I will concede that there are certain hard deadlines, like having to give a talk on a given date.

And that if one is part of a joint project one should not faff around too much and go wildly beyond the deadline suggested -

- though sometimes I think this is more honoured in the breach, etc -

- also that if something is a special journal issue ( Read more... )

Something that looks really, really like a conference paper! In fact, although I'd taken today off to slog at it, I read through the draft yesterday evening and it was pretty much to length and hung together better than I thought (anyway, it's the last paper of the last day: I think most people's critical faculties may be a bit dulled by then even ( Read more... )

Still not feeling quite in harmony with myself and the universe at large.

Am going through an annoying phase of klutziness in which I bang into things, hit myself with things, drop things, spill things, and have the kind of minor domestic accidents that one couldn't replicate if one tried.

Have started going back to the gym, but because I've been ( Read more... )

Would Jane Austen be able to find a publisher and an agent today? A cheeky experiment by an Austen enthusiast suggests not.

'18 of the UK's biggest publishers and agents' failed to recognise extremely lightly disguised chapters and synopses of Northanger Abbey, Persuasion and Pride and Prejudice, submitted as work by a new author, and universally ( Read more... )

Just over a week ago I posted the to-do list that had materialised on my return from US trip. I took today as leave to get caught up on it. It now looks like this:

- revision of the paper from the Belgian conference (for end of June). Started work on this: do not intend to put in massive efforts of rewriting, though will make some gestures towards ( Read more... )

Of my author copies of The Book.

Some considerable while ago (6 weeks? 2 months?) I emailed my editor to say please could they send these to work address? and got response that they had just gone out to my home address.

So I wait. And wait. No delivery, no card through door.

Finally, last week, in response to my pointing out (no, not for the first ( Read more... )

I'm completely boggled after an interchange today with an editor (or possibly editorial assistant type person) vis a vis an essay/article/thing (extended entry?) for an encyclopaedia I've done. It became clear that my understanding of what was required on the basis of my original exchange with the subject editor was a completely mismatch with what ( Read more... )

From today's incoming email:
Of course you are entirely right, we must have women on the cover who are included in the book - it would be entirely ridiculous not to - I do apologise.

Mmmm: I love the taste of self-righteous vindication in the morning!

***

Obit of an interesting woman in today's Guardian - yet one more example of the way women don't ( Read more... )

Dee Crystal update: this has been recovered, an arrest made, and a man charged, just before Christmas. This has not been extensively reported - two sentences in an article in the Independent about the recent thefts from the V&A. Presumably because the crystal and documentation are now evidence, they are not yet back on display. The thief is said to ( Read more... )