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Anne Buckley's avatar

This resonates loudly and clearly with me this morning as I read through the editor comments I received at the end of last week. The pain of taking the cutting knife to a complete manuscript is real. But as you always remind us, complete doesn't equal finished, so onward we go.

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Blue's avatar

Best of luck on the rebuild. Your a tough lady I have faith you will be back at it in one form or another very soon.

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Melissa Trask Davy's avatar

I like the idea of having to re-do a draft without an anesthetic! Lol.

What came to me while reading this, though, is that if you are going to be guided by metaphor, and you're only doing a partial replacement of the meniscus, maybe this time you can write some of it from scratch, but also integrate some really good sections of what came before stuff? This could be a new, hybrid method! ( Just a thought.) But I suppose you will sweep it out with the cobwebs, and start new.

Either way, good luck with the race you guys are about to run, using the "old" meniscus! Even in the current shape, it's probably better than anyone else's, by a mile.

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Ewa Hryniewicz-Yarbrough's avatar

I’m sure the rebuilding of both the knee and the novel will be successful.

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Henriette Lazaridis's avatar

fingers crossed! I wish the book had as good a surgeon as my knee will have :-)

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Lee Cox's avatar

You got this knee replacement thing. And you will LOVE it after recovery. I had a full knee replacement 5 years ago, and nothing hurts.

My advice: 1) get strong beforehand - sounds like you got that part.

2) use the pain pills - don't try to tough it out

3) follow ALL directions from doc and PT - have things written down, don't rely on memory of having been told (I missed an important aspect)

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Henriette Lazaridis's avatar

Thank you, Lee. And I am absolutely on board with all three. I know I've lost some muscle mass in the leg, because of unconscious favoring. But I've been told by many that there's no valor in toughing out the pain pills--because that slows you down on being able to regain range of motion etc. I'm on this!

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Hendrik Gideonse's avatar

One hell of a metaphor, madam! Take a look at Patrick Munson's Substack today. You might just resonate to it. I just did. I truly envy your having something so tangible as a three-week time frame (or was it thirty days?? -- I don't trust my ability to return to this thought/place if I leave it to check . . . ). Oh, well.

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Henriette Lazaridis's avatar

I wish I had three weeks to work on rebuilding that book. But I do have three weeks more until I get to have someone else rebuild the knee!

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