progress report

Jacob H. Grimm on a cracker. (Hmmm, must find some "G" word to use instead of cracker.) I'm less than halfway into my ICFA paper, and it's seven minutes long. Must cut down. Good-bye, I suspect, to the entire first page (single-spaced), where I do what I thought was a quick overview of other folktale scholarship. Demonstrating my credentials is nice, but since I'm really just talking about all those resources I'm not using (as preface to why I am using Lüthi), it really isn't contributing much to the paper as a whole.

I'm tempted to keep it in there for the version I turn in to my panel moderator, though, for consideration for publication in the conference volume. I've already established that I'm going to turn in a different draft than I'll be using in the panel, since that one's meant to be heard, not read.

Break over. Time to go back to work and talk about how folktales let you cut your own heart out without saying "ow."

progress report, part two

It's a miracle. 11 pages, and I've said pretty much everything I need to. Of course it needs polishing and refinement and there are no doubt tidbits I've missed, and I haven't read it aloud again to see how long that actually is, but I think that if I compress my overview of the Tale-Type Index and the Motif Index, I'll probably be okay.

I should do some of that polishing now, but I'm so desperately in need of a nap I can't stop yawning. Since I have what could legitimately be called a first draft, I think I'm going to accept it as a good day's work, and leave the next stage for tomorrow or Sunday.