My New Year's Resolution this year is to finish something. Just. One. Freaking. Story. I put my Great American Romance Novel on the back burner, and have even set my NaNo piece aside in favor of a sweet little short story that I started a couple of weeks ago. I figure that if I can finish a short story, I might have enough momentum to plug away at the longer stuff. I mean, it's not like I have a deadline looming or anything. I am hearing Rob Schneider in my mind saying, "You can do eet!"
I spent five hours in the car on Friday, driving with my kids to Chicago so we could spend the weekend shopping and sightseeing with the dad. We are not big conversators while driving. The kids actually read all the way up, so I had alot of time to think. I took time out to be totally freaked out by the windfarm between Indianapolis and Chicago, but the rest of the time I thought great thoughts about what to do next with my little short story.
I got up Saturday morning, all psyched to write while the rest of the family slept in. I booted my laptop, plugged in my memory stick, and got a blank page with the message: Replace existing file? And oops! yep, I clicked "Yes". And there it went. If only I'd had the Pac Man being eaten music, it would have been perfect.
It's not like I can't rewrite it. I will. I actually put together an outline immediately, so that when I get over my dismay, I'll be able to recreate some of those brilliant ideas that I had already typed up, and to flesh out the brilliant ideas I had on I-65. But boy, what a bummer. This is not the first time this has happened to me, either. I had another big chunk of writing disappear when I lost a memory stick a few months ago. Fortunately, I had emailed an earlier version to my CP (Hi, Mary!) and she sent it back to me. But dang!
You'd think I'd never heard the 'back up your data' warning. I just thought that I was being wise by keeping everything on a flash drive rather than the hard drive, which I know is going to go soon.
That's what I get for thinking! So that's my Happy Monday story for the week. It's all uphill from here.
My dad mentioned seeing that big wind farm last summer. Right off of I-65 right? Must be bigger than I envisioned if it's worth a freak out moment. : )
ReplyDeleteSo frustrating about the lost story. Good for you to start outlining it before you forget what you had.
Surely the week will get better from here.
Oh my word, that really, really hurts. You poor thing. I know what it's like to lose your work--how you get that awful gut-wrenching dread when you realize it might be gone. Ugh, so sorry to hear of the loss!! I'm glad that you are working to rewrite it, though. And who knows, you might find it's better this time around. Good luck!
ReplyDeleteIsn't that windfarm something? I love it every time I pass it. It stretches on forever and ever.
Well, losing that story might have been a sign from God. But I'm pretty good at ignoring those signs (anyone seen Bruce Almighty? Yeah).
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