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Sep. 3rd, 2007 10:21 pmI killed two people today.
No, not really, I drafted the sections of the novel where they will die, though. I'll do the actual killing when I'm in Melbourne. I'm tempted to make the deaths operatic in grandeur and noise, because I know opera much better than I know killing people in cold blood.
Don't tell me; my life has been spent doing all the wrong things. I should have been studying the side effects of poisons instead of becoming a feminist.
The historian in me knows the names of lots of poisons, but has no idea about the symptoms they induce, so I've sent her to the corner of the room in disgrace. Not that the feminist inside is much better - she's just that much harder to send to the corner of the room.
I told my mother some of my plot outline and she worried. She so seldom worries about my writing these days that it shocked me. I started worrying about her worries and tonight's phonecall sounded as if something serious was wrong. Something as serious as me killing two people, perhaps.
"It really doesn't sound very much like you, Gillian," said she.
Mum's going to read the several chapters plus detailed outline just to work out where my brain is. She'll be happier when I get back to ghosts and Canberrra. In the interim, she wants to analyse me through my writing. This is a very modern Jewish mother.
One very good thing about her wanting to analyse me through my writing is that her favourite reading is detective novels. If there are any plotholes through which the story can leak, she will notice them and tell me all about them.
This will - I hope - distract her from worrying. It won't stop me killing off as many characters as I possibly can. It's an extraordinarily good way of dealing with perimenopause. It focusses all that heat and anger quite precisely and returns me to my much nicer pre-hot-flush self.
I wonder. Has anyone ever studied women writers to find out if they have more character deaths in the fiction they write from ages 45-55?
No, not really, I drafted the sections of the novel where they will die, though. I'll do the actual killing when I'm in Melbourne. I'm tempted to make the deaths operatic in grandeur and noise, because I know opera much better than I know killing people in cold blood.
Don't tell me; my life has been spent doing all the wrong things. I should have been studying the side effects of poisons instead of becoming a feminist.
The historian in me knows the names of lots of poisons, but has no idea about the symptoms they induce, so I've sent her to the corner of the room in disgrace. Not that the feminist inside is much better - she's just that much harder to send to the corner of the room.
I told my mother some of my plot outline and she worried. She so seldom worries about my writing these days that it shocked me. I started worrying about her worries and tonight's phonecall sounded as if something serious was wrong. Something as serious as me killing two people, perhaps.
"It really doesn't sound very much like you, Gillian," said she.
Mum's going to read the several chapters plus detailed outline just to work out where my brain is. She'll be happier when I get back to ghosts and Canberrra. In the interim, she wants to analyse me through my writing. This is a very modern Jewish mother.
One very good thing about her wanting to analyse me through my writing is that her favourite reading is detective novels. If there are any plotholes through which the story can leak, she will notice them and tell me all about them.
This will - I hope - distract her from worrying. It won't stop me killing off as many characters as I possibly can. It's an extraordinarily good way of dealing with perimenopause. It focusses all that heat and anger quite precisely and returns me to my much nicer pre-hot-flush self.
I wonder. Has anyone ever studied women writers to find out if they have more character deaths in the fiction they write from ages 45-55?