(no subject)

Nothing has so far happened this morning. I live in hope of a quiet and productive day.

Everything right now is arranged around what needs to happen to get the PhD in. Since there is more waiting in this than there was last time (different university, different discipline, different technology) I get the non PhD work done while I wait. This is my last few days of such luxury, for next week teaching starts up again.

Right now I don't know if I'm looking forward to teaching, or not. I rather like being able to fit 100 pages of Aurealis book in before attacking the paper I'm giving next month and of being on hand to tackle whatever my supervisor sends the moment it arrives. I also like time to remind my body that it's permitted to rest.

I haven't done as much as I would have liked with my two non-teaching weeks, for first the virus intervened, then crit group and then the blasted car. I've done all the time-dependent things and a few more, however. I'm more than dealing, which is rather nice.

(no subject)

Another parcel of Aurealis books arrived this afternoon. There ought to be 40 novels in toto, which is not a lot in the universal scheme of things. I still hope more will come, but ... maybe not.

I'm having a grand time reading them. As usual, I won't review any or comment on any until the awards are given. I know that my opinions are just mine and do not reflect the rest of the judging panel or what the judges are thinking, but I like to keep those particular boundaries free of confusion where possible.

I have established four piles (it was three, then my thinking grew). One is books I will fight to get on the short list. One is books I think could be on the short list but are flawed in some significant way. One is books that are perfectly readable and that I have enjoyed but are not special. The other pile is for everything else and ranges from books that are abominably written to books that shouldn't have been entered to books that really needed a solid edit to books that were someone's apprenticeship (and they are so going to do better next time round, or I shall refuse them chocolate at SF conventions). We have a proper, formal scheme for evaluation, of course, but I like my piles.

What this means, of course is that my place is off-limits to anyone who is tempted to touch my stacks of books. Last year and the year before, my piles were rearranged by friends who thought they would look better, or didn't ask why each pile wasn't one and stacked them together to save space, or who just wanted to look at a book in one stack and absently put it back on another. My research was also rearranged in this way (I believe I ranted about it at that time, for I had to spend significant time getting my doctoral notes sorted again).

I'm thinking of getting anyone who is even tempted to mess with my books to sign an oath in their blood, just for the duration. I have a suitable pen. I'm certain I can devise a suitable oath.

Anyhow, it's only for a couple of months. Unless more books come (as they did today) I'm an 1/8 through the novels. When we've short-listed, then the stacks will mysteriously disappear.

I'm sure everyone else judges using far more rational methods than mine, but mine seems to work. The piles of books help me to remember the content over significant periods of time. It's a form of visual/tactile notation. I can look and the information is there. The far stack, for instance, has so far been forgettable, but a lot of fun. The book on top is an example: story arcs were fine, but bad characters tended to be forced and there was much scrabbling and explanation to fix plotholes. They're in order of reading, which helps. Another reason why I need that oath signed in blood to prevent people from disarranging.