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scribble, scribble, eh, Mr. Calimac?
Jan. 13th, 2005 11:21 pmI haven't been around much here for the last couple of days, nor will I for the next couple, because a writing deadline that I shouldn't have ignored suddenly reared up and got me. My two editors apparently each thought the other was in touch with me, and I was kind of waiting for some material one of them had promised to send a couple months ago ...
And now the other editor writes and asks, so where is the Year's Work in Tolkien Studies 2001-2002 that I'm supposed to be writing all by my lonesome for the distinguished new scholarly journal Tolkien Studies? (Can you guess what subject this is all about?)
Oh crap. Mind you, I've read all this stuff (some 25 books and over twice as many articles) - some of it four years ago, true, but I've read it. And I've got book reviews of some of it and notes on the rest, sometimes scribbled in the margins of photocopies. But I have no article, and minute time in which to write it.
So, scribble scribble. I'm trying to evolve a writing style appropriate for a Year's Work article. These aren't reviews, so I need to be brief and I need to privilege description over evaluation, though I'm not going to hide when I think a work is particularly good (like Verlyn Flieger's Splintered Light, a brilliant and advanced excursion into the roots of Tolkien's philosophy, especially in The Silmarillion) or - what's true more often - particularly bad.
I mean, what can you say about The Life and Work of J.R.R. Tolkien by Michael White, the most staggeringly inept book about Tolkien ever published? On reading it I compiled a long list of juicy bits which I sent around to other Tolkienists to chortle over. I can't mention them all in my article. OK, just the best one, an unattested description of Dorothy Sayers attempting to crash an Inklings meeting, describing her as an "American wit."
Most people I've told this to can't figure out what White could possibly have been thinking of. But it was obvious to me: he's mixed up Dorothy Sayers with Dorothy Parker.
Personally, I'd rather listen to the Flash Girls singing "Me and Dorothy Parker," which neatly and deliberately conflates Dorothy Parker with Bonnie Parker.
OK, well, I'm no master of mighty wordage like professional fiction writers such as![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
sartorias, but I covered all 25 books in 4400 words today, and that's good enough to knock off for the night and celebrate with a quick LJ post. See you on the flip side.
And now the other editor writes and asks, so where is the Year's Work in Tolkien Studies 2001-2002 that I'm supposed to be writing all by my lonesome for the distinguished new scholarly journal Tolkien Studies? (Can you guess what subject this is all about?)
Oh crap. Mind you, I've read all this stuff (some 25 books and over twice as many articles) - some of it four years ago, true, but I've read it. And I've got book reviews of some of it and notes on the rest, sometimes scribbled in the margins of photocopies. But I have no article, and minute time in which to write it.
So, scribble scribble. I'm trying to evolve a writing style appropriate for a Year's Work article. These aren't reviews, so I need to be brief and I need to privilege description over evaluation, though I'm not going to hide when I think a work is particularly good (like Verlyn Flieger's Splintered Light, a brilliant and advanced excursion into the roots of Tolkien's philosophy, especially in The Silmarillion) or - what's true more often - particularly bad.
I mean, what can you say about The Life and Work of J.R.R. Tolkien by Michael White, the most staggeringly inept book about Tolkien ever published? On reading it I compiled a long list of juicy bits which I sent around to other Tolkienists to chortle over. I can't mention them all in my article. OK, just the best one, an unattested description of Dorothy Sayers attempting to crash an Inklings meeting, describing her as an "American wit."
Most people I've told this to can't figure out what White could possibly have been thinking of. But it was obvious to me: he's mixed up Dorothy Sayers with Dorothy Parker.
Personally, I'd rather listen to the Flash Girls singing "Me and Dorothy Parker," which neatly and deliberately conflates Dorothy Parker with Bonnie Parker.
OK, well, I'm no master of mighty wordage like professional fiction writers such as
sartorias, but I covered all 25 books in 4400 words today, and that's good enough to knock off for the night and celebrate with a quick LJ post. See you on the flip side.
