Structuring work (very possibly a dull post)

Today is a bit messy.

First of all, I only just got power back. The ACEWAGL folk were very efficient, and we all got reconnected over an hour earlier than expected and outside there is a fine new power box and an even finer new pole for it to stand on, but still, my fridge is working overtime cooling down and my phone battery is dead. I've just made the three calls that suddenly became urgent and every single one of the three failed (ie the person wasn't there!).

Anyhow, I've spent most of today sitting in the dark, trying to work (the torch proved useless and the sun had was on the wrong side of the building) and waiting for people who never came and things that didn't happen. I had a high pain day yesterday (which was apparently very obvious by evening) and spent the morning in bed, willing my body to behave. It's now mostly behaving, which is good, and I'm about to make myself a nice pot of something hot to drink, because I haven't been able to do that all day and I feel that it will empower me (or rehydrate me, or simply make me very happy).

My freezer is perfectly Passover-ready. In fact, it's worryingly empty. This ought to be an achievement, but really, it's not something I'm comfortable with. I'm going to crock-pot a chicken and vegie dish to reassure myself. And next week I'm going to make lots of chicken and beef stock, for further reassurance.

I've read one and a bit books of my two books for today, which isn't bad under the circumstances. I've worked out what chapter five of my dissertation is actually going to do (argument-wise) and done a considerable amount of structuring. This means I know what research goes into Chapter Five and can actually sit down with all my notes and make sense of them for the dissertation as a whole. More paper to sort. Possibly tomorrow. Or maybe even tonight.

The dissertation is another front on which things were too messy. The method that works for my preivous discipline doesn't quite work so well for my new one. It's a matter of thinking things through and adjusting and trying not to do all the work twice from two entirely different directions or take idiot shortcuts. Although it would be fun to have two dissertations - one written as each of those aspects of myself. Fun, but not something that would work in the time I have, alas.

There's so much blocking out and considering and structuring to be done for July. There's also the normal amount of PhD I had planned to finish by the end of June if I want to submit on time. These are two two chief reasons I'm so furiously finishing reviews and articles and why my reading plan is so voracious. I needed to clear the non-teaching time.

Non-teaching time starts now and continues until the first Wednesday in May. It's my last quiet time until I leave, so I really need to make the most of it. And this is the other reason's today's messy. I've had to face the sad truth that, while I've done a LOT these last few weeks, I haven't done enough. Eight more articles, several more reviews and I would be there. But I'm not.

I'm making some tactical decisions. Firstly, I'll finish one Horrorscope review and get it off. Then the last batch for them can be done during the next teaching period. If I write it up today, then at least I'll get teaching-free-zone-minus-today free of reviews.

Secondly, I have all the material for the eight articles, but haven't read it all. I have, in fact, only read two books and have at least seven to go. Not my fault, in this case - most of them arrived very recently - even reading at double the pace wouldn't have saved me. I'll keep going with the interviews, but leave the essays on books until teaching starts again. This means I'll be back on two books a day in early May, but it also means that I can work more efficiently on my dissertation and reach an important stage with the novel (the stage when I can start technical checks on the non-Medieval stuff and also give the next section to my supervisor).

All very exciting? Possibly not. It does mean, however, that my lounge room/work area has slightly more than a snowball's chance in hell of being respectable by Monday. And that I will be a much happier vegemite for the next fortnight, because writing makes me happy and thinking makes me happy and I shall have lots of both. Also, I have electricity. Electricity is a good thing.

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I just took a look at the shortlistings for the SJV (can I say 'NZ's Ditmar' without my NZ friends scolding me? let's see) and the thing that immediately impressed me is how far NZ spec fic writing has come recently. NZ has always had a few outstanding writers: it's the land that produced Margaret Mahy* and Elizabeth Knox. Now, however, it has so many that there are excellent books and short stories that *aren't* shortlisted - fans have choices and are making good use of them. May the number of NZ artists keep growing and may NZ keep producing terrific spec fic for us to enjoy!

I'm not going to tell you who I'd vote for if I had a vote, but I have to admit that I have distinct preferences - also that I'm totally chuffed at a good few of these nominations. Helen Lowe, Mary Victoria, Ross Temple, Simon Petrie, Lyn McConchie, Paul Haines, Frank Victoria and Simon Litten in particular. It's a good list from any direction, though. Good writers, good artists, seriously cool fans. There are only a couple of stories and books I've yet to read, and I'm looking forward to them.



*Kaitangata Twitch is up there - I lost the second half of the TV show due to teaching - I need to see the whole thing from beginning to end - this is just a note to myself, ignore it.

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Now that I've almost finished my reading splurge, I can plan what I need to work through next. I have thirty-six books to read between now and May 4. Not even two books a day. A mere walk in the park.

Actually, it's not even that. it's not worth being impressed, quite honestly. At least half of these books are for me to check historical detail - I've looked at them before, but so many years ago that I can't be certain my memory is correct, and I'm not going to write, say, the value of a warhorse or the direction a cold wind comes from without checking it if I can (and I can't, always).

Writers sometimes find** this aspect of my need for making a setting feel authentic to a reader when I edit them. If something strikes me as improbable for the time and place I ask "What's your source?" If they made it up or are going from a vague recollection of something heard somewhere, then I tend to suggest sources. I understand it can be quite annoying...

I'm fair, though, since I do this to myself. I'm doing it now, in fact. I don't always get it right, either (it's almost impossible to write fiction that's perfectly historically accurate, simply because of the nature of story), but I do the best I can. In this case, where the 'getting it right' includes my own specialist period, I'm double checking. As with Illuminations*, all errors ought to be strictly intentional.




*With Illuminations all errors and things occuring in the wrong time, wrong place, or wrong sequence were mainly done with intent to stir and I only got away with it because no-one actually knew there was an Evil Gillian at that point. I don't think there is a serious moment in that whole novel, when one looks below the surface. This is why I've avoided going to Medieval conferences. And now I'm giving a paper at one. Not a wise thing to do. My big hope is that not a single person at the IMC has read this novel or intends reading it and that only personal friends even know I am a fiction writer and that *they* think I only write my peculiar variant of suburban fantasy. A few of the Arthurian specialists know about it, because of Judy Shoaf's review, but they're thin on the ground at Leeds. I may survive this, yet. I keep saying this, don't I?

** Sometimes they find it disconcerting, sometimes pedantic, sometimes annoying, sometimes worrying - they do, however, always find it.