hell and damn

Or, TFW when you start writing a drabble because the phrase "obvious competence" in Think of England delights you, as does the character it's used to describe, but an hour later you realize it's turning into a 4+1 crossover between England World and the Wimseyverse, and the next day it morphs into a three-part deeper dive that no longer includes the character you were originally going to fluff about, and then you realize what the new title and through-theme should be, and then another day later you recognize that you're going to have to table the blessed thing until fall, because you are deep in the weeds with existing commitments as things are and cannot keep falling into rabbit holes about Judaism in 1880s Spitalfields and early 20th-century publishing and editions of Dante and birthday/holiday non-traditions and Bohemian spending patterns and so on, plus a thorough canon review of England World and the Wimseyverse and the Will Darling Adventures is called for, and looking at Haggard would probably be wise . . .

And, really, what's the rush, since there's a queue for Will Darling 1 and 3 at the library, plus the author will be posting a postlude to her newsletter that could well joss the whole mess (or at least shove it hard into a different direction). But in the meantime the plotbunny is bouncing around my mental garret with gleeful menace, and I am both entranced (it does feel good to have that "oooh, this could be really fun" buzziness again) and exasperated.

and, speaking of 1920s publishing . . .

Poor Sayers. In Sir Basil Blackwell's 1984 obituary in the NYT, she's listed as "Dorothy Sayres."