[Author's note: the memory hole, and de-standalone-ing revisions]

Two factors conspire: 1) I came from a very dysfunctional family and so developed, as a coping mechanism, a tendency to forget traumatic or fear-inducing things; and 2) having my writing read publicly is a fear-inducing thing.

The result: my writing mentality has memory cheeseholes.

The one I notice the most, I doubt shows to readers: when I'm entering the number of the post, e.g. 125 for yesterday's -- if it actually was 125 -- I almost can't remember from moment to moment what the number is. There have been days on which I've had to check the previous number three times before I could enter the current one. Why is the post number traumatic or fear-inducing to me? I have no idea. Cue Surya to examine my aura.

I dread to know how this problem might be showing to readers. Memory is crucial for continuity. But, of course, I need to know. So if you notice anything, tell me. In the meantime, I'm dealing with things like having taken the old dead-tree version of Niku and Chevenga's meeting and rewritten it for The Philosopher in Arms in the past few days, having totally forgotten that I already did it for an early post in asa kraiya. Are the two versions factually the same? Of course not. (Clutching forelock) Aaaaiiiiiigggghhh!

Of course this will get fixed sometime in the near future... hopefully today or tomorrow if I can find time between writing an article that's due and today's posts, because it won't be on the weekend. (It's "Journos in Jammies" -- in which I get together with three female friends of mine who are also journalists for a cottage sleepover. We eat, drink, swim, go boating and gossip, the gaps in the local knowledge of any one of us made up by another. Between the four of us, we know everything.) [Update, 1:58 p.m.: Already fixed.]

I've also decided, since new readers are naturally gravitating over to PA anyway, that I'm going to ditch at least some of the measures I took to make ak standalone. I think, on retrospect, that they weaken the first part of the book and don't do the job they're supposed to do well enough anyway. I am going to can have canned the total PA spoiler of Chevenga's Lives of Notables bio (post 2, or was it 3?) as well as the digressions (posts 8, 908, 199.75 and 10 to the 15th power... I think...) The fun part is going to be was doing this without forcing myself to change the number of every single post. You just know I'd totally screw that up.

What I will do have done is divide the first post (post 1... I'm sure), which is about 2 1/2 times as long as a typical one, into several, and then cut and paste bits, paying them forward until it all comes out correctly at the post where I am right now, post 12... um... something. The result, I'm sure, is a better book.




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