Lost a chapter.

Lost a chapter.  Just disappeared.  Spent hours looking for it, which probably only compounded the problem.  (I know some of you will give me advice about how to find it, but I'm pretty sure it's gone...read on...)

It was an important chapter, one of the penultimate chapters, and losing it was totally disheartening.  I'd been writing at a feverish pace and suddenly I stalled.

Late last night I finally sat down to try to reconstruct it.

The first attempt was nowhere near as good as the original chapter, but I kept working on it, and it finally came around.   So even if I found the original chapter, it'd be 50/50 which one I'd use.

I like the freshness of the first drafts, and I kind of want to keep that freshness with a minimal interference -- and not just because I don't like rewriting.

Anyway, the chapter came out fine, and I've moved on.

Today, I'm writing the final chapter(s), and then tonight I want to sit down and read it aloud to myself and try to copyedit as much as possible.

Then -- well, with whatever time I have between now and when I put it up as an ebook, I will be continuing to tinker with it, but I want it up as quick as possible.

After writing this and The Reluctant Wizard it's clear to me that I can't release Nearly Human until I've found a way to put myself into it more.  I have to feel for the characters, for the story.  I think it was just too much mental, and not enough heart.  So I'm going to try once again:  Try to become the main character or one of the major protagonists and write from that point of view so that it all matters to me.

Meanwhile, on to the next book.

The important thing is to keep writing.