- i had to go to mass even though i didn't believe a word of it - my parents fell asleep on the couch after Sunday lunch and snored! - we had to visit ancient relatives who smelled funny and slobbered on your cheek - i had to do finish my homework and prepare myself for another week of school
Now Sundays are much better!
- sometimes I go for a nice walk on the beach - or I visit friends - i get my marking and planning done for the week ahead - i check the kids have done their homework - still have to wash uniforms, clean house, and fret about how much I haven't written BUT will NEVER fall asleep on the couch after Sunday dinner and that's a promise!
And the eagle eyes amongst you will see that my word count has budged. Not a lot. But it has budged!
I've just been to Costco. Cor! Big shop/warehousy place. The bad news: I've spent the entire month's shopping budget in there. :( The good news: I've bought shed loads for our money. :) The bad news: The kids will eat all the goodies in a day and be very sick. :( The good news: There'll be none left to disrupt my diet. :) The bad news: There's no room in the kitchen for all the crap I've bought. :( The good news: I won't have to go shopping for, like, ever! :) The bad news: Hubby nearly had a heart attack when he saw the bill. :( The good news: We have enough mixed herbs to last us for the rest of our married life!
Oh, and I've written 100 words. Hurray. It's a start!
Thursday, 28 June 2007
It's been a funny old day.
Had a meeting with my PhD supervisor and she said she'd like to see the whole novel, the finished first draft, by October this year. All 100,000 words. So that was hilarious.
The she said I have to do more conference papers. Hee hee. I laughed so hard I nearly wet my pants, I can tell you!
Then I had a meeting for Study Skills and Subject. With sandwiches. And coffee. And that was side-splitting.
And then I taught for 2 hours. Which wasn't funny at all. (Actually they did some great work. So no jokes there, then.)
What else? Oh yes. The weather is crap. And it's June.
But - wanna read something funny? Read this, and then I'll stop with the second life. Really I will!
Just had to tell you about my brave friend who has ventured into Second Life. I was kind of hoping she would so that I could have a peep over her shoulder.
Hmm.
Scary place.
So you start off, it appears, with a pair of blue jeans and a white t-shirt. Freakily, her avatar actually looked like her!
And then you go off and see things. You can walk, or fly. Flying cool, except that it takes a bit of practice to land. Chilli went splat a few times! Hee hee. Sorry Chilli! It was funny though!
And you can make loads of money pole dancing apparently, without your jeans and t-shirt, only we didn't try to figure that one out. There are boundaries you know, even in a virtual, etherly kind of existence. Anyway, we did visit a skate park, and a pet shop that sold cats (lots of cats for some reason - maybe they're easy to make?) and what looked like dinosaurs. We also found a riding school, only the instruction to 'sit' only made her avatar sit in the middle of the horse, so that it was a blonde head with two arms, and 4 horse legs and a horse head - which was funny - briefly. Ever so briefly. And again - not a bloody soul around to help. Obviously virtual horse-riding is not as easy as you'd think it should be. It was also very expensive at up to 1,000 Linden Dollars a time. I have no idea what the exchange rate is though!
Chilli did get to meet some nice people in the morning apparently, but they'd all buggered off by the time I arrived (in an over her shoulder sense obviously). Typical. It all looked a tad deserted by then, and the few 'people' we did see, didn't want to chat. So just like a real town then, eh.
I dunno. I'm still freaked by the whole idea. The place. And the fact that when you see folks trotting about, they're real folks, who can see you in real time. Argh! Freaked out - you will be!
Second Life has had its first proper millionaire though - as in someone made enough Linden Dollars to sell for $1,000,000 US... like... real ones! And another couple met in some virtual park, and then got married in... like... the real world!
Is it me, or is this just way too complicated?!!!
More... an update... I said in my comments that I thought there were some serious applications for Second Life and a quick Google-fest brought up the following (for the interested out there):
Harvard Law School are offering Law Courses in the real world AND the virtual world.
Courses are available for educators in Second Life. How to land neatly, and beyond, presumably!
Yesterday I read the rest ofIn Search of Adam, by Caroline Smailes. I say the rest of because I was up to chapter 3. I was up to chapter 3 and as a reader I was reeling. As I read on I realised that I couldn't put the book down - couldn't leave Jude in that awful, harrowing place. No siree. It is a novel with a very definite keep reading me factor. Despite the nature of the material. But it isn't my intention to to review the novel from a reader's perspective here - far greater souls have already done that effectively, efficiently, and most eloquently.
No.
I am interested in this novel from a Writer's Perspective; as a first time novelist, struggling to tell my story, whose central protagonist is, like Jude, struggling to speak to those around her. Now there is an ancient Zen Buddhist adage that goes like this;
When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.
So here 's what Caroline's novel has taught me;
That I should be braver. I should be brave enough to tell the truth and not worry that it might be upsetting. Readers, if they care, if we can make them/help them/allow them to care, will accompany the protagonist on their journey, however painful it may be at times.
Readers will read on through their pain, will follow the journey through to journey's end, BUT we must give them hope when they get there. Caroline's novel offers hope to the reader in a most original and refreshing way - but I mustn't spoil the ending for anyone who hasn't read it yet!
It is okay to break the rules. Break them all. Sentence structure. Grammar. Layout. My novel is dealing with language and translation, mistranslations and communication. I have had to experiment with the portrayal of language acquisition. ISoA tells me to be free to play. Incidentally, so did Mark Haddon's The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night - another lovely book that everyone should read.
Endings can be beginnings. Also see Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale (1985)
Make the reader fall in love with the protagonist. Somehow. But how????
Allow the reader access into someone else's world. Let them experience another way of being.
It is okay to blur the boundaries between fact and fiction - and for me this is the key point. No one has to know which bits are mine (real) and which bits are Ella's (fiction). Like Jeanette Winterson said somewhere, Art is all lies anyway. The moment we write the truth down it becomes a fiction, and in being a fiction there lies the truth of it!
We must love and adore language whether it is as simple as Jude's at the outset of her story, or as complex and rich as Angela Carter's Bloody Chamber.
That's all from me on this rainy, grey, dull Sunday morning, while everyone else is at Glastonbury (the festival I've never made it to yet). If you haven't read In Search of Adam, I think you should. As a reader. As a writer. As a human being.
I have spent today looking through the 30K I've written so far and come to realise that because I have this annoying habit of 'leap frogging' - that is fixing stuff as I go - I now have 7,000 words of almost finished, edited material (or 3 chapters) and
lots
and
lots
and
lots
of
mess
So now I don't quite know what to do...
Argh!!!!
Am going to have to rearrange and reread and rewrite. Lots of reing to do. And then there's a conference paper thingy to finish, and marking to do, and, and, and, not having a panic attack.
I am in 2 minds. One Two.
Just keep going. start again - you know you want to
Don't edit or fix.fix it - it's all crap - rewrite
That's it. I've had enough. I'm leaving them both to it. I'm off to watch some mind numbing telly for a bit.
And Friday is the day that we - the Novel Racers - update our word counts"
And call in to Kate's Blog and post on our progress, and generally keep in touch.
Except I'm late.
Again.
And I have a 7 year old in my ear talking about her 10m swimming certificate, of which she is quite rightfully, very proud. But. I can't think straight. So I'm sending her to bed so that I can. Think.
Here is my Writing update.
Other than that - still feeling blocked and unworthy of holding a pen. But it will pass.
Here's a meme for ya... what are your top 5 most embarrassing moments?
Here's mine - just for a laugh you understand. There are loads more but some things just shouldn't be posted!
1. When I was 19 I was sitting cross-legged on the floor at a party - dimly lit, guitars playing and all that. It was a select crowd of sophisticates, and I really fancied the bloke next to me. He told a joke and I did the whole throw your head forward in laughter thing - it probably wasn't that funny - but I smacked my eye-brow on the open mouth of a wine bottle so hard the room went black for a bit. Determined not to look a total tit I sat up and tried to pretend that nothing had happened. After a few minutes Mr handsome looked over at me and said, "Do you know you're bleeding all over the carpet?"
2. I once climbed over a barbed wire fence, and being the independent (stupid) sort, told the people I was with that I didn't need any help. Five minutes later I had successfully hung myself through the skin on my arm, and my arm-pit. It took 3 people to lift me off, and I have a lovely 3 inch scar to remind me of the occasion. I was 26. You are never too old to do stupid things!
3. When I started riding last September I thought horses and ponies were all kindly creatures who were strokable and huggable in every way. Then I got bitten on the arm, and most embarrassingly, found myself howling like a baby in front of the entire yard. I am a bit more savvy these days.
4. In Spain - asking the pharmacist for a tube of Canasten and being asked in front of a shop full of people if my vagina was itchy - complete with actions just in case I'd misunderstood the Spanish!
5. And finally, as a teenager, going swimming with a large group of people - mainly boys - and diving off the high diving board at one end of the complex. No problems there. I walked back to the shallow end of the other pool after the dive, past the baby pool, past the deep end of the main pool, and all the way along to my friends. I wondered why everyone was looking at me, but took no notice. It was only when I jumped into the three foot end of the pool that one of the lads came up to me and said, "Do you know your right tit is hanging out?" And it was!!!
Other stupidities and ditzy moments include... thumping an ex-colleague (who thought I was a total tit anyway) by accident when over excited... stabbing myself in the eye with a finger nail when again, over animated, and talking to a cousin (who also thinks I'm a total tit)... and asking Ms M who she was 5 times in a row!
So if you are reading this, and you have a sense of humour, consider yourself tagged!
The more I learn, the more I realise I know absolutely nothing. What else?! So far, I've never lived anywhere longer than 10 years, and would love to emigrate again one day. I speak Spanish (badly) and French (even worse) but do okay in English. I'm trying to write a novel for my PhD inbetween teaching and being wife and mother of two... and I just took up horse riding before I get too old.
You can now read some of my writing at Hesitant Scribblings
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