One Step Forward . . .

I'm in the final throes of the Miss Birdie book -- almost done with the historical story and very, very close with the main story. So, after being up till two AM Friday night, busily putting Our Heroine into all sorts of peril, yesterday I was refining and polishing the previous night's work and had just added what seemed like a really brilliant little section when the heel of my left hand inadvertently touched some keys and the WHOLE BLINKING NOVEL disappeared. Gone. Gone, baby, gone. Utterly gone.

Of course it was backed up on disk and elsewhere -- but only through the previous night. I could not retrieve a copy of the past few hours' work and the harder I tried, the more I felt my memory of that brilliant little section fading.

I tried to calm myself by staring out the window and contemplating the nature of Life and Loss.

I thought about drowning my sorrows in drink, as so many famous writers have done. (That's a jar of moonshine with peaches in it, there amongst the wine -- Christmas presents all.)

But then John brought me a bowl of popcorn. So, quickly, before the memory of the changes, so recently made and lost, blurred and floated away, I called up my saved copy and started fixing it.

Soon, I was back to go and ready to take Our Heroine to her next stop -- the boarding house run by Inez and Odessa's family. A quick look at the diary from 1938 for verisimilitude's sake and I was off, happy it hadn't been worse.