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Friday, May 25th, 2012
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7:11 am - Form An Orderly Queue.
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Right after I realise that I have a story, and enough grip on it that I can write it, I start working out how to write it. Who tells it? How do they tell it? What structure does it create to hang itself around? Because you can tell different stories from the same events by telling them in different forms. The story will adapt to the structure (unless you force it not to and then bad things will happen and changes will have to be made). The structure gets tailored to the story. This way you emphasise the narrative elements, that way you emphasise the themes (put simply and so in a way that doesn;t mean exactly what you're trying to explain)
Guilty is one of those bastards that wants -- needs it's complications. I think it's like TDBRAW and wants either a twinned spiral or a full double helix. The narrator -- who tells the bits that are better off told, spacing the live-action sequences. Maybe. The piece where Jenny opens their eyes could be tell but it could equally be show (urinals, vomit, weeping and all -- it came to me shown after all). The nightmare memories of the bad places the band have gone might be best at arm's length and told than shown in technicolour (because I get to see them that way but sometimes it's good to let the audience look away). And there needs to be a pattern to folding the story, because I don;t think starting from the beginning and going on to the end -- the simplest way -- can work with the story as the story wants to be. The simple story would be 'hey guys, we gotta kill these faeries' -- and not a lot of people would get the stuff about balances and think it'd be better to watch them kill right after that intro piece of narration, or maybe before it. Could be it's actually Bone Idol... with a frame of show-now, a thread of tell, and a middle of show-then. (at which point readers rebel because working shit out makes the brain tired -- simple stories in simple structures with some gold paint and carved finials will do them nicely).
At least I'm getting a faux happy ending. The Jenny doesn't get to die.
[Yes, still kind of seething with resentment -- but there are some bits I kind of like: "How did you open their eyes?" "Optrex" and "I had to keep bullshitting rational explanations for the others, but you believed in faeries." And I do love the bullshitting scientific explanations :) ]
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| Thursday, May 24th, 2012
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7:10 am - Where The Writing Things Are
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One of the problems I've been having with writing over the past year is that I've always been the kind of person who writes when they write -- by which I don't mean sporadically but when I'm putting down words I hate being interrupted, I'm not even very keen on stopping -- the advice to leave off while you know the next bit has never made sense to me... how can you possibly stop while the words are running hot? (And even when they're running cold I generally try for an hour and look up three or four later... to find chat empty and the playlist long silent)
But Kat, that's great. Everyone should be so blessed.
Only now I've gone from being a person who gets called away sometimes to being a carer. I'm pretty much on call day and night -- there are times during this cycle where I wake up and I don't know what time of day it is. That used to be a rare event in my life -- I'm that kind of annoying internal clock person. Now I spend much of my time trying to catch up on sleep (and discovering that my insomnia is no respector of snatched hours). And yes, that makes me wander off track sometimes, but this does actually connect to the writing thing... because I can be called away from needlepoint, or from logic puzzles, or from a book without problem. I'm not good about being woken from a deep sleep but them's the breaks. Calling me away from writing leaves me prone to snappishness, or at least a sharp tone and hasty manner and... It's not like life is a bed of roses whithout me doing that thing.
So I've been mildly resistant to new stories. To writing at all. It's all very well knowing I've probably got an hour, or two hours, between this event and the next, but writing is where I lose track of time. Where I fade out of the world and come back reluctantly.
And the new stuff is -- well my brain is not coming up with stories people want to read. Some of them I'm not even sure I want to write (or can make work in words the way they work in my head -- if I've learnt one thing from the internet it's that my head is a far country for a lot of people)
But since a story bit, and since my subconcious is torturing me (with endless random songs in my head) I wrote a bit -- it's a title and maybe a first paragraph or two, or maybe just the narrator getting settled in my head (yes, male narrator, bad female writer to like writing male POVs)
Anyhow, this is what words look like when they get to spill out of my head --
GUILTY.
Have you ever walked into some local venue, a pub or a small club with live music a couple of nights a week, and there's this singer brings tears to your eyes for all the right reasons? Or a guy with an axe, or a sax, or fiddle, whose riffs are so tight they make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up and applaud? Or maybe it's a band, and they don't look out of place playing this gig on the road to nowhere until the music starts and you wonder how come they're not piling up the hits on Youtube or signed with one of the big labels?
No? Yes? Maybe you don't get out much and don't have a clue what I'm talking about. Or maybe you do and just don't remember seeing them.
Whatever. We were one of those bands. Four ordinary Joes. Or one Joe, with a Mike, a Big Dave, and an Owen. Nobodies with a touch of real talent. Artistes for hire.
And we were hired. Very regularly. By beautiful people. For their beautiful parties. Without anyone, least of all us, working out why that didn't make any sense.
Until we met a Jenny.
(And yes, I feel like throwing one of my computer buddies at my subconscious and yelling 'there, happy now?' because this can only end in tears)
And now I listen to a song and then go sleep.
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| Tuesday, May 8th, 2012
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9:04 pm - Maurice Sendak
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I didn't know this man -- and I don't just mean the obvious 'I was not his friend' or 'I never met him' both of which are true. When I was a kid there was no 'Where the wild things are' or maybe there was and I just never saw it, but I don't remember it being in WHSmith and even if I didn't buy the books I scanned all the titles there once a week (well I think it was once a week... maybe sometimes it was once a fortnight but I pretty much lived in the book department till I was ten or so and started venturing into the record department as well)
I heard about Wild Things on US TV shows. Then there was a cartoon, and an opera, and the book was so prominant in the children's department of bookshops that I saw it -- even though by this time I only went into the children's books section for Terry Pratchett (okay and Dick King Smith and a few others). I saw none of the productions (aside from a bit of the opera on TV) and I still haven't read the book. I recognise the name, and some images, from the general cultural references that surround me.
So Kat, why are you trying to talk about this person when it makes no difference to you that he's dead?
But there's this thing I was thinking earlier, watching the TV. Lots and lots of people I know knew this man. Knew Wild Things. Had their lives changed -- even if just a little -- by his work. And people I don't know whose own work, that I've loved (tv shows and books), is the way it is because he touched their lives. Or who act as they act because they read the book or saw the cartoon or in some way had Wild Things in their hearts. Or were influenced by someone who did.
A bunch of people have influenced me and my life who people I meet do not know or know of. But they know me. They can't know the great grandparents who gave me most of my genes (I didn't meet any of them either), but those people helped make me me...
Maurice Sendak helped make people who do and have mattered to me (even when I didn't know them either) the people they are/were.
Go out and add to your cultural heritage, people. Make something. Pass on a bit of inspiration. Help someone out. Smile.
Don't settle for doing no harm -- do something good.
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| Thursday, May 3rd, 2012
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7:19 am - You -- You're A Self-Made Man.
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You *can* save people -- from accidents -- but you can't save them from their own natures.
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| Wednesday, May 2nd, 2012
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5:25 am - D is for Disability.
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You know, I have problems with the whole disablism thing... in part because yeah, people who see disabled people as abnormal etc are right -- sometimes because we're made that way, sometimes because we've done something in our lives that may or may not have been bloody stupid but ended badly -- we're not normal, we're not capable of everything an 'able' bodied person is (although I know plenty of able-bodied people who're massively less able to do certain physical things than many 'disabled' people and mentally... yeah well anyone with a brain knows these things and the ones without a brain...) People have different abilities... this shouldn't matter a whole lot to their pursuit of happiness, and if they can live with it then the able-bodied should be able to learn to cope with the 'abnormal'.
And that's kind of where I part company with the disablism allies and the hardcore -- I can live with having American friends who use the word 'mad' to describe being angry (except when they massively overuse it in a first draft -- in which case it drives me mad). I don't give a lot of a damn about the language of oppression because I'm perfectly happy with crazy paving and crazy patchwork and calling people wilfully blind or clueless. There are bad words that people should not use to anyone, let alone disabled people with those conditions -- spaz, crippo, etc... but people shouldn;t in general try to hurt other people with words (or guns and knives) Being offended by someone saying a drunk is leglees -- yes, I know, I'm not an amputee... but if you're that sensitive, that messed up in your head about who you are...
No. Beyond the obviously intentional insults the disablist language thing is much like a bunch of the other fail-warrior crap -- the empowerment of bullying. And for allies, the safe and certain knowledge that all you have to do is attack someone for calling someone else willfully blind because that saves you from having to complain about the changes to the door at the post office that mean it's too heavy for anyone but a fully-able-bodied person to open (and some of those can't manage). One is fun, the other is actually helpful (because of course disabled people moan but if a non-disabled customer complains...)
( Read more... )
I don't want not to be offended. What am I, a Disney Princess? Mostly I want people to treat my illness the way I treat it -- not as defining me but as something I ignore as much as possible except where I have to not ignore it. Yeah, it limits what I can do... so does how much money I have and how pretty I am (not) :)
Let's put it this way, I'm also fairly short... I don't want to be becalled, I mostly don't define myself as short or let it influence my life... but I would seriously appreciate if shops didn't keep putting in bookshelves (or other shelving) that only someone who is nearly six foot tall can easily access. No, a step stool is not a satisfactory substitute for not accepting that short people read too (including reading authors in the A-D range). Removing the expressions short-lived or shortbread or short-handed from people's vocabularies is not going to help me because I'm not fixated about my height (and people who are fixated about anything should consider whether that makes them happy and if they don't need to adjust their focus) but a little more consideration in shop-fitting could mean I'm not excessively reminded that I'm a short-arse.
I don't care about people not thinking before they open their mouths -- as long as they think before they design a building with lifts where you can't reach the buttons for the higher floors from a wheelchair.
(Enable me, not my entitlement issues)
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| Tuesday, April 24th, 2012
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5:01 am - P is for Pixelated, Passe, and Present Tense.
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Last night a friend mentioned it was pixel-stained techno-peasant wretch (or webscab) day, and I've got to admit my first reaction was 'people still care about that?' and my second was 'God, is it only six years ago?' because it seems longer, or maybe I just feel older.
The problem with freedom, and respecting the purer notions of copyright -- that a writer should have some control, or at least the illusion of control, over their work -- means also accepting their right to give it away.
Even if it offends (or hurts) others.
Yes, usually it's a marketing ploy.
Eventually it probably leads to the kind of issues that are showing up with Amazon and Amazon's self-publishing -- including that when customers see ebooks selling for 99c/p they don't think about the why and wherefore of that particular book being priced so low... they grumble because the book they want to buy *isn't* 99c/p. In the end that may well lead to a situation like the one in British farming -- the supermarket giants sell discount milk, discount carrots, discounted whatever and push that lowering of price along the chain to the suppliers... putting massive economic pressures on the continued existance of the small and medium scale farms/farmers.
While there's a possibility that e-readers are a techno-bubble item -- my brother has bought several must-have devices over the decades, used them compulsively for a while, and then got bored and left them lying at the bottom of a drawer, given them as presents, thrown them away... (But Kat, it's like the mobile phone! Only the mobile phone has added so much functionality that it's really not a phone anymore, it's an entertainment system with social networking options) even if e-readership falls to a lower level (or would naturally return to a lower level without the heavy discounting of best-sellers as ebooks) the pricing hitch will remain. People have been taught to think of books as only being worth a quid or two... The writer's imagination and effort, the publishing team's experience and know-how... worth about the same as four pints of Organic milk or two bulbs of garlic or a couple of onions or four baking potatoes or a portion of ovenchips... less than one box of egg fried rice from my local take-away (which incidentally was delicious) or seven books for the price of a quarter of aromatic crispy duck (also delicious).
That's probably not a good thing.
Giving their labour free of charge is a person's right*. Hendrix was wrong to say otherwise. But being expected to give away one's work, or supply it to others (who are going to make a profit from it) for an inadequate recompense... that's not freedom or right.
This shit is complicated. It's about the real interconnectedness of the system and it's players. Pixel-stained technopeasant wretch day is a good way of creating sides... opponants and adversaries... the tired old internet game of dualism that serves as an alternative to thinking things through.
Maybe people like me could as well bury our heads in the sand**. But yanno, just because the people further up the food chain are busy dressing up as Hollywood Robin Hoods doesn't mean the rest of us *have* to be nameless (red-but-not-Scarlet-shirted) Merry Men.
*I really have, and do, give my labour and labours away for free. When I choose to.
**"If I do, hang me in a bottle like a cat, and shoot at me, and he that hits me, let him be clapp'd on the shoulder, and call'd Adam."
[And you know, Hendrix was also pretty accurate when he said -- A problem with the whole wikicliki, sick-o-fancy, jerque-du-cercle of a networking and connection-based order is that, if you "go along to get along" for too long, there's a danger you'll no longer remember how to go it alone when the ethics of the situation demand it.
He missed out that people can also get pixilated on power.]
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| Wednesday, March 21st, 2012
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2:29 am - Rubbish!
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Andre Previn - But... you're playing all the wrong notes!
Eric Morecombe - I'm playing all the right notes... but not necessarily in the right order. I'll give you that.
Ernie Wise - That sounded quite reasonable to me. Are you satisfied, Mr Preview?
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| Sunday, March 11th, 2012
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6:38 am - Requires Only -- Balls!
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| Thursday, March 8th, 2012
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7:20 am - Sweden, Get These Folks a Room, Please.
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You know, I used to be irked about SFWA being so... SFWA -- especially since they get (IIRC) public lending rights money from Sweden (so *someone* thinks they represent the genre) -- but as I'm getting older (and the history I've witnessed piles up) I realise that a few tens of thousands of dollars is a small price to pay for the infamous private lounges. Because SFWA's lounges keep the crazies off the streets (or at least mean that they may be on the streets a little less than they would be without a drop-in centre).
We all remember what happened when Andrew Burt was allowed out unaccompanied. For the members' sakes, but mostly for the peace of mind of the rest of us, I would like to whole-heartedly support SFWA becoming a much more secretive organisation.
I'd especially like to promote the idea of there being a lot less glasnost during these elections -- let's keep it in the cesspools lounges, folks. SFWA can't set up anything that resembles a free and fair election but with a little quiet handwaving no attention needs to be drawn to the elephants on the mantlepiece.
Given a little time, secrecy might even give the organisation an air of mystery -- the Mason's have been getting by without public respect because the aura of hidden corruption and secret handshakes still attracts their kind of people to join up. I'm sure SFWA could benefit in the same way.
[At some time in the future some of those outside the "organisation" will be forced to join (I hear agents think it's a good idea... the way they think twitter and facebook are :: facepalms :: ) but I think the truth about SFWA would be better coming as a surprise (like a locked room with the corpses of previous wives) rather than a person having to live in dread of what may never happen. Give young writers a chance to enjoy their writing childhoods unshadowed by the spectre of eventual doom]
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| Thursday, March 1st, 2012
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5:45 am - Hail To The Short One ("SEVEN A!")
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| Wednesday, February 29th, 2012
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4:55 am - Anonymous Says... (Or, Eh, I'm Not Interested I What *We* Did Wrong, Let's Talk About *You*...)
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An Anonymous came back... Or is commenting for the first time, or... something...
Anonymous: --
I don't see the implications of deliberations and evil. I think she believes Watt's was careless, and when it was pointed out that she had led to the spread of identifying information she also promptly deleted said info.
What's interesting to me is your own comment:
"I'm fairly surprised at people who support the 'OMG I'm destroyed for life by the use of an inappropriate word' crowd being amazed that words that are *meant* to wound do indeed stay with one"
Who do you intend to include in this "crowd"? People who take offense to the word n***ger? People who don't like their race/gender/sexuality/disability being trotted out for laughs and tired cliches/conventions?
You also seem to ignore the issue of tone. One can politely demean someone, hand wave their concerns, and then claim the high ground because of politeness.
...
My reply was too long for a single comment, and I mangled it trying to cut and paste it to fit two :(
So now, as it was intended to be read:
Neat assesment, but not supported by a close observation of her posts and her actions, and since I got to both blogs via an lj post that declared Watts had 'outed' an abuse survivor and pointed to ROTYH as the source of the information.... and that information was still there for me to pick up.... clearly promptly is now a word which means doing damage control *after* spreading the outing charge around (or closing the stable door having thrown a firework behind the escaping horse). And this from someone claiming to care about the person involved *more* than Watts did/does.
Who do you intend to include in this "crowd"? People who take offense to the word n***ger?
No need for the dramatics -- you apparantly missed the bit in this post (or from comments at multiple sites, including the ROTYH supportive lj which I first saw) where people in support of ACM are objecting to the dehumanising use of 'rabid animal'* and the offensiveness to the mentally ill of 'mentally diseased'. I think the 'OMG I'm destroyed for life by the use of an inappropriate word' crowd is fairly well defined without any need to resort to extreme assumptions about what I *could* mean. (I also wrote on the 'deathmarch' debacle)
The sentence you quoted expresses mild amazement over the clear double-standard involved in pretending that words ACM has used intending to hurt can be brushed off as harmless, by people who -- as you do -- clearly believe that words can hurt. People who are upset by being called names should probably be the first to understand that being called names can be upsetting, and not mock someone who has been called hurtful words not simply shrugging and moving on. Indeed, that sounds awfully like the behaviour of some of those who say, when trotting out such words for entertainment value, 'Can't you take a joke?'.
I'm interested in the narrow range of name-calling you highlight as unacceptable -- race/gender/sexuality/disability -- you don't even drop in an etc/whatever to indicate that you believe that this isn't the limit of unacceptable targets for 'laughs'. Is that because you believe that people targeted for reasons other than these (the elderly, the unemployed, the uneducated etc etc) are fair game for name-calling?
As to your point about tone... Does it seem to you that a post the subject of which is -- that judging by her words and actions, and those of her readership, neither ACM nor those commenting in support of her showed any real care or respect for the welfare of the person they were accusing Watts of outing.** </b> -- needs to engage with the issue of tone? I'm not examining either post in detail here, only commenting on the response to a particular unfortunate event (which is why I mentioned that people could skip the background entirely and go straight to the conclusion. Where should I have brought up the issue of tone? And to what meaningful (in the context of the subject) purpose?
[One can politely demean someone, hand wave their concerns, and then claim the high ground because of politeness.
-- You know, I'm not entirely sure one can politely demean someone and handwave their concerns and still claim to be polite. Politeness isn't just about foul language but about treating other people with a degree of respect***. (You are not polite to a waiter by simply refraining from swearing at them, but by paying them attention, smiling, saying 'thank-you' etc while they serve you.****) But I guess you must believe otherwise, because you've handwaved my concerns about ACM's behaviour with a cheery I-didn't-see-it-that-way-and-therefore-it-can't-be-seen-that-way etc and I presume you aren't highlighting the issue of tone so as to point that up as being impolite].
*which does not particularly ref. a race, gender, sexuality, or disability
** (I'd certainly go so far as to say that ACM showed less care for an abuse survivor than for her crusade against Watts and Bakker)
*** I don't dismiss arguments for being rude. I dismiss them for being hypocritical, or nonsensical, or plain bigoted. The post itself doesn't make an issue of politeness because I'm not interested in ACM's foul language (except where she claims the right to name-call while whining about being called names in return) nor do the artificial high-grounds of internet 'debate/debacles' influence me in particular (except negatively -- OMG someone mentioned Hitler/Nazi's! Game ovuh! is a serious foul) . I wrote a post about the fact that people who claimed to be outraged at an abuse survivor being 'outed' broadcast and perpetuated that information without the slightest concern for the person they were outraged on behalf of because that was what stayed with me.
**** Although you're clearly *not* being polite if you call them names and throw your plate at them
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| Thursday, February 23rd, 2012
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9:11 pm - Anonymous Asks...
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Why do you think Moon is at fault for the disclosure?
Fairly clearly Peter Watts did not intend to disclose the identity of the person in question. But ACM pounced on his comment in order to bolster her argument that he was a misogynist (how dare he not ask permission to draw on this person's life for inspiration!) and bleated it as a 'come look at Watts being evul!'. When it became clear that Watts had inadvertantly given enough information that the kind of person who wants to maliciously dig into other people's private lives could do so, ACM didn't call a halt to her campaign but declared (and still declares) that he had outed his friend (with implications of deliberation and eevul!) and so drew even more attention to the information that could identify this woman.
He made a mistake; she publicised it.
Whose actions were the most deliberate? Hers. She has used the slip for her own ends, quite calculatedly and without thought for the person she supposedly cares so much about.
Peter Watts made a mistake and did his best to control the damage once he realised. ACM perpetuated the mistake, and continued to try and make capital from it once she knew it could be damaging to a third party (a third party she purported to be outraged on behalf of). Far from attempting to minimise the potential damage (and clearly she must think it will be damaging or else she couldn't be outraged at the disclosure) she has done her best to make sure that the information reaches as many people as she can possibly get it to. And she has done that for entirely self-serving reasons.
Whatever you consider Peter Watts to be guilty of, ACM is also guilty of, but with the added kick of deliberation, a lack of any immediate apology or remorse for her part, and a clear desire to capitalise on the incident.
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| Wednesday, February 22nd, 2012
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8:11 am - [strike] All You Need Is Love [/strike]
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I wasn't going to bother with a journal entry on this subject because I'd said a bunch of what I wanted to say in comments on a friend's journal -- but a reply to one of those has been kicking around my brain since I read it.
Before I say more -- if you're the kind of person who, when given some pieces of evidence which will lead to a meaningless piece of gossip, the repetition of which can only cause distress, can't resist putting those pieces together (even though there is nothing of any real significance to be gained other than the satisfaction of your curiosity about a total stranger...) PLEASE DO NOT READ ON.
And yes, I do expect people to have a modicum of self-restraint and common decency. Same way I expect people not to steal, rape, or murder -- up until they prove themselves to be the kind of people who don't put any effort into refraining from theft, rape, or murder.
( Read more... )
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| Saturday, February 4th, 2012
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7:03 am - Word of the Day
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Via ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=92.1) melinda_goodin
"If you read this, leave me a one-word comment about your day that starts with the third letter of your LJ USERNAME. Only one word please. Then repost so I can leave a word for you. Don’t just post a word and not copy – that’s not as much fun!"
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| Tuesday, January 17th, 2012
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2:14 am - Mooning.
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| Wednesday, January 11th, 2012
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5:26 am - The Tea Party.
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Or, how I didn't manage to get any of that sleep between 6 am and noon because I didn't have any idea what the DWP/Jobcentre Plus interview would be like so was doomed to mentally write thousands of words of blog post refuting Kameron Hurley's post on trope avoidance rather than being able to run through some scenarios about what would happen at the interview and then turn off and sleep.
I got there early -- and my haven't the offices changed. Plush carpets and soft furnishings, and swish office furniture and only the barest nod to privacy for the -- and yes we're no longer claiments or clients now we're customers. There is a welcome podium with a member of staff always on duty, who checks that your letter matches the list of people with appointments and then a security guard shows you to the stairs. Up one floor and there's a little girl waiting to usher you inside and to the mutant chair/sofa/round stuffed thing across for the desk of the person you're there to see. There is one other active desk in a very large room, and another security guard on watch. Just the staff you can see outnumber the two customers by more than 2 to 1 (and it's shortly after lunchtime so lots of the staff are probably elsewhere). After a short while my advisor calls me to the desk -- in our initial introductory exchange I discover that she works two days a week, has had three weeks off for Xmas and is worried she'll have forgotten the drill. It very soon becomes clear that the message here is that if you're in the work-related activity group you must have an action plan, must attempt the things agreed between yourself and your advisor as part of that plan, and that the focus is on moving people back to work. I mention that I had asked for my decision papers and that the person who'd looked over my form had expressed the opinion that I would not be able to work but would not be harmed by the interview. This she found puzzling (because fairly clearly the interviewers have been told something different from the adjudicators). She told me that we would be meeting again in March and rather than the limit of six interviews all together she appeared to believe that we would carry on meeting at a similar interval of time until I was able to move back to work or somehow transfered into the non-work-related activity group. We talked about my past -- she had been given no access to what must be a reasonable record of my relationship with the benefits system. I hadn't been expecting this so was a bit foggy about dates -- those you kind of expect the guys with the forms and computers to be keeping track of. She had also been given none of the information about my illness. Or what benefits I was on. Or... well basically she had nothing but my name and a computer screen with bit to fill in. We covered some of my acedemic qualifications -- numbers not subjects -- and amusingly she put me down as having IT skills. (Twenty-five years ago when I was actually with the Jobcentre not on disability I had mentioned my being able to use a computer and having done a couple of courses etc and some work for the SDP with data entry and back then when very many fewer people had any computer skills at all that was deemed not to count... now, when lots of kids have A'levels and such and one would expect there to be considerably more to IT skills than 'has a computer at home' I'm suddenly skilled :D) Anyhow, there was something in the offices that my lungs didn't take to and they started kicking up a not too regular but annoying cough. I was open and honest and avoided being surly and unco-operative and by about halfway through she suddenly said 'coming to interviews like this is going to make you worse, isn't it?'. I said it would. She said that I should ask for my decision to be rechecked -- I told her what the people at CAB had said, she looked surprised and said that they shouldn;t have advised me that way, people were supposed to move up and down groups. I think at that point she realised she didn't know how, now I was past the appeal deadline, that was supposed to happen. She is the only person handling these interviews for the whole Harrogate area, and she is a very part-time employee... At which point she suggested gaming teh system the way I'd thought of doing but -- well being seen to be gaming the system when the system is gunning for you seemed like a less than perfect idea to rush into. My advisor suggested I persuade my mother to claim attendance allowance and then if I was her carer I would still get my money but it would count as moving into work and I'd not need to come to any more interviews. Or had I considered claiming Disability Living Allowance? At least for now, I wouldn't need to attend these interviews anymore. We considered my action plan and she decided that my doing some embroidery was my goal for this month. She then told me that if I didn't get a new interview date letter for March I shouldn't worry as she was all on her own and going to be very busy and there wasn't any reason to rush in seeing me again (which I think was a reinteration of her remark that there really wasn't anything suitable on offer -- basically her job is to gently pester people until they stop being ill -- and code for 'I'm going to try and extend the period between interviews if I can)
[officially my advisor is supposed to be able to do that very easily, but there's a very clear and definite disconnect between what's said before they migrate you and what happens after]
When I got up and was moving stiffly she had the security guard escort me to the lift (there isn't disabled acces to the second floor in the customer area... er yes, and they plan to have hundreds of disabled people turning up for regular interviews) while she went to get me new Attendance Allowance forms. I got to walk through the downstairs office where two or three dozen staff plus were busy out-numbering their customers. Downstairs has also had a seriously swanky make-over. My sympathy for the woes of the public servants dropped another couple of notches, even if I do think my advisor is a nice person.
So anyhow, my action plan on which I must make progress before the next interview or -- well the or is entirely unstated -- stands as 1) do some embroidery, it will be counted as a positive activity in the quest to bring me back into employment. I did query that but she was very firm that it was all about the progress and meeting goals :D. 2) Take steps towards making claims for further benefits so I don;t have to do these interviews anymore.
Or... do something you enjoy and try and game the system. I have official approval from my advisor for both.
Sadly whatever the allergen was I'm still coughing and starting to hack up phlegm. I'm still down a whole bunch of sleep when I was just feeling like I was back to tired rather than exhausted. And I'm getting the fever etc of my autoimmune system being grumpy.
Oh, and I thought I'd lost my scarf -- you can't contact the local office direct by phone so I went to the main query number and when they finally answered (because there's nothing like earning money off people phoning) the guy said of course he'd put me through, and then laughed and said 'but your advisor is probably wearing it by now'. Yeah, I've been saying for some years that many of the benefit frauds are only really possible with inside help. Here's a guy who clearly believes his co-workers are dishonest enough to steal from the poor and the sick.
Oh, and apparantly the people in the non-work related group are not hoe free, a government medical advisor is saying that it's shameful the prejudice against people undergoing treatment for cancer etc being considered unemployable -- so cancer patients on chemo will be going through the medicals and forms and expected to prove that they are too sick to attend interviews like the one I experienced today.
I do feel sorry for my advisor -- I suspect now that people like me are being migrated she will see a lot more people who she can't help and who are made worse by the physical and mental stress of this process. And very possibly she will start meeting people who are undertaking frightening treatment and scared, with good reason, that they will die. I also have to wonder what idiot doesn't understand that doing this will end up wasting massive amounts of NHS resources... if you don't rest between chemo sessions and are stressed all the time I suspect treatments will be less successful (and a course of chemo costs a lot more than many years of the saving of moving these people to a lower level of benefit). Heck, the chances are I'm going to need to hit the drugs more and *that* costs the NHS money (and the time of my doctor etc etc)
Yeah, it's mean of me but I do find it hard to be sympathetic towards the plight of middle-class people moaning about not being able to afford three holidays a year. Apart from anything else it wasn't *only* the bankers who caused the crisis...
...
So, not a bad day, but not great, and I'm left with a lot of things to say about the Kameron Hurley post and topics raised therein...
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| Sunday, January 8th, 2012
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3:39 am - Mememememe-ing!
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Via stillnotbored
In 2012,  katallen resolves to... Find a new music. Volunteer to spend time with elaine_andrastes. Find a better stillnotbored. Take msisolak lacemaking. Admit my true feelings to hums_eudaimonia. Eat more buymeaclues.
There is no better stillnotbored. Anytime msisolak wants to go to Harrogate Lace Event I'm game. I don't think I could eat a whole buymeaclue but I might just volunteer to spend time with Elaine (once again).
Plus ( Read more... )
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| Wednesday, January 4th, 2012
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5:27 am - Oooo Lookee!
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Being bored and curious I had a quick look for the first ever review I'd written -- back then I was working on my brother's computer (because it was the only one connected to the internet) and not only did I write the crits direct into the submission form but I think the only copies I made at first were paper ones. Anyhow, I didn't find the first, or the second, or even the third... but this is a pretty early one, from January 4th 2002, and I think I vaguely recall the prologue concerned (although if you crit and slush-read enough you will encounter many many evil darknesses, smothered kids, and crushed puppies)
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It's a good start. I can't say if it's too short in isolation from whatever follows. But it does create an expectation for the rest of the story.
The only nit-picks are the fingers tugging at fingers line, if you really want fingers of darkness meeting with the kids fingers, then maybe you should dump the toes... Or maybe I'm just paranoid about repeating words.. And then there's the pulverising of the dog's rib-cage. Maybe a bit OTT for the start. If you begin with a simple crushing it might read more easily, and saves the overwhelming nature of the force involved for a more impressive later scene.
It's well written, and it works. I want to know more, so I would certainly read on. In fact you could probably get away with a pretty slow first chapter after this start. What more can I say?
PS This is probably against the rules or something, but I was just pipped to the post by another review, and whatever you do don't go for the muffled cries business (unless you really want to). I like the noise factor, and dwelling on the smothering of children isn't a turn on, more an overused emotional device.
...
Of course after reading a few more prologues I developed more substantial opinions about them which generally amount to -- prologue only when necessary or 'prologues are not places to stash your backstory' -- so now any question as to whether a prologue was too short would probably be met with an 'it depends'* and a friendly shove towards the idea that if a prologue can be too short it might not be doing anything worthwhile anyhow.
Still, I had pretty good instincts. I knew word repetition was a problem -- not long after this I started explaining that if you had a lot of accidental word rep then it blunted the edge of any deliberate use of repeated words. Later I realised that if you could use deliberate word repetition to influence the reader then not only did accidental word rep screw that up but it was probably also having an unintended influence. These days I wouldn't apologise for yammering on (and on) about it needing to be nuked from orbit.**
I was also already sensitive to the idea that gore does not hook and that killing children and puppies to prove the evil nature of the evil probably doesn't even work very effectively with the people it originally worked with.
Fairly soon I stopped saying well-written when I meant publishable.
I often talk about how I've learnt to write better. My writing was never so bad it wasn't publishable (maybe with a little editorial help sometimes). Yes, I've learnt a lot of tricks too but mostly what I've learnt is to write mindfully -- to understand better what words can do and how they work and incorporate that gnosis into my writing.
*'it depends' has become my stock answer to any question where I'm not sure if the person asking really wants to get involved in finding an answer or is fishing for positive reactions. It's amazing how few people respond to 'it depends' with 'depends on what?'. Where people respond with irritation you can be pretty sure they were looking for a nod of approval (at the very least).
** Not that doing so would please the critee. It's amazing how often really good tips are not well received.
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| Monday, January 2nd, 2012
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5:42 am - Hmmm
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So anyway, about today but back in 2002 I joined the OWW. I'd been on the internet six months, was bored, and contemplating posting some fanfic -- but not getting around to finding someplace. Then I saw the OWW address while browsing a bookshop sale and remembered enough of the address to be able to find the workshop. It was free (that changed three months later), so I joined, and got the nerve up to crit a few times, and then to post.
I learned to crit. I learned to write.
I acquired some friends and I lost most of them.
Beyond that the balance sheet gets pretty complicated.
...
I'm bored.
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| Sunday, January 1st, 2012
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5:12 am - 2012!
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Just in case this works...
HAPPY NEW YEAR! everyone.
With a little more emphasis on the wishing you joy and a little less on the factual statement of calendric truth.
Be happy, people.
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