Well I made my biggest stupid mistake last night. I had been working on my new book and was done for a bit, so I selected (highlighted) all of the text below my outline to get a word count. I have been up dating my word counter on my blog, I had given myself a goal of 500word per day, so when I went to my blog I opened another file to copy and paste something else. Sufficed to say is that when I was done doing what I was doing I went to close my document and I saved it no realizing that the selected text was not saved in it. I have been doing other things catching up on stuff, and when I was done I was going to continue writing for the rest of the night. So when I opened my book document I just sat and stared.
Only my outline was saved and I took a major anxiety attack. My husband was over visiting and he’s asking me what’s wrong and all I could do was gasp for air, I couldn’t breath, I couldn’t talk, man was I ever choked, it took awhile and two ativan to calm me down enough just to speak. But when I found my voice I bet he’d wish I hadn’t, I began to freak right out, sob, scream, throw things. In my little rampage I kicked the ex out, I called the tech depts, scoured my help menus, drove myself nuts. I have some of my book on paper, what I had written by hand when I am not near my computer totaling about 1500 words that were already added and I have another 3000 that had not been entered yet, but only a small portion of that had been added already so just bits and pieces. The whole beginning is gone, a major scene is wiped out, so from the 3910 and minus the material that was in my notebook approx 1500 words, I guess all in all I lost close to 2400 words. I immediately sat down to try and recover some of the conversations from my jumbled mind , but then my support system came running, a neighbour brought a dubbie, a taxi brought me a bottle of rum, my girlfriend brought me her hugs and within an hour I was stoned and pissed drunk (rum tastes disgusting straight up). I was passed out by 11pm and off to lala land. So I guess I learned a very valuable lesson. Every time you save it, save it as a different name so that you will always have copies you can go back too in just such an emergence. All in all I lost 5 days worth of writing, allowed myself a mini crash, was reassured my friends will be there for me when I flip out, and even my daughter showed up in the morning to see if I was ok. So this week I intent to do less blogging and write my ass off until I am satified that I have recovered some of what I remember writing. AGGGHHHHH That’s all I have to say about that :oP~
LMAO,,, I just reviewed this and realized I wrote this when still a bit drunk. Please excuse my spelling errors. It seems I am unable to use a spell checker when intoxicated. Lala...
3 comments:
There is nothing worse than losing your work. It's not as if it can't be rewritten, but the act of rewriting it is excrutiating, and of course it won't be the same.
I once lost an entire novel. yes.
I freaked, carried on, drank, ranted, jotted down a couple of lines on an envelope. It was all I had left from the book.
But -
A very good techie will tell you, it is very hard to totally eliminate your work. It is possible that somewhere in your machine there still exists the work. My sister (long distance) talked me through a process by which I recovered the novel.
Now, that novel has never been published, or even finished, so in retrospect, it didn't even matter.
But at the time, it was as if I'd been attacked and left clinging to life.
That was a long time ago, and since then I have learned, 'This too shall pass.' I know that something that is devastating today will be of no consequence tomorrow...or if not tomorrow, definitely in a year's time.
I know exactly how you feel. I don't know if your work can be recovered, that whole highlight and then mistakenly erase thing is a different thing from what I did when I lost my novel. And it is very likely that once you commit yourself to the rewrite, it will be easier on you, and better for you, than trying to locate the missing text.
I have done exactly the same thing while learning to post blogs for Lust Bites - highlight what I thought was a picture link I decided not to use, but in fact highlighted all the text, and hit delete. Of course, a blog entry, even for Lust Bites, is nothing compared to a novel...but I know the extreme frustration that comes from making a big dumb mistake.
And of course everyone will ask, 'But don't you make a back up copy on disc?' This is what we all are supposed to be doing, all the time, and none of us are ever doing, even after tragedies like that one...it's sort of like when the dentist says to floss twice a day and you decide, well of course, I'll floss twice a day, and you do...for a day or two...and then that's it until the next visit to the dentist.
Embrace your humanness, Ally. Focus, tap out those words, and forget about it.
xoxo Madeline
Oh no, Ally, that sucks! That said, I've been there and done that on more than one occasion. These days I normally start my searching the word .tmp files on the computer. They record all your keystrokes so what you get is a jumbled mess that you have to piece back together but it's better than nothing.
Sending supportive big hugs, Madelynne
Thankyou all for your support. It is well known, at least to me, that I learn best from my mistakes.
Yes I learned.
It was such a piss off. But oh well!!! I will mark it up to valuable experience and trudge onward.
At least I got a real good drunk out of it. I don't remember much, but when I woke up to my best friend asking me I if I would mind if she cooked her own breakfast, I counted my self as lucky.
So I allowed myself a day of self pity and sat my ass down today and worked it off. 2070 words. Crossing fingers and eyes.
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