Finished revision of…

Finished revision of "Pieces of the Heart". Again, mostly minor clean-up, though I did do some drastic tense changes. The tenses in this story have been driving me mad; I think I've now switched the first section from present to simple past to present to simple past. Over and over again. And I've done it enough that I'm now confused as to whether I'm doing it right -- everything makes sense to me, even if I switch tenses three times in one paragraph. Which I mostly try not to do. But still. Right now the sequence of sections goes: simple past, distant past, simple past, distant past, simple past, distant past, present, future, present. Argh. And I just can't tell if it works or not.

I also trimmed down the ending, which was a little overstated and hyper-dramatic. It still is in some ways, but at least the language is less so. I'm not sure how to avoid the drama of the ending, given that it's an epiphanic (real word?) moment for the character. I suppose instead of preceding it with the future tense section, I could just do them in chronological order -- present tense epiphany, followed by future tense wrap-up. But I think that would be less satisfying to read. Oh, I dunno. I'm pretty happy with both stories right now; *I* think they're good reads, at the very least. And maybe a bit more. We'll see what my workshop thinks of them.

They're also only 21 pages together (we get to go to 30), so I guess I'm going to try working on "Savitha" too. But first, lunch. Ah, the joy of ramen -- boiled, drained, tossed with a little seasoning and some Szechuan spicy sauce. Actually, that sounds about perfect for a chilly, snowy day.