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In Which I Watch the Calendar Fill Up

30/4/2015

I just did my first podcast this morning. There is a chance that it will be available for public consumption next week. I will, of course, post a link when that happens. I just hope that I didn't end up sounding like a total numbskull.

In other news, I finished the giant rewrite of the dissertation and turned it in a few days ago. I am down to the home stretch of non-stop work to finish the PhD in time. Right now I am finishing the novel, and then I will spend the better part of a month doing final rewrites to the dissertation, cleaning up the works cited and reading lists, and dealing with all of the tiny little details. Also, I have to write a lecture. I have been given a 90-minute slot at a day class at Cambridge's ICE for creative writing. I'll be talking about writing (non-fiction) about gardens. And I have to finish teaching and then do all of my marking. And travel to an away wedding (that will be 4 days). And host a friend who is visiting (another few days). And go to London a couple of times for various events and stuff. And try to have a life.

I have two months. I hope it's enough.

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What You Don't Know That You Don't Know

13/4/2015

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The Annunciation (1430-32) by Fra Angelico; in the Prado, Florence

Writing an analysis of a novel that you have written is both weird and enlightening.

Weird in the sense that it feels like something that someone else should be doing. I spent years as a student analysing other authors' work (this is not to say that I am in any way on par with those writers, be they Fitzgerald or King). It is something that *should* be done by an outsider.

Enlightening because as I have worked on the dissertation (this week is the rewrite of chapter four: metaphor) I have discovered all of these things that I did in the novel that I didn't realise I had done. Case in point: a scene in the second section of the novel that only upon analysis I realise was inspired by Fra Angelico's The Annunciation. On one side Adam and Eve are being banished from the Garden of Eden, while on the other Mary sits beneath a domed ceiling, the Angel Gabriel in front of her, and a ray of light--a visible ray of light--reaching down from God's hands to her with a dove inside of it. I took a lot of art history back in my undergrad days and very likely studied this painting. The image of the visible light, like names (more on that in a second), hooked itself in my brain, and I ended up writing an intimate moment between two characters in a walled garden (definitely NOT the Garden of Eden, though it is nearly impossible to avoid that metaphor when writing about gardens) in which the female characters can feel the light. I wrote this particular thing, with this idea in mind, without realising until a few days ago where it came from.

Last weekend during Eastercon when I was on the panel, the same sort of thing came up: what we don't know that we know. I have a bad habit of naming characters after people (historically real or currently alive, though not direct friends of mine) without realising it. Usually I end up renaming the character, but in the case of the PhD novel I have done it with two characters and have left it because it both made sense and deepened the connections between my novel and gardening history.

Although it feels as if I will never be finished with this dissertation, I am pleased about having to do it. In the future, I may do something similar (though without the same deadlines or emotional weight attached) so that I can SEE what I have done unintentionally or unconsciously, and then do more of it.

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Historical Fantasy or Fantastical History? Eastercon 2015

10/4/2015

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Columbine (aquilegia) taken at Sissinghurst, May 2012

Here, have a flower photo.

I went to Eastercon last weekend, from Friday to Monday, and I completely forgot to talk about it here. I had volunteered to be on panels, but wasn't placed on any. However, when I saw the programme and saw a panel about history in fantasy fiction--and I saw that two of my friends/fellow writers were on the panel with only one other person--I asked to be on the panel, too. It felt weird to ask. But if you don't ask, you'll never get. And I had nothing to lose. And, in the end, the moderator said "Join us!" and I did.

It was a hella fun panel to a packed room (people were sitting on the floor!) with a lot of twitter traffic. One result: "The Tiffani Problem": when something is historically accurate but looks wrong. This came form my name, which is derived from the Greek name Theophania, but if you named a character in the ancient world Tiffani you'd get torn a new one for it *even though it's historically correct*. Writing historical fiction (fantasy or not) is difficult just for this reason; I spend a lot of time with the online etymology dictionary open to check the words I use--even simple ones like "plus" or "mad", words we use today without thinking about them--when writing about the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries.

Going to cons is exhausting. I mean, it's fun and all, and I get to see people I don't get to see too often. But it is a LOT of talking and visiting and eating and drinking in the same hotel with hundreds of other fans. And I mention the talking? I overdose on people rather quickly, and on the noisy hotel bars. I have another con in August, and I will be just about recovered from this one by then.

I came home Monday afternoon, fought off a slight case of the con crud on Tuesday and Wednesday, and finally got back to work on the PhD yesterday. I am on stupid serious deadlines because this draft of the dissertation is taking me way longer than I had thought (or my supervisor had expected). I mean, everything with the PhD always takes 3x as long, but I have to FINISH before July, and at this point that means pretty much no full weekends off and lots of late nights to get it done.

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In Which I Watch the Calendar Fill Up

What You Don't Know That You Don't Know

Historical Fantasy or Fantastical History? Eastercon 2015

Tiffani Angus

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