The Writing Diet

The problem with thinking, "I'll have lunch when I've finished this bit", is that you always find another bit that just needs finishing first. So before I investigate Eric Woolfson - or is it Wolfson - I shall break for lunch.

Three Things

1. I have spent all day with three books and a back issue at my side, to write 400 words on Anne McCaffrey. I have yet to write any of them, but the rest of the chapter is drafted and I've rewatched Lord of the Rings which, my 14 year old self to the contrary, is actually reasonably good.
   
   
2. I have followed the first rule of skips and chucked the dead piece of my fence (from about four winters back) into it - it's right outside my house, the builders* woke me up as they have every day I've been here since early December and they've been allowed to use my back yard as a short cut.
   
   
3. I have a home made fish pie in the oven, having found trout in the freezer and opened a tin of something, maybe sardines.
   

* And no, Lamentables, these are not ones you'd want to have a diet coke break.

State of the Project

For those who do not know, this is Solar Flares: A Cultural History of Science Fiction in the Seventies

Introduction: Needs rationalising, and the autobiographical needs a thinking through.

1. The Dinosaur's Last Gasp: need about seven hundred words on Heinlein, and maybe five hundred on Sturgeon, but I've done 400 on Bester which I'd forgotten about.
   
2. The New Wave: large chunks to be written, most of the research done.
   
3. Beyond Apollo: written, aside from 800 words on Malzberg and 1,3000 words on TV space operas
   
4. Big Dumb Objects: done
   
5. The Rise of Fantasy: done
   
6. Race: done, but needs some stuff on music.
   
7. Vietnam and the Counterculture: islands done, but not yet coalesced.
   
8. Post-Imperial Melancholy: mostly done, but will need trimming.
   
9. Environmentalism: restructured and needs the comet/meteor disasters adding
   
10. Feminism: pretty well done, but needs some pruning and stuff on Khatru and Joan! Vinge!
    
11. Homosexuality: a mess, and needs more written. 75% there.
    
12. Children's Fiction: needs more research, 1200 words on animation, 1500 on books.
    
13. Chariots of the Gods: a couple of hundred words needed, and some rationalisation.
    
14. Architecture: new chapter, solving the environmental, er, overflow. And done. Can add some more words though.
    
15. Blockbusters: done.
    
16. Metafiction and Postmodernism: done.

Epilogue: know what to write, but haven't.