I didn’t end up doing…

I didn't end up doing any work yesterday. Instead, I watched football with Todd and Kevin (poor San Francisco, yay, Oakland!) and ate junk food and drank beer (okie, they drank beer, but I supported their drinking beer -- even though I hate beer, it seemed necessary that someone drink some while we watched football). It was good. At the end of the day I had a minor meltdown -- I think I've just been feeling stressed. Kevin was very good. Comforting and such. Even though he should have been asleep, poor baby, since the UIC semester starts today and he had to teach at 9. Sometimes I'm just overwhelmed by how sweet he can be.

I'm feeling much better this morning. I got up at 7, did the last three pages that needed to be done, shot them off to Duncan. Had tea, called him and discussed last week's draft. As suspected, paths b and c had big issues. But I *think* we might actually have figured out a way through it. And on the plus side, he adored the opening and the cloisters scene (which I'm pretty fond of myself) and is generally happy with much of the rest. So I'm feeling not entirely incompetent.

I knew b and c were messed up; I just didn't know how to fix them. We spent a while talking, and now I think I have a better handle on the emotional arc of the characters, so I should be able to excise those sections, take them to a fresh manuscript, and totally mess with them in an attempt to have them actually make sense. Fingers crossed -- that's the task for today and possibly tomorrow (though if I can somehow manage to do it today, that'd be better). I'm feeling much more sane that I was at the end of last week -- I really needed the weekend off. This stuff is hard! But now I've got some curry heating up; a little more tea with my curry and I dive back in. I can do this. Deep breaths.