:* I've decided maybe it's better to directly quote the source here, because it is hard to paraphrase precisely. I have changed it to "Deal then spent 'a lost year' in which she '[went] AWOL in New York'." Let me know if this works for you, or if you have a better suggestion. The source says "By 1998, she decided to jack it in and go AWOL in New York. 'It was a lost year, and a lot of fun," she says, unrepentant." Another source (Kot) says it wasn't a fun year but was depressing: " 'It got bad in 1998,' Kim Deal says. 'I was pretty depressed before I came to Steve.' " So, anyway, from these two quotes it may be hard to extrapolate that there definitely was no musical activity going on (plus, she may have been practicing the drums some that year, which could be argued as being "musical activity"). So this direct quote is my best idea for how to account for 1998.