Revising and revising and revising

[mrissa]

I was wrong yesterday; Mr. Gabe had muscular dystrophy, not MS. My grandma read me the article about him from the Omaha paper on the phone, since it's locked to subscribers only. He had put off getting treatment for the condition that eventually killed him so that he could finish grading senior papers, which made me totally lose it on the phone with my grands. My grandpa is extremely sweet when he's trying to comfort me, though there's a tone of panic to it: I am my grandpa's "princess," and he would love to be able to make it so that I never had reason to cry again. I love my grandpa. I love my grandma, too, but she's a good deal more used to dealing with tears.

Anyway. The rest of my day was much quieter than the morning, yesterday. I decided to get a change of scenery and work on Thermionic Night revisions while drinking coffee at Finnish Bistro, since I was going up that direction to get mkille for dinner anyway. It was just the right thing to get my brain clicked over, and I finished fixing the first two chapters, for the time being. My brain did not register that Finnish Bistro was particularly appropriate for this work until much later, since in my head it's still Taste of Scandinavia. We took mkille to Fat Lorenzo's and over to Minnehaha Falls in the rain, for kind of a low-key Minneapolitan evening. The Falls were amazing. The Creek is as full as I've ever seen it from all this rain, fast and loud.

And now I've stuck dates on Thermionic Night -- I had worked out how many days between this chapter and that, but there were several spots marked with a + because I could slip a few more days in there if my alpha readers told me it made no sense at all and needed at least three more chapters to even approach sense-making, or something like that. They said no such thing, so I went ahead and worked out that Chapter One starts on 17 October 1950, and went from there, and now I'm sticking the dates on the chapters, which doesn't seem like it's very productive, but I think it's good to know, good to have on there just in case, and it needs doing eventually. And now I can poke around and see if the remaining holidays have anything to them. I knew that the climax was at Midwinter and the denouement Christmas and St. Sylvester's Day, but now I will see if anything interesting is happening around Halloween, Guy Fawkes, Finnish Independence Day, or Santa Lucia. Or if anything interesting can be made to happen then. Small things. Details. It's kind of a details morning here with the revisions. Piiiiiick pick pick pick. Needs to be done, and I'm actually in a fairly good mood for it. And my mouth is feeling well enough that I'm reading The Far Side of the World. So that, too, is good.

Comments

[matociquala.livejournal.com]

*loffs*

Just 'cause.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

[ellameena.livejournal.com]

Aw, I'm sorry about your teacher. He sounds like he was really special. I know it's tempting to think, "If only he'd got to a doctor in time," but I've spent enough time around super sick people lately that I'm *beginning* to realize that doctors can only save people who have the right things going for him. Strong, good immune system, etc. Being a person with a chronic illness, he probably didn't have those things going for him. It may be just as well he got his papers graded. *hugs*

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Yah, my reaction was not so much "if only" as "that's so typical, that's just so typical." Although I have to admit there was a little "if only."

disconnected thoughts

[adrian-turtle.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry about your teacher. He sounds like a treasure, and I'm glad you had him for the time you did.

If you're going to mention dates at all, it matters to get them right. Thanks for caring about the details like that.

Speaking of which, do you know how old Stephen is? Er...in what year he was born? He seemed about Jack's age in _Master and Commander_, or maybe a little younger, so I was thinking he was born in 1775-7. I didn't care until _Thirteen Gun Salute_, but I'm starting to care quite a bit.

It's good that your mouth is feeling better.

Re: disconnected thoughts

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I don't know how old Maturin is, but I haven't gotten so far as Thirteen Gun Salute yet. I had the impression that he was about Jack's age, though I could see an argument for slightly younger or slightly older. There may be something in Master and Commander about it, but I don't remember quite what.

Re: disconnected thoughts

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

And thanks for the rest of it.

[talimena.livejournal.com]

I'm so sorry to hear about your teacher. I imagine learning about his postponing treatment would make it even harder to deal with. I am glad you had him as a teacher, though; he sounds wonderful.