Just Doing It
On Monday, in the context of earthquakes here and in Japan in particular, I said that it was important to be “practical and realistic about what you can actually do. Then do it.”
So what have I been “just doing?”
Women’s History Month Guest Post:
As I mentioned Sunday, I had written a guest post for the celebration of Women’s History Month on Gillian Polack’s blog and on Monday evening Gillian posted it, here. I know it’s Wednesday now, but you can still rock on over and have a look, read some of the other great posts and comment if you want to.
The Gathering of the Lost Edit Resumes
Mainly though, I have been working on two projects: the first is the edit of The Gathering of the Lost (The Wall of Night Book Two) which was derailed by the September 22 earthquake. I am now very much committed to getting it back on track and since the beginning of last week have gotten through a further 115 pages—only 16% of the total manuscript perhaps, but encouraging progress for me given there’s still an awful lot of earthquake aftermath-related interruptions. Today, for example, I received the following calls/knocks on my door:
— a follow-up call from the EQC (NZ’s Earthquake Commission, a kind of public insurer)
— a call from an engineer
— a call from a journalist
— an inspection by personnel involved with ground remediation
— an inspection by the insurer’s foreman overseeing urgent building remedial works (they’re going to shore up the chimney–yay!)
— a visit by a Salvation Army welfare team assessing need
Which probably gives you an inkling why getting through 115 pages in a week seems like good progress to me, especially when two of those days (the weekend) were almost fully given over to the silt clearing and other section cleanup acitivities mentioned in Monday’s post—activities that are pretty much ‘situation normal’ at present.
Isn’t it great though that so much earthquake recovery and related activity is going on? I am definitely not complaining—more explaining why stopping speeding bullets, leaping tall buildings in a single bound and completing the Gathering edit with one hand tied behind my back just aren’t possible right now. :-\
NZ Book Month: The Dan Davin Foundation:
The other big project I’m working on is the series of four workshops I’ll be doing in the Southland—Wakatipu region with Year 12 & 13 High School students, as a guest of The Dan Davin Literary Foundation for NZ Book Month. I’m calling the workshops “Get Writing: Steering the Fiction Craft” and the focus is on the elements of effective writing (which are universal, regardless of genre), world building, and also writing practice, i.e. establishing effective work habits and getting writing out there. The workshop presentation is pretty much complete now and I am just finishing off the exercises and handouts, which means only the one public presentation left to prepare. It is quite a lot of work, but NZ Book Month is a big deal and I really like the way The Dan Davin Literary Foundation is actively trying to develop the next generation of NZ writers.
So that’s what I’m doing right now.
How about you—got any exciting projects on the go or is it business as usual?
Sorry again for forgetting time differences. I really should know better!!
I’m about to teach my creative writing class, where we are exploring turning quantum physics into poetry. That’s the most exciting thing in my day. This is good.
May your days be filled with good writing and teaching and homey things and less earthquakery. (After last night, I’ve decided not to watch the news until I’m robust enough to deal.)
Exploring turning quantum physics into poetry sounds — well, quantum really. But not impossible given that a significant number of scientists / mathematicians have also been/are poets, eg Iggy McGovern, Miroslav Holub, Mike Bartholomew-Biggs
Sometimes I think we have to exercise the ‘off’ switch on disaster news, not because we are callous human beings but because otherwise we indulge in vicarious trauma.
Helen, a week in Norfolk Island helped me exercise the “off” switch very effectively, given that we were doing other things than sitting and watching TV, and the only newspapers were three times a week and a day late!
(We did get some news, in a filtered fashion, so weren’t unaware of the Japanese disaster).
Have you applied for a Red Cross grant? You almost certainly qualify – not too sure exactly where you are but if you received six visits in one day it must be a badly damaged area – we are supposed to be fairly bad here but have only seen about one person so far in over three weeks. For more details see my daughter’s blog
http://zeborah.dreamwidth.org/92404.html
My other two daughters have been working as volunteers processing applications, and encouraged us to apply – they are actually very keen for all those eligible to do so.
I hasten to clarify that it was 3 telephone calls and 3 visits, not 6 visits, but even so … having just done the Red Cross donation launch-a-thon (here on the blog) as part of the UK release of The Heir of Night, I would feel very weird about now going to the Red Cross to ask for money. And as I assured the Salvation Army people, I am ‘fine’—I have a house I can live in, water, power, food, insurance and my livelihood. Ok, uncertainty, anxiety and stress, but that’s only to be expected, so I really would rather the help went to those who are homeless and/or have lost their businesses/jobs and need the help desperately.
I quite understand that – I felt the same at first too. But this is what my daughter wrote:
“Originally I’d planned not to since, while this certainly resulted in hardship, it didn’t involve any financial hardship and I thought they should keep the money for people who did need it; all I’d do with it would be to redonate it to charity, which seemed needless paper-shuffling. But apparently due to the amount of money they’ve raised and the ways they get audited and so forth it is not at all undesirable to apply for it and even makes sense to be a conduit to funnel money from that fund into some other fund that’s able to help people more seriously affected.”
In other words she plans to redonate the money elsewhere – perhaps to the NZ govt fund which is covering income support for people who have lost jobs. We have also been buying groceries to take to the food bank at Aranui – not sure if that is still open.
I do wish the Red Cross grants were a bit more targeted – it seems wrong that people who have lost their homes are eligible for the same amount as those still in their homes who were without one of power, water, and sewage for seven days .
Catherine, I would feel deeply ashamed if I were to take money from the Red Cross under these circumstances, even to ‘redisburse’ elsewhere—especially as it does rather sound, from reading the excerpt from your daughter’s blog, that the encouragement to take money is not based around need at all but because the Red Cross has an accounting problem of its own making! The reason I did the launch-a-thon was as a way to focus my own giving—and the attention of others, I hoped—on those less fortunately circumstanced than me. I also thought that giving to the Red Cross was an effective way of doing that. I am really deeply concerned to find out that it may not be, and suspect that many people out there in other parts of the country and world will feel the same way I do: i.e. that the money should go to those in genuine financial and physical need. If the Red Cross’s systems are too rigid to allow for that then I believe that it is the system that needs to be resolved, not just hand out money for the sake of handing it out. I “know” there are people in Christchurch in acute need right now and it’s not ok to me that my donation won’t contribute to helping them. And if there is no acute need in Christchurch—if money is just being given away by the Red Cross to show “money in/money out” on the books—then in the name of all that is humane and pragmatic, revise the accounting systems and send the money to Japan where there is no arguing that the need is direly acute.
Trying to get to grips with various communication theories, organizing a con, slowly reading books for review, tidying up SJV stuff, obsessing about my mole removal next Thursday under local……
Wow, you sound busy!
Yes, I’m inclined to give money to Japan as their need is certainly greater. Although I do think there is certainly acute need in Christchurch too – those who have lost houses, jobs and more. So I do hope that the Red Cross will find ways to direct a large portion of the money to those who have the most need, but at the moment it is grants of $500 to an individual or $1000 to a family based on rather general criteria – if you have had to move out of your house for lack of power, water and sewage, or if you have stayed in your house and have no power, water or sewage for seven or more days, you qualify. I certainly respect your position on not applying – though I also respect my daughter’s position, as she has herself done a lot to help, both financially and otherwise, and I am sure that any grant she accepts won’t be used for any selfish purposes.
I’m pretty much inclined myself to donate to the government earthquake fund, which will be directed to people who have actually lost jobs and are suffering financial hardship – but will look into it a bit more first.
I agree that there is certainly acute need in Christchurch and have been alerting those I know who are in that situation to the Red Cross help available since this conversation began—and asking them to tell others as well. I am also with you on the government’s earthquake fund being important for the rebuilding of Christchurch and to enable businesses and jobs to re-establish.
I’m excited by your Dan Davin Foundation news, both for its own sake – congratulations! – and because I have a bit of Dan Davin Foundation-related news myself, which I can’t share yet because it hasn’t quite gone public – but will shortly, I hope.
My main writing task has been to finish off my story for the “Tales for Canterbury” anthology. Rashly, perhaps, I offered to write a new story rather than submit a reprint, and so I’ve felt the pressure to get it done – but it’s drafted, gone through its first revision, and with a bit more work, should be ready to submit by Monday.
In less good news, though, my father has recently heard that his retirement village in Christchurch has been condemned…
Tim— a bit of a ‘teaser’ there re your Dan Davin Literary Foundation news but I’ll look forward to hearing it in due course. 😉 I was very fortunate to have an existing (or is that pre-existing?) short story, The Fountain, that exactly fitted the Tales for Canterbury brief. How uncanny is that? And very pleased to be able to contribute to this project.
What does the condemnation mean for your father in practical terms? Will he try and get into another, still viable home in Christchurch or perhaps live closer to you in Wellington?