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This morning is all about small errands. I've washed dishes and put rubbish out and swept floor and now I have an hour and a half of doing small work-tasks, to clear the deck for another day of bigger stuff. (No dancing for me tonight, though not for the reason I thought - the virus isn't quite gone and dancing is not going to be possible. This is Gillian-timing demonstrating its amazingness.)

One of the tasks ahead of me this weekend is to finish with a half dozen books and to take notes and then put them away.

The publisher told me about the book I'm currently halfway through that, "This is different from anything the author has done." It isn't. It's a lovely book, but it follows a similar path to previous works. I'd still have bought it, for I love the author's work (it's one of my "I have scholarship - must spend the money on small press books" volumes - not that the scholarship has come through yet), but I am a bit disappointed not to find that change in direction. I could have written about that change in direction.

I never know, when publishers and editors tell me things like this whether it's their personal investment that makes them see the books or stories as very different (for it happens quite a lot) or if it's that they haven't read enough of the author's previous work to know. I'm hoping it's not the latter. Anyhow, when I say "My stuff is a little different," the same type of editor says, "It can't be" and then returns it with an "It is - and not quite enough mainstream for us. Why didn't you tell me?" This is why I'm really relieved when an editor who says, "This book is different" is not actually interested in seeing my work. There's an honesty there. Also, it means that maybe s/he sees their author's work as different because they don't know just how far different can extend. My stuff isn't difficult, but it's hard to classify.

Three reasons instead of two. Which, using Gillian-logic, means I can demolish three books before lunchtime and clear the decks for finishing the stuff of yesterday, this afternoon and maybe, just maybe, do even more catch-up this evening.

Tomorrow is not catch-up day. Tomorrow is all about celebrating Cellophane. Kindle-owners can already pre-order my book from Amazon, after all. (I have the link because Mum wanted it, last night. She'd never pre-ordered an e-book and she was wildly excited: http://www.amazon.com/Ms-Cellophane-ebook/dp/B008BSOOQY/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1340969233&sr=8-1&keywords=ms+cellophane )

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I have such a good supervisor. He's already returned me comments on the Introduction and Chapter One and he's pinpointed the exact problems and, what's more, I agree with him.

I'm worried about the loss of the literature review, except that the literature review was not a good literature review and didn't help the dissertation along at all, and the vast bulk of the literature is covered in the main dissertation (because that's how I write, in any case), so if I move the last little bits into the main dissertation, then all the literature is covered, just not the way I expected. It's only a few hours work to remedy the situation, what's more. And it will all make sense. And then we both pull the whole thing to bits again, just to make sure it continues to make sense.

I have a couple of weeks before that happens, however, for there is more than a few hours work to do on other aspects. Still, all going well, by the end of July the bulk of the dissertation will be done. Since Wednesday is my last teaching day before two weeks off, I even have time to do it.

As I keep saying, all I have to do is get through until Monday (or maybe Wednesday) and my life will be back to normal levels of work.

Today is not so good (except my computer has now another set of backups - thanks Griff!) and tomorrow morning won't be much better, but after that, life will improve.

My treat to get me through the interesting 24 hours is Haven, season 2. Now I'm over the worst of the virus, I no longer need to spend half my waking life in bed, feeling sorry for myself, so I can do the special treat thing. I do a chunk of work and then watch for a bit and do my exercises and then do another chunk of work. Eventually, I'll run out of urgent chunks of work and be up to the less-urgent and, one day, I shall run out of work. I've never run out of work yet, but one never knows.