Nightmares of writers

Those who follow Discipline Under Fire already know I have finished Chapter Twenty-Three i.e the climax of Stellar Gift of Death and now am working on the wrapping-up loose threads final chapter. Those who didn't know now know too, and you need to know that along with the fact that I set up Chapter Twenty-Four by deleting Chapter Twenty-Three, tweaking the title, and saving as Chapter Twenty-Four back on Tuesday. It was an attempt to preserve formatting that didn't work. And I'm not going off on a tangent how much I don't like the formatting of Microsoft Word 2010 (what we have at the paying job) but haven't reached the point of figuring out how to make it the same as my Microsoft Word 2003 at home. It's not part of the story.

So Wednesday's writing time was spent all in Chapter Twenty-Four, and it was a great session. Moved onto other things throughout the day, went to bed, and dreamed I had deleted Chapter Twenty-Three, and saved it as Chapter Twenty-Three instead of Chapter Twenty-Four. I saw the proof on my home computer screen. I opened the file and nothing was there but the title Chapter Twenty-Four. "You have to rewrite the whole thing," an unseen voice told me. It wrenched me out of sleep, though at least not to the stereotypical cliche of sitting upright with heaving bosom. My eyes just opened and I realized I was in my bedroom and not my office and I felt a little panicky.

"Don't be silly. Chapter Twenty-Three was fine when you accidentally opened it yesterday before working on Chapter Twenty-Four." Panicky feeling subsided, and I rolled over to go back to sleep.

And just when I was at that dropping off point to deeper slumber, the voice came back. "Chapter Twenty-Three is gone, you have to rewrite the whole thing, and you have no notes for the 2000 words you added to it."

Wrenched awake again with a hearty "Goddammit!" Threw off the covers and marched to my alarm clock. Past midnight. Marched to the bathroom, and then the office, where I proceeded to open Chapters Twenty-Three and Twenty-Four off the flash drive and resave them to my home desktop without ever putting my glasses on. Back to bed and I finally slept so good I didn't wake up on time this morning.

Hardly the same nightmare fuel that gave me "the Bloody Hand," but I'm backing up to my GoogleDocs account today. Just in case my subconscious knows something I don't.

And now for my feelings on Word 2012 formatting: Hey Microsoft, stop dicking with the program to justify the price you put on it!

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The BookWorm

Stellar Gift of Death Word Count

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