Last night I finished working on chapter seven. I was very pleased with myself. In addition to editing and rewriting for content, flow, and making things not broken, I felt as though I’d gotten closer to the work and was editing for Voice, that I was finally writing in that character’s voice again. I have two POV characters in this novel, and I find it much easier to write in one character’s voice than the other. When I’m editing I don’t always hear that Voice — last night, it was coming through loud and clear.

This morning, when I got to Crossroads, I opened up chapter eight, all ready to go. I knew what I was going to be working on, which scene was next.

It wasn’t there.

I went searching through all my computer files, through my backups — I couldn’t find it. I couldn’t find the chapter that I knew I’d written. I remember those scenes, those words. I had everything hand written, of course, but I couldn’t find the typed version.

I finally had a chance to go through my notebooks this afternoon. I think I know what happened. It all started with me writing chapter six too long (in the hand written version.) I have a sticky that breaks the chapter, with the start of chapter eight. Then I started chapter seven in that notebook. In a different notebook, I have the remainder of chapter seven, chapter eight, and the start of chapter nine. I think what happened is when I started typing, I typed up what I had from chapter seven from the first notebook. Then I went to the next notebook, thinking that all of chapter eight was in that notebook. I’d forgotten the other part of chapter eight, or maybe I’d thought I’d included it as part of chapter six. As the eulogy that I wrote for my father is also in this collection of notebooks, I’m not too upset with myself for not remembering everything.

So now I have an additional 3000 words or so to add someplace. I may end up splitting it between the two chapters, adding scenes to each. I’m just glad that I found those words, that I hadn’t made it all up, or dreamed it or something. There’s some really cool stuff in these scenes, things that are built upon in the next to the last chapter of this novel. And it sets up a huge subplot for the final novel of the trilogy.

One quick note on goals: during the week, eating veggies and walking are easier than writing. During the weekend, writing is easy, eating veggies and walking are difficult. I’m almost out of gold stars. The UFO stickers were no longer available. So I bought myself sparkly snowflake stickers for the next batch of rewards.

Comments (4)

  1. I’ve done myself in from time to time by not using one medium consistently. I’m glad yours turned out okay.

  2. When I’m editing I don’t always hear that Voice

    Okay, I had a Dune Bene Gesserit moment when I read this. 🙂

    Congrats on finding your lost words. I give to you a virtual gold star. 🙂

  3. I’ve done myself in from time to time by not using one medium consistently. I’m glad yours turned out okay.

  4. When I’m editing I don’t always hear that Voice

    Okay, I had a Dune Bene Gesserit moment when I read this. 🙂

    Congrats on finding your lost words. I give to you a virtual gold star. 🙂

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