Mary Sisson's Blog, page 35
June 15, 2020
Quote of the day
Ah, the woes of wartime cooking—if I’m remembering who Mrs C is correctly, she was someone my grandfather met while stationed elsewhere in Great Britain.
Mrs C sent me some shortbread and a fruit cake. She didn’t have any fruit for the fruit cake and it seems a little heavy to undertake. I think I’ll put it on the bar….
My wooly slippers got pretty dirty and I had them autoclaved. They came out pretty small—about bit enough for Alice and very hard. Lucky I have the old canoe shoes isn’t it.
June 14, 2020
Quote of the day
Both grandparents worked at Peter Bent Brigham Hospital (PBBH), which is now Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.
Today I have had a wonderful day. Visited the 49th Station Hospital where K. is chief of surgical service. Did you know him at the PBBH? He has a grand service at a hospital that is serving Air Bases as ours is & I got a lot out of being able to spend the morning with him. He even had steak for lunch. It reminded me a good deal of the PBBH steaks we both know but was very good for a change….
One of the officers here…wrote his wife asking for some elastic for ladies bloomers. It came today by air mail without letter or comment.
And then....
The nervousness hits, right? It’s been so long—will the beta readers HATE the latest incarnation? Will it have been worth the wait? Oh God….
June 13, 2020
Progress report
I input the changes to Trials (wow, that took all day) and sent them out to the beta readers. Whoo!
It’s shorter than the first two books: 84,500 words instead of the ~110,000 of the other books. I think that’s OK (although I guess my beta readers will tell me if it’s not)—there’s less world building, and the story itself is a little more narrowly focused.
June 12, 2020
Progress report
Finished the edits! Whoo! I’ll input them tomorrow.
I did do some beefing up of certain parts of the ending, but I think I won’t do another pass before I let the beta readers at it—I don’t think it’s anything massive, and probably I should let more time pass before I do more tweaking.
June 11, 2020
Progress report
Edited more today—I’d say I’m probably three-quarters of the way through, so that’s cool!
June 10, 2020
Progress report
I took more time off of Trials then I had planned because we’ve been having a heat wave PLUS really high grass pollen, which combined meant that I wasn’t sleeping well at all. I got a shot and the temperature fell below 80 at night, so I slept a whole bunch and today edited about a third of the manuscript. Yay!
June 8, 2020
Quote of the day
My dear good night I love you and find I love you more and more. I am safe & well and don’t mind living in a field a bit.
June 7, 2020
Quote of the day
Bonus quote!
Went shooting today with D. We walked around the fields near the hospital & put up 4 bunches of partridges but couldn’t hit them. I also missed a hare & one pigeon. Did get one hare. While we were waiting for the farmer to come out a little cocker pup I had brought along whipped in & drank out of the milk bucket…. [The] dog & is a great dog on pails but no damned good as a hunting dog.
Quote of the day
My grandfather’s letters to the kids were usually really short, because the kids were very young. But as the war wore on and the kids started to write him, he wrote some longer letters that were more descriptive of his life.
Right now there are lots & lots of bees and wasps. There were so many crawling in & out of a hole in the Manor House that one of the officers smoked them out. He took out a brick or two & there were 10 pounds of wild honey—we at it and it was good.
