Exploring

Like Dr. Crazy, I'm contemplating a new book...or, rather, two new books.  (Book Two is currently in the "under consideration" phase of its existence, so it will be several weeks before I know exactly what needs revision/reconfiguration/addition/subtraction/redaction.)  I've jokingly described these two projects to Mom the Retired School Administrator as "Expensive Book" and "Cheap Book."  Expensive Book, which owes its origin to some of the research I did for Book Two, will require me to seek out new archives and new libraries, to boldly go...oh, forget it.  Actually, it will require me to go back to the UK, among other places (e.g., Notre Dame, Harry Ransom Center, etc.).  Because Expensive Book will be, obviously, expensive, it's going to be a long time percolating.  Cheap Book, by contrast, is going to be neo-Victorian rather than Victorian--yes, I plan to enter the twentieth century! (Even the twenty-first, perhaps.)  And...I may even be writing about [looks around, whispers] novels other people want to read.  Voluntarily.  (Don't worry--Expensive Book will be more my usual style.) Finally, Cheap Book will be about reasonably affordable and available fiction, as opposed to nearly non-existent fiction.

These projects will be different enough--one is literary history, the other more straightforward literary criticism--that doing both at once will either be provoking or infuriating.  (Or some combination of the two.) I'm going to approach them as I approached Book Two: by working first on a series of exploratory articles that will help me identify what works and what doesn't, what leads to a dead-end and what takes me to some startling conclusions.  I like beginning with something very vaguely defined, which allows me to be challenged by the novels, as it were.  In any event, I know that I want to spend this year working on three things: an article that began life as a demoted, then deleted, chapter in Book Two (fine as a stand-alone article, but made no sense anywhere in the book); an article related to Expensive Book that I've been researching for a couple of years; and an article related to Cheap Book.  Obviously, though, the Return of Book Two takes precedence, so the reach-vs.-grasp issue applies.

Comments

[Laura Vivanco]

"I may even be writing about [looks around, whispers] novels other people want to read. Voluntarily."

I apologise in advance if the following suggestion is completely inappropriate given the kinds of novels you'll be studying, but if some of the novels you'll be writing about are modern romance novels and if the planned article is going to be about them, maybe you'd be interested in the newly launched Journal of Popular Romance Studies.