Quiet workday today. …

Quiet workday today. Making steady progress on the Empson; expect to be finished by dinnertime, if not sooner. Finding it somewhat difficult to concentrate on all the specific details of ambiguity that he finds it necessary to go over in such detail; it helps that he's a fairly entertaining and funny writer, but nonetheless, he investigates his subject in far more detail than I can bring myself to care about. Clearly, I'm never going to be primarily a close-reading-type of critic. Good thing I work primarily with fiction, rather than poetry!

When I'm not reading Empson, I'm sending e-mail back and forth with Jed. Yes, we're actually sitting in the same apartment, and often in the same room, but we're trying to write an editorial together for SH, about journalling, and its function in the speculative fiction community (spurred primarily by tomorrow's upcoming author focus on Cory Doctorow, of boingboing journalling fame). Fun writing with Jed. Should do it more often. Though we have a tendency, I think, to get finicky with each other, drawing ever finer distinctions, much in the Empsonian style, a tendency that will probably need curbing at some point if the editorial is to remain a) readable and b) of a sane length.

Ooh, but I think Jed's just finished making lunch. Chicken and vegetable pan-fried dumplings, yum!

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