Tuesday, September 20, 2016

Lost

The other day, I was sad to discover that I can’t find one of my old stories. Remember how last week one of my goals was to look through old projects? This was the one I was intending to revise this month.

But it’s gone. I don’t know when this happened. I absolutely backup all the stories that I intend to keep, but somehow this one got left out, although I don’t know when. Possibly when the AC adapter on my last computer crapped out—which, if true, means it still exists on a computer I can no longer turn on. Or it could have happened even earlier than that, when aforementioned computer needed to be reset and I lost a bunch of files (although I can swear I’ve seen it since then).

It all really sucks because I liked it a lot. I wrote it during NaNoWriMo back in…2010? I think that’s it. I’m pretty sure it was the one I wrote right after I started this blog. It reached the 50K mark to win, but most of that was filler that I ended up cutting, so I think the final word count was around 35K. I never really knew what to do with it, but I figured I could take a look at it. Inspiration could strike and I could expand it into a proper novel.

Except, you know, it’s gone. So many parts of it are still clear in my head, so I could completely reboot it, but it won’t be what it was. Not that that’s necessarily a bad thing, since I’m a more experienced writer now. But even so, it wouldn’t be the same.

Anyway, I’m bummed about that. Have you ever lost any of your stories? Or anything else important? What did you do about it?

9 comments:

  1. I back up on an external hard drive every day, so fortunately I haven't lost anything.
    Sorry you lost your story, but I bet if you rewrite it, it will be better than ever.

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  2. Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. It's such a crappy feeling to know you've lost something you put a lot of work into. Even though I have lost, and had to rewrite, a significant part of one book, I could still be more rigorous in backing up! (In fact, I'm going to go and do that now.) I echo Alex in that I reckon you could do it again even better.

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  3. I've lost a flashdrive that had some stuff on it that couldn't be replaced. Fortunately docs were backed up elsewhere.

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  4. Speaking as someone who recently lost everything...

    Actually, I misplaced a story (or part of a story?) once. I was actually in progress of typing it or something. Anyway, there was part I needed to recreate because I couldn't find the previous work, so I just gritted my teeth and did it. It made me feel wonky because I was sure I would have forgotten stuff or it wouldn't be the same or whatever. AFTER I had done the reconstruction, I found the original work... and the two pieces were virtually identical.

    So, you know, just start over on it, especially if it's fresh in your mind.

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  5. I lost a few chapters when my computer had a spazz once. I was on a deadline too, and had just finished those two chapters so losing them was a huge nightmare. But I had to suck it up and re-write them overnight so I could get them in on time.

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  6. Oh no! I lost part of a story once. And almost lost some really old ones but they sorta transferred over to Word. (We are talking 20 years old!)

    Write the outline as best as you can remember and try writing it again.

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  7. I lost several chapters of an old manuscript several years back. I was quite upset at the time, but since I abandoned that story soon afterward, it didn't really matter.

    These days, I email my WIP to myself every night before going to bed. I also back up my hard drive a couple times a year, but daily emails are the easiest way to save my writing.

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  8. I kind of think this is a good thing. If it wasn't a finished story, then it'll be easier to get something done with it. Start over with the parts that are clear to you. And see where you go. It'll probably be a whole lot better than if you had the old manuscript and tried to rework it from that.

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  9. That sucks! I've unfortunately had that happen before when I had a computer crash AND my backup failed. :/

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Please validate me.