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Posts Tagged ‘phd’

PhD’ing

Posted in feminism, feminism and romance, phd, Romance scholarship, Uncategorized, tagged , , , on April 8, 2016| Leave a Comment »

I’m now two months into the PhD. It’s been a steep learning curve for me in many ways but others not. My day job skills come in handy and the fact that I’m researching and analysing topics that I love, means that I’m working harder than ever. I’m taking pain killers to do it too.

The first thing I needed to do was up my reading mojo. I started this well before I actually hit the uni scene. I’m still not where I should be. I need to read faster, harder and analyse more. But I’m getting there.

The next challenge is that I have a lot of topic areas to get across. I have to research a methodology. There’s no tick box here. I have to read the philosophy behind the methodology. Next, I have to research feminism (not in-depth because I’m not doing feminist research per se) but sufficient to understand it, the origins, the different schools of thought and past and current trends. Linked to this is Gender so I’m reading up on that and Queer theory. This links directly I think to my creative work, which will be spec fic with romance.

Then I need to read journal articles and books that deal with Harlequin Mills & Boon novels, with or without feminist analysis for my literature review which outlines what research has been done so I can point out where my research will add value. Absolutely fascinating stuff! OMG!

My independent research is the textual analysis of Harlequin Mills & Boon books from 1970 ish till now and also some interviews/questionnaires with romance authors and readers.

I tried develop a schedule so I could get across everything quickly. My approach of shoving all this stuff into my head led to me not reading Mills & Boon books because I was busy reading everything else. Pulls hair!

I haven’t quite got the schedule developed yet. I am being more balanced.

What I wasn’t prepared for is the change in me. Already I think I’m changed by what I’ve read. I believe I should be objective, unemotional and distanced, but I find I’m passionate, sometimes angry, sometimes so excited and happy. Maybe I need a chill pill or something. I don’t know if other Phders went through the same. It would be good to know. I’m not too upset by this. I like being enthusiastic and I know possibly in future I will have the t-shirt that says ‘don’t ask me about the Phd!’ on it. I feel like I’m surfing a wave of exploration and enjoyment. I wonder why I didn’ t do this years ago. (mostly couldn’t afford to)

I was saying to Matthew last night that this PhD might make me more of a feminist than I am now. I am a feminist but I am my kind of feminist. I’m not affiliated to any particular school. Life made me a feminist. I was subject to child abuse, I was raped at 14 (my first sexual experience) and was a victim of domestic violence and I was discriminated against in the workplace in the 1980s for being a woman. Life made me a feminist.

Feminist are known to rubbish popular romance. I can take that. I don’t  believe in that criticism because I can see feminism at work in the texts I’m reading. Not all texts but its there. However, yesterday, when I read an article about right wing Christian romances being anti-feminist (Darbyshire, P, 2002) I was enraged I think. I knew there were Christian romances out there. I thought they had no sex and took place in Sunday school. (not read one!) and then I read Darbyshire’s analysis and I was appalled by it. His analysis was great but I was appalled at the let’s blame feminism for the world’s problems he identified in the texts and put women back in their place, out of the work place and being subservient to men. OMG! This touched a deep nerve in me. I did the religious thing in my early years. No offense to my ex but I soon learned that I was lot smarter and more capable than he was. The thought that he was going to govern me in the afterlife sent me running and I haven’t looked back. I think people should be free to believe what they like, but I also believe in equality of the sexes and of race.

So that’s me. Two months in. I have a great supervisor. An excellent partner and very supportive friends.

Highland Gathering 1983

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Research, stories and feeling good

Posted in Argenterra, epic fantasy, Indie Publishing, Romance, sf conventions, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on April 5, 2016| 4 Comments »

I get so annoyed at myself. I have these great ideas for blog posts and then it’s so hard to get to the computer and all those wonderful ideas leak out of my head. Pfft! Gone.

Originally I thought I’d be writing a post a day on the PhD and wouldn’t that be fun. But hey, the PhD makes me busier than I was before so no way. I could write a post a day on the PhD but then you’d all explode in flames!

The Phd research (feminism in popular romance fiction ) so interesting in almost all aspects. The difficult part is settling in to a new place, new regime and a new focus. I’m loving the reading, the mind expanding study of feminism and philosophy (for the methodology), the ideas for my creative work and the reading of romances. I wish I could fit much more into my day. It’s addictive. The physical body and mind though has to have a break. I can assure you I’m pretty good at taking breaks.

I took a week off to go to Contact in Brisbane over Easter. I was even on a panel or two, I had a table for hats for a day, sold a few and hung out with people. Met new people too. The Hotel Jen in Brisbane was amazing. I ate at the hotel because the menu and prices were so good. The room was lovely and the service good. The Contact program was well designed. The downside was that not that many people came. Not as many as you’d expect to a national convention. For that I feel bad for the Brisbane organisers. They deserved better support.

Here is some pics from Contact. I really wasn’t drinking all the time.

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Me, Deb Kelly and Keri Arthur.

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That’s us again.

My good friend, Glenda Larke, asked me to give her acceptance speech if she won an award. Well she did! She won the inaugural Sara Douglass award for a series. Here’s the trophy. I nearly cried I was so happy for her.

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A pic of my hat table.

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Sitting around to say good bye. with Keri Arthur and Louise Katz and Gillian Polack at the back.

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Random pic of Brisbane. I went to by swimmers for my trip to the Gold Coast.

Now I’m back at Uni and working pretty hard. In fact, I’m on lunch break, getting ready to attend a workshop on being a better PhD researcher! This makes me laugh, but I’m doing it anyway.

In other news, I’m publishing a book. Argenterra, Silverlands book 1. It’s a story I’ve worked on since about six months after I started writing. This book has been with me to Envision in Brisbane back in 2003. I was planning to throw it in the bin, but my tutor Louise Cusack said not to do that. It’s grown so much since then as I have as a writer so it holds a special place in my heart. It’s the first fantasy I wrote. It’s light and bright but had some darkness there too. I’m doing the Indie publishing thing. So I’ve had a cover done by the brilliant Les Petersen, an edit done and a great proof too. It will soon be ready to go. Just need to get the blurb right. Lucky, there are great writer friends out there who help. So stay tuned. The ebook will be out by the end of the month with POD for June and Supanova in Sydney!

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On a more personal note, it’s odd but the busier I am the more productive I tend to be. I’ve been suffering a bit with the spine, but I’ve been taking the meds and today I’m feeling the best I have in two weeks. Yay! Yesterday, in a bid to keep fit and take a break during the day, I walked down the road to the pool, where I walked in the water for half an hour and came back. It was such a lovely day that I was happy and content.

 

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Respect, Recognition and Romance

Posted in feminism, Retro Mills & Boon, Romance, tagged , , on February 10, 2016| Leave a Comment »

Recently I’ve been delving into retro Mill & Boon romances to sample what there is and what might be of interest in my PhD research into Feminism in Popular romance. It is an interesting time because feminism is being debated and discussed in social media too. There are many schools of thought with regard to feminism that include diverse opinions and finding your way through them can be difficult. As a human being I consider myself equal to others, although I have to admit that I have not always been treated as such.
After listening to Caitlyn Moran’s How to be a woman, I can definitely agree with the respect principle. Treat everyone with respect as if they were yourself or your best friend or your mate. As a woman that’s what I’m interested in being respected as a person, regardless of my gender or colour or religion. Although I wave my hand to say I am a white privileged female, although not always privileged.
As a person/woman I want to be recognised for my abilities. Not patronised, not given excuses as to why I might be overlooked. I certainly had that tripe thrown at me in the 1980s. “I’m sorry, Donna, we only promote men. Women get married, have babies and leave.”
I noted this from Highland Gathering by Elizabeth Graham, Mills & Boon from 1983 (p 8-9).
The heroine’s father, hotel tycoon, says this to his daughter who works with him in the business.
“James McKay’s mouth pursed drily. ‘You know you’re competent to do that, and I know you’re competent to do that, but the Mazzini Brothers would never believe in a thousand years that a woman is level headed enough to find her way out of the kitchen or-um-the bedroom.’ He shrugged “It would offend them if I sent you, and I really don’t want to do that as this time.’”
Looking back at this work and this time, I recall this embedded attitude to women. I found this book struck a nerve with me. It made me angry. Not for this point above. That was the interesting part because hey popular romance novels did discuss feminist issues!
Since I’ve started my preliminary reading I have found I write more notes about the books that upset me the most. This particular book was interesting. For about a day I mulled over it and then I got it. The inexplicable behaviour of the male and female leads made sense. She was standing up for herself by demanding respect, recognition and romance (love actually) and he was being a typical male of the time, trying to order her about, expecting her to unpack his clothes (wifely duties), trying to take control of the business she was running. This made me hate the male character who had been a promising romantic lead. But then I got it. She was having the man, the relationship on the terms she wanted. Bravo!

Highland Gathering 1983

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This is meant to be my writing time

Posted in A writer's life, Cake decorating, SF romance, Writing retreat, Young adult, tagged , , , , , , , , , on January 16, 2016| Leave a Comment »

The best laid plans are meant to be tramped upon and splattered against the walls. I thought I was going so well and then I don’t know what happened. I fizzled. I lost confidence. Maybe I can blame the Hashimoto’s. I have energy which is great. I don’t have hypers but I have had a couple of crashes in mood and energy despite the meds. The meds are great though. I thought they worked well for energy but not the brain. My brain feels more calibrated though.

I’m off to write with some friends today for about a week. I thought I’d have more done but um I haven’t. I’m progressing things and will be on track before heading back to work. I’ve started some reading for the PhD, mostly Mills & Boon books with some retro which are so fabulous and interesting. Really I mean it. I met with the wonderful Doreen Watt who has an amazing collection way back to the beginning of Mills & Boon and she has a service where she helps people by supplying that ‘missing’ book as well as an amazing database. I’m just back ground reading at the moment to give me ideas on where to focus for the Feminism in Popular Romance research.

One of the reasons I’m at a confluence of indecision is probably the three projects I have on the go. The YA romance is in the final stages of revision, although I have some late feedback that has challenged me. I need to think on it. The Regency Romance is clear in my head and a chaos vortex on the page. I jumped a few chapters when I last drafted it and now I have no idea what is supposed to go there. And it’s messy as all hell. I dictated a lot of it and it’s full of wrong words (misheard by the software) and I’m not sure I want to play in that sandpit right now. That leaves the SF romance to complete drafting. It was my plan to work on this after finishing to draft the Regency, but um …I only read through the Regency draft and got some feedback on the opening. It should go in the too hard basket.

So for these writing things I like to have a project in mind so it should be the SF romance…I’ll settle on that then. Even though I haven’t read it through. I’ll just have to push on.

Meanwhile, I have the editor working on Argenterra and the edits are coming through. Egads! I’m going to try self-publishing this story has  been close in submissions and wasn’t taken up and after 13 years trying to sell it and reworking it over and over, I’m going to push it out there.

I have been working on a guitar cake. Photos later in the week! And I’ve picked up a discarded craft project, a granny triangle rug. I’ve done no housework and I’ve not prepared my study for the Phd.

Mmm maybe I’m not so slack after all. I did take the evening off to watch Jupiter Ascending though! Love it. I know people (particular friends) hate this movie but to a SF romance lover and a paranormal romance reader it’s a fab meld of everything.

 

PS. The other me, Dani Kristoff, is a finalist in the ARRA awards for Spiritbound.

PSS.I am very sad about the passing of David Bowie and Alan Rickman this week. I haven’t been able to even watch stuff about Bowie. He was an amazing artist and I’m just so shocked and saddened.

 

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