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Jul. 26th, 2011 05:15 amMy wonderful inner time sense flew out the window today. This is because the antibiotics had not yet kicked in and there was a thunderstorm en route: I was rather a mess. I just looked at the worse leg, and the inflammation is darkening and a little diminished, so things are working and in a couple of days time I'll be laughing. Today, though, I had interesting fever-migraine dreams.
I meant to not work today, since I suspected it might be a little difficult, but my brain kept fretting, so I wrote a bunch of report-backs I had promised concerning the first week of the trip. If I promised you one and it is not in your in-box, it has either gone astray or it failed to make my list and I might need reminding.
This means that I only have to follow-up the university and ACT Government paperwork, plus do all the other follow-up (people and promises) plus get back to at-my-desk work. It's all more achievable.
This afternoon I finished with the medical stuff (I now have seriously cool and rather expensive sticky patch things to put on my legs after I've treated them with all the other stuff - every two days until it's healed) and I did some seriously strange grocery shopping. I also went hunting for Thierry (I have wanted a DVD set of a 60s French TV series for a long time and it's unobtainable in Australia). FNAC didn't have it, but sent me to to Virgin megastore. Virgin said "We can get it in." I said "I'm only here a few days." The guy said he'd order it anyway, and I should come in the day before I left, to see if it had come. So that's what we did. In the interim, I took evil advantage of their sale and bought (for 30E) two whole seasons of a French superhero series. This is what I shall watch in my spare time, when I get home. French superheroes! I didn't actually buy a great deal. Mostly I looked. Still, French superheroes! Anyone who wants may watch with me. There may be popcorn.
I found the first of my markets tonight (the only work-related thing I did after 4 pm) but it had no books. The nice guy at the Hotel Sully in Paris had checked his databases and agreed with me that my best bet of getting the last book I need (since the publishers don't answer their emails and no Australian library possesses a copy) is to check the street markets in Montpellier.
I realised today that the York insects have put paid to me following up the nice neat solution to one of my problems (the one that was suggested by the scholar on the bus, my first day in Leeds). Aliette, on the other hand, has given me another possible way into it. She didn't even know it was a problem, but something she said made me think "This would work."
The historian in me has this vast need to understand everything. Deeply understand, not just have enough information for a setting or the precise amount of telling detail. If a day gets liberated later in the week, that deeper understanding of this single issue may be possible, but if not, Aliette's approach will work (it's understanding from a different direction). In fact, I know exactly *how* it will work - and it may well make for a better novel.
Am I driving you crazy with all this discussion and none of the actual detail of the novel? The reality is quite different to the discussion! A lot of what I'm doing now is what I always do when I'm building my characters and their world - I explore approaches and theory. When I actually write, I don't write from that theoretical place at all, but the academic side of my brain won't be quiet until I have placated it. In other words, I do this even when I look as if I'm writing about someone who lives in my street. My mind is strange and warped...
Speaking of warped, my French amuses me. I keep getting into conversations and there is an inevitable positive comment about my French. I can hear every single mistake I make - it is not the French it used to be. I apparently, however, sound convincing. Given a few more days, I may even sound convincing without a broad Australian accent. Then I shall reach London and shall have forgotten entirely, yet again. Then I shall be home and only speak Canberra English, which is a unique dialect.
I meant to not work today, since I suspected it might be a little difficult, but my brain kept fretting, so I wrote a bunch of report-backs I had promised concerning the first week of the trip. If I promised you one and it is not in your in-box, it has either gone astray or it failed to make my list and I might need reminding.
This means that I only have to follow-up the university and ACT Government paperwork, plus do all the other follow-up (people and promises) plus get back to at-my-desk work. It's all more achievable.
This afternoon I finished with the medical stuff (I now have seriously cool and rather expensive sticky patch things to put on my legs after I've treated them with all the other stuff - every two days until it's healed) and I did some seriously strange grocery shopping. I also went hunting for Thierry (I have wanted a DVD set of a 60s French TV series for a long time and it's unobtainable in Australia). FNAC didn't have it, but sent me to to Virgin megastore. Virgin said "We can get it in." I said "I'm only here a few days." The guy said he'd order it anyway, and I should come in the day before I left, to see if it had come. So that's what we did. In the interim, I took evil advantage of their sale and bought (for 30E) two whole seasons of a French superhero series. This is what I shall watch in my spare time, when I get home. French superheroes! I didn't actually buy a great deal. Mostly I looked. Still, French superheroes! Anyone who wants may watch with me. There may be popcorn.
I found the first of my markets tonight (the only work-related thing I did after 4 pm) but it had no books. The nice guy at the Hotel Sully in Paris had checked his databases and agreed with me that my best bet of getting the last book I need (since the publishers don't answer their emails and no Australian library possesses a copy) is to check the street markets in Montpellier.
I realised today that the York insects have put paid to me following up the nice neat solution to one of my problems (the one that was suggested by the scholar on the bus, my first day in Leeds). Aliette, on the other hand, has given me another possible way into it. She didn't even know it was a problem, but something she said made me think "This would work."
The historian in me has this vast need to understand everything. Deeply understand, not just have enough information for a setting or the precise amount of telling detail. If a day gets liberated later in the week, that deeper understanding of this single issue may be possible, but if not, Aliette's approach will work (it's understanding from a different direction). In fact, I know exactly *how* it will work - and it may well make for a better novel.
Am I driving you crazy with all this discussion and none of the actual detail of the novel? The reality is quite different to the discussion! A lot of what I'm doing now is what I always do when I'm building my characters and their world - I explore approaches and theory. When I actually write, I don't write from that theoretical place at all, but the academic side of my brain won't be quiet until I have placated it. In other words, I do this even when I look as if I'm writing about someone who lives in my street. My mind is strange and warped...
Speaking of warped, my French amuses me. I keep getting into conversations and there is an inevitable positive comment about my French. I can hear every single mistake I make - it is not the French it used to be. I apparently, however, sound convincing. Given a few more days, I may even sound convincing without a broad Australian accent. Then I shall reach London and shall have forgotten entirely, yet again. Then I shall be home and only speak Canberra English, which is a unique dialect.