silences and silences broken

[felis_ultharus]

Sorry for the long silence. I've been quite busy.

Writing

Overhaul of the novel proceeds apace. I was having a serious Ondaatje problem -- I was writing great scenes, having trouble fitting them together in a coherent story. I think I've found the way to overcome that now. I edited and wrote fifty pages Wednesday, and 20 pages today.

I'd started it as a realistic novel with a touch of dark fantasy. It's now really a fantasy novel set in the present day :/

The only remaining problem is the denouement -- and my problem writing believable action scenes.

School

My first major presentation of the year went off without a hitch, remarkable since I couldn't get any solid information. It was on the School-Book Question of 1866, a major crisis of Canadian history that's been completely forgotten by Canadians. Wikipedia doesn't even have an article on it -- or a mention of the event in the biographies of its major players.

I couldn't even get a hold of the schoolbooks in question.

My next major project is on early-Canadian sonnets. Most of what I'd come across in the databases was really awful, until one of my teachers put me on to a book of truly brilliant sonnet-work. And almost every sonnet in there had been lost to history.

Canada needs a Renaissance. There's a lot of the past mouldering on shelves in used bookstores, on the verge of being forgotten. There's some on the federal government's database, but it's only 1% of what was published in the 19th century. A lot of the best stuff is missing.

Work

I show up today. I get told that my boss since the beginning just got promoted to a better-paying, higher-ranking job she doesn't want. But they told her she'd be fired if she didn't take it :/

I have no idea what happened to the guy who was in that position before her (the head of the adjoining international school). He was nice -- cute and gay, too. He was there on Friday, gone on Monday, and I have no idea why.

Our department no longer has a head. We're managing, but it was a shame because she was a great boss and really was the only one there who could handle computer problems.

Comments

[infinitecomplex.livejournal.com]

No need to apologise. I've been totally LJ negligent recently, although an odd side effect is that I'm now posting more entries of my own because I've missed so many that I should comment on.

The Kits bookclub would appreciate your efforts to solve the Ondaatje problem. In the Skin of a Lion was the only book they actually all agreed on this year - it was universally loathed. I didn't go to that session, but the librarian who took it said it generated some awesome discussion. Funny how the books that people hate always seem to get better debates going than the ones that everyone likes...

[felis-ultharus.livejournal.com]

A professor I TAed for said Ondaatje no longer writes novels -- he writes beautiful scenes and hires a ghost writer to string the pieces together.

I've only read his poetry. I was biased against him by hearing the plot of the English Patient and seeing the movie.

I'm sure Ondaatje thinks it's a lot of fun to play with history, but it annoys me that he took a gay historical figure and straightened him out for his story. There's no originality in that -- it happens all the time, and it irritates me when it does.

I wonder -- if the English Patient had been based on the real-life count's love affair with another man, would it have been a successful movie back then...?

[melting-penguin.livejournal.com]

Shockwaves abundant from MLS! I can't believe they did that to her...although on second thought I'm not that surprised. Poor thing. I'll tell you why on Sunday!

[felis-ultharus.livejournal.com]

I already know she's unhappy about it. I'm just astonished it was so sudden. It must have happened at the end of the afternoon on Friday, and everyone up to that point was making plans as if she was still going to be there.