(no subject)

The end of editing is in sight. I will be finished this afternoon. (I've still not managed to go and see a movie - work intervenes and health intervenes and life just generally intervenes.) I'm not unhappy with my novel. I don't know what kind of novel gets a PhD, but this works as a novel. I keep saying this because I keep being surprised by it.

Once I finish editing (30 more pages) then I can finish with two of my writing tasks, and then I can go teach. Tonight is Medieval Women and we're talking about politics and people. I'm really not sure how to prepare for this one, except by taking some show and tell and maybe a reference book the class can use to explore. And dates - I must take dates. I always forget names and dates, but if I'm to make English history (for England is the pays du jour) make sense to those who know it not, it really helps if I look as if I know more than 1066 and 1215. I don't understand why I, as an historian, always tangle names and dates, but I do, and it must be dealt with.

Conflux - workshop

Conflux is just over a month away and the program is being finalised. The workshops are already finalised. Mine this year is for people who are looking at putting history in their fantasy fiction.

The official description (for those who like official descriptions):

Good fantasy writing often draws on an understanding of history to make its world convincing. Creating a detailed and authentic setting is easier (to be honest) if one cheats by knowing a bit of history and by drawing on it. Gillian will take you through some of the aspects of our past that can help build that better fantasy world and advise on techniques that translate that knowledge into story-telling. For her, history is not words on paper, but the real lives of real people- if a writer understands those lives, then it’s easier for readers to enjoy their stories.

Unofficially, this is the short and punchy version of the stuff I teach through the ANU and the ACT Writers' Centre. I'm not teaching it at the ANU any time later this year, and the one day version (not the quick tips for desperate writers, and not targeted directly at fantasy writers) is almost full. This is the two hour version. Not lots of historical fact - more about what the stuff of history can do for writers and what questions they need to start asking and how that history (once sorted) can be integrated seamlessly into fiction. It will work for historical fantasy, but also for alternate world fantasy. It's quick and dirty, for we have only two hours, but full of handy tips. In fact, it will be fuller of handy tips than the 2 day version I gave in Sydney a few years ago, for I am nearly finished my doctorate and that doctorate has been about how writers use and can use history. I've been researching how writers can not spend their whole lives in research for a single novel, and I will teach some of the results of my work.

So that's the Conflux workshop for this year. There will be chocolate for this, even if I can't manage it for anything else. And it's the day before two days of Conflux, so following up on questions and thoughts is as simple as, "Hey, Gillian, got time for coffee?"

The workshop booking form is here: http://www.conflux.org.au/2012/files/conflux8_workshop_booking.pdf