rthstewart: (Default)
rthstewart ([personal profile] rthstewart) wrote2011-03-22 09:37 pm

Chapter 9, School Daze and other ramblings on the 2 year anniversary

So,  Chapter 9 of AW went up today, on the second anniversary of when I started posting TSG.  Yikes.  My notifications through FF.net are completely screwy.  I am not getting them at all or they come 12 to 24 hours later.  This doesn't help my perennial anxiety whenever I post.  So, do let me know, here or via a review if you got it. 

A huge thanks to all of you who made note of letters that you wanted to read and thought should be included.  In looking through this chapter, it really is a sum and substance of so much that has gone before and so much of what is to come. 


The Research
I always say this but in this case, it was really hard to write of Ruby suffering racism and what I am doing to Jill Pole and her family.  Sources on black race relations in the UK were wildly conflicting and contradictory, but among the ones I looked to:

The WRENS
Caribbean RAF
Experiences of a Black British Commonwealth Soldier
The Yanks are Coming -- Black American Soldiers in the UK
Meeting Joe Louis
Moving Here
WREN at Bletchley Park
The women of Bletchley Park

On issues of recruitment, training, and such (with a huge thanks to Theoretica!)

Recruiting and training
Paradata, Anthony John Clark
(and others at the site)
Pegasus Bridge
2nd Airborne Battalion, Oxs & Bucks
Ambrose's Pegasus Bridge:  June 6, 1944
Kramer's Flames in the Field: The Story of Four SOE Agents in Occupied France

Also, pretty!  Beaulieu
And because there must be a beaver, Castor fiber
Mary Elizabeth Sutherland, MP, Labour Party Chief Woman Officer
A History of the Blue Funnel Line
Lane's, The Merchant Seaman's War

Reflections
2 years!  Whoa.  The highlights are undoubtedly the awesome women I've met along the way with amazing interests and insights.  Yes, I know, ideally, I had this all this story mapped and presented it to you like Athena from Zeus' head.  But, I enjoy immensely treating this as an interactive and iterative process.  Over and over there are things here that are far better because readers helped me put it there.  Fan fic provides the framework for our interaction -- the excuse that allows us to get to know each other better across the great expanse of the Internet, like ladies chatting across a backyard fence.

The lowlights?  Oh gosh, no surprise there.  Finding myself all unknowing in the middle of a culture war and the stinging slump of last summer.  The beauty of the highlights described above, however, is what truly pulls me through.  Thanks so much for the friendship! 

[identity profile] amine-eyes.livejournal.com 2011-03-23 02:04 am (UTC)(link)
STOP DROP AND FLAIL!

Is pretty much the reaction I had to reading this :D I plan to leave a long glorious review on the fic itself, but first: Aidan! Rat and Crow! Mrs Pevensie! The OTC being running around in mud!!! (Which it still is today xD) (And yes, this excited me more because I was like "OMG CADET-LIKE UNITS EEEEEE!" like the weirdo I am xD) WRNS! Mary kicking arse via letter! Lucy kicking arse with enthusiastic writing!

*sighs happily and goes back to read again*
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[identity profile] rthstewart.livejournal.com 2011-03-25 01:36 am (UTC)(link)
Thanks so much. If you spot anything that doesn't seem right in terms of units and enlistment and the OTC and all the rest, do let me know. I've felt very, very insecure about this part of the story so any help is appreciated!