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There won't be much posting from me over the next few days. I'm simply going to be away from my computer an awful lot and don't yet have that netbook replacement. This is good. It means I get to read essential books and to have meetings and to do lots and lots of teaching. Work, but not computer work.

I'll post where I can, just so that you know I'm hale and living the life. I'll do one last memory post in a few minutes, as my farewell-to-memory-posts.

I've made a cupcake to celebrate my blogversary in Sydney, BTW, so the week shall end in fine style. Next week begins in even finer style, as I cheer on the wonderfully talented folks who have been shortlisted for the Aurealis Awards. Also, I get to see my Sydney publisher. And my order is completely backwards, for that is not the way it's actually happening.

(no subject)

You're getting two memory posts, to last you through my time-away-from computer. If you won't miss me, you can simply ignore them, of course. One post is serious and one a trifle less so. This is, of course, the one of high seriousness. It must be: it has footnotes (footnote 4 is evidence of this).

16th February, 2008. 7:56 pm. Introductions - with footnotes

I promised introductions. Never let it be said that I renege upon my promises(1).

I'm going to take the closest book to hand, as deciding between all my books is too challenging. The closest book to hand is The Compleat Cook and A Queen's Delight, which is a facsimile of a seventeenth century pair of cookbooks.

The Compleat Cook opens "To make a Posset the Earl of Arundels way."(2) So there is a character involved. The only things we know about this Earl of Arundel are that his posset recipe was recorded before 1655, that he has a particular way of making posset and that, since the posset contains sack and ale, he presumably drank alcohol. We know that he was not averse to dairy food. This is as much as we know about many characters from the opening two paragraphs of books.

Let me add another character to the mix, since there are two in this first recipe. The Earl of Arundel's posset simpered over a fire(3), and thus obviously had a personality of its own. My possets never simper.

If this were a speculative fiction novel or a work of historical fiction rather than a cookbook, all these elements would be important to understand the world or the character of the Earl. They would appear at various times in various guises throughout the novel. The simpering posset would probably be the chief protagonist(4), which makes a change from werewolves and vampires and elves.

Alas, it is a cookbook and we don't get to know Arundel any better. Nor does he get to save the universe with his simpering posset(5).

This leads to an obvious truth: genre counts. The implications of an introduction are genre-linked and that affects the way we read any introduction. We're not looking for the adventures of the Earl and his simpering posset when we read The Compleat Cook. We might be looking up how to roast oysters or how to make the Jacobins(2 again) Pottage or even how to make poor Knights(6). I read the recipes for what they tell me about the people involved and their lives, but that's me as historian, not me as casual reader.

This is where I ought to be clever and do a link to those earlier posts. You know, the ones where I tried to convince you that the way the introduction is set up talks the reader into regarding the book in a particular way and reading it looking for certain traits? Instead I'll just point out that a Baron Munchausen style tale about the Earl and his posset might well start off with this recipe. Instead of being the stuff of the novel proper, however, it would be a kind of aperitif.

So, how we introduce our characters helps our readers work out how they're going to tackle our stories. Which is fine.

Except that some of us intentionally set up one type of novel then undermine readers' expectations. That's another issue entirely. The point is that the genre the reader thinks they're reading helps them work out just how much the need to discover about the character from the opening sequence. A writer who is charming and thoughtful will lead the reader in the right direction. Some of us are neither charming nor thoughtful, of course. In other words, how a character is introduced is not always linked to genre. Just mostly.

(1) Unless I have really good reason, of course. I'm dutiful, not stupid.

(2) That punctuation is not mine, before you editors jump up and down screaming. One day I'm going to look at 17th century apostrophes and find out what happened to them. There's a secret cache in the Vatican, I suspect. Either that or a lost genizah, containing nothing but punctuation marks.

(3) If you don't believe me, I can type out the whole recipe.

(4) I have lots of footnotes. This is proof that I'm taking this series of posts very, very seriously.

(5) If any of you decide that it's important to write fiction starring a simpering posset, I promise to link to it, especially if it also has a scene where the Earl of Arundel bends over that simpering posset and smiles significantly.

(6) Which I always thought meant sending a rich knight to war, but turned out to be a fabulous version of French Toast, with cream and nutmeg and rosewater.

(no subject)

And now for the other post:

23rd February, 2008. 7:10 pm.

My mind is dwelling in deep places today. I'm thinking about issues of trust and how far you can let someone into your life before expecting them to take some responsibility for their actions in relation to you. It struck me that this is something I need to write about and it might belong with my ghosts. This is either going to be a very funny novel or a deeply pensive one. It might end up both.

I've been on the verge of writing it for over a year. I've done most of my worldbuilding (all those map-thoughts for Canberra, exploring cinema food in the 40s - all that stuff) but even when I had a good idea of my characters' lives, they hadn't come alive for me. When that happens I sit back and I wait.

The first thing that happened when I sat back this time was that I changed one of the main point of view characters. I need someone with ghosts for a whole part of the narative stream, otherwise the ghosts my characters meet are only interesting supernatural beings and are in danger of being plot devices. I need ghosts to resonate more deeply than that.

We all carry particular burdens and some people carry the burdens of the deaths of others. I don't mean that these people are murderers, I mean that they live with a constant feeling of work unfinished, or of missing someone, or of not having done something when the time was right, or of being observers at a time when distance hurt. I think the only ghost I carry of someone who I was able to say a proper goodbye to is that of my father. This is why I want to write about ghosts, to be honest: I need to understand my own.

The trust thing is a different matter, but it is most definitely related to the fears that bring forth ghosts for some people. As you have probably realised, I've been thinking for a long time about racism and sexism and how the disabled can be victimised or made helpless, and how people with mental health conditions are often excluded from perfectly normal decision-making and activities. One of the big barriers for any of these groups (and for a bunch of others) is trust. How much can they tell people about who they are, and still be treated as themselves and as full human beings? Think of Showboat, and the complete change to a couple's existence when the woman has to admit to being of mixed race. Trust honoured and used well is one of the biggest gifts a human being can give another, and trust abused is one of the most frightening.

That trust abused doesn't have to be on a grand scale to be frightening. It can be someone making a decision for someone else because of an unexamined assumption that the person isn't capable because they're in a wheelchair or on medication. I see that a lot in my work. I get it a bit from my health conditions. At the heart of it is an assumption about what society is and how people ought to work together. When societies become scared, this type of trust is one of the first victims.

One of the reasons I have done the activism thing is, in fact, because of the biggest cause of fear and hurt in society usually being trust abused. I feel very strongly that it's the responsibility of each and every one of us to find out where we're going wrong and to deal fairly with others. A higher level of trust in a society means a lower level of fear and hatred. It's that simple.

There are ways in which abuse can be minimised - through education, through legislation, through enough money to provide neutral assistance for people with physical disabilities so they're not dependent on friends or neighbours for everyday needs. I know I retired from all this because of my health, but I keep thinking that the issues are too important and that one day I'm going to have to go back. Maybe this novel is the beginning of me going back.

Right now, though, I want to examine those issues at a very personal level. Not my personal: my characters'. What happens after divorce, or instance? Do the changes in life you experience when you retire mean you have to learn how to defend yourself against well-meaning invaders of your quiet places? What happens to a 12 year old girl when she is thrust out of the family circle of caring? When can you admit to being different without friends thrusting you away or making decisions for you or reading the life you've always led as suddenly unstable?

Trust issues at a personal level lead to judgements. We all make judgements. How far do we let people into our lives? How far can an individual abuse that acceptance into our lives without doing anything they feel is wrong?

I don't want to go down the heavy racism path. I want to think about less well-trodden ground. I won't go into it here - I need to work out just how far any character will let anyone else into their life and what the effects are. I feel incredibly mean, because this is going to hurt them. The ghosts are going to be fun and delight by comparison with death by a thousand needling doubts.

So I have my stable of ghosts. And I have some very big issues for my main characters to deal with. Now I have to be patient and let it all come together.

I can't write until it has all come together. If I do, then the book will be all about issues and not about telling a story. Waiting - for me - is what shines enough light in the deep places so I can find the stories there.