You'd think, being tired, I wouldn't be waking at 5.30 am. Sigh. And that in the gap before 10 I could get some sleep.

So today I've fixed the front door lock for now, edited what I think is the fifth set of proofs of a review, written another review, and had a mysterious three hour siesta that included hearing most of a Philip Palmer radio play.

I've needed a day out for at least a week, albeit of the take-the-laptop-and-work variety. I thought of London, I thought of Tunbridge Wells, I thought of Tonbridge, I thought of Ashford... I thought of Ramsgate. But the train service was suspended all weekend, and there was a diversion on Sturry Road, so buses looked a problem. Oh, and the bridge ( Read more... )

136600 / 120000 words. 114% done!

New version of Chapter Two - Chapter Three is a maze of black ink.

Six months ish since submission, and the process of rewriting begins. Meanwhile, the next book and the next book proposal lurk in the wings. Deadline March 14. Let's start with Chapter One...



139900 / 120000 words. 117% done!

So close... I reckon I have 200 word to add to end the project and I was going to keep going; but my bulb has gone ping, and I need to read some Ballard stories before I write those 200 words. I could adjurn to a room with a light bulb but I think that's my cue to get the fuck to bed. It being gone 1.40. I am unlikely to have time tomorrow (today) ( Read more... )

The death march continues - fifteen chapters have a penultimate edit, and aside from adding a couple of paragraphs here and there, and an epilogue, and the full bibliography, I'm almost ready to submit.

I am, of course, hoping to awake to discover that the fairies have rewritten Chapter Eleven for me. On the other hand, maybe that's Monday's job.

Parker, L.D. (1997) ‘Practitioner Perspectives on Personal Conduct: Images
from the World of Poetry, 1900-55’, in T. E. Cooke and C. W. Nobes (eds)
The Development of Poetry in an International Context, pp. 68-89. London:
Routledge.So spaced initials for editors but closed up for authors ( Read more... )

I use to know how to use apostrophes, but after two decades of marking (two decades' marking?) I've lost the sense of flavour.

Take this:

• "1970s gender expectations"

The author suggests an apostrophe, but I think they want:

• "1970's gender expectations"

but we're not just talking about 1970 - which pedants might argue isn't actually in the 1970s ( Read more... )

Today has ended up more or less where it needed to be ( Read more... )

Barely has the ink dried upon the Companion - which is to be launched at Eaton (with a strong piece of elastic - it's heavy) - when we are given a schedule for Fifty Key Figures in Science Fiction. ETA is July, in both hardback and paperbackYou can imagine the fun we had boiling all of sf (prose fiction, film, tv, theatre, comics, critical theory; ( Read more... )