 |
| BOX! |
And inside it were these:
 |
| BOOKS! |
I'll be off in the corner doing the mad scientist laugh for a little while.
 |
| COLOPHON! |
Thursday 11 December 2014
Wednesday 10 December 2014
Oh, bugger...
I've been working on one critical chapter since about July now. Almost all of that has been the initial legwork, which should be completely finished before I try writing anything so that I don't miss important bits. Methodology and all that. For this chapter, I need to compare five editions of one 544 page textbook and note down all of the changes that were made. Which gets kinda disheartening, especially when I've spent days comparing two versions and the only thing I can put in my spreadsheet is '1986 edition has new intro, no other changes.'
It's a process that takes a lot of time, but a few weeks ago I started wondering why it's taken this much time. It felt like I was looking at the same things over and over. Which essentially I was, but I was approaching singularity levels of deja vu. And try as I might, I have the recall ability of a stunned ferret, so for a while I figured I was just mistaken, or there were errors in my notes.
I only started getting suspicious when I went back to a text that I know I'd compared to three other versions and could only find one set of markings in it. When I mark up the textbooks I do it in hi-lighter, with each edition having a designated color. 1973 is yellow, 1976 is pink, 1980 is green, you get the idea. The copy of the book I was looking at only had blue marks.
I don't own a blue hi-lighter.
Part of the whole stunned-ferret thing is that I don't usually trust myself to remember things correctly - hey, I might have a blue hi-lighter, it might even be my favorite hi-lighter, and I just have no recollection of that right now. So instead of coming to the obvious conclusion, I did an experiment over a weekend:
And then I looked more closely at the places that I could have sworn I had already marked up.
It's a process that takes a lot of time, but a few weeks ago I started wondering why it's taken this much time. It felt like I was looking at the same things over and over. Which essentially I was, but I was approaching singularity levels of deja vu. And try as I might, I have the recall ability of a stunned ferret, so for a while I figured I was just mistaken, or there were errors in my notes.
I only started getting suspicious when I went back to a text that I know I'd compared to three other versions and could only find one set of markings in it. When I mark up the textbooks I do it in hi-lighter, with each edition having a designated color. 1973 is yellow, 1976 is pink, 1980 is green, you get the idea. The copy of the book I was looking at only had blue marks.
I don't own a blue hi-lighter.
Part of the whole stunned-ferret thing is that I don't usually trust myself to remember things correctly - hey, I might have a blue hi-lighter, it might even be my favorite hi-lighter, and I just have no recollection of that right now. So instead of coming to the obvious conclusion, I did an experiment over a weekend:
 |
| If that looks green to you, consider adjusting your monitor settings. |
And then I looked more closely at the places that I could have sworn I had already marked up.
 |
| Do you see the little elfin footprints that are all that remain of my notes? |
Verdict: I am not hopelessly slow and disorganized, or going crazy. The [redacted] paper is eating my [redacted] notations.
I can't wait to see my supervisor's face when I tell why I haven't had any work to show her in six months.
Tuesday 2 December 2014
The editorial process - with pictures!
Somewhere near the end of September, the first round of editorial notes for The Shore popped up in my inbox. Since I was in the middle of making a wedding happen at the time, I wailed in desperation once, plowed through them as thoroughly as possible, and winged the result back to my editor. I'm not sure if it's the same across the board, but in this case the notes consisted of a list of comments regarding specific pages and lines, and a shorter list of comments on the general structure and content. For the most part they were about things that had been bothering me already; the biggest change was cutting out one chapter and dividing the longest chapter into two, a massive change which massively improves things but that I wouldn't have had the resolution to do on my own.
Fast forward a month or so (thankfully to the other side of the wedding) and a two-inch thick printed version of the manuscript arrived by post, having been thoroughly gone over by a copyeditor:
This time, instead of working from a list of notes and emailing back my corrections with page and line references, I get to mark up the actual paper with anything (reasonable) I think needs to be changed and mail it back, and a little bit after that a paper-bound copy of the proofs should come winging back.
Fortunately for me, this batch of revisions is a little less urgent: yesterday morning I tried to pick a shirt up off the floor, my lower back went 'I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him,' and now I owe a lifelong debt of gratitude to the doctor at the Reading walk-in clinic for dealing with it compassionately, the NHS for making it free, and my spouse-thing David for all but carrying me there. In the plus column, now I know what diazepam and prescription-strength muscle relaxants feel like, which is something like novocaine only in my brain. In the minus column I am not Hunter S. Thompson, so between the drugs and the fact that there is no position in which it does not feel like the Red Pyramid is ripping out the last foot or so of my spine, I don't foresee anything getting done in the next little while that won't have to be chucked out and done again when I can think clearly.
When I have finished marking up the flat proofs, and the bound proofs come wandering back, they should look a bit like this:
Fast forward a month or so (thankfully to the other side of the wedding) and a two-inch thick printed version of the manuscript arrived by post, having been thoroughly gone over by a copyeditor:
 |
| The fuzzyness isn't so much to prevent spoilers as me needing to get a better camera. |
Besides the little squiggles having to do with typographical corrections and consistent punctuation, the copyeditor also sent a batch of notes. Most of them were exceedingly useful - like everyone I have a bad tendency to repeat words within paragraphs and pages, and a lot of the dates have been shuffled without being properly double-checked against each other. Other ones... My favorites so far are 'It would be a bit hard to get an entire breast in his mouth, surely?' and 'do roads in the States have a double yellow line up the middle?'
The notes from the American editor came across while I was halfway through the copyeditor's, so both were dealt with at the same time over a manic four days, because the typesetter needed the finished draft as soon as humanly possible.
Fast forward to yesterday, and this showed up:
 |
| Flat proofs, also two inches thick. These are the same two pages as above, but laid out the way it will look when it's published. I'm a bit in love with the typeface. |
This time, instead of working from a list of notes and emailing back my corrections with page and line references, I get to mark up the actual paper with anything (reasonable) I think needs to be changed and mail it back, and a little bit after that a paper-bound copy of the proofs should come winging back.
Fortunately for me, this batch of revisions is a little less urgent: yesterday morning I tried to pick a shirt up off the floor, my lower back went 'I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him,' and now I owe a lifelong debt of gratitude to the doctor at the Reading walk-in clinic for dealing with it compassionately, the NHS for making it free, and my spouse-thing David for all but carrying me there. In the plus column, now I know what diazepam and prescription-strength muscle relaxants feel like, which is something like novocaine only in my brain. In the minus column I am not Hunter S. Thompson, so between the drugs and the fact that there is no position in which it does not feel like the Red Pyramid is ripping out the last foot or so of my spine, I don't foresee anything getting done in the next little while that won't have to be chucked out and done again when I can think clearly.
When I have finished marking up the flat proofs, and the bound proofs come wandering back, they should look a bit like this:
 |
| MY BABY HAS A FACE! |
I've been keeping the cover to myself since I got it, but now that it's possible to pre-order on Amazon I figure I'm allowed to show it around a little. The above is the UK cover, courtesy of the incomparable Suzanne Dean; the US cover is quite a bit different, though the innards are the same:
 |
| MY BABY HAS TWO FACES!! |
This is apparently because the two markets are very different in regards to what kind of covers sell. I'm more than a bit relieved that neither of them involve a tube of lipstick, a stiletto heel, a cosmopolitan glass, or a photograph of half of a woman's face with the gaze directed away from the viewer.
The US pre-order is here, and the UK pre-order is here; I found out that they existed when my cousin posted them on Facebook about a month ago. I'm still trying to figure out how to keep any relatives or similar individuals whose good opinion I want to retain from seeing them, but that might be a lost cause.
And now if you will excuse me, there is a sofa with a hot water bottle calling my name.
Thursday 13 November 2014
A minor miscalculation
Way back in June, I figured that it was probably a good time to concentrate on trying to finish drafting the novel half of my thesis, since novels are, by definition, evil, and this one has a deadline attached to it. And since I couldn't completely drop the critical part and then expect to pick it up again later in the year without suffering setbacks, I figured that the easiest thing would be to work slowly on the chapter that focused on the textbook series that had the most assorted dreck already written about it. Theoretically, that should have meant that most of my work had been done by other people; at the start it looked like a matter of comparing four versions of one book in light of one or two secondary sources. I thought it would be a straightforward task, something to keep my brain in condition.
Oh how wrong I was.
Four months down the line, this is what Dave's dining room table looks like:
As it turns out, there were five versions of my primary text, but because of the way that the copyright page is formatted, the 1980 version was impossible to find. It was listed for sale all over the internet, but every time I bought a copy and waited the necessary month or so for it to be shipped from the states, it turned out to be the 1983 or 1986 edition. And as it also happened, the one or two important secondary sources referenced other, equally important secondary sources, which led to a wild secondary source hunt, which eventually led to me adding six other primary source texts to the chapter for the sake of due diligence, because sometimes it's just easier and more sensible to engage with the important sources than to explain why you didn't bother and get called out on it the moment someone with letters after their name looks at what you've written.
So both of my supervisors probably think that I've dropped off the face of the planet, because I haven't had anything worth showing either of them since I started working on this chapter - it hasn't left much time or brain for fiction revision, and the one downside of drafting longhand is that I need a bit of a head start to have even a rough draft to show anyone.
On the plus side, none of the other critical chapters have so many sources, so if I ever finish this one then the beast's back should be well and truly broken. And the novel has hit ~65,000 poorly organized words. And the next critical chapter will be on a classics textbook of which there are only two relevant editions and almost no secondary sources.
Famous last words.
Oh how wrong I was.
Four months down the line, this is what Dave's dining room table looks like:
 |
| There's a box of Lemsip capsules in there somewhere, because of course I've been sick for the last six weeks. |
So both of my supervisors probably think that I've dropped off the face of the planet, because I haven't had anything worth showing either of them since I started working on this chapter - it hasn't left much time or brain for fiction revision, and the one downside of drafting longhand is that I need a bit of a head start to have even a rough draft to show anyone.
On the plus side, none of the other critical chapters have so many sources, so if I ever finish this one then the beast's back should be well and truly broken. And the novel has hit ~65,000 poorly organized words. And the next critical chapter will be on a classics textbook of which there are only two relevant editions and almost no secondary sources.
Famous last words.
Friday 26 September 2014
A bit about censorship for Banned Book Week.
I realized on Monday that it was Banned Book Week, and, given the nature of my work, I decided that I really should put something out into the world related to censorship.
This realization was repeated on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and this morning. So it should be apparent what kind of week this was. And, I suppose, what kind of summer it's been. So before I procrastinate myself into next month, I'm going to say a few words on Textbook Content Guidelines.
To reduce the past year's research into a few bullet points:
1. Textbooks must conform to certain sets of content guidelines if they are going to be printed or bought by schools.
2. Some of the guidelines are written by school boards, others are written by the textbook publishers for internal use.
3. Though the impulse directing most of the guidelines is usually noble, the results are often ridiculous.
Not surprisingly, lists of guidelines tend to be a bit difficult to track down, especially the ones used by publishers to pick through their own textbooks before release. But the ones that I have tracked down, besides being key to my thesis, tend to make an amusing read when I can suppress the knowledge that they're shaping the education of U.S. children and teenagers.
So, with just a bit of commentary, here are some real textbook guidelines that have made my supervisor laugh with disbelief:
Topics to avoid on tests, because they might upset or distract the student:
Getting more specific, Foods to avoid in textbooks:
Under normal circumstances, I'd properly cite all of these, but their authors (the publishers) have made it clear that they do not want to be associated with the guidelines. That and all of my critical notes are up in Norwich and I'm down in Reading.
And since it's also roughly related to banned books: One-Star Book Reviews has spent the week posting the covers of banned books accompanied by the most outrageous challenges made to them. Check it out.
And now, kindly excuse me while I go spoon my hot water bottle and will my cold away.
This realization was repeated on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and this morning. So it should be apparent what kind of week this was. And, I suppose, what kind of summer it's been. So before I procrastinate myself into next month, I'm going to say a few words on Textbook Content Guidelines.
To reduce the past year's research into a few bullet points:
1. Textbooks must conform to certain sets of content guidelines if they are going to be printed or bought by schools.
2. Some of the guidelines are written by school boards, others are written by the textbook publishers for internal use.
3. Though the impulse directing most of the guidelines is usually noble, the results are often ridiculous.
Not surprisingly, lists of guidelines tend to be a bit difficult to track down, especially the ones used by publishers to pick through their own textbooks before release. But the ones that I have tracked down, besides being key to my thesis, tend to make an amusing read when I can suppress the knowledge that they're shaping the education of U.S. children and teenagers.
So, with just a bit of commentary, here are some real textbook guidelines that have made my supervisor laugh with disbelief:
Topics to avoid on tests, because they might upset or distract the student:
Yachting
Witchcraft and witches, except in historical context in
Massachusetts. (Because the Salem Witches were the only real witches, I suppose?)
Vacations in faraway places, ski trips, and other expensive
items beyond the reach of all. (guess that means healthcare in the States is
out.)
Unhealthy foods (because if they don't mention it, kids will stop eating cookies.)
Typhoons
Transportation
Thanksgiving
Sports
Serious car accidents (implying that funny car accidents are a-ok.)
Rock and roll music
Rats, mice, roaches, snakes, lice
Pumpkins
Native American religious references
Movies
Life on other planets, aliens and flying saucers
Brand-name products or corporate logos (would a band-aid, by any other name, still fall off in the bath?)
Aspirin or any other drug
Birthday celebrations
Blizzards
Getting more specific, Foods to avoid in textbooks:
Bacon or salt pork
Butter, margarine, or lard
Coffee
Dougnuts
Gravy
Cakes, including Birthday cakes, or pies
Candy
Jams, Jellies, Preserves
Pickles
Salt
Sugar
Tea
Which, I suppose, rules out all of the dinner table scenes from the Little House on the Prarie books that are most of what I remember from being read them before bed when I was little.
Moving right along, Topics to avoid in Textbooks:
Anthropomorphism in nonfiction
Conflict with authority
Controvercial people, such as Malcolm X (Along with all the other historical figures worth writing about)
Creation myths that present alternatives to Biblical
creation
Dialect (Everyone speaks the same, don't they?)
Ethnic groups in desperate situations
Poor nutrition and eating habits
Stories about slavery
Unpunished transgression (life is always fair!)
Winter holidays
And since it's also roughly related to banned books: One-Star Book Reviews has spent the week posting the covers of banned books accompanied by the most outrageous challenges made to them. Check it out.
And now, kindly excuse me while I go spoon my hot water bottle and will my cold away.
Wednesday 17 September 2014
Recalled to Life
Summer is a lot like a teenage boy asking you on a date: it inevitably promises more than it can deliver. At the start of the season I just knew that, with all of the distractions of the academic year and being freezing all the time out of the way, I would finally get around to writing some short fiction, that I'd get to do some serious digging in the British Library, that I'd probably fit in a few day trips, track down the rest of my primary sources, and maybe even finish a draft of the PhD novel.
It probably surprises no one but me that none of that happened.
Most of what happened was drafting for both sides of my degree and discovering that sources exist that I have to have but absolutely cannot find, sporadically interspersed with making a wedding happen. And then when it absolutely could not get any messier or any more hopeless, I flew back to the states to visit my family.
During undergrad, when I went home, it was clear that the timeline had progressed while I was elsewhere. Now, not so much. I return, now, to the same spot where I left off, to a moment or two after hugging my parents goodbye at the airport. Like stepping in and out of Narnia. My trips to the States stitch themselves together in a not unpleasant way - and since they are so short (and possibly also because I'm not allowed to drive over there any more) it feels like I haven't aged when I'm there, like I'm still nineteen and walk the beach every morning at sunrise with my dad.
This trip, I overheard my mom explaining to one of our relatives something that I've tried to explain to her a few times but never thought had stuck: why it is that I am so much more comfortable in the UK than in the US. She emigrated from Sicily when she was a child, so even though she's never had an accent there are still ways in which she doesn't fit, culturally speaking, times when she has to remind people that they will have to explain to her something that they think is a given because, no matter how she sounds, she's still a foreigner. And even though I was born in the US, while I was there I had the same problem: because I don't sound different people often never realized that I don't have the same cultural context that they do. Now that I am somewhere that every word I say is a reminder that I am Not From These Parts, I don't have to explain that I was homeschooled, that I'm from an immigrant family, that my background is very different from that of whomever I'm speaking to. And after years of explaining, it is a relief to be able to hide under the label that my accent gives me.
In about a month, a fair subset of my family is going to be coming across for the wedding, most of them for the first time - my siblings have been shipped over to visit, but my dad has never left America before. And while I'm excited about the wedding, I'm perhaps even more excited to see how they react to where I live now, to see what they think of over here in contrast with over there.
And maybe just a little bit I'm hoping it will put an end to all of the ridiculous questions. While I was home, my cousin (the lawyer) asked if England had any beaches, and if we could all go to the beach while they were visiting. In October.
It probably surprises no one but me that none of that happened.
Most of what happened was drafting for both sides of my degree and discovering that sources exist that I have to have but absolutely cannot find, sporadically interspersed with making a wedding happen. And then when it absolutely could not get any messier or any more hopeless, I flew back to the states to visit my family.
During undergrad, when I went home, it was clear that the timeline had progressed while I was elsewhere. Now, not so much. I return, now, to the same spot where I left off, to a moment or two after hugging my parents goodbye at the airport. Like stepping in and out of Narnia. My trips to the States stitch themselves together in a not unpleasant way - and since they are so short (and possibly also because I'm not allowed to drive over there any more) it feels like I haven't aged when I'm there, like I'm still nineteen and walk the beach every morning at sunrise with my dad.
This trip, I overheard my mom explaining to one of our relatives something that I've tried to explain to her a few times but never thought had stuck: why it is that I am so much more comfortable in the UK than in the US. She emigrated from Sicily when she was a child, so even though she's never had an accent there are still ways in which she doesn't fit, culturally speaking, times when she has to remind people that they will have to explain to her something that they think is a given because, no matter how she sounds, she's still a foreigner. And even though I was born in the US, while I was there I had the same problem: because I don't sound different people often never realized that I don't have the same cultural context that they do. Now that I am somewhere that every word I say is a reminder that I am Not From These Parts, I don't have to explain that I was homeschooled, that I'm from an immigrant family, that my background is very different from that of whomever I'm speaking to. And after years of explaining, it is a relief to be able to hide under the label that my accent gives me.
In about a month, a fair subset of my family is going to be coming across for the wedding, most of them for the first time - my siblings have been shipped over to visit, but my dad has never left America before. And while I'm excited about the wedding, I'm perhaps even more excited to see how they react to where I live now, to see what they think of over here in contrast with over there.
And maybe just a little bit I'm hoping it will put an end to all of the ridiculous questions. While I was home, my cousin (the lawyer) asked if England had any beaches, and if we could all go to the beach while they were visiting. In October.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)