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So, I've been pretty busy. I have been to many museums, parks, and shops: I have also been revising The Drummer Boy, and socialising with Frank the son and Hana the daughter-in-law, and also for a week there with my niece and nephew.
That planned-for graduation did not happen. Along with a third of his class Frank has been made to come back in the fall to take another test. I don't think it's politic to go into the details, but I also have reason to think that Frank is not the only one that is experiencing unfairness in this. The delay has lost him a chance at a residency in Malta this year but there will be other chances later.
Every outing is research for the novel. I have learned so much about central european culture, history, landscapes, and ecologies, and some of what I have learned is having small but substantial effects on the content of the book. So while a large part of revision is simple proofreading, and another large part is continuity checking (are all the names the same when they need to be, have I made sure that things happen in the right order and nobody knows things before they should and nobody fails to know what they should know after they should know it, did I clean up all the remnants of changing things when I had a better idea?), another large part is working in new knowledge where it seems appropriate and where it enhances the story. It is also a task for me to avoid working things in just for the sake of working them in. For example, having gone to the Public Transportation Museum, I know exactly what the tram cars are like that Yanek rides to the forest on the edge of the city where his ancestral lands are. But so far there hasn't been a scene that would be improved by any amount of description of that.
Oh well,I used up my time . . .we're getting ready to go for a ramble in the forest. Another time I will write about the huge disappointment that is the state of my legs. I can walk where I want,but I am slow and I suffer.
That planned-for graduation did not happen. Along with a third of his class Frank has been made to come back in the fall to take another test. I don't think it's politic to go into the details, but I also have reason to think that Frank is not the only one that is experiencing unfairness in this. The delay has lost him a chance at a residency in Malta this year but there will be other chances later.
Every outing is research for the novel. I have learned so much about central european culture, history, landscapes, and ecologies, and some of what I have learned is having small but substantial effects on the content of the book. So while a large part of revision is simple proofreading, and another large part is continuity checking (are all the names the same when they need to be, have I made sure that things happen in the right order and nobody knows things before they should and nobody fails to know what they should know after they should know it, did I clean up all the remnants of changing things when I had a better idea?), another large part is working in new knowledge where it seems appropriate and where it enhances the story. It is also a task for me to avoid working things in just for the sake of working them in. For example, having gone to the Public Transportation Museum, I know exactly what the tram cars are like that Yanek rides to the forest on the edge of the city where his ancestral lands are. But so far there hasn't been a scene that would be improved by any amount of description of that.
Oh well,I used up my time . . .we're getting ready to go for a ramble in the forest. Another time I will write about the huge disappointment that is the state of my legs. I can walk where I want,but I am slow and I suffer.
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