Chickenbutt is my new all-purpose curse word. I stole it from an NPR piece I heard in which it was the “clean” curse that a truly foul-mouthed elderly great aunt used when in the presence of delicate ears. So when I say “chickenbutt,” please substitue the ugliest, nastiest curse you know so you can get the full effect of my pain, horror, and rage.
Chickenbutt, I say. Chickening, chicked-up, mother of all chickens, chickenbutt. ARGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
::beats self on head with hammer::
Why such profanity on a gorgeous summer afternoon?
Because I lost four days of work today. Because even though I have the best computer in the world (PowerBook G4), I am an idiot and I run Microsoft (insert devil horns here) Word for Mac on it. Don’t ask me why. Just accept that I am an idiot.
You don’t want the details. They include things like a poorly designed Autorecovery system (I HATE YOU, MICROSOFT. I HATE YOU WITH THE FURY OF SHARYN NOVEMBER!), too many hours at the computer, too much coffee, blood all over the keyboard, and a lot of tears. And yes, I back up my files. In fact, I backed up on June 7th.
Seven days ago. Take away three days of not-writing because of the conference, and you are left with 4 days of words lost in the ether. Roughly 20 pages of new material, and MUCH moving around of previous stuff. Because this is the final draft, and this is the last part of the final draft, and I needed to tighten and polish. Four chickenbutting days of work.
(Don’t worry, I made up the part about the blood. Most of it, anyway.)
Those of you who having really been watching this blog closely will remember that this is exactly what chickenbutting happened in February 2006 during the last revision of TWISTED.
Actually, that is the only reason I didn’t perform a swandive from the roof into the driveway. Because what I wrote after I lost 8 hours of TWISTED (it was the most critical scene, of course, the one where he is alone in his dad’s bedroom and he almost…. you know, the scene that almost sent me back into therapy) was some of the pages that I am most satisfied with in the whole book.
So I am trying really hard to convince myself that this is going to be OK. Really.
I’ll be back when I finish fixing this disaster. Until then, BH is keeping the tea kettle bubbling and locking away all the sharp objects.
…buttchickenbuttchickenbuttchickenbuttchickenbuttchickenbuttchickenbutt……