New flavor added

In refreshing the Around the World section I got kinda down about it. I felt like something was missing. Going on a round the world trip should have been exciting and yet much of what I could remember was more grind than anything. Why? I wondered.

Well, the answer turned out to be I was missing something. There was too much tell and not enough show, and even the tell was missing a key ingredient to make it all make sense. I found what it was missing, added it in and now thinking, yeah – that’s it!

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Have to work harder

The around the world trip is turning out to be tougher to handle than I thought. Currently working on Tokyo – not sure how much I can play up the fact that we went to a traditional Japanese restaurant for dinner and ended up in McDonald’s for something to eat. Ah well…

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Portora Year Two – locked

Chugging along. I’ve now locked Portora Year Two. The editing is really quite easy at this stage. The biggest challenge I’ve had thus far is resequencing – finding that I was in Saudi when I wrote I was in England. Kinda put a kink in things since I had to then go back and figure out when I was in England. That sort of thing.

Portora Year Three is close to being locked.

Working on revamping the “Around the World” trip.

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Refreshing continues

I’ve worked through Portora Year Two but haven’t locked it yet. Am waiting to do a final run through after some resequencing. Had to remove the entire Easter portion because a) it didn’t hold up compared with the rewrites I’ve been working on and b) it was in the wrong place anyway.

Am now working on Portora Year Three – in particular the summer of 1980 just prior to the “Around the World” trip.

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Portora Year One – locked

Whew! I went through Portora year one with a great deal of apprehension because I discovered it needed help. Some things were out of sequence and other things just needed to be reworked. So I took the section apart, cut out the dead flesh, then peppered in new details. All better now.

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More Portora editing

Struggling a bit with the Winter Term 1979 portion. Almost drawing a blank. I was in Ireland for Christmas ’78, and I went to the States for Easter ’79, but what happened in between is a mystery now that I’ve moved some other stuff out of this section. Hmm, I wonder would it be creatively acceptable to insert a bunch of blank pages to represent that period of time. Na, a publisher would wince at that – would cost money.

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Moving right along

I revamped the Portora section, added new details and resequenced some of the chapters. Discovered an error in the timeline so I had to fix that. Feeling very good about the rewrites, though I wish they’d all come at once so I’d be done! 😉

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Getting back on track

Our dog, Fubar, seems to be responding spectacularly well to the insulin. She’s perked up a lot and is her old self (which is amazing for a near 13-year old dog). So I am getting back to editing my first year at Portora. From what I’ve re-read, it needs work. It’s too depressing – I think. We’ll see.

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Tough going

It’s been tough going the past few days. I’ve been reviewing some Portora sections and, all the while, my dog Fubar has just not been right. I took her in and was told she had diabetes. Unfortunately my vet, whom I’ve been with for over 12 years, chose to try to panic me to action and, well, that was the wrong way to go about things. When I have questions, don’t just tell me “because.” So I took Fubar in for a second opinion and had the diagnosis confirmed. Our new vet explained everything without theatrics, so I green lighted the treatment. I’d already looked into insulin and the whole thing, and I’ve given her the first shot an hour ago.

Needless to say my editing/reviewing progress has been slowed.

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Revamping “Malcesine and Magnifico – The Italian Ski Trip”

I decided this chapter was no longer up to snuff, so I’m revamping it to flesh out some subtle new details. So far so good.

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