There is sunshine but I am not feeling a hunnerd percent.
Must take dog for run in park, though.
Have finished my final read through, will make changes laterrrrr.
Pompeii. Tonight. Oh yeah.
Finished the book. The second half was better than the first and seriously I would have stopped reading if I didn't have to read it. I just didn't like it. Not at all. Oh well.
Browning bananas in the fruit bowl demand attention. I'm thinking cake.
Dinner tonight? Can't be fagged. But last night's was a treat. Spaghetti with fresh tomatoes cooked with garlic and anchovies and pitted kalamata olives, and chopped parsley. Then fried freshly-made breadcrumbs, cooked in olive oil and tossed through the pasta. THEN loads of grated parmesan cheese.
OH IT WAS FUCKING DELICIOUS.
Sick kids this week. One on Tuesday, one on Wednesday and the third one home today and yesterday. I still managed to make it to work.
Taught yesterday, Year 10s.
Is there anyone else who, in the course of their daily work, has to say things like this:
"Can I get my three penises back please?"
"There was a guy who fingered a dog, he became known as The Guy Who Fingered A Dog. He couldn't get a plumbing apprenticeship. So think before you do stupid things."
"I need to collect my penises now. DON'T TAKE ANY CONDOMS HOME!"
I bid you good weekend.
Friday, October 23, 2009
Friday, October 16, 2009
pretty exciting
Clokes has just handed me a heavy wad of papers.
There are 236 pages single sided, 1 & 1/2 spaced, in 12pt font. Not sans serif.
This is my baby. It is almost finished. It is exciting.
What next?
Do I leave it a while and then go through?
Do I start letting members of my family read it? (I have three volunteer readers; sister, mother and friend.)
What do I do?
*
Thoughts are moving to the next one. Oh fecund brain, it is a joy.
I suppose I should do a diarama but really, I can't be bothered.
Maybe over the weekend.
x
There are 236 pages single sided, 1 & 1/2 spaced, in 12pt font. Not sans serif.
This is my baby. It is almost finished. It is exciting.
What next?
Do I leave it a while and then go through?
Do I start letting members of my family read it? (I have three volunteer readers; sister, mother and friend.)
What do I do?
*
Thoughts are moving to the next one. Oh fecund brain, it is a joy.
I suppose I should do a diarama but really, I can't be bothered.
Maybe over the weekend.
x
Friday, October 09, 2009
Friday
It's cold today and I am so sick of it. Sick of being cold and lethargic and flat.
I want to wear light tops and thongs and summer skirts.
I want to go swimming in the heat.
I want to eat out on our little balcon, and watch the summer sky-line with its streaks of pink as the sun goes down.
I'm also annoyed I missed Germaine on Q & A last night. My mother told me it was on. She rang again to remind me. I wrote a note to myself, and put it on the coffee table where it was forgotten.
Maybe it's online somewhere?
Happy weekend to all.
UPDATE: Saturday morning and isn't it lovely and sunny?
Well, I've started the new book and I fear that my good reading self and this book are not going to become lovers. Thus far, it's something about the scattered nature of his narrative that is preventing me from gelling. It is incredibly wordy, and while I like his 3rd person omni narrator with drop-ins to various character POVs, it's like he is trying to write everything about everything in this book. Also, thus far, I'm not really digging any of the characters, except perhaps the one I'm not meant to? The one who may be revealed to be a Machiavellian puppeteer. He is the most interesting of a fairly dull bunch.
The narrative style - the telling instead of showing, and oh, how he does tell - seems to numb my brain, so instead of feeling that I am being invited into a beautifully interesting world peopled with characters I want to get to know and like, or dislike, connect with, instead of this, I am sitting in the front row of a lecture theatre, and the person standing at the podium is droning on about an obscure part of DNA genetics or botany or sports medicine - all areas I have no real interest in.
My eyes are simply skimming across the tops of the words; they aren't sinking in. I like to be able to sink into a sea of words that are wonderful and compelling; even swamp-like. They can be heavy and dark and ugly. But they can't be dull and they need to have heart.
His turn of phrase is ok at times, even good. But other times it's like he hasn't worked the manuscript - it's like he's 's just gotten it all out on the page in a rush and didn't go back to check much. Maybe he found it as hard-going to re-read as I do to read.
Happy Saturday to you.
I want to wear light tops and thongs and summer skirts.
I want to go swimming in the heat.
I want to eat out on our little balcon, and watch the summer sky-line with its streaks of pink as the sun goes down.
I'm also annoyed I missed Germaine on Q & A last night. My mother told me it was on. She rang again to remind me. I wrote a note to myself, and put it on the coffee table where it was forgotten.
Maybe it's online somewhere?
Happy weekend to all.
UPDATE: Saturday morning and isn't it lovely and sunny?
Well, I've started the new book and I fear that my good reading self and this book are not going to become lovers. Thus far, it's something about the scattered nature of his narrative that is preventing me from gelling. It is incredibly wordy, and while I like his 3rd person omni narrator with drop-ins to various character POVs, it's like he is trying to write everything about everything in this book. Also, thus far, I'm not really digging any of the characters, except perhaps the one I'm not meant to? The one who may be revealed to be a Machiavellian puppeteer. He is the most interesting of a fairly dull bunch.
The narrative style - the telling instead of showing, and oh, how he does tell - seems to numb my brain, so instead of feeling that I am being invited into a beautifully interesting world peopled with characters I want to get to know and like, or dislike, connect with, instead of this, I am sitting in the front row of a lecture theatre, and the person standing at the podium is droning on about an obscure part of DNA genetics or botany or sports medicine - all areas I have no real interest in.
My eyes are simply skimming across the tops of the words; they aren't sinking in. I like to be able to sink into a sea of words that are wonderful and compelling; even swamp-like. They can be heavy and dark and ugly. But they can't be dull and they need to have heart.
His turn of phrase is ok at times, even good. But other times it's like he hasn't worked the manuscript - it's like he's 's just gotten it all out on the page in a rush and didn't go back to check much. Maybe he found it as hard-going to re-read as I do to read.
Happy Saturday to you.
Wednesday, October 07, 2009
Quick Wednesday morning recap
No work out of the house today. On my list of things to do, (some already completed):
1. Help to save a possum and its baby from being attacked by a blackbird and a honey eater next door. The possums were trying to get from tree to roof and we could hear the racket of the birds and see the distress of the possums from our dining room and bathroom windows. Princess and I were in paroxyms of anguish. We clapped our hands to try to distract the birds from their pecking assault, and finally baby possum got onto the roof to safety. Then mother possum was trapped in the eaves so I threw pieces of bread to stop the bird cornering her. They have all gone away now.
1a. Get all children out of the house. This includes cutting up apple and pear for Princess who has braces on her teeth and getting contact lenses into her eyes because she has sport today. She is the high-maintenance one. Lucky she came from my body and I love her beyond reason. Also I feel guilty because the bad eyes are from me, as well as the bad teeth. She's got all my bad stuff; DNA is a bastid.
2. Have coffee.
3. Walk the dog.
4. Read the paper .
5. Pick up book on order from Readings. I love Readings. I love books.
6. Resist reading Coetzee's Summertime and the new Niffenegger book. Isn't Niffenegger probably the most unfortunate name around?
7. Submit passport renewal application.
8. Stop looking at blogs.
8a. Desist in giving Perseus love advice. There's only so much a busy-body like me can do.
9. Cook dinner.
10. Go through my story and insert bits I have pulled out of research notes to do with fairytales and mother/stepmother stuff.
Did you know that "According to Tartar, the wicked female fiends are some of the many faces of maternal evil in fairytales representing the obverse of all the positive qualities associated with mothers"?
AND
"various cooks, stepmothers, witches and mothers-in-law with voracious appetites for human fare, even for the flesh... of their own relatives.... (are) cannibalistic fiends [known in] German [as] Menschenfresserin (devourer of humans)"?
AND
Biological mothers are replaced by these fiends, because "the fantasy of the wicked step-mother, witch, mother-in-law and other female villains not only preserve the good mother in tact (usually dead in these stories), it also prevents one having to feel guilty about one's angry wishes about her."
AND
"The monster of fairy tales and psychic fantasies is the murderous mother in disguise. She is the one who figures in our nightmares, or as Gilbert emphasises, our nightmères."
I don't know who Tartar and Gilbert are but as I'm not writing a thesis, I dont' care.
11. Cut out all the unnecessary words in my story.
12. Decide whether it needs to be more than the 82,000 words it is now. Or less. Any advice?
13. Decide whether to submit for a competition. I hate competitions because I never win them.
14. come up with a better surname for main character and family in the story. I'm thinking Lovelock is good. It's real too. I heard someone called Lovelock on the radio the other day. Her first name started with L and ended in Y. Cool name.
15. That's about it I think. It's enough.
1. Help to save a possum and its baby from being attacked by a blackbird and a honey eater next door. The possums were trying to get from tree to roof and we could hear the racket of the birds and see the distress of the possums from our dining room and bathroom windows. Princess and I were in paroxyms of anguish. We clapped our hands to try to distract the birds from their pecking assault, and finally baby possum got onto the roof to safety. Then mother possum was trapped in the eaves so I threw pieces of bread to stop the bird cornering her. They have all gone away now.
1a. Get all children out of the house. This includes cutting up apple and pear for Princess who has braces on her teeth and getting contact lenses into her eyes because she has sport today. She is the high-maintenance one. Lucky she came from my body and I love her beyond reason. Also I feel guilty because the bad eyes are from me, as well as the bad teeth. She's got all my bad stuff; DNA is a bastid.
2. Have coffee.
3. Walk the dog.
4. Read the paper .
5. Pick up book on order from Readings. I love Readings. I love books.
6. Resist reading Coetzee's Summertime and the new Niffenegger book. Isn't Niffenegger probably the most unfortunate name around?
7. Submit passport renewal application.
8. Stop looking at blogs.
8a. Desist in giving Perseus love advice. There's only so much a busy-body like me can do.
9. Cook dinner.
10. Go through my story and insert bits I have pulled out of research notes to do with fairytales and mother/stepmother stuff.
Did you know that "According to Tartar, the wicked female fiends are some of the many faces of maternal evil in fairytales representing the obverse of all the positive qualities associated with mothers"?
AND
"various cooks, stepmothers, witches and mothers-in-law with voracious appetites for human fare, even for the flesh... of their own relatives.... (are) cannibalistic fiends [known in] German [as] Menschenfresserin (devourer of humans)"?
AND
Biological mothers are replaced by these fiends, because "the fantasy of the wicked step-mother, witch, mother-in-law and other female villains not only preserve the good mother in tact (usually dead in these stories), it also prevents one having to feel guilty about one's angry wishes about her."
AND
"The monster of fairy tales and psychic fantasies is the murderous mother in disguise. She is the one who figures in our nightmares, or as Gilbert emphasises, our nightmères."
I don't know who Tartar and Gilbert are but as I'm not writing a thesis, I dont' care.
11. Cut out all the unnecessary words in my story.
12. Decide whether it needs to be more than the 82,000 words it is now. Or less. Any advice?
13. Decide whether to submit for a competition. I hate competitions because I never win them.
14. come up with a better surname for main character and family in the story. I'm thinking Lovelock is good. It's real too. I heard someone called Lovelock on the radio the other day. Her first name started with L and ended in Y. Cool name.
15. That's about it I think. It's enough.
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