Submerged in Words

I have been submerged in words for the past two weeks. For one of my Spanish classes I am reading Claire se queda sola, by Marian Keyes, a Spanish translation of a light novel with the original title Watermelon. It is 551 pages long. For my English readers' book group, I have been immersed in Doris Lessing's The Golden Notebook. It is 576 pages long, and it is not a light novel in any sense. And then I have been compiling and editing words about e-books and other literature and reference matter in digital form, from 62 different sources. Though that compilation numbers only about 55 pages, it is 22,500 words according to Microsoft Word's Word Count tool, and those words required more care than just reading in either English or Spanish.

All of these projects have deadlines. The deadline that I have already missed is the Doris Lessing deadline. I was slated to lead the discussion on The Golden Notebook last Wednesday. I did lead it, and it was a lively and interesting discussion, but it is the first time (and I hope the last) that I have ever lead a discussion about a book I had not yet completed. I have pledged to continue reading the last third of the book and will finish it, under less pressure.

The second deadline--for the treatise on e-books and digital products--I met reasonably well--if not exactly at the preferred time, at least without complaints. That is done for now, and almost out of my mind, until it comes back for proofreading after layout in a month's time or a little longer.

The third deadline is self-imposed, but important. I need to finish Claire se queda sola by Tuesday morning at 11:00, because that is the last time this Spanish class meets for several weeks, and it does not work to extend a discussion over months--I can't remember very much that long. I still have 140 pages to read, so that is why there are few words today on Sundays in Spain.