recipes are the same. One I made was a perfect broth and the next resembled a beef-flavoured diluted, warmed-up glue. Since I was using historical recipes originally, I suspect this shows that the flavour of portable soup depended very heavily on its maker. It was perfectly possible to make highly edible (but not, perhaps, gourmet) soup using it and then to make it better by adding other ingredients (ie to use it as we use a stock cube), and it's also perfectly possible to make something that is nourishing but should be avoided at all costs.
I found a webpage that has most of what I would have written, plus a good picture of the soup, which saves me a lot of work. http://preparednessadvice.com/recipes/portable-soups-carried-lewis-clark-make/#.VCjBoxYX8us I can't work out if I'm lazy or overworked, though, that I'm falling back on someone else's writing. Possibly both.
Chicken doesn't work at all well for portable soup (the bones are too soft), while duck is OK and beef is best of all. I need to try other meats one day, really, but I think I've established that one needs solid bones to make portable soup - it's not a matter of much meat.
Here's an alternate page with more pictures and some thoughts on the magnificence of the finished product: http://www.wwnorton.com/pob/spottedd/psoup.htm Here's some more thoughts on its magnificence, plus some hints as to why not all portable sups are equal when eaten: http://franceshunter.wordpress.com/2010/03/16/mm-mm-good-not-lewis-clarks-portable-soup/
And here's a specific use of portable soup: http://lewis-clark.org/content/content-article.asp?ArticleID=2128
I have to say that my experiments showed that not all portable soup recipes are the same. One I made was a perfect broth and the next resembled a beef-flavoured diluted, warmed-up glue. Since I was using historical recipes originally, I suspect this shows that the flavour of portable soup depended very heavily on its maker. It was perfectly possible to make highly edible (but not, perhaps, gourmet) soup using it and then to make it better by adding other ingredients (ie to use it as we use a stock cube), and it's also perfectly possible to make something that is nourishing but should be avoided at all costs.
September 27, 2014
Conflux - how to avoid Gillian on the Sunday
My Conflux Sunday has changed a bit, so you need a new guide on how to avoid me. I've lost the rooms for most of it, so some of this may involve sleeping in or having a long lunch.
I'm attending a round table in con organisation, first thing Sunday morning (Boardroom 3), partly to pull together what I learned from my European conrunner friends and partly to share some of what I learned. This means I won't be at the panel on Effective Researching, which is probably a good thing for the panellists. I've made some nice progress recently on what researching for writers is, as opposed to how we're taught to research at school and uni and what the differences mean to our writing, BTW. This is thanks to all those conventions I attended recently, so it all comes full circle. I got to talk to writers and artists and fellow-historians and other academics and to pull a whole lot of things together. I can now teach research-for-fiction (including different types of fiction, of course) and research-for-academia as a twinned set, giving students skills in both and a solid understanding of how they're different. Not that anyone wants it right now, but it was important to me to sort it. There's no call for me to teach it in Canberra, apparently, which is a shame. And none of this is relevant to Sunday at Conflux, for I shall be at the con organisation round table.
At 11 am is my booklaunch, near the registration desk. Books!! (but by me, which may be a problem)
at 1 pm is the (very short) fan funds auction. I have some stuff from Europe, including Dr Who material (stickers!) and badges from Liburnicon (which I bought specially and will keep if no-one wants to bid on them) and some other cool stuff. If anyone wants to know what I have for the auction, let me know and I'll make a list.
At 1.30 pm is the "Where do I come from?" panel, where a group of us talk about issues of culture and character development.
After that, I may well be in the Dealers' Room (at some stage), helping out at either the CSFG table or bugging one of my publishers. I won't be going to the banquet, having spent all my spare money in Europe (and some of my non-spare money) and I won't be at the earlier partyish things due to Yom Kippur. In fact, the whole first two days of the convention are Gillian-free, thanks to Yom Kippur.
My talk is on the Monday, and that's all I'm formally programmed for on the Monday. This is quite a different convention for me than last year, when I was programmed for so many hours that I didn't always have time to eat!
And that's your programme update!
Now I ought to get back to my to-do list, which must be all finished with by tonight if I want to see Floriade tomorrow (which I do). Except.. I forgot something. Oh, yes. I have Finnish sweets for people who don't succeed in avoiding me. Instead of chocolate, just this once.
I'm attending a round table in con organisation, first thing Sunday morning (Boardroom 3), partly to pull together what I learned from my European conrunner friends and partly to share some of what I learned. This means I won't be at the panel on Effective Researching, which is probably a good thing for the panellists. I've made some nice progress recently on what researching for writers is, as opposed to how we're taught to research at school and uni and what the differences mean to our writing, BTW. This is thanks to all those conventions I attended recently, so it all comes full circle. I got to talk to writers and artists and fellow-historians and other academics and to pull a whole lot of things together. I can now teach research-for-fiction (including different types of fiction, of course) and research-for-academia as a twinned set, giving students skills in both and a solid understanding of how they're different. Not that anyone wants it right now, but it was important to me to sort it. There's no call for me to teach it in Canberra, apparently, which is a shame. And none of this is relevant to Sunday at Conflux, for I shall be at the con organisation round table.
At 11 am is my booklaunch, near the registration desk. Books!! (but by me, which may be a problem)
at 1 pm is the (very short) fan funds auction. I have some stuff from Europe, including Dr Who material (stickers!) and badges from Liburnicon (which I bought specially and will keep if no-one wants to bid on them) and some other cool stuff. If anyone wants to know what I have for the auction, let me know and I'll make a list.
At 1.30 pm is the "Where do I come from?" panel, where a group of us talk about issues of culture and character development.
After that, I may well be in the Dealers' Room (at some stage), helping out at either the CSFG table or bugging one of my publishers. I won't be going to the banquet, having spent all my spare money in Europe (and some of my non-spare money) and I won't be at the earlier partyish things due to Yom Kippur. In fact, the whole first two days of the convention are Gillian-free, thanks to Yom Kippur.
My talk is on the Monday, and that's all I'm formally programmed for on the Monday. This is quite a different convention for me than last year, when I was programmed for so many hours that I didn't always have time to eat!
And that's your programme update!
Now I ought to get back to my to-do list, which must be all finished with by tonight if I want to see Floriade tomorrow (which I do). Except.. I forgot something. Oh, yes. I have Finnish sweets for people who don't succeed in avoiding me. Instead of chocolate, just this once.
Coundown to Langue[dot]doc 1305 Day 7
I have consulted on the intarwebz, and the general consensus is that everyone needs strange writings in the lead up to my book coming out. Today you ten get possibly-not-so-well-known books I've read in the last little while. They're all fun for quite different reasons. Some of them I've mentioned here and some, not.
#1 Because it elicited a lot of interest while I was away. Matthew Smith, Memoirs of Secret Service 1699
#2 For the political, something about the Rump.
#3 Lancelot Addison The Present State of the Jews 1676. This is because of the time of year - you need Jewish things to contemplate amongst the other.
#4 English Worthies in Church and State 1684. This is a very handy book to have round. Everyone needs a copy. It sums up one paragraph with "So much for Robin Hood." I'll let you find that paragraph for yourself, though, for I need to check what it says for Huntingdon (which I forgot to check before- shame on me!).
#5 Something worthy of a re-read, always (not obscure at all, but I miss it and my e-reading time is nothing-but-Aurealis right now, because of the format of the books) Edith Nesbit The Enchanted Castle PS Why does spellcheck want to turn Nesbit into BITNET - oh, how the mighty are fallen!
#6 Angela Brazil The Luckiest Girl in the School
#7 Norman Lindsay The Magic Pudding. This one need to be read with images. How can one know what a pudding thief looks like without pictures, after all? In fact, The Magic Pudding is full of pictures and conversation and so Alice would have approved.
#8 At Agincourt, by GA Henty. This one I have not re-read recently, but I probably ought. He led me into history when I was but a toddler. Well, maybe not a toddler. I might have been seven. But I read him and got hooked.
#9 JS Polack New Zealand 1838. This is only volume two and there are other books by him. I don't think he's a relative, nor do I think he's related to the Polack whose grave is a tourist attraction somewhere in rural NZ (who is apparently a relative of mine) but I dip into his books from time to time because they're interesting and because he has a delightful surname.
#10 Under the circumstances, it would be wrong of me to leave out the book I re-read just yesterday. It isn't free (and not quite available yet), but it has a very pretty cover and it's most certainly obscure. Gillian Polack Langue[dot]doc 1305
#1 Because it elicited a lot of interest while I was away. Matthew Smith, Memoirs of Secret Service 1699
#2 For the political, something about the Rump.
#3 Lancelot Addison The Present State of the Jews 1676. This is because of the time of year - you need Jewish things to contemplate amongst the other.
#4 English Worthies in Church and State 1684. This is a very handy book to have round. Everyone needs a copy. It sums up one paragraph with "So much for Robin Hood." I'll let you find that paragraph for yourself, though, for I need to check what it says for Huntingdon (which I forgot to check before- shame on me!).
#5 Something worthy of a re-read, always (not obscure at all, but I miss it and my e-reading time is nothing-but-Aurealis right now, because of the format of the books) Edith Nesbit The Enchanted Castle PS Why does spellcheck want to turn Nesbit into BITNET - oh, how the mighty are fallen!
#6 Angela Brazil The Luckiest Girl in the School
#7 Norman Lindsay The Magic Pudding. This one need to be read with images. How can one know what a pudding thief looks like without pictures, after all? In fact, The Magic Pudding is full of pictures and conversation and so Alice would have approved.
#8 At Agincourt, by GA Henty. This one I have not re-read recently, but I probably ought. He led me into history when I was but a toddler. Well, maybe not a toddler. I might have been seven. But I read him and got hooked.
#9 JS Polack New Zealand 1838. This is only volume two and there are other books by him. I don't think he's a relative, nor do I think he's related to the Polack whose grave is a tourist attraction somewhere in rural NZ (who is apparently a relative of mine) but I dip into his books from time to time because they're interesting and because he has a delightful surname.
#10 Under the circumstances, it would be wrong of me to leave out the book I re-read just yesterday. It isn't free (and not quite available yet), but it has a very pretty cover and it's most certainly obscure. Gillian Polack Langue[dot]doc 1305
gillpolack @ 2014-09-28T11:48:00
This is a strange month. Many marvellous things have happened, but they've been balanced by tragedy. A friend has just died, far too young, and she's the second. The world is less luminous without her. Also, one of my mother's close friends was diagnosed with cancer while I was away, and it's terminal Other friends are 'merely' sick, though in some cases this means quite sick. I would like 'quite sick' to translate into 'quite better', if my friends can please manage it?
Life is such a perilous, precious thing. I'm going to light an extra candle this Kol Nidre for the friends I won't see again, and I'm going to get very angry with the rest of you if you don't get through things soon.
Life is such a perilous, precious thing. I'm going to light an extra candle this Kol Nidre for the friends I won't see again, and I'm going to get very angry with the rest of you if you don't get through things soon.
gillpolack @ 2014-09-27T19:03:00
I had a list of twelve things this morning, but novel-related stuff took precedence (as it will for a little) and I have to do them this evening, instead. I think, though, that I shall eat dinner first.
Some of them are fun, and some of them are half-done, and five of them can carry over until tomorrow if they must.
In other news, my modem threw a hissy fit and refused to talk to things in the middle of all the "Waah!" stage of edits. It was very exciting. I just hope it doesn't get exciting again - I don't want to spend more time on the phone solving internet access issues, when really, I need to be working.
And now, it's dinner time! Or at least, it's time to cook dinner.
Some of them are fun, and some of them are half-done, and five of them can carry over until tomorrow if they must.
In other news, my modem threw a hissy fit and refused to talk to things in the middle of all the "Waah!" stage of edits. It was very exciting. I just hope it doesn't get exciting again - I don't want to spend more time on the phone solving internet access issues, when really, I need to be working.
And now, it's dinner time! Or at least, it's time to cook dinner.
September 25, 2014
gillpolack @ 2014-09-26T11:06:00
Today is a lot better than yesterday, for I didn't have vast expectations of it and because the weather shift is moving a bit more sensibly and some of the pain is going down. Also, I have a list. I feel much happier with this list. I have to report in to a couple of people about the trip (I still have many reportings to finish, but each one that gets done makes me happier), I have to send some information to my publisher, later in the day there will be more edits of the final variety,, plus there are emails to send out to many people to let them know that the book launch is now at 11 am (which is a lot better than during dinner time, but the not-so-good reason behind the change is that a friend's book has been delayed and I am being given his launch time) and I have a whole separate list devoted to soul-destroying paperwork.
What I did last night was watch DVDs and start mending the Dothraki jewellery I made at Shamrokon. Some of it didn't survive the travel well, you see. I now only have two gems to sew on (I made the mistake of gluing them on, originally, for I couldn't find thread at the workshop that would work for the sewing). I've lost a few pieces of moss agate, so there is a certain amount of improvisation in this, but I'm almost at the stage where my work won't be impossibly embarrassing to everyone else in the class. There was a lot of talent and imagination in that class. I did not partake of either, but I had a great deal of fun and learned some handy skills and got to make things. My hands still cramp with fine work, so there will be not much craft in my near future, but my co-ordination is not as bad as it was ie the RSI is not as much of a "Thou shalt not" as it used to be. And I have some Dothraki jewellery to wear at inappropriate times.
Speaking of apparel, I plan on making an execrable and ungraceful pun by wearing something very simple on the Conflux Sunday. A friend unintentionally abetted this and will quite probably regret giving me this particular object.
In other news... there is a lot of other news, and I don't really want to report it right now. My life is still of fast forward and the steering still needs fixing. I want it to slow down enough so that I can talk to some of my friends, please, including the new friends from the last few weeks. However, my life will do what it does, regardless of my needs and wishes. That's normal for it. My best bet is to fight for a bit of control over the steering wheel by returning to my lists, which is what second day NY is going to be about.
PS Does anyone remember those 18 hour days before I went away? About half the things I did then have already fallen through. I think this is a nineteenth century moral tale about not overworking.
What I did last night was watch DVDs and start mending the Dothraki jewellery I made at Shamrokon. Some of it didn't survive the travel well, you see. I now only have two gems to sew on (I made the mistake of gluing them on, originally, for I couldn't find thread at the workshop that would work for the sewing). I've lost a few pieces of moss agate, so there is a certain amount of improvisation in this, but I'm almost at the stage where my work won't be impossibly embarrassing to everyone else in the class. There was a lot of talent and imagination in that class. I did not partake of either, but I had a great deal of fun and learned some handy skills and got to make things. My hands still cramp with fine work, so there will be not much craft in my near future, but my co-ordination is not as bad as it was ie the RSI is not as much of a "Thou shalt not" as it used to be. And I have some Dothraki jewellery to wear at inappropriate times.
Speaking of apparel, I plan on making an execrable and ungraceful pun by wearing something very simple on the Conflux Sunday. A friend unintentionally abetted this and will quite probably regret giving me this particular object.
In other news... there is a lot of other news, and I don't really want to report it right now. My life is still of fast forward and the steering still needs fixing. I want it to slow down enough so that I can talk to some of my friends, please, including the new friends from the last few weeks. However, my life will do what it does, regardless of my needs and wishes. That's normal for it. My best bet is to fight for a bit of control over the steering wheel by returning to my lists, which is what second day NY is going to be about.
PS Does anyone remember those 18 hour days before I went away? About half the things I did then have already fallen through. I think this is a nineteenth century moral tale about not overworking.
September 24, 2014
gillpolack @ 2014-09-25T11:36:00
I'm about to turn to what I've taken to calling 'fluffy duck reality' due to a student of mine who writes warm and wonderful poems about fluffy ducks. I'm focussing on the rather nice communication I had from a reader about Ms Cellophane, and I'm focussing on the fact that I'm going to spend the next 90 minutes watching Tyrone Power as Zorro and eat chocolate sultanas (which won't be round for next week after all, sorry).
I'm not going to focus on the weather aches (which are better than yesterday, but still a bit impossible), or the urgent work that had to be done last night (it was genuinely urgent, and so entirely understandable that I had to be asked but rather badly timed), or that every man and his dog has rung me this morning about mundane things. Why couldn't they have rung me yesterday or tomorrow? Because they no longer have Jewish New Year on their calendar. Nor do they really care.
If anyone asks me "Tell me why this is a holiday for you?" when I've already told them that it's my New Year and that it's normally a family time, I shall possibly lose it. Everyone's asking. Everyone. Why is the first year of a calendar so unrecognisably strange that people don't say "Sorry - didn't realise the date. I'll get back to you tomorrow"? This is what normally happens. But this year the general public's right to ask impossibly basic questions trumps my right to a quiet day seeing in the New Year. If I were mean, I would make a list of all these people (and we're talking more than one or two) and ring them on their Christmas or on secular New Year and ask them why they want the day off. Reduce their privilege of festival, the way they've reduced mine.
This takes me back to the bad old days of the public service, when it was almost impossible to get days off for things Jewish. I'm allowed to be Jewish as long as I'm not actually Jewish. Today, almost no-one believes me when I say "It's the first day of my New Year." Except the dentist. The dentist is going to write it on their computer system (again) and ring back next week. There is no growth in understanding for most people around me, for it's easier for them to let me do the work, whether it's a one-day-a-year or not.
Normally I avoid this by going to Melbourne and spending time with family, but I was too soon back from Europe and my finances are (as we knew they would be) a bit challenging. Mind you, some of you will remember years when I've been in Melbourne and people chased me there anyhow, although they at least recognised I was away from home and assumed I was on holiday. The fact that I was on holiday didn't matter to them, but it meant I didn't get asked why the new year was the new year.
So... fluffy duck reality. I have a fabbo new t-shirt as my Rosh Hashanah present from
kitzen_kat
and M, and I shall wear it (with leggings, as a tunic) on the day of my booklaunch, for it is very geekish and in line with recent happenings. My booklaunch has been moved to 11 am, which is a much better time, and I shall relay this to everyone I can at the end of First Day (for I don't think it can actually wait until tomorrow night). I shall watch Zorro, with choc-coated sultanas and big cups of tea. I shall have a hot bath, with bath salts. And my Rosh Hashanah will be celebratory, even if wider Australia seems to live in the belief that not hating someone is the same as understanding differences and that they may not use an internet search to find out why this Jewish person claims it's new year.
A giant thank you to my friends - for all of you *did* get that this is my new year. I appreciate it so very much. And in my next life, I shall belong to a majority religion/culture, where I can take these things for granted.
Europe was so very good to me that I forgot that I couldn't take my own festivities for granted. It shouldn't be my fault for forgetting, however. I should not have spent chunks of my morning explaining that the beginning of a calendar year is the beginning of a calendar year and that it's a holiday for me for it's my calendar.
And now it's fluffy duck reality time, for it sounds as if I need it from the evidence of my grump.
I'm not going to focus on the weather aches (which are better than yesterday, but still a bit impossible), or the urgent work that had to be done last night (it was genuinely urgent, and so entirely understandable that I had to be asked but rather badly timed), or that every man and his dog has rung me this morning about mundane things. Why couldn't they have rung me yesterday or tomorrow? Because they no longer have Jewish New Year on their calendar. Nor do they really care.
If anyone asks me "Tell me why this is a holiday for you?" when I've already told them that it's my New Year and that it's normally a family time, I shall possibly lose it. Everyone's asking. Everyone. Why is the first year of a calendar so unrecognisably strange that people don't say "Sorry - didn't realise the date. I'll get back to you tomorrow"? This is what normally happens. But this year the general public's right to ask impossibly basic questions trumps my right to a quiet day seeing in the New Year. If I were mean, I would make a list of all these people (and we're talking more than one or two) and ring them on their Christmas or on secular New Year and ask them why they want the day off. Reduce their privilege of festival, the way they've reduced mine.
This takes me back to the bad old days of the public service, when it was almost impossible to get days off for things Jewish. I'm allowed to be Jewish as long as I'm not actually Jewish. Today, almost no-one believes me when I say "It's the first day of my New Year." Except the dentist. The dentist is going to write it on their computer system (again) and ring back next week. There is no growth in understanding for most people around me, for it's easier for them to let me do the work, whether it's a one-day-a-year or not.
Normally I avoid this by going to Melbourne and spending time with family, but I was too soon back from Europe and my finances are (as we knew they would be) a bit challenging. Mind you, some of you will remember years when I've been in Melbourne and people chased me there anyhow, although they at least recognised I was away from home and assumed I was on holiday. The fact that I was on holiday didn't matter to them, but it meant I didn't get asked why the new year was the new year.
So... fluffy duck reality. I have a fabbo new t-shirt as my Rosh Hashanah present from
kitzen_kat
and M, and I shall wear it (with leggings, as a tunic) on the day of my booklaunch, for it is very geekish and in line with recent happenings. My booklaunch has been moved to 11 am, which is a much better time, and I shall relay this to everyone I can at the end of First Day (for I don't think it can actually wait until tomorrow night). I shall watch Zorro, with choc-coated sultanas and big cups of tea. I shall have a hot bath, with bath salts. And my Rosh Hashanah will be celebratory, even if wider Australia seems to live in the belief that not hating someone is the same as understanding differences and that they may not use an internet search to find out why this Jewish person claims it's new year.A giant thank you to my friends - for all of you *did* get that this is my new year. I appreciate it so very much. And in my next life, I shall belong to a majority religion/culture, where I can take these things for granted.
Europe was so very good to me that I forgot that I couldn't take my own festivities for granted. It shouldn't be my fault for forgetting, however. I should not have spent chunks of my morning explaining that the beginning of a calendar year is the beginning of a calendar year and that it's a holiday for me for it's my calendar.
And now it's fluffy duck reality time, for it sounds as if I need it from the evidence of my grump.
September 23, 2014
gillpolack @ 2014-09-24T16:17:00
My Rosh Hashanah present from my work experience student was some help with housework, which should make a significant difference to the allergies from tomorrow and will make a difference to pain levels immediately, for I now have no recycling etc to put out. We had apple dipped in honey plus some Croatian rice bubble chocolate, which made a very nice afternoon tea. My present from her is that she's let me borrow Madoka again, so I can re-see it (for it warrants a second visit).
I have two friends coming round to eat dinner with me tonight and help see the New Year in properly. I have only two bills left to pay (and money in my account to pay them, though I have run my reserves down a lot). And my computer is working.
This is shaping up to be a rather nice Rosh Hashanah.
I have two friends coming round to eat dinner with me tonight and help see the New Year in properly. I have only two bills left to pay (and money in my account to pay them, though I have run my reserves down a lot). And my computer is working.
This is shaping up to be a rather nice Rosh Hashanah.
gillpolack @ 2014-09-23T23:18:00
I'm halfway caught up with my Aurealis reading. More than half. In fact, I've read thirteen Aurealis books since I got back to Canberra, plus five other books. There would be things delayed because of this reading, but it was bugging me until I did it. Only ten more books and I'm completely caught up....until publishers send more.
I hope they'll send the paper copy, for my eyes do not like reading this number of e-books back-to-back, on top of my normal work. Judges do not have a say in this anymore, though, so I must take what I am given, regardless of my eyes. This means I might have to retire from Aurealis judging, however much I enjoy it. I'll make an assessment at the end of this year based on the final numbers of e-books and how they affect my everyday work. I'm better with pdfs than with other formats, oddly, but we've been given precious few pdfs this year. I'm not going to damage my vision over it - I'm doing this as a volunteer and my eyes are important to me. Everything else allows me to change formats and etc to meet the needs of my eyes - it's only the Aurealis that so robustly says that the publishers' choice of file is more more important than the judges' capacity to read that file. Mind you, I appear to be the only judge affected in this way, which means it's a personal choice (to judge or not to judge) and I'll make it at the end of the year, when this season is finished.
In other news, it looks as if my booklaunch will be shifting times, to the much more sensible 11 am. I'll have to let everyone know if it does that, and I'm just waiting for confirmation.
People keep telling me it's the Autumn Equinox. I find it interesting that the internet has a cultural consciousness that's mainly northern hemisphere, and even more interesting that so many folks can't say "equinox" without adding a season.
By all this you may know that I'm at the post-voyage downtime while in the pre-Rosh Hashanah do-everything time and just not quite certain where my mind is except that my mood tends to vague grump. This time tomorrow it will be next year. And it will be a good year, because the days are lengthening just when the year begins, and because I have a booklaunch instantly the high holy days are over. But tonight and tomorrow are strange interzones, where anything can happen. Anything except reading more books for the Aurealis awards, for I finally must address some of things i postponed.
I hope they'll send the paper copy, for my eyes do not like reading this number of e-books back-to-back, on top of my normal work. Judges do not have a say in this anymore, though, so I must take what I am given, regardless of my eyes. This means I might have to retire from Aurealis judging, however much I enjoy it. I'll make an assessment at the end of this year based on the final numbers of e-books and how they affect my everyday work. I'm better with pdfs than with other formats, oddly, but we've been given precious few pdfs this year. I'm not going to damage my vision over it - I'm doing this as a volunteer and my eyes are important to me. Everything else allows me to change formats and etc to meet the needs of my eyes - it's only the Aurealis that so robustly says that the publishers' choice of file is more more important than the judges' capacity to read that file. Mind you, I appear to be the only judge affected in this way, which means it's a personal choice (to judge or not to judge) and I'll make it at the end of the year, when this season is finished.
In other news, it looks as if my booklaunch will be shifting times, to the much more sensible 11 am. I'll have to let everyone know if it does that, and I'm just waiting for confirmation.
People keep telling me it's the Autumn Equinox. I find it interesting that the internet has a cultural consciousness that's mainly northern hemisphere, and even more interesting that so many folks can't say "equinox" without adding a season.
By all this you may know that I'm at the post-voyage downtime while in the pre-Rosh Hashanah do-everything time and just not quite certain where my mind is except that my mood tends to vague grump. This time tomorrow it will be next year. And it will be a good year, because the days are lengthening just when the year begins, and because I have a booklaunch instantly the high holy days are over. But tonight and tomorrow are strange interzones, where anything can happen. Anything except reading more books for the Aurealis awards, for I finally must address some of things i postponed.
