Nothing has happened of late on this here blog, and there is a simple reason for that. Nothing concrete has happened in my literary or academic lives.
On the literary side, I was concentrating on finishing the second part of Under the Rainbow, but when the deadline came, my collaborator Frank admitted that he’d let us down. I was disappointed, but not angry, and Karol, editor of New British Comics, to whom the story had been promised, reacted similarly. It is a feature of the collaborative process that one side is more committed than the other, and it is a feature of the artistic process that sometimes life just gets in the way, particularly when no money is involved. Nevertheless, I want to that story continued, and I would prefer to continue it with Frank. In the meantime, I wrote a six-page, wordless comic about a selkie, but too late to make the deadline for the comic. Frustrating.
The selkie story needs a title. And The Men in Red remains without a home.
In academia, things have been even more dramatic. Upon returning to campus during the first week of term, I made a few enquiries as to when I might expect a result. It transpired that the internal examiner hd yet to receive the paper. The office insisted that they had sent it out. two days later, both examiners received the paper. Coincidence? All concerned seem to think not. Most problematic is the fact that the office lied, when it seems fairly certain that they were in error. So it will be a number of weeks yet before I receive my mark, matriculate and begin my Ph.D. All of which would be unproblematic but for the fact that the baby is due in december, and that I have already started.
But these first few weeks have already been fruitful. I have been asked to contribute book reviews, and (potentially at this point) a chapter to an edited volume: in other words, there is the suggestion that I may have an academic career. The fallout from my M.Sc. thesis has yet to settle.
