miriam_e | chapter 3

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3165 words (5.5 pages)

Latest installment is up on my site at
http://miriam-english.org/stories/seeking-reason/index.html

I'm falling behind. Way too slack. I need to write another 4,000 words by this time tomorrow to have a hope of catching up. Not very likely. :(

Still I plod on.

The story is taking some turns I hadn't quite counted on, at least I hadn't really wanted them this early in the story. But the characters want it that way, so I can't do a lot about it. I'm just the writer. :/

Let me know what you think.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

dorjejaguar.livejournal.com

I've got a question for you. I've been craving brewers yeast and I did notice it came up in one of the chapters. I just went and looked it up and here: http://www.umm.edu/altmed/articles/brewers-yeast-000288.htm
It says that it doesn't have B-12 in it. I'd thought it did even before you mentioned it.
I certainly don't wanta mess with your story there. :( Sorry if I have.
Did you know about this?
Is there some other factor involved ?

From:

miriam-e.livejournal.com

Thank you so much for pointing this out. I greatly appreciate it. I had always thought that brewers yeast was a good source of B12 and hadn't bothered to research that (shows the importance of questioning one's preconceptions).

I am glad you "messed with the story". :) It is very important to me that I avoid mistakes, and would much prefer that I find out where I've gone wrong rather than continue in error. I'm very, very grateful to you.

I'm not 100% sure where to go with this part of the story. My Mum and my sister and I discussed what kind of problem the young girl could have that might be dramatically reversed. We came up with B12 deficiency and I worked backwards from there, but we also thought of several other possibilities.

I've inserted a note in bold red text into the story at that point (the middle of chapter 2) to help avoid misinformation.

From:

dorjejaguar.livejournal.com

:) I figured you might like to know. You're very welcome for the info.

I did buy some nutritional yeast today. It has B12 added to it, some apparently do but according to wikipedia it has to be added in else it wouldn't be there.

It really was a good idea for the story, if only it had been true. I liked how you worked it and the dialogues around it.

Once when I was eating vegan I think I experienced a B-12 deficiency. I ran out and bought a supplement and that seemed to fix me up. Obviously you can't do that for the story, and I'm not sure having the father character run out and find eggs would work in the story as dramatically. Maybe, possibly it could work though. Actually I could kinda see the young girl falling in love with a pet chicken.
I've got a friend who has chickens, she's pretty attached to em. :)

Anyhoo, I'm looking forward to the rest of the story.
Thank you for sharing it. :)

From:

miriam-e.livejournal.com

I have some nutritional yeast too. I have a feeling that I have a long-standing B12 deficiency. I think some yeasts might have been genetically engineered to make B12. If so that would be wonderful. It seems no animal or plant makes B12, but all need it. Everything seems to get it from bacteria. Amazing! Something I didn't know before. Also it seems one of my favorite animals is quite high in B12: the termite, because of their gut bacteria.

Chickens are pretty cool. An old girlfriend and I had some when we lived on a farm. They would follow us around like dogs and were way smarter than I'd expected they would be.

Thanks heaps for reading the story. :) I hope I can keep it interesting.

From:

dorjejaguar.livejournal.com

" I think some yeasts might have been genetically engineered to make B12."
That is a possibility.

What makes you think you have a long standing B-12 deficiency?

While I was eating vegan I'm sure I was risking that but now there's not much reason to think it's an issue. Now it's other things like not getting enough light and vitamin D. That's just the way it is in the Northwest though.

I really don't have any experience with chickens apart from seeing my friends' chickens and having an encounter with a territorial rooster once when I was young.
I am a bit in awe of how they make an egg every 25 hours. That's pretty amazing just given the size of their bodies and the size of the egg.

I really enjoy reading your stories. :)

From:

miriam-e.livejournal.com

I'm not sure if they're genetically engineered... I just think they might be. In some cases genetic engineering is a bad thing, in other cases a good thing. In the case of yeast being able to make B12 I think that would be a massively good thing. The big worry with genetic engineering is that the corporations doing a lot of the work haven't learned from the mistakes made by the nuclear industry. Nuclear has a very bad reputation which was gained by powerful people killing whistleblowers, discrediting good people, using force and bribery to push their agenda, and so on. Nuclear power could conceivably be a good source of power if the industry wasn't run by such arrogant pigs who shrug off risk without serious consideration -- and there is plenty of terrible risk in nuclear power. The same is true of genetic engineering. The industry is the greatest danger.

Why do I suspect B12 deficiency? I'm losing the feeling in my feet. Scary. But it is odd. Only certain sensory nerves are affected, not the pain nerves or motor nerves. Weird.

Roosters are not very nice at all, though they have very good reason to be that way. When I worked on an egg farm years ago, before I entered the barn to find the eggs I first had to locate the rooster. Then I had to keep an eye on him the entire time I was looking around the barn for the eggs. If he noticed I'd been distracted for a moment he would use the opportunity to fly at me, raking at me with his spurs. The roosters had the points of the spurs cut off, but they still hurt. :)

It is pretty amazing that chickens lay so many eggs, though that's usually just the white ones. They are as nervy as hell. I always preferred the black ones. They were calmer and more friendly, but laid less eggs -- still a lot though, about an egg every second day if I remember right.

Thank you. I'm really glad you enjoy the stories. Sorry I haven't been updating as much as I should. Hospital day before yesterday, doctor yesterday, volunteer at a charity shop today... hopefully write more tonight. :)