Hi,<\/p>\n
I\u2019m Gillian, and I\u2019ll be blogging about things that are everyday to me. I’ll change the title whenever I feel it needs changing, and I’ll put my name up top so that you know it’s me, playing with titles. I love playing with titles. My current draft novel is up to its sixth. I also like writing letters. This will be my letter to you.<\/p>\n
I discovered (the peculiar way) that the combination of all the things in my life mean that my life is a bit different. I live in Australia (my family migrated here between the 1850s and 1920) and have had an exceptionally strange career. I\u2019m not certain what my everyday is different to, not yet. We\u2019ll explore that together.<\/p>\n
Take my Sunday. You don\u2019t have to take it very far, because I\u2019m writing this on Sunday afternoon. Right now I\u2019m downloading the Hugo packet for the WorldCon in New Zealand. I was so happy about going to a place a mere six hours travel from home and spending time with friends and\u2026 COVID-19 hit. At least I\u2019ll have more time for reading my Hugo awards packet.<\/p>\n
My corner of Australia (the national capital) has bad internet. This means that it has taken me 8 hours to download the Hugo packet. I live in deep commune with my computer. It thinks it\u2019s my life partner and plays games with me. I think I need to get a new one. My computer is proud of the duct tape holding it together. Actually, it might be masking tape. It\u2019s an old, grumpy computer. <\/p>\n
I thought, with Crowtime (my personal pun for this period) that I would be able to hop online and go to all the amazing online conferences I\u2019ve heard of in North America. My computer gets in the way of this. So does my location.<\/p>\n
Location is a factor for online conferences. It turns out that not one of the conferences have panels at four in the morning\u2026 the time barrier is still too big. Some people have defeated the limited range of hours that the rest of the world lives in, by sleeping during the day or simply not sleeping at all, but I\u2019m fighting chronic illnesses and this is only an option if, say, I\u2019m on a panel.<\/p>\n
The weather report says we\u2019re getting snow in the mountains tomorrow. I live at the base of a mountain that misses snow, every time. All the cold, none of the snow-angels. Canberra and Narnia have quite a few things in common. Our Prime Minister would like to be Aslan, winter without Christmas \u2013 we need to rename. (I don\u2019t mind winter without Christmas, since I\u2019m Jewish. I wouldn\u2019t mind summer without Christmas either.)<\/p>\n
The weather forecast is done, back to what I was saying.<\/p>\n
I suspect I\u2019m not the only Australian writer who feels a bit like Cinderella denied the ball this weekend, but I have so much to do that I\u2019m not bored.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve just written 1,500 words about hooks and how they work to translate a writer\u2019s ideas into something a reader can see. It\u2019s part of the non-fiction book I need to finish by the end of the financial year. That sounds way less scary than saying I need to finish the first draft in the next four weeks.\u2019<\/p>\n
I had an interested publisher months ago, and the bushfires intervened. I was so sick during those bushfires that I didn\u2019t get much work done. At the time I felt cheated, but given that 445 people died of the smoke that made me ill, I wasn\u2019t cheated at all. I have to finish it now, though.<\/p>\n
Doesn\u2019t the subject sound exciting? Well, it is. Except that it means I\u2019ve lost any chance of finding a hook for you now apart from \u201cHi, I\u2019m Gillian\u201d. I need an extra-special hook, too, for today is my first day on a new blog (this one, here) and we only just began the blog today and you need something special.<\/p>\n
So much at the moment that is special is also terrible. We\u2019re not living in one of humankind\u2019s happiest hours. I\u2019m not going to talk about those things most of the time.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve said I\u2019ll write about my everyday at a given moment, but then didn\u2019t tell you who I was and why that everyday is different. Apart from me being a bit ill, but that\u2019s just life. The things I\u2019ve worked to bring into my life I mostly haven\u2019t explained, thought you now know about the things that came to me without giving me a choice. And you know about Canberra. Everyone needs to know about Canberra.<\/p>\n
I write novels and I research culture, sometimes historical culture,\u00a0 right now mostly modern culture. I write my research up in the way that best suits the ideas I\u2019m playing with. Sometimes the research fits into novels, sometimes into academic monographs, often into short pieces that litter the literary landscape. I have no idea if I\u2019m any good, but enough people pay me so that I can keep on going. I care profoundly about my research and about my writing.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m really rather bad at keeping lists of what I write. I discovered this when someone wanted a complete bibliography of my work and I ran out of steam far too early on. Here are my books<\/a> (for books are easy to track)\u00a0 and here is a sample of my other stuff.<\/a><\/p>\n