Input Junkie

I'm slowly reaching the end on this. I have only three more items I have to look at to determine bibliographical details or read to see how relevant they are, and they're all being fetched from storage (where Stanford keeps most of its relevant material, from which it takes at least 2 days to fetch it out) or on quickie interlibrary loan.

Meantime a lot of editing and correcting. Authors' names mangled in the databases. An article whose title implies it's about the movies but also discusses the book (and which flabbergasts me by praising the movies enthusiastically for their "faithful adaptatation", even singling out for favor that most cringe-worthy feature, Sean Astin's acting), and another whose title clearly includes the phrase "Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings" but which turns out to be entirely about the movies. A huge anthology from an Inklings conference which turns out to have only two papers partially about Tolkien. They prefer discussing Lewis.

I've also remembered to scan or download articles as I find them, so that I'll have copies handy for the Year's Work next year. I'm now down to a mere 7 articles I'll have to submit to heavy-duty ILL, which will eventually e-mail me PDFs.

Prepping for the Year's Work is an ordeal of its own. When I was first asked to write this, many years ago, I looked over the previous year's bibliography, which would be my source list, and then pulled out from my shelves all the books I had that were on it. I had most of them, and had already read most of those, so I was confident I could do this.

But I kept doing that from scratch every year. As I acquired new books, I'd shelve them in appropriate spots on my Tolkien shelves, or tuck them in a corner if there was no room. Then I'd have to find them all when it came time to write. This year I had three rare and otherwise unavailable items I needed for the bibliography that weren't in the obvious spot. I found them all, but I said: enough. I have some old cubbyholes originally intended for current projects. I cleared out two of them and designated them: one for the current Year's Work, and one for future years including the bibliography. From now on everything goes in there.

That went well, but not everything has. I edit the bibliography this way: enter data into the computer, print it out, take the printout to the library, add corrections and new info to it by pencil as I work over the day, take it home, enter the pencilled notations into the computer, reprint the file, start over with the next library the next day.

Last night, having come home from the library via my piano concert, I went straight to bed but awoke around 3, as I often do. Deciding to get some work done, I couldn't find the printed bibliography with its invaluable notes. Despair. Then it occurred to me: on my way home I'd fueled the car, and thrown out some newspapers I'd had in the passenger seat. Had my annotated printout gone with them?

Despite the hour, I immediately dressed and drove the 30 miles back to the gas station. And in the trash bin, underneath assorted later additions, I found my newspaper and then, now coffee-stained but still legible, my 8 sheets of paper. I had neither noticed they were there nor had they subsequently come to mind until I needed them. Yow. I don't ever want such a close call again, but it's not possible to keep constant track of everything at once. But this is why I have sympathy for people who forget to fetch things you wouldn't think they would forget.