I'm finally starting to think of the exam as something past, over, a previous part of my life. To assist that process, I just incorporated all of my exam fiction and poetry into my regular lit. shelves. V. satisfying! I still have the nonfiction to incorporate (and those shelves to completely reorganize), but now I'm tired from going up and down the ladder and carrying books (yes, I'm a big wimp, we know), so I figured it was a good opportunity to rest at the computer for a minute.
No fiction yet today, but I'm planning to at least start reviewing my dissertation stories. I need to put them all into a big manuscript and send it to Katie and Francois (you'll be hearing those names a lot in the next year -- they're the fiction people on my committee) by May 26th (when Katie leaves to go do research in Europe). About two weeks, which should be eminently do-able. Some of the stories are ready and just need a quick proofread. Some need minor revisions. A few need major overhauls, which I may or may not get to in time. And possibly a few need to be dropped, but I'm going to wait and let them decide that. Since I'm going to be putting it all into a manuscript and then printing it out, I figure I'll make double-sided copies at Kinko's for Katie and Francois (less bulk for her to carry on the plane, too). Which means that it's just as easy to make more double-sided copies, so if you'd like to read the manuscript as it stands (I'm actually going to try to finish this before WisCon, so I can bring copies there, or mail them to any readers who aren't coming to WisCon) and give me feedback, let me know! This is in some sense the big first draft, though there may be radical changes between this and the finished product -- it's entirely possible that no more than half of this material will survive. Whew!
I'm kind of excited, actually. I've missed this manuscript, these last six months of crazy other stuff.
Okie -- cup of tea, and then nonfiction shelves, here I come...