(no subject)

Today I'm back to the lists. Well, to one list. It's not a big list because, although I can eat again, the virus has left me very tired. Also achey. Also breathless. Also nauseous. Also, as you might possibly just barely have noticed, rather full of telling everyone how much I hurt.

I've discovered I can deal with only an eight hour day, and I'm punctuating the eight hours with complaints and bedrest.

The good news is a fascinating review book that came in today's mail. It's all about New Zealand's London and I can't even begin on it until next week (and can't actually publish the review until December, for I'm booked up until then) but it's such an interesting subject and is an antidote to seeing London through other Antipodean eyes. Also, when I open the book at random the first time I get a picture of Ngaio Marsh on holiday and the second, a picture of dead pigs one of which may well be wearing a sash.

Only a few fiction publishers are sending me review books right now. I'm getting the coolest non-fiction, however. It's interesting the profile one sends to the world.

My review-related task for today is to finish the reading for a piece on a Philippines small press. I'm still interested in writing about small presses, and especially small presses that are outside the mainstream purview (if they have too many award-visible books, then they're visible to the mainstream). They're a key component in this overly-dynamic publishing world we're trying to survive. I have an intense desire to understand what's happening with it, and the small press articles are but one tool, but a surprisingly handy one. Micro-press is more stable than other aspects of publishing, it seems. It may already have tools for dealing with uncertainty, or it might be in trouble - that's another thing to find out.

What else am I doing today? Besides whingeing? Waiting for painkillers to work, of course, and travel sickness tablets. Preparing for a CSFG crit group (timing is not good, but one cannot always help that). Going through the last complete printout of my dissertation. If I can get it back to my supervisor tonight with final questions, then he can address final questions and we can move to proofreading. He's on leave, so may not be able to look for a couple of days, but waiting at this stage (for anything) is just not sensible.: there's a lot to be done and not much time. It looks as if it will only be a couple of questions (unless I still have conniptions about Ch 5, and that may or may not be the case).

And this is my Wednesday.


ETA: Being unwell meant I forgot to post the link to the latest BiblioBuffet thingie: http://www.bibliobuffet.com/bookish-dreaming/1847-the-history-of-guns-093012 - sorry!

(no subject)

I'm doing one more thing and then calling it a night. I got through most of my list, but the crit group lasted until 11 pm, which ate up my evening. It's useful, though, to see where people come from when they read fiction and what they deal with and what they don't. We had a nice range of material to crit tonight, but I can't talk about it, for most of it will be in blind submissions one place or another, sooner or later.

One thing I *can* talk about is just how much those essays I write for BiblioBuffet and those conference papers I give and my dissertation and my project into how writers use history have helped me understand writing techniques. I look at stories differently, now. I have the old tools, but can see why Clarion method works for some stories better than for others and how it's very easy to be lured into the literal.

Will I spend an hour checking my dissertation for errors, or will I just do one chapter and then sleep? I honestly can't tell you for I do not know myself.