Gillian Polack's Blog, page 64
June 2, 2014
gillpolack @ 2014-06-03T10:57:00
It's an ill wind, in this case, literally. The current Weather (we're on day whatever, I just haven't been reporting it, but I *have* almost run out of pain relievers) meant that I couldn't sleep last night until 3 am. The good part of that is that I finished with a bunch of things. If I can complete fifteen items today, only five of which are substantial, I shall be caught up. One is more than substantial, but at least it's only one.
I had something interesting to tell you, but I've forgotten it. I am too busy dreaming of actually catching up with all those things that were delayed because I was ill. When I'm caught up, my posts should be more interesting again, for I'll be back doing regular work. Mind you, I'm still behind on that last little bit of the book that's nearly finished. One of my Continuum talks will bring my brain into gear for that, though, and a few weeks should see it finished. My aim, in fact, is to have it done and to be up to writing fiction by LonCon time.
Instead of news, I shall blitz some items on my today's list. Everything that's done will make my life much better. Coffee might also make my life better. And the good thing is that I can do both at once.
I had something interesting to tell you, but I've forgotten it. I am too busy dreaming of actually catching up with all those things that were delayed because I was ill. When I'm caught up, my posts should be more interesting again, for I'll be back doing regular work. Mind you, I'm still behind on that last little bit of the book that's nearly finished. One of my Continuum talks will bring my brain into gear for that, though, and a few weeks should see it finished. My aim, in fact, is to have it done and to be up to writing fiction by LonCon time.
Instead of news, I shall blitz some items on my today's list. Everything that's done will make my life much better. Coffee might also make my life better. And the good thing is that I can do both at once.
June 1, 2014
gillpolack @ 2014-06-02T16:20:00
Slowly, slowly I'm getting through things.
Stuff happens as the mess of papers diminishes. I found my earliest surviving book review, unexpectedly (again) and couldn't remember if I blogged it or not. You nearly got to read it, in all its glory*. Then I realised that if I've already blogged it, you've already read it (in all its glory) and probably don't need to revisit the experience.
I think I wrote it in Grade Six, but it could have been Grade Five. M would know. She and I were reading a great deal of Lorna Hill at that stage, and all the Abbey books we could lay our hands on, and every Billabong and Anne book in the known universe**. This is how I know it was late primary school - after I was eleven, my class reports changed somewhat, because M and I were in different classes in high school. We were still friends (and we still are) but my reading changed. So Gillian age somewhere between nine and eleven (but probably closer to eleven). About the time I discovered Doc Smith. The Lensmen and the ballet books worked perfectly together.
My plans for the rest of the day are nutting through the Great Unfinished and turning more of it into the Magically Done. The only bit of it that's straightforward is the reading, and that's the only bit that doesn't have today's date on it as an absolute. This means I feel as if I'm making no progress at all, even though I've wiped several outstanding items from my Evil List of the Great Unfinished. This probably means I need another coffee.
*You still can, if you ask politely.
**But only very few of the Chalet books. There just weren't many of them around, so I didn't really discover them till I raided a friend's stash when I was 13 or so. Dickens, Dostoyevsky and Dyer, all at once.
Stuff happens as the mess of papers diminishes. I found my earliest surviving book review, unexpectedly (again) and couldn't remember if I blogged it or not. You nearly got to read it, in all its glory*. Then I realised that if I've already blogged it, you've already read it (in all its glory) and probably don't need to revisit the experience.
I think I wrote it in Grade Six, but it could have been Grade Five. M would know. She and I were reading a great deal of Lorna Hill at that stage, and all the Abbey books we could lay our hands on, and every Billabong and Anne book in the known universe**. This is how I know it was late primary school - after I was eleven, my class reports changed somewhat, because M and I were in different classes in high school. We were still friends (and we still are) but my reading changed. So Gillian age somewhere between nine and eleven (but probably closer to eleven). About the time I discovered Doc Smith. The Lensmen and the ballet books worked perfectly together.
My plans for the rest of the day are nutting through the Great Unfinished and turning more of it into the Magically Done. The only bit of it that's straightforward is the reading, and that's the only bit that doesn't have today's date on it as an absolute. This means I feel as if I'm making no progress at all, even though I've wiped several outstanding items from my Evil List of the Great Unfinished. This probably means I need another coffee.
*You still can, if you ask politely.
**But only very few of the Chalet books. There just weren't many of them around, so I didn't really discover them till I raided a friend's stash when I was 13 or so. Dickens, Dostoyevsky and Dyer, all at once.
May 31, 2014
gillpolack @ 2014-06-01T12:04:00
I'm being terribly, frightfully sensible. I've made a list of the things that must be done by Thursday. The unavoidables. I'm finishing them (and there are a lot of them) but I'm also taking time out. I watched Frozen last night, for instance, and will watch Veronica Mars* today. And I'm drinking chocolate chai.
This my carefully calculated form of making a rude gesture to the universe concerning last week. In an ideal world, I'd go bush for a day. That's what really refreshes me. But I can't drive, and hills are still a bit difficult (my imbalanced self heals, but gently and slowly) and busses are but one an hour and never go quite far enough, so Yankee Hat and the rock paintings are beyond me and all the places busses go locally that have bushwalks are steep and hilly for they are all mountains. Veronica Mars will have to do instead.
My books for today are Jack Dann's Jubilee (which is a re-read, for I'm co-interviewing him next weekend) and Beautiful Creatures (because my work experience student felt it was essential to my intellectual well-being). They may be tomorrow's books as well, because I'm taking life slowly.
*A friend was a kickstarter supporter.
This my carefully calculated form of making a rude gesture to the universe concerning last week. In an ideal world, I'd go bush for a day. That's what really refreshes me. But I can't drive, and hills are still a bit difficult (my imbalanced self heals, but gently and slowly) and busses are but one an hour and never go quite far enough, so Yankee Hat and the rock paintings are beyond me and all the places busses go locally that have bushwalks are steep and hilly for they are all mountains. Veronica Mars will have to do instead.
My books for today are Jack Dann's Jubilee (which is a re-read, for I'm co-interviewing him next weekend) and Beautiful Creatures (because my work experience student felt it was essential to my intellectual well-being). They may be tomorrow's books as well, because I'm taking life slowly.
*A friend was a kickstarter supporter.
May 29, 2014
gillpolack @ 2014-05-30T16:35:00
Yesterday was slow (but I got lots done) and today is strange (and less useful for accomplishing things). Among the odd things that have happened today is the person who insisted that TV history is right, the person who stopped me reading on the street to find out why and is now determined to read my novel, and the shape of my next Wednesday.
Today's reading was a Kurt Vonnegut love story (Long Walk to Forever), Sonnet XIV from Sonnet from the Portuguese (because my students asked for Elizabeth Barrett Browning this week), Emily Bronte's Love and Friendship and John Donne's A Valediction Forbidding Mourning.
And there is no other news. There was going to be, but it ran out on me, slamming the door behind itself.
Today's reading was a Kurt Vonnegut love story (Long Walk to Forever), Sonnet XIV from Sonnet from the Portuguese (because my students asked for Elizabeth Barrett Browning this week), Emily Bronte's Love and Friendship and John Donne's A Valediction Forbidding Mourning.
And there is no other news. There was going to be, but it ran out on me, slamming the door behind itself.
May 28, 2014
gillpolack @ 2014-05-29T13:01:00
Today is very slow. I'll get back to you if this changes. My good deed for the day is to introduce the Giant Merino to a Finnish SF fan...
May 27, 2014
gillpolack @ 2014-05-28T13:17:00
We're no longer in between rain. The weather was moving (still is moving) so very fast that none fell.
Today's class started with compiling an A-Z of Australian insults, for someone I was talking to in Finland asked me about them and I thought it'd be fun for my class to learn to use bad language. Also I thought it would be handy for them to find out how to write fight scenes. We made our vocabulary, then talked about language build up and consequences. We also talked about how to divert a fight scene and about gender implications of language. I gave the class some advice on tension build up in epic legend battle scenes, just in case anyone wanted to write one. So really, the first hour was about specific uses of bad language in fine literature.
Our word of the day was 'cherub' and one student made the suggestion that it might not come from the Hebrew at all and that it could have been independently developed due to the deep links of language. My answer to that was to give them a timeline to demonstrate how it came and the route it took. Then I got waylaid by the childhood memory that Jewish seraphs have wheels and we talked about the influence of the Roman pantheon on Christianity.
We talked about Isiah Berlin and his concepts of freedom as part of our chat about what books people were reading and we got thoroughly waylaid when someone in the class worked out that I didn't sound out each and every word in my brain when I read. I have now adjusted my teaching strategy to incorporate teaching the capacity to read phrases and sentences, for it's handy for writers to be able to read in more than one way.
Our final exercise today was to use two of the bottles from the other day as inspiration. I'm working this term on people's capacity to use the world around them to help them write.
And that (and the first half of the last book in the Divergent series) was my morning.
Today's class started with compiling an A-Z of Australian insults, for someone I was talking to in Finland asked me about them and I thought it'd be fun for my class to learn to use bad language. Also I thought it would be handy for them to find out how to write fight scenes. We made our vocabulary, then talked about language build up and consequences. We also talked about how to divert a fight scene and about gender implications of language. I gave the class some advice on tension build up in epic legend battle scenes, just in case anyone wanted to write one. So really, the first hour was about specific uses of bad language in fine literature.
Our word of the day was 'cherub' and one student made the suggestion that it might not come from the Hebrew at all and that it could have been independently developed due to the deep links of language. My answer to that was to give them a timeline to demonstrate how it came and the route it took. Then I got waylaid by the childhood memory that Jewish seraphs have wheels and we talked about the influence of the Roman pantheon on Christianity.
We talked about Isiah Berlin and his concepts of freedom as part of our chat about what books people were reading and we got thoroughly waylaid when someone in the class worked out that I didn't sound out each and every word in my brain when I read. I have now adjusted my teaching strategy to incorporate teaching the capacity to read phrases and sentences, for it's handy for writers to be able to read in more than one way.
Our final exercise today was to use two of the bottles from the other day as inspiration. I'm working this term on people's capacity to use the world around them to help them write.
And that (and the first half of the last book in the Divergent series) was my morning.
gillpolack @ 2014-05-28T08:52:00
We're in between rain. The day feels almost English, with its spattered sunlight and the breezy moments between clouds, when autumn leaves determinedly flutter across one's vision.
May 26, 2014
gillpolack @ 2014-05-27T14:39:00
Rain today, rain tomorrow. Tomorrow I have to walk boldly forth in it, but today I can cower at home and do much work. I might even put some books away.
What I really want to do (my life is full of "What I really want to do" right now) is re-read Playing Beatie Bow for the umpteenth time. I'm in the mood for it. It's a Ruth Park kind of day. I have only 1 1/2 books to finish my Dann reading spree, so one of them is being read in the interstices of work. Jack as a person has quite a different voice to the one that appears in most of his books, so it's been a fun ride. I'll be sorry when I'm finished.
Most of the rest-of-day is going to be spent in deep communion with an almost-finished article. I need to find out where I stopped, why I stopped, why I still have piles of note staring at me, and how to unmire myself. This is the one I was going great guns on until a few weeks ago, when life caught up. I'm hoping I can pull all the loose strands together and finish it.
There are other things I need to work on, and I have til Friday to do them all, so none of my plans today are engraved in stone. None except my plan to make myself a big cup of coffee in about three minutes. That plan is inescapable.
What I really want to do (my life is full of "What I really want to do" right now) is re-read Playing Beatie Bow for the umpteenth time. I'm in the mood for it. It's a Ruth Park kind of day. I have only 1 1/2 books to finish my Dann reading spree, so one of them is being read in the interstices of work. Jack as a person has quite a different voice to the one that appears in most of his books, so it's been a fun ride. I'll be sorry when I'm finished.
Most of the rest-of-day is going to be spent in deep communion with an almost-finished article. I need to find out where I stopped, why I stopped, why I still have piles of note staring at me, and how to unmire myself. This is the one I was going great guns on until a few weeks ago, when life caught up. I'm hoping I can pull all the loose strands together and finish it.
There are other things I need to work on, and I have til Friday to do them all, so none of my plans today are engraved in stone. None except my plan to make myself a big cup of coffee in about three minutes. That plan is inescapable.
Margaret Mahy on reading
We have incoming weather, so I've taken a small break from sleeping to remind my body that there are better dreams it could give me than the ones it was delivering. However, I'm not posting at 5 am (ish) to tell you about weather, however interesting the weather is. Or to report on annoying dreams. I'm posting at 5 am (ish) because I have a quote from Margaret Mahy for you.
It's from her Dissolving Ghost book of essays, which is one of the volumes I perused yesterday and which I would like to own one day. Mahy has a knack of finding words to say what I want said, and the lazy side of my soul says that this means I can use my limited stock of words to say other things. What she says this time may be somewhat familiar to readers here, for it's been on my mind recently. Maybe now I've found it in print, I will be able to move on. Possibly not, while I'm taking an adult reading group. So for the next 6 weeks, I shall be pondering the ramifications of this:
"I suppose that many writers write, as I do, out of an unreasonable expectation that a reader will live with the story on and off over many years and that the story will change, grow and stretch with them, that as the reader changes the story will change too - not in its words but in the span of its meaning."(p. 18)
It's reassuring to know that the way I read Mahy is the way she would want me to read her.
I narrowly missed meeting Mahy, twice. The first time I was sick and the second time she was. I really regret this.
It's from her Dissolving Ghost book of essays, which is one of the volumes I perused yesterday and which I would like to own one day. Mahy has a knack of finding words to say what I want said, and the lazy side of my soul says that this means I can use my limited stock of words to say other things. What she says this time may be somewhat familiar to readers here, for it's been on my mind recently. Maybe now I've found it in print, I will be able to move on. Possibly not, while I'm taking an adult reading group. So for the next 6 weeks, I shall be pondering the ramifications of this:
"I suppose that many writers write, as I do, out of an unreasonable expectation that a reader will live with the story on and off over many years and that the story will change, grow and stretch with them, that as the reader changes the story will change too - not in its words but in the span of its meaning."(p. 18)
It's reassuring to know that the way I read Mahy is the way she would want me to read her.
I narrowly missed meeting Mahy, twice. The first time I was sick and the second time she was. I really regret this.
May 25, 2014
gillpolack @ 2014-05-26T09:28:00
This morning I'm in dilatory mode. I have all my books ordered at the National Library, but I'm putting off going until it's warm enough to leave my coat behind and walk forth wearing sandals.
That's the joy of Canberra, we can get cold nights, but we can also get warm days. It's already 12 degrees outside, so I only have 3 degrees to go, and then I shall dress and go. Until then, I'm allowed coffee. I was going to allow myself a coffee at the library, for they have pint-sized cups, but I spent the money on antiques and I'm still smug about it.
I have five books waiting for me, although only one of them is can't-do-without, and they'll be there from 10.30. I might have to work very quickly if I want lunch today. Or I could have brunch now and cease worrying about it.
I need to be done around 3 pm if I want to maintain my sandal-wearing. Car-drivers get to maintain sandals longer, but I catch busses and I walk.
And it is by this that everyone knows that my Monday is decidedly mundane.
That's the joy of Canberra, we can get cold nights, but we can also get warm days. It's already 12 degrees outside, so I only have 3 degrees to go, and then I shall dress and go. Until then, I'm allowed coffee. I was going to allow myself a coffee at the library, for they have pint-sized cups, but I spent the money on antiques and I'm still smug about it.
I have five books waiting for me, although only one of them is can't-do-without, and they'll be there from 10.30. I might have to work very quickly if I want lunch today. Or I could have brunch now and cease worrying about it.
I need to be done around 3 pm if I want to maintain my sandal-wearing. Car-drivers get to maintain sandals longer, but I catch busses and I walk.
And it is by this that everyone knows that my Monday is decidedly mundane.
