Skin Deep: Part I

by Rowena Zahnrei

Data wanted emotions his whole life, but can his programming adapt to handle the strain, or has he become a liability to Starfleet and his friends? Picard, Troi and Riker aim to find out during a horseback riding adventure that goes terribly awry. Why would alien raiders target an ancient stairway leading nowhere? What mysteries lurk in the ruins of Nineveh IV? CONTINUES IN PT 2&3!

32. The Story Continues in Part II, Ch 12!

AUTHOR'S NOTE

To prevent this story from becoming unwieldy, I've decided to divide it into three parts. I know I should have done this at the end of Part I (Chapter 19), but it's a first draft and I'm making things up as I go, including format. :) Eventually, this will be where I post all three parts of the story, once it's finished and cleaned up. But, until then, this story will continue in Skin Deep: Part II! Part II of this story begins with Chapter 20, so if you've been reading here and you'd like to go straight on to the next chapter, that'll be Chapter Twelve of Skin Deep: Part II.

Thank you so much for reading, your encouragement, and for your amazing reviews! See you in Part II! :D

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[Transferred here from Preamble to Part II]

A Note of Explanation: OK, so when I first started this story, I knew it would have three sections but I had no idea how long the story would end up becoming. I still don't, in fact. At this point, I've made it about 2/3 of the way through the second section and the story already has 32 chapters! That's probably a good thing. Especially if people are still reading. ;) But, being an overanxious worrywart, I've been overanxiously overthinking and overthinking, and I overthought that, since this story was designed to have three sections, why not split it up into three sections? That way I won't have to keep giving myself overthinking-induced writers' block about it getting too long, losing energy, losing interest, etc. etc. etc. and I can start playing with the third section as a totally separate thing instead of always putting it off as 'for later' notes. To be completely honest, I probably still will give myself overthinking-induced writers' block on a fairly regular basis, but at least splitting the sections up like this will help make this story's unprecedented (for me) length a bit less of a factor for me to worry about. At least, that's the hope. :)

So, here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to leave the ORIGINAL version of Skin Deep that I've written so far AS IS. Eventually, once all three sections are finished first drafts (possibly next year?), I'm going to return to that original version, revise it, tighten it up, smooth it all out (like I recently did to An Unsung Hero and Belasco's Beatrice), then add revised versions of the rest of the chapters to make one very long, completely complete second draft. But, until then, all fresh, new chapters will be posted first here in Part II, then in the upcoming Part III (and yes, Jake Sisko will be part of the story.) :) I know, I know, if I was going to split this story up I should have done it some 12 chapters ago... But hey, this is a totally raw first draft (and yes, it is true that I mostly write out new chapters here in the Edit Document box so I won't lose my nerve and second guess everything I just wrote before posting - I DO NOT recommend that, by the way, since any fluctuation or hiccup with your computer's internet connection when you hit 'Save' will cause you to lose EVERYTHING you just wrote if you forgot to copy/paste it somewhere else first) and first drafts are for messing around and trying things out and figuring out what works and what doesn't and that includes format. So, with sincere apologies for any confusion or irritation, I'll hurry up and re-post the rest of my pre-written Part II chapters, and I hope you'll enjoy the rest of my story as it continues to develop and grow! :D