Sunday, November 14, 2010

Jess Nevins: Hero to the Nation!

Okay, maybe I'm overstating it a bit, but I like his stuff a lot.

Nevins first came to my attention as the man who obsessively annotated Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill's comics series, The League of Extraordinary Gentleman. The comic is crammed with more visual references and in-jokes than the casual reader could be expected to know. Nevins took it upon himself to identify them all. This is a feat I find both amazing and scary.

Nevins is, by profession, a research librarian and his affection for data is apparent in everything he does. In 2005 he wrote the exhaustive 1,200-page Encyclopedia of Fantastic Victoriana wherein Nevins maps out the roots of modern Fantasy and science fiction. I still kick myself for not buying the book when I had a chance as it can now only be found used at usurious prices.

His latest project is a series of columns for the science fiction website, i09.com. He plans to trace the history of science fiction publishing starting at the turn of the last century with the rise of the pulps. For anyone interested in fantasy or science fiction, it makes for fascinating reading.

Nevins maintains a personal blog, a tumblr blog and his twitter feed (where, for example, he once expounded on trends in Mexican pulp magazines) is one of the things that makes me feel that service is worthwhile.

And now for today's numbers.

I thought I'd be taking the day off from my novel, but that wasn't to be. I seem to be unable to stop writing the freaking thing. It's a bit scary. To me, anyway. That being said, here are the numbers.

Daily word count: 1,165 (all on the novel -- no words for you, short story!)
Monthly word count: 17,498
Novel word count: 86,758

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