The Lost Notebook

I have been working on  a novel, temporarily called "Megan's Gift," for three years. Of course it's off and on so not actually representative of three years' writing. The story itself has changed several times and was down to it's last incarnation up until today. I've gotten up to chapter 25 in the first draft of this present version. Right now I am trying to refine it's final core story so I can finish the darn thing, though I have a few ideas for changes brewing in my mind. The thing is I'm on my fourth day of a four day weekend and just sat down to work. But . . . I lost my notebook.

Don't feel too sorry for me as everything in that notebook has been typed out and backed up. But I prefer to write first drafts in longhand in spiral notebooks and I hoped to pick up where I left off and get a new running start. Now this is my excuse for procrastination.

Losing three longhand chapters, plus the chapter typed out whose pages I stuck into the notebook, is like a mountain in front of me halfway through a long journey. I was about to take the scenes from chapter 25 and rewrite them as my new chapter 8. Now I have to start from scratch.

The lost notebook is like "The Lost Weekend." An ephemeral missing piece of time in my writing life.

It's not the lost words but the idea that I can't find the darn book that bothers me. There are only a few places it could be, but of course it's not in any of those places. Now I don't know where to look.

I suppose the best thing to do is start writing in a new notebook and not waste time searching for the old one. That sounds practical. So off I go to get more words down. Chapter 8 here I come.

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