chris lz wrote:
This got rid of the blinking dotted lines but left an imprint of the letters over the background layer. I suppose I will have to just paint over the letters to get rid of them?
Using text tool always creates a separate layer above active layer. If there is still a separate layer with text, just use the Eraser tool.
If you've already merged text layer with BG layer - yes, paint over it. (Normally, within the same GIMP session you can undo any operation by Ctrl+Z as far back as your max undo level settings allow or return to any previous stage in Undo History, but this information is not saved for the next GIMP sessions)