And… I’m a Scatter Brain

The other morning, I had worked at getting several hundred words into the fifth White Dragon Black novel, which, alas, still has no name. ~looks pointedly in Muse’s direction~ I decided to use some of my time in the afternoon to finish up the first draft of a short story. I opened the file and began to skim it, to re-familiarize myself with what already existed.

That didn’t take long, because there was only a couple of paragraphs – short ones at that. I felt my stomach drop, even as my mind went into wild bird in glass box mode. My brain bounced from one thought to another as it tried to reconcile the fact that it was sure there was a lot more to this work than was on the screen. My gut said I had somehow lost all the work.

I searched the computer, opened files incase it had been saved under a different name somehow, I stuck my thumb-drives in to make sure it wasn’t there. I even opened my email to see if it ad magically moved itself. All for naught.

Then I looked to my left and saw the small pile of pages ripped out of a notebook which had been sitting there for well over a month. I opened the fold over pages and read the first line.

Yeah. It was the majority of the story. Soon as I read it I remembered I had written it in the summer, waiting in my parents van for the delivery truck to bring the baby chickens. I just never got around to transcribing it. I honestly had no recollection of writing it that way until I unfolded the paper.

I have no idea what I thought those pages were but I do have note pages of all sizes, all over my tiny desk- story idea’s, quotes to put in current projects when I get there, jotted down interesting facts I might be able to insert in a story, all the usual writer’s stuff. Still, I felt pretty damn silly.

Now I’m putting the chicken scratch of my writing into the computer, so I can try and wrap this one up before working on the other two calling out for my attention. Because writing three short stories and a novel would be silly, two on the other hand…

Filed under: Writing Tagged: 5th novel, Brain, current work in progress, Jonathan Alvey, muse, paranormal, paranormal private investigator, short story, Urban Fantasy, White Dragon Black Series, writing